This year my friend Jo’s nine-year old daughter Evinn joined us for my yearly pre-Christmas overnight trip to Kelowna to photograph the brightly decorated the Okanagan lakefront and the 120-foot Tree of Hope.
The drive from my home in Pritchard is only two hours and, as always, I got accommodation at the Royal Anne Hotel. We knew that Evinn would be so excited to have a top floor room with big window and a balcony overlooking the lake.
The Royal Ann Hotel is on Bernard Avenue and is only a few minutes walk from the lake and an easy ten or so minute drive to the Tree of hope.
I like short excursions and I enjoy having something special to photograph during the Christmas season. The wide bustling city of Kelowna at Christmas so very different from Kamloops and is an exciting change from my woodsy home in Pritchard.
After nightfall we got ready and headed out for some night photography. Both Jo and I had our cameras and I went down to the car to get our tripods…No tripods!
I had cleaned my car out and laid them on a shelf in my storage area and there they still sat.
Luckily there were two monopods left in my car’s trunk so we used them as an alternative. A monopod is not equal to a tripod, but I set my ISO at 3200 and moved my shutterspeed between 1/30 and 1/60th and it worked reasonably well. I usually like the long shutterspeeds, but there wasn’t any water or other movement that I needed to enhance so I think my photos worked out.
The waterfront and the park were perfect subjects. There was even a group of classic Mercedes Benz enthusiasts that had moved two cars (1960s and 1980s models) onto a concrete platform in the park for some night photos with brightly lighted buildings in he background that both Jo and I took advantage of.
The waterfront and the skating rink were, as usual, fun to photograph and at 6:30AM when we arrived at Kelowna’s 120 foot Tree of Hope and this year the city had gone all out with all sorts of lighted constructions that filled the walkway in front of the shops near the parking lot where the big tree stood.
Gosh that was fun. Both Jo and I were using 14-24mm lenses and Evinn was a ready and willing model running back and forth to pose whenever we thought of something.
I know that low light photography can be a challenge, but I like the creative opportunity and the chance to explore new ways of photographing the world around me and photographing at night is so much fun. (especially at Christmas)
Stay safe and be creative. These are my thoughts for this week. Contact me at www.enmanscamera.com or emcam@telus.net.
