Stone – heath ofee dot com

Orange

Heath OFee — Thu, 23 Jun 2011 13:10:05 +0000

I passed this creek on the side of the TransCanada Highway at least twice on my trip to BC a couple weekends ago. I made a mental note to make sure I stopped to shoot it on my way home, and I’m very glad I did. I only fired off a few shots as the composition options were limited due to the fact that the creek was right on the side of the highway, but I’m very pleased with what I got.

Including an interesting element into the foreground of a photograph can add a great bit of punch to a shot, and is sometimes overlooked. I was lucky to spot this huge orange rock and be able to incorporate it into my frame. Next time you’re out shooting, look for something interesting to place in the foreground of your frame to add some extra interest.

Golden Stone

Heath OFee — Tue, 31 May 2011 13:10:18 +0000

Another long exposure from the Kootenays this morning. Enjoy the view.

Alien Abstract

Heath OFee — Mon, 30 May 2011 13:55:38 +0000

While driving to Invermere a couple weekends ago, I noticed a large pool of standing water in the ditch on the side of the highway. The pool was directly underneath an interesting rock formation, so I made a note to myself (and my wife) that I needed to head back to that location with my gear the next day. What you see below is the result. The pool provided a perfect reflection of the rock above, and I felt that an abstract crop worked well with the subject.

I hope all my American friends remember and enjoy the Memorial Day holiday.

Textured Villa

Heath OFee — Sun, 10 Apr 2011 15:05:29 +0000

Since I’m on a bit of an Italy kick, I thought I’d share another from my time there a couple years ago. This shot is of Villa Poderaccio, the Tuscan Villa we stayed in for the week. I love the contrast in colour and shape of the red brick surrounding the door and the round stone throughout the rest of the frame.

Canon EOS 50D, Canon EF 24-105mm f/4.0L, 47mm, F 7.1, ISO 100, 1/60 sec

Sun and Stone

Heath OFee — Mon, 07 Feb 2011 14:08:28 +0000

If you ever get the chance to go to Joshua Tree National Park, I would definitely recommend going. Although I wasn’t able to do any hiking while I was there, even the natural landscape close to the road is amazing. In addition to the very cool trees, there are some pretty spectacular rock formations throughout the park. I was able to capture a few of them, but I’ll be going back for more in the future.

Canon EOS 50D, Sigma 10-20mm f/3.5, 10mm, F 7.1, ISO 100, 1/500 sec

Green Beer

Heath OFee — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 14:18:04 +0000

Last night I decided to take a look through my photo archives to see if I could find anything worth a second look. I’ve said this before, but I think this is a valuable exercise as it not only allows you to see the progression you’ve made behind the camera, but also allows you to showcase some of the new post processing skills you may have developed.

This shot is from my trip to Italy in May of 2009. We spent most of our time in the Tuscan region, but did manage to get to Rome, Venice and Florence for at least a day each. Our time in Venice was probably one of the highlights of the trip. It is such a unique city, and there are almost boundless photo opportunities. The shot below is a very simple composition, but the empty bottle of Heineken on the window sill adds just enough to the frame to make it interesting for me.

Since I wasn’t shooting brackets for HDR during my time in Italy, this is just a single image tonemapped in Photomatix to really bring out the texture. I then brought it into onOne’s Phototools for a few global adjustments and some selective warming and cooling. I finished it off with some selective application of the Midnight filter in Nik Color Efex Pro.

Canon EOS 50D, Canon EF 24-105mm f/4.0L, 32mm, F 7.1, ISO 100

4-3-2-1

Heath OFee — Thu, 21 Oct 2010 12:57:08 +0000

I need to start shooting urban landscapes at night more often. The man-made light can make for some very interesting shadows and the darkness just adds an extra dimension of drama. I was out shooting two nights ago and had an absolute blast, plus I came back with a whole bunch of keepers…always a good thing.

I almost kept walking right past this scene on my way to the older, grungier parts of this alleyway, but I stopped myself to compose this shot. Those numbered grey loading bays and the contrasting yellow pillars were just begging to be bracketed

Canon EOS 50D, Canon TS-E 17mm f/4.0L, 17mm, F 11, ISO 100, 5 Exposures

Details, Details, Details

Heath OFee — Sun, 05 Sep 2010 22:09:50 +0000

I just finished reading Brian Matiash’s great post from this morning and I couldn’t help but chuckle a bit. It turns out that both of us were working on photos from our Italy archive last night! Mine are from a trip I took with my whole family last May which was absolutely fantastic. We had a great time and I came home with a ridiculous amount of photos (and at that point I wasn’t even shooting brackets for HDR!).

Although I already processed the keepers from that trip last year, I’ve been having some fun going back through them and running a few of the single RAW files through Photomatix to see what kind of results I can get. I’m hoping that this exercise is fruitful enough for me to keep posting some of my re-processed Italy shots over the coming months. Last night I worked on a couple and I’m quite happy with the details I was able to pull out in this shot of St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome.

Canon EOS 50D, Canon EF 24-105mm f/4.0L, 24mm, F 7.1, ISO 100, 1/640 sec

The Fiery Gates of Elgin Village

Heath OFee — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 15:16:28 +0000

Last week while walking back to my place from the liquor store I looked to my left and saw a fantastic sunset painting the clouds all kinds of pinks and purples. I jogged the rest of the way home (as quickly as one can with a case of beer in tow) and immediately went to collect my camera gear to try and capture the amazing sunset. I had a hilltop spot in mind in the next community over (Elgin), but by the time I jumped in my car and drove the few blocks it took to get there the sunset was gone. SO disappointing! I was determined to get some shots of these arches on the hilltop so I made sure to keep my eye out for some dramatic clouds the following evening. Here’s what I came up with:

Canon EOS 50D, Sigma 10-20mm f/3.5, 10mm, F 11, ISO 100, 3 Exposures

This is a 3 exposure HDR (-2,0,+2) tonemapped in Photomatix, original sky from the -2 exposure masked in using Photoshop, a bit of noise reduction in Photoshop, and some final tweaks in Lightroom. I left a bit of a blue cast because I liked the contrast between the blue stone and the fiery sunset. I’m still working on my HDR processing, so let me know what you think!