My 'Wheels'

Finally arrived at Calgary Airport five minutes ahead of schedule.



A very small airport, that was totally deserted - Perfect for a quick pass through immigration, or so I thought...


Canadian officials thought it very odd that I was travelling alone, not meeting anyone, and had no family here... I am sure I am not the first.


They were happy once I explained that I was taking photos for personal use, and not on an assignment, so I went on my way.



I collected the excellent GyPSy Guide GPS system (more on this in a couple of days when I have really put it through it's paces), and went to collect my rental car for this part of the trip.


In true US/Canadian style, I was given a huge 'Bus' of a car;



A 2010 Chevrolet Malibu - Big V6 automatic... That doesn't really go around corners very well!


It also has a very fetching 'Beige' interior - mmmm.



After lots of swearing and head scratching I eventually found my first hotel 'Hotel Sandman' in downtown Calgary - To be fair to my navigation skills, building a tram link along the road that the Satnav was telling me I needed to go wasn't really me fault!



It is now 06:20 Calgary time - I have been awake since 04:00, but can't wait to go and explore.

Wait and Weight

All started well - Clare and I left in plenty of time to allow for the Monday morning 'fun' on both the A421 and the M1, traffic was fine.

We then got a text about 10 miles or so outside of LHR from the excellent Tripit.com to tell us that the outward flight to Calgary had been delayed by five hours, and wouldn't leave until 18:15, arriving at 20:30 (Canadian time).

Fortunately AirCanada fly three times a day from Heathrow, and managed to swap my ticket to the 16:15 flight without charge... Cool.

I had to wait an hour or so before I could check in my luggage though, but free WiFi at Starbucks meant that that wasn't the end of the world.

It turns out that my case was over weight (you try being a photographer going to Canada for the first time and try to get down to 22kg!) - I had weighed it at home, but obviously balancing a case on bathroom scales isn't accurate enough!

Again, the AirCanada staff were excellent and allowed me two hand luggage bags, which dropped my main case enough to allow it to be checked in without any additional charge.

Bizarrely, Westjet (my internal flight operator) allows more weight, so I will have no problems there next week.

Waiting by the gate now - Just been informed that all seats onboard have power sockets that work with the iPad without using an adapter... Bonus.

Catch you all on the other side.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:United Kingdom

Time to get packing

So, Canada is just around the corner now:

I think I am all set for what I am doing once I arrive - I now just need to get everything packed.

I am pretty sure I will be able to find WiFi at least once every other day, so Blogging should be fine.

I am planning to use the iPad wherever possible to Blog from - additional snippets may be added from the iPhone (both iOS device are running BlogPress).

I may also post to twitter occassionally: I will use the #WestyCA hash tag on the relevant posts.

I am also taking the Macbook Pro with me; predominantly for photo back-up purposes, but also to process an HDR images that I take along the route.

The Macbook Pro is running Mars Edit in case I feel like doing something slightly more ambitious with the post.

Now time to go and find that suitcase...

My full itinerary can be seen here:

Canada Plans



- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

'Am I in Trouble?' - August 2010

This month's image in my 12from2010 project was taken at our holiday home in Praia d'El Rey, Portugal.

I decided to only take the Canon G11 with me, rather than drag tons of kit around, and, to be honest, I didn't regret that decision once - It was never found wanting.

The image itself is of Megan, waiting for Breakfast - It is lit by the natural window light to her right - the early morning giving it a wonderful soft glow.



I have processed the image is OnOne Software's outstanding 'PhotoTool 2.5' - This allowed me to brighten the eyes a little, and also burn the edges to get the effect I was after.

I know she doesn't look very happy (Megan is not at her best in the mornings!) - But I think the treatment, pose and expression give a great overall image.

Hope you agree.

Why I Love Photoshop

Is there any thing better than taking a flat, dull image, ready for the 'reject' bin and spending 10 minutes playing in Photoshop?

I wouldn't normally give this sort of image a second glance:



There is little contrast, Caitlin is lost in a dull, lifeless sky...

And yet, I have spent the last two evening following a couple of Webinars by OnOne Software, so I thought I would use this as a 'test image' to see what I had learnt.

I used two tools - Phototools 2.5 - Which allowed me to brush in the contrast that I wanted, and generally make the image somewhere close to where it should be, but I still had the lifeless blown-out sky.

In steps MaskPro - Wow! Simply select the colours to keep (lots of yellow, brown and blue in this case, and tell it which ones to loose (lots of white for the sky).

Then I added a sky from one of my other images on a new layer, and brushed the two together...



Really please with the result - OK, still not a 5* image, but one I will certainly be keeping.

I painted a little lightness into Caitlin's face, and added a very slight vignette to finish things off a little and voila.