I heard that uncle grumpy won some landscape of the landscape photographer
of the year? Yeah, he did. landscape photographer of the year, Uncle Grumpy. how
do you feel aboot that Gavin? Awww it's unacceptable like, I have to I have to
outdo him now I think so I'm gonna have to really step my game up. aim to win
that next year problem is though like we shoot together
so much that by the end of the year I'm gonna I'm gonna end up with all the same
pictures that he's got that is it problem we're gonna have to be really
sneaky this year and do a whole bunch of shoots on the side without Uncle Grumpy just
so I can get some different stuff to submit to that competition and try and
try and usurp his reign. Yeah, but then you'd have to worry, the more shoots we
go on together. I might beat you!
I don't think there's much likelihood of that!
think it's gonna happen you reckon yeah should that be really
bad he wins this year I went next year. I'd have to end myself.
I can help you out!
Yeah?
I'll donate my services.
And let you drive me to locations...
Yeah?
Buy me food.....
Yeah?
Pay for the gas....
Yeah?
I will show you what a good comp looks like in every location....
Give you tips....
And then you might win.
Well I mean... that's an offer I can't possibly refuse..
I would be a fool, to aaah decline such generous and gracious offer
I'm just so generous
you know, you're all heart!
I know.... I really put you first.
You definitely do yeah! after three hours of lip from young Cayden we finally arrived
at Karst Creek and this time I was sure to Don my ice cleats because I did not
fancy crushing my sweetbreads again in another icy fall. As always, Cayden
over-prepared but we wasted no time hitting the trail to the waterfall the
trail consisted of lots of UP which wasn't made any easier by having to film
a bunch of b-roll where we set up the camera and pretend to walk past it and
then edit out the bit where we turn around and go back for the camera
ah Vlogging. Before we knew it, we'd reached the end of the trail we got our
first glimpses of this spectacular frozen waterfall
Well. we finally made it Karst Creek Fall. Look at that business
This is absolutely fantastic. It's better than I imagined it would be.
it was fairly easy to get up the trail, took about 45 minutes with all the stopping
and starting to do b-roll what I'm going to do next is the same thing I always do
if you've seen any of my other videos you'll know that if I get to a shooting location where I've never
shot before the first thing I'll do is I'll walk around with the camera
handheld and I'll find compositions I'll even just put it in automatic mode
I don't even really care if the focus is a little bit off. All what matters is
that I can quickly capture like 20 compositions in two or three minutes and
I feel quickly fine where I need to be to get the ultimate shot then once I
found that shot then I'll get the tripod and I'll commit to the shot and really
work it get all my exposure brackets get all my focus brackets and that's a really
good way to speed up your productivity and get the most
out of a beautiful location but I'm so excited about this.
so when we first arrived I was a little bit worried about this bright bright
sunlight that was creeping its way into the canyon because I knew that when it
starts to hit the patches of snow that's when you're going to get blown
out highlights and it's a real pain to keep that contrast under control
however now that the light has started to creep in look at the way that the ice
that's on the wall there has started to glow, it's way more punchy and dramatic
than soft overcast light so even though it's a bit more technically challenging
the colors are gonna be more vibrant the contrast is gonna be more vibrant/
and overall I think it's gonna make a nicer shot.
So here's that first shot of the day and I'm quite happy with how it turned out in spite of the challenges of
shooting in that very dynamic light and I managed to prevent the highlights from
blowing out and still retain some shadow detail by blending bracketed exposures
now this is a close-up of the light that I was talking about see those icicles
they have a lot more contrast a lot more color and just general pop because of
that direct sunlight that crept into the canyon for that very short window of time.
Well I might have spoken a little but to soon earlier about the light. The Sun is really started to creep in here now
and you can see these hotspots where it's completely blown out in the top of the canyon so with the
wide-angle lens now is a little bit useless that I'm trying to compose
things are a bit tighter and with a super wide prime it's quite difficult to
do unless you get very very close but my challenge today, I set a little challenge
for myself was to get here and I knew that I'd start off shooting wide but I've
only got with me cuz I've got my small camera bag I've only got with me this
super wide and a very tight 55mm and so that's gonna be my
challenge is now to switch lenses and try and go for those much tighter crops
those detail shots which should eliminate these uncontrollable
hotspots let's see the difference between the
type of composition that I get with a much narrower field of view.
Well, clearly I've been spending way too much time with Adam Gibbs because this might
actually be my favorite shot of the day and I love it because both the ice and
the light that ignites the ice are both very fleeting they're only there for a
brief moment in time and I also love it because even though we went to
Karst Creek to shoot that frozen waterfall, other people have that shot but I bet
nobody's got this shot
so with two good shots in the bag, we were now just pretty much killing
time waiting for the Sun to work its way out of the canyon so that we could
get some images with that nice soft light
now as you should know if you've seen any of my previous videos
killing time means some ridiculously pointless contests
quite obviously Leo scores this
first round as a draw because we both reached the same height so another round
is required and look at that. The fat middle-aged Yorkshireman clearly crushes
the lanky Canadian youth nobody can question Leo's integrity in the scoring
just because he's my cat
All in all, this was shaping up to be a very productive day
But young Cayden was getting cheekier by the minute and I reckon it must have
hurt losing the star jump challenge to a clapped-out old duffer like me
I reckon that I got a few decent shots maybe one really good one. What did you get?
I reckon my worst shot is better than your best shot!
Eeerr... what do you base this theory on?
Just everything. Better looks, better cardio, better photography skills..
Better cardio, I'll give you that!
Well, let's see your shots then, let's ava look!
No?
No? Are you sure?
I don't mind doing a free... it'd be a free critique session......
No?
Yeah!. So earlier when we were hiking in I actually lost the car keys and I've only
got one set of keys and we drove 3 hours into the wilderness and we had to
do that limbo under that log. ''LIMBO'' is a generous description of what you did
OK. I had to collapse under a fallen log so that I could get under it and
as I did it, as I rolled under, my car keys fell out and I din't realized until I...
Oh hang on.
You moron!
Hahaha. I'm only joking. I've got em.!
I didn't realize until I got further down the trail. Anyway thank God I went back and when I did that very
elegant Action Man role under the log they were just waiting for me.
Watch and learn kid. Watch and learn. yeah
okay. so now the Sun has vanished. Obviously it's gone behind a cloud.
Now we have complete overcast, very very soft light. So we can now shoot anything we want
without struggling with all dynamic range that we had, when there was that very spotty bright sunlight.
The only downside is, the icicles don't quite glow
in such a magical way, but we can compose far more shots
Because before, we had to compromise and compose it so that you'd cut out those hotspots
Well now we don't have those so it kind of opens up a lot of compositional options.
what a difference a cloud makes hey do you prefer this much softer light now
that the Sun is gone? Or do you prefer the more dynamic light from the earlier shot?
Now if you'd like to learn exactly how I processed some of the images from this shoot.
I've put together an online photography course for frozen waterfalls
which you can order right now from my website using the card link up here or
in the description below and if you order in the next 24 hours you can save
20% off with the code tube20.
Now in order for me to enjoy an early retirement I've told Cayden that he needs to become a YouTube megastar pronto
Cayden's doing his very first vlog, so I'm gonna give him a clip to remember....
Right. I've got my shots. You got your shots?
I got my shots and my Hypothermia!
Hehe, you got your Pneumonia? You need more skin on your bones mate.
Yeah, If I could take like, your 70 lbs of bulbous fat and put it on my body.
Actually, that'd be good for me yeah. yeah win, win. Deal.
So, we're 'Cream Crackered' it's time to quit we've got our shots so let's go back
now to Campbell River get some dinner a beer and a burger? yeah I'll have a beer and a burger
you can have a root beer
WHAaaat!
so back down the hill we headed and this time with gravity on our side but it
turns out that we weren't quite done shooting yet because there was still one
bonus frozen waterfall to visit
Well this is a total bonus, we weren't expecting this to be quite so spectacular on our way home from
Karst Creek Falls we thought we'd stop off at Lupin Falls
look at this goregousness the top half of the fall this is kinda like a
two tiered waterfall it's a bridge down there and the bottom of the falls it's
okay it's kind of like you're just a jumble of white and once you're in there
you can't really see this which is this gorgeous column of beautiful ice so we've
skipped that climbed up around the back and climbed down onto the top half of
the fall so we can get nice and close like Cayden has to get some beautiful shots
now that'll be a good shot but what I want to do is put something in front of
it and I've got these gorgeous mossy rocks here but they're a bit too massive
so I'm going to look around to see if I can place something in front of this
gorgeous column of frozen water.
Just look at that business I mean that has
the juice factor turned all the way up to 11
Trezmendous!
well spent quite a time trying to find the composition here. I've walked right up to the ice there and the closer I
get to it the less interesting it is but I did
notice once I got right in front of it the top of the falls right up there from
that angle kind of straight on, its lit so beautifully. The Sun, it's gone down
now but it's it's in that direction over there but it's got some gorgeous side
light on it. I can't resist that but I need a longer length so what I'm
going to do and we'll switch to the 55mm and try and get as close as I can
without dying and see if I can just fill the frame with that gorgeous chandelier
and I think what I'll end up doing is going for a vertical so let's see how
this one turns out
Well in the end it was a horizontal shot that won my heart
I'm very inspired by scenes that look like they could be from another
planet-- and I also find images like this to be kinda timeless because this
could be anywhere in time past our future winter is almost at an end here
on Vancouver Island and while I'm sick of freezing my dangleberries off ....
I will miss the majestic beauty that winter brings I really hope you enjoyed
this video and please like subscribe and post a comment let me know what you
enjoyed the most right this time we are honestly we are officially done but this
was our bonus shot, we weren't expecting to get it. I got a pretty juicy shot, what about you?
I know my shot's better than yours.. but!
Ohh ho ho ha ho. The smack talk continueth!
Thanks for watching :)