1/200sec @ f/4.5
18mm, ISO200, 0ev
Evaluative Metering
No flash
Nikon D40
AF-S 18-55mm 3.5-5.6

The best time to visit Banff and the Rockies is in the off-season. Now this is hard as the on-season is throughout the Summer months (hiking, biking etc…) and then again throughout the Winter months (snow sports etc…). My recommendation would be November or March. The place is deserted comparatively to the busy times when the area turns into a zoo. When you do get a good month the photo above shows how many people you are going to find in the area. You can still hike and bike in both months you just have to dress up a little warmer – if the snow comes early biking might be out but hiking is definitely still on.

Enough with the travel advice – the photo above is an example of diagonal lines in a composition. It is a textbook perspective shot showing the road going into the distance. I like to think of the shot as one of those film studio idents that you see at the beginning of feature films – I can’t think of the studio that uses the road in their ident – answers on the back of a postcard. One problem that is apparent with this shot – and this is something I have talked about – the overcast sky at the top of the shot distracts the eye. In the original crop there was more sky and the eye was drawn straight to it. Not only was it the brightest section of the image but all the lines lead you to it. Reducing the amount of the sky in the image helps a little but it is a prime example of why you shouldn’t include grey overcast skies in a shot. Using some post-processing I was able to reduce the levels of the sky from 255 to around 213. This helps the white line at the front of the image stand out more.

I am going to start delving a little more into my post-production techniques for the photos that I post. My idea is to provide screencasts showing how I might attack an image in PhotoShop. As a small intro I wanted to explain that by doing a very minimal amount of post-production you can really boost your photos to the next level. In this shot I used some dodging and burning (techniques transferred from the days of film), I did some level adjustments, I converted to black and white and I also did some sharpening (not exactly in that order but more on that soon).