Here’s a good example of what a polarizing filter can do for landscape photographs. When I set up to compose this scene I forgot to adjust the polarizing filter that was on the lens. This resulted in the first image below; with harsh highlights (see the bright reflections on the ferns in the first image) and low saturation. After simply rotating the polarizer to remove the glare and reflections, the image looks much better and has more saturation (the second image below).

Polaring Filter set to NOT remove reflections

Polaring Filter Set to Remove Reflections

Both photographs were taken at Olympic National Park (near Sol Duc) using my Canon 1Ds mkIII, 24mm TS-E f3.4L MKII with a linear polarizer. Both were captured at ISO 100, f9.0, 20sec.

Araz

Early morning on Dec 6, 2010, during a week-long, solo photography trip to Olympic National Park, I visited Ruby Beach before sunrise to create star trail photographs. A few minutes into this ~9 minute exposure, I saw a bright light cross the sky. My first thought was “oh no an airplane is ruining the composition” but I quickly recognized the bright object as the International Space Station (ISS). I had seen it a few years before in Montreal and remembered that it was very bright, much brighter than Venus and relatively big, so it was easy to identify. To be sure, later that day I checked on the Internet for the ISS trajectory and sure enough the web site confirmed the location and time.

The ISS is so bright and moves slow enough to be clearly seen in the photograph (the long straight line) and I find it works well in the photo.

This was the last star trail photo that I created that morning and actually the last one of the whole trip because the remainder of the week was under heavy clouds and rain.

The photograph was taken with the Canon 1Ds mkIII and the 24mm TS-E f3.5L mkII. ISO 100, f4.5, for 552 seconds.

This is an experiment in abstract photography. Click on the link below to open the pdf file:

Visual_Interpretation_Berlioz_SymphonieFantastique

The woman in Symphonie Fantastique is believed to be Harriet Smithson, a Shakespearean actress. Berlioz was madly in love with her. The mood of the symphony captures Berlioz’ agitated state upon hearing of rumors of a relationship between Harriet Smithson and her manager.

I’m very happy to announce that one of my photographs has been published in Canadian Geographic Best Wildlife Pictures 2011 Collector’s Edition.

You can see my online gallery at ArazJakalian.com 

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The fall foliage is currently near or at peak just north of Montreal in the Laurentians and the Lanaudiere regions. This photograph was taken on Sept. 26, 2010 on route 131 going north toward St-Zenon just a few kilometers from the Parc Regional des Sept Chutes. It seems that the trees with the red leafs change colours before all the other ones and are often on the ground before the other colours are at peak.

Fall colours near St-Zenon, Quebec

This photograph was taken with the Canon 1Ds mkIII and the 24mm TS-E f3.5L mkII shifted left, center and right to get the panoramic view and 5 exposures at each shift for a final HDR + panoramic photograph containing 15 exposures. The RAW files were processed in Photomatix and Photoshop.