John Cang Photography
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FEATURED PHOTO

 

Some of my most memorable photographs are featured in this section, along with photo tips and the story behind the making of each photograph. I hope these images inspire you to go out and experience your own memorable moments.

 

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  Featured Photo #8 -- Lake Louise, Alberta		 Canon EOS 1V camera
Canon AF 28-70 F/2.8 lens
Canon 550EX flash

Those of you who have followed this Featured Photo series may have noticed the change in my equipment. I had been using Nikon gear for over twenty years, but made the switch to Canon in June 2002 to benefit from the capability of Image Stabilized telephoto lenses.

We were at Lake Louise in Alberta, Canada during the third week of September, and I was pleasantly surprised to still see a fair amount of wildflowers along the shoreline. I selected a bush filled with yellow flowers for foreground to balance Victoria glacier, and as we waited for light to break through partly overcast skies, I strolled the shoreline looking for more foreground material. Not more than twenty yards from where I had originally set up, pink flowers from a lone Fireweed stem caught my eye; next to it were more of the same yellow flowers, and rocks in the shallows led the eye toward Victoria glacier -- a classic landscape composition.
Trying not to trip over the tripod in my excitement I quickly relocated and recomposed. To brighten the foreground flowers I decided to add fill-flash; the flash reach, at the selected aperture, would not be far enough to illuminate the rocks in the shallows, but their light tones should register in the ambient exposure without being distracting.

Just as I finished fine-tuning the composition the first shafts of light broke through cloud cover and spot lighted the peaks. I made a few "oh, might-as-well" exposures and waited for more light on the mountains. However, the light did not get any better that morning and I remember feeling disappointed that we could not have done more with that great composition. We did make it back to Lake Louise two days later -- alpenglow on Victoria glacier was beautiful, but the flowers had succumbed to the chill of early Fall.

Back home on the light table I was in for a very pleasant surprise. Those few exposures from that disappointing morning at Lake Louise turn out to be some of my favorite images from the trip. The splashes of pink, yellow and orange really jump out against the blue and grey tones of that cool and calm Fall morning -- resulting in a subtly beautiful image that is far more pleasing than any of my previous images at this location.



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