It's always beautiful and magestic in the Canadian Rockies

Sometimes its hard to believe that I was born so close to paradise. The Canadian Rockies are just one of those things that never, ever gets old to see when you look outside of your car window.

This morning my mum and I decided to go on a 12 km hike up to the Plain of Six Glaciers teahouse, which is near the fantastic Lake Louise ski area.

First of all, we couldn't have asked for a more gorgeous day. It was about 65 and partly sunny -- perfect hiking weather!

In all of the years that I've visited the Canadian Rockies, I'd never been able to squeeze this hike in, so image how excited I was to finally conquer it after all of these years!

The views are simply stunning. It was so hard to not stop every five minutes to take pictures. Although the hike was slightly challenging, I would say it was more than worth the trek up the mountain-- even so, the delicious tea biscuits at the teahouse up top were incentive to keep going!

Bonus picture: A nice moonscape from my backyard. Not bad, eh?

You're never to old to learn new things: Relearning lighting in photography

Happy Thursday! I can't believe its the third week of August. It seems crazy to think that summer is coming to an end, kiddos are heading back to school, and boot-wearing season is only a few weeks away!

I digress. Anyway.


Yesterday I had the chance to head out on a shoot with an awesome colleague of mine and learn a few new tools of the videography/photography trade. It was SO fun! I felt a little bit like an intern again, honestly. :)

We were shooting a promotional video for the USO about the story of one wounded warrior's road to recovery, and how the USO has been for him along his recovery. After he was medically evacuated from the battlefield, and taken to Germany, and then Walter Reed, this amazing service member was surprised (thanks to the USO!) by his entire battalion upon his arrival home to Seattle. Pretty cool, eh?

But back to photography takeaways.

More than anything, I re-learned the importance of good lighting. After all, a camera is just a glorified light-capture box. Good lighting means good pictures, no doubt about it. While I'm pretty comfortable using and manipulating natural lighting, I'll admit, using lighting set ups intimidates me a little bit-- plus, they're a little costly, if you want to purchase something that will grow with you as a creative artist. However, maybe it's time to take the plunge...

Thoughts?