Fall colours at the lower gardens of Hase temple in Kamakura, Japan.  The Japanese really have beautiful gardens, and they come to life during the fall/winter seasons when the leaves turn spectacular colours.

This is one of the guard houses, or lookouts in the Imperial Gardens in Tokyo.  The accessible areas of the Imperial Gardens aren’t really that spectacular in the winter, but this was one view that seemed to be worthy of a snapshot.

Lighting was a bit tricky on this one, as the sun was just out of frame to the right.  A little localized reduction in exposure and a little post-crop vignetting was done to tame the sun and bright sky.

This shot of Mount Fuji and the skyscrapers of Shinjuku is one of my favourites from my trip to Japan.  Before my trip, I had made a list of quintessential photographs to take while in Japan, and Mt. Fuji with the city in front of it was at the top of my list.  After a fair bit of internet research, I managed to find a “top secret” location in a public building to get this shot.  I was surprised when I eventually got there to find a handful of other photographers with the same shot in mind.  Obviously my secret location was well known.  :)

Those familiar with Tokyo will undoubtedly know that such views of Mt. Fuji are quite rare.  In fact, even on a clear sunny day the chances of being able to see the distant mountains and Mt. Fuji are slim to none due to the typical heavy layer of smog covering the city.  I somehow lucked out on this occasion, as a weather system had rolled in over night.  It was quite windy the night before this shot, which I suspect helped clear out the smog.

I will admit, that when I made my way onto the observation gallery and saw this spectacular view I got quite excited.  This was exactly the view I had pictured in my mind.  Unfortunately, in the rush of it all, plus the lack of coffee (I’m a mess without it) I forgot to switch the ISO on the camera back to 100.  I had been shooting night scenes the night before.  Sadly, all of the shots I took of this view were made at ISO 800 on my Canon 20d, which is quite a shame.  This actually ruined my day when I realized my mistake about an hour after I left the gallery (and by then the smog would have hidden the mountains).  I highly doubt I will ever get this shot again, so this is one of life’s hard lessons I learned.

Tokyo is a very old and historic city. Scenes like this are not uncommon in this city. Here, one of the Imperial Palace’s guard houses sits in contrast with the modern city’s skyscrapers. Traditional rule by the monarchy versus today’s importance of the economy and capitalization.

Due to the Allied bombing in World War II, much of the city has been rebuilt in the last 50-60 years. This makes Tokyo a fantasticly modern city, but at the expense of its historic roots, even despite the preserved temples and gardens that tourists tend to flock to.

These hills are actually royal tombs where the ancient rulers of Korea are buried. These are located right in the middle of the city of Gyeongju where I was staying. As this was taken in winter, the grass was brown, but still makes for a scenic landscape. In total there are 35 royal tombs in this area and plenty of others. In fact, one can see recent burial mounds located throughout the country, on road sides, in woods, and in fields.

The old lifesaving station at the tip of Cape Cod, MA.

Taken just after dawn, the water was almost as smooth as glass. Post processing was done to give the photo an aged look to warm it up and add a timeless sense to the photo.

On a recent sailing course, we anchored for the night near Waupoos island in Lake Ontario (near Kingston). The cloudless sunset was short-lived, but the colours that appeared at dusk were worthy of a photo, like the one above.

These are the Fuller Falls, located near St. Martins, N.B. on the Fundy Trail Parkway. The falls are at the bottom of a ravine, accessed via a cable ladder that leads you straight down the steep slope. It’s more like stairs with handrails, but it’s all made out of wire cable and slippery wood rungs. There is a handy observation deck at the bottom, complete with sturdy handrails that I used to rest the camera on for the slow exposure. Without the handrails, this photo would not have turned out.

The overcast skies and fog annoyed me at first, as I thought they would hinder any good landscape shots. But they actually helped out here as the reduced light allowed for longer exposures of the falls. This helps create a nice soft and smooth feel to the water. A circular polarizer was also used.

This is the trail down to the Hopewell flower pot rocks, shown in my last post. The forest was so green and lush I just had to take a picture of it. Only slight saturation adjustments were made to the image to try to convey the lushness of the forest.

Located on the Bay of Fundy, the Hopewell Rocks are unique formations that can be explored both by sea kayak or on foot, thanks to the world’s largest tides. I managed to arrive at low tide (or slightly thereafter) and was able to walk around the many “flower pot” formations, such as the one pictured here.

Of all the shots I took today, I think this is my favorite. In general, the lighting was difficult with the sun casting most of the rock formations in silhouette. The masses of tourists also didn’t help, as they were constantly in the shots. The location of this formation allowed it to be lit from the side, providing some detail in the rock. It was also located away from most of the other formations so the tourists didn’t find it (except for me of course!).

As seen from the 54th floor of the TD Centre, the First Canadian Place tower (home to the Bank of Montreal) is Toronto’s tallest.

The white tiles are made of marble and are slowly being replaced as required. One tile fell 60 floors back in 2007 which prompted road closures and periodic investigations. The darker ones are older and the whiter ones are newer, which makes the building look a little worse for wear.

On my way out the door to catch an early flight, I noticed the sun rising over the city. The sky was a brilliant orange-red colour and I just had to capture it. Screw the waiting taxi, I thought. And I grabbed my camera.

Just as luck would have it, a flock of birds flew across the scene, adding some life to the image. I’m really happy with this one!

This image is unaltered, except for being cropped. It was shot through my living room window, in manual mode (which is rare for me to use, but was a lesson learned from my shots of the sun rising over Uluru in Australia). I basically set the aperture and adjusted the metering until the results met my liking. My lesson learned from this shot: I should have used a better lens, like my 70-200L. Oh well, next time…

Fishing boats resting on the mud at low tide in St. Martins, New Brunswick. This is a high-resolution panorama, scroll inside the image to zoom.

This post is an experiment using Microsoft’s Seadragon technology. By scrolling and panning inside the image, you can zoom in or out to reveal much more detail.

This is a panorama of Irving Oil’s Saint John Refinery located in Saint John, New Brunswick.  This is Canada’s largest oil refinery according to Irving.  The refinery is truly massive and took 6 images to capture this image.

The six images were shot hand-held and were stitched together in photoshop using automatic adjustments.  The resulting panorama was converted to grayscale in Lightroom and slight toning adjustments were made for contrast.

The image above is shown using Microsoft’s Seadragon technology. Scroll and pan inside the image to reveal more detail. You can see my images here

Fresh snow covers Lambly Lake near Kelowna, B.C.

The tops of plants stick out of fresh snow in a marshy area next to Lambly Lake, outside Kelowna.

More snowy trees (the last of them) and the surrounding mountains around Big White ski resort, near Kelowna, B.C.  We were lucky to get this view as the clouds had been quite low all week.  

Clarity and contrast bumped up a bit in Lightroom.

Big White, near Kelowna B.C., on a typical day of overcast clouds.  The snow-covered mountain and trees tend to blend into the sky making it hard to distinguish between land and sky.  Later on in the winter, the trees will be completely covered in snow and ice and are affectionately named “snow ghosts”.   

Black levels and clarity were bumped up in Lightroom to help bring out some of the details of this high key image.

I found these pine trees covered in fresh snow at the bottom of Big White ski resort, near Kelowna, B.C. 

The shot was taken at night and the lights of the village and gondola lifts combined with the low clouds to create an interesting background behind the trees.  The image was shot hand-held.