Lake Boat

Posted on January 3, 2013 by Alexis Thomas

Over the Christmas holidays, Daria and I flew to Thessaloniki (Salonika) in Greece to spend a few days with my cousins. The plan was to stay in the city for a couple of days to do some late Christmas shopping and then head to Florina (a town on the northern most part of Greece bordering FYROM) for the rest of the week. We would then use Florina as our base to explore the surrounding area.

I have to admit that this part of Greece is truly spectacular. I can honestly say that the scenery of western Macedonia has nothing to envy from the Swiss Alps. Snow-peaked mountains, forests and lakes as far as your eyes can reach. The picture below was taken at Vegoritida lake which we visited while taking the scenic route from Thessaloniki to Florina.

Taken with my tripod mounted Canon 60D and Canon 24-70 F2.8L lens at ISO 100, F8.0 at 1/320 and bracketed at -2/0/+2.

The ancient city of Bagan

Posted on December 21, 2012 by Alexis Thomas

A few months ago, if someone had asked me where Myanmar was, admittedly I would have struggled to pin-point it on the map. Upon visiting this country, I witnessed a place undiscovered to many tourists, traveled to by only few and somewhat daring individuals. At it’s heart, in the Mandalay region and roughly a one and a half hour flight from the old capital of Yangon, lies the ancient city of Bagan, one of the richest archaeological sites in Asia. The city is famous in the region for its sheer number of temples and pagodas – roughly around 2200 which have survived today out of the 13000 that were originally built in the 11th to 13th centuries.

After my first trip to Myanmar back in early September, a number of locals advised me to find the time to visit this ancient city, promising a lifetime experience and a sight like nothing I had ever witnessed. At first I was apprehensive, but a couple of colleagues convinced me to go and thankfully I did. It was a truly unique experience and I sincerely hope I get the chance to visit again.

These temples and pagodas are considered holy and as such you can only walk inside and around them completely barefoot, which made the task of taking this picture only that much challenging! After watching the sunset on a private boat cruise, we decided to head back to the hotel for some rest. As we were driving back, I started itching for an after-sunset picture of the skyline. We asked our guide to pull over at the nearest temple, and with flashlights on hand, we started to climb the top of the temple barefoot – a somewhat scary ordeal given that we had to walk on the steep rooftop of the temple on a 15 cm wide ledge, carrying a flashlight, tripod and camera. Thankfully we managed through, and I was happy to shoot the following picture during the twilight hour.

Taken with my Canon 60D and Sigma 18-200 F3.5-6.3 OS lens at ISO 100, F5.6 and bracketed at -2/0/+2.

PS: I would like to take this opportunity to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and all the best for the New Year! See you all in 2013!

Ferris Wheel

Posted on October 5, 2012 by Alexis Thomas

Continuing with the series of posts from my recent trip to Myanmar, this is a photograph taken at sunset at Inya Lake near the center of Yangon. Luckily I had taken my tripod with me on the tour bus, on the odd occasion I would need to take a landscape picture in low lighting conditions (very nerdy I know). I guess lugging it around with me sort of paid off with this HDR picture I took of a young couple watching the Ferris Wheel at sunset.

Shot with my Canon 60D and Sigma 18-200 F3.5-6.3 OS lens at ISO 400, F4.0 at 1/40 sec, exposed at -2/0/+2.

Camping in the Okanagan Valley

Posted on July 12, 2012 by Alexis Thomas

Shortly after his retirement, my dad decided to hop onto a plane and fly to Canada for a short visit. At the time my brother was living in Vancouver so I decided to hop onto a flight from Toronto and meet them there for the weekend.

What better way for 3 guys to spend a weekend than head out to the Okanagan Valley for some wine tasting and camping out in the woods! The scenery in that area is truly breathtaking. Looking back, one of the great things I miss about Canada is the nature in British Columbia – it really is second to none.

This picture was taken somewhere near the town of Merritt. I remember we were driving around to find a campsite and came across this view. I yelled at my brother to stop the car, I jumped out with my camera and took a quick snap of the lake.

For anyone wondering – no it didn’t rain that night! Somehow we got really lucky!

Sea Caves

Posted on June 25, 2012 by Alexis Thomas

The most frequently photographed scenery on the eastern part of the island of Cyprus is without a doubt Cavo Greco. As a teenager I remember visiting the nearby Sea Caves with my friends, always competing to prove our manhood by jumping off the 20 meter cliff straight into the crystal clear waters. An exhilarating adrenaline pumping (and relatively stupid) act, but the bragging rights that followed made it all worthwhile!

This weekend, I had a chance to visit the Caves again but this time with a different agenda in mind. This time around I wanted to capture the scenery with my camera in a way that is different from all the “I love Cyprus” postcards you can buy at your local souvenir shop.

I got there about an hour before sunset and started scouting the area for a good vantage point. I “worked the scene” so to speak for a good 40 minutes, took a dozen pictures but to my dismay nothing seemed to pop out at me. I was just about to give up when I turned around and saw the following scene. I literally had to place my tripod inches from the edge of the cliff. I kneeled down and screwed on my ND4 filter, allowing me to slow down my shutter speed to almost 2 secs.

Taken with my Canon 60D and my Sigma 18-200 F3.5-6.3 IS lens at 18mm, F22 (for max depth of field), ISO 100 and bracketed at -2/0/+2.

This is a good opportunity for me to share 3 tips that I find invaluable when taking pictures with a tripod-mounted camera in low light conditions:

1) If your lens supports Image Stabilization (a.k.a. Vibration Reduction or Optical Stabilisation) then you must turn it OFF. That feature is helpful in low light conditions when the camera is hand-held. When tripod mounted, the mechanism in fact introduces vibration as it tries to compensate for the non-existing vibrations that it assumes there might be.

2) If your camera allows you to lock your mirror, then go ahead and do so. The mirror is a moving part during shutter release and it does introduce vibration! Enabling Live View mode automatically locks the mirror too, otherwise you will need to disable it manually from the function settings.

3) Always, always use a remote cable release. If you don’t have one, then try setting the timer on your camera, press the button and move back.

Chicago skyline

Posted on June 16, 2012 by Alexis Thomas

Back in September 2008, myself and a few friends decided to take a flight from Toronto and spend the long weekend in Chicago. This was the view from the balcony of the condo that we had rented.

Luckily I had my gorilla pod, which I ended up fastening on the balcony rail (a bit scary but it worked). Taken with my Canon Rebel XTi and my Canon F1.8 50mm prime lens, at F10, ISO 100, bracketed at -2/0/+2.

Limassol Pier

Posted on June 1, 2012 by Alexis Thomas

I was in Limassol this past February for the carnival celebrations. I visit Limassol fairly often, but this time around I decided to take my camera with me to capture some of the beautiful sunsets by the beach. While walking down the beach side, I noticed this pier extending into the water. Luckily, there were only a few people on the pier at the far end, exactly where I wanted them to be. I quickly set up my tripod and bracketed 3 shots to create this HDR. I chose to create an HDR so that I could emphasize the boldness of the clouds as well as the texture of the wooden walkway.

Shot with my Canon 60D, at F16 bracketed at -2/0/+2. HDR processed in Photomatix with some minor contrast adjustments and sharpening in Photoshop.

Light Paintings

My journey into photography

Tag Archives: Landscape