There is a natural land bridge in Yoho National Park, in British Columbia and it is quite something. It is a raging torrent of water through some rock crevices you can hop and skip across and I own everything I need to do wonderful, long exposure photographs of the water flowing gently through them.
I’m also something of a dumb tosser because I left all of that kit at home, limiting me to hand-held action shots. I didn’t even bring a tripod along with me because we took Vlad the Impala out to British Columbia and space was at a premium. That’s what happens when you cram three inflatable paddle boards with accessories into the trunk. As big as my trunk is (it holds at least four intact cheerleaders), there are limits.
The sun was directly overhead giving me very harsh, contrasty lighting. It was very challenging to photograph and more than half of the images of sunlit water with shadowy backgrounds I captured were not salvageable at all.
The washed out colours from the harsh lighting meant that the majority of the images lent themselves better to black and white, so that’s what I walked away with.
I had actually agonized over which camera kit to bring on this kit. I didn’t want it to be overkill because of the aforementioned space issue. I am also an insurance broker so I am aware of how often camera kit is stolen out of cars while on trips. That ruled out my expensive Canon EOS R5. It also ruled out my Canon EOS 7D left to me by Ray. It may not be worth as much monitarily as the R5, but there is no other camera I own right now that means as much to me as this one does. I settled on the 15 MP Canon EOS 50D with the APS-C sensor and a selection of used lenses I picked up cheap from various estate auctions. It was more than good enough for my needs to produce vacation photos, perhaps some fine-art images, and to satisfy my photography bug.
This is a bit silly, but one of the things I am proud of from this trip is that I made excellent use of the annual Canadian National Parks pass I bought back in March of this year when I went to Elk Island National Park to do a photo shoot in honour of Ray just after he passed. I have a habit of purchasing these things with grandiose plans and only using them once. We hit enough national parks on this trip that I am now money ahead on the pass and I have the bulk of the year left. That’s a win for me.
I am fairly pleased with the images I came out of the shoot with considering the heat, the crowding, and the poor lighting. It was satisfying to pull out a camera there.
The camera used was a 15 MP Canon EOS 50D, a Canon 10-18mm EF-S IS f4.5-5.6 lens and a Canon 17-40mm EF L USM f4-5.6 lens.
