Prince Edward Island Photography Workshops

I have no business relationship with John Sylvester or do I have any incentive to promote his work but I do very much enjoy it. A few years ago during a book launch, the topic of workshops came up and I suggested that PEI could use one from a local photographer. I ensured that I could fill the class from the PEI Photo Club members alone to make it worth John’s time to organize. Not only did the weekend limited to 8 participants fill up quickly, the following 2 weekends sold out as well. That success and support continues to show 3 years later.

As I write this, there are only a couple spots remaining for 2012, but even if you have no interest in this weekend adventure (which I do recommend after attending one myself), the following video about Prince Edward Island is still a joy to watch. Photography has really changed my opinion of this island I’ve ignored and taken for granted all my life.

Video produced by Foulkes Productions

Northern Lights over PEI

The Aurora is something we rarely see on Prince Edward Island but for the past week it feels like it has been routinely in the news due to high CME activity. Some of the images coming out of Iceland and western Canada have been incredible but despite all – I have not heard of anyone local to PEI witness the show this week.

Landscape and nature photography can often be rewarding but also very frustration with one trip after another to the same location time and time again – only to return without what you went for. We chase weather and we chase light. Two forces that are hard to predict and over the past 7 days, I have fallen asleep more than once parked in my car staring at the sky in the early hours of the morning on the north shore.

Today’s Image – Prince Edward Island Northern Lights

As rare as it may be – the lights can be seen when all the stars align. This is an image from last summer in the National Park. The posts you see next to the road are the relatively new don’t park here along the Gulf Parkway. This particular night remains to be the first and only night I have witnessed the show in person.

How Much Resolution Do You Need?

If you’re a photographer, the internet has been polluted with people eager to spend money on either the new D800 or 5D. Both are reasonable upgrades but for the most part, Nikon and Canon has a similar fan base to Apple in which everyone complains what’s missing, but they’ll still line up to buy it. But that’s beside the point.

The D800 comes with a resolution of 38 million pixels and while there are for sure people that can use and need every bit of that, those people are not the average user. I don’t even think Canon makes an slr under 18 MP now. Marketing tells us bigger is better.

I’ll go on record by saying that I want as much resolution as I can possibly get. You never know when an agency will call and in the stock world, pricing is determined by use and size. But regardless of what the market desires, how much is actually necessary for most use cases?

Today’s Image – Covehead Lighthouse

Here is an image that I’ve shared before on my old blog as well as in my portfolio. It’s special for a couple reasons. For starters, it was made at 3:30am in the National Park during a meteor shower. It was a great all night marathon that I remember well. To top that off, Parks Canada eventually requested a license to use this image for their 100th anniversary campaign featuring a different National Park across Canada for each hour of the day. Shockingly, the 2am to 5am slot was hard to fill. :-)

The point about resolution is that this photo was created with the original Canon 5D. It has a total of 12 MP of resolution but I lost some of that due to cropping and horizon straightening. The final print still measured 5 feet wide and found it’s home in both Ottawa and Toronto with a very close viewing distance.

Here are a few photos from that exhibit.

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Blogg.ie Finalist – Best Photography of a Weblog

Announced tonight, Focused on Light is officially a runner-up finalist in the 12th Annual Weblog Awards (The 2012 Bloggies). Congratulations to The Pioneer Women for your 3rd win and thanks to all those that voted as well as the mysterious person that nominated this site. The increased traffic from the nomination was noticeable.

If you’re interested in landscape photography, occasional event photography and some random design talk, I’d love to have you stick around and visit again. The best way to stay in touch will be to receive email updates by subscribing to Google’s Feedburner. You’ll receive an email only with each new blog post. Approximately 1 or 2 emails per week with images primarily from Prince Edward Island.

You can also subscribe using the good old trusty RSS Feed or join me on Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus, Flickr, 500px, Chime.in, Pinterest and the list goes on.

Leave a comment below with a link back to your site.

Today’s Image – Cape Turner, Cavendish, PEI

An old and classic shot of Cape Turner in Cavendish, Prince Edward Island from 2010 but it remains to be one of my all time favorites. I’ve made it a bit of a signature shot of mine.

What Exactly is PPI or DPI?

I’ve been creating digital content now for almost 15 years and it remains to be frustrating how confused people are about the meaning of pixels (or dots) per inch. Either it be working for a web client, a magazine editor or with another photographer, the reference to the resolution of an image file in terms of pixels per inch continues to surface. What exactly does 72 pixels per inch mean? Nothing at all on it’s own because without a physical print size, that could literally mean anything.

DPI (or PPI) is the value that tells the printer how many drops of ink to place on a page for every inch of paper but it has very little to do with the actual files resolution. From a computers perspective, the only values that matter are the total number of pixels and a 4×6 inch print at 300dpi is the exact same file resolution as a 16.5×25 inch print at 72dpi. Note that I’m talking about the file resolution and not the print resolution. In both cases, the file itself has 1800×1200 pixels.

300 pixels per inch * 6 inches of paper = 1800 total pixels.
72 pixels per inch * 25 inches of paper = 1800 total pixels.

In my opinion, the dpi (or ppi) is simply the printed results of the true resolution. If someone asks for an 8×10 print at 260dpi, what they are really asking for is a resolution of 2080×2600 pixels. This same file would print 16×20 at 130dpi proving that without a width and height measurement, the dpi value by itself is simply a random number. And you can’t define a width and height using inches on digital displays.

Which brings us to the myth claiming the internet is 72ppi. It’s not true because no browser actually reads the ppi value and simply displays the image at 100% in relation to the grid of pixels known as your monitors resolution. That monitor resolution is a fixed value and unlike printing where you can control how many dots of ink (dpi) fall on the page per inch, you can not control the pixels per inch (ppi) of an image displayed on your monitor. If your destination is anything but print, talking dpi just complicates everything. Ignore it.

Unfortunately many popular sites are still teaching that 72 is required but today’s monitors are much more advanced than those original Apple 72ppi monitors. Take this chart for example. The monitor I’m currently typing on is set at 128 pixels per inch. If you are at all curious why 72dpi started in the first place, consider reading this article on text sizes.

Today’s Image – Winter Field

A light snow covering of a farmers field in Prince Edward Island.

Winter in Cavendish

The seasonal community of Cavendish located on the north shore is a primary entrance to PEI National Park. It will host tens of thousands of visitors during the summer but will also become completely boarded up and abandoned for the winter.

Today’s Image – Green Gables in Winter

Cavendish is home to the popular tourist attraction Anne of Green Gables. Visitors and fans of Lucy Maud Montgomery travel from around the world to visit this house all summer long but very few walk these grounds in the middle of winter. The Green Gables Heritage Place is included in this years 75th anniversary celebrations of PEI National Park.

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The 2012 Bloggies

Welcome to the Twelfth Annual Weblog Awards.

You may be asking yourself what the heck is a Bloggie? I kind of did too. It’s no Webby but I remember 12 years ago when the Bloggie awards were first introduced. A fun little competition that actually received a fair bit of attention. Fast forward to 2012 and I had forgotten all about them until Sandee left me a comment this morning letting me know how she found my site through the 2012 nominations. Surprise. Not only did someone take the effort to nominate this weblog but Focused on Light has actually some how ended up as a finalist for “Best Photography of a Weblog”.

And of course, now that I’m aware of the nomination, the competitor in me would like to win so I’m going to run with it. If you agree with the nomination, please consider voting at http://2012.bloggi.es/. Voting ends Feb 18th and you could help me win 2,012 pennies.

It’s oddly timed due to a recent archives reset. So much has changed since I started this weblog back in 2001 and originally under the domain newrecruit.org. Somebody must be visiting and maybe even reading it.

Today’s Image – Traces of Snow and Ice

A small stream that runs under the Gulf Shore Parkway from Rollings Pond out to the beach. While deep in parts, if you are careful, you can navigate your way out to the center by rock hopping without getting your feet wet. You will find this location (N 46 27.790 W 63 17.936) just past the entrance to PEI National Park on the North Rustico side.

The Guiding Light

I need to be careful or this blog could easily turn into a save the lighthouse campaign. Last week I made a post about the upcoming deadline when several island lighthouses will be shut down. I followed that up with a post about Saving of the Brighton Beach Range Light. At that time, it was very unclear to me which ones and how many of these structures were in danger.

With the permission of Carol Livingstone (President of the PEI Lighthouse Society ⁽¹⁾), I am making available The Guiding Light Newsletter (PDF). This semiannual publication that is available only to members provides a full list of updates and the current status of our 63 lighthouses and ranges. If you refer to page 20, you’ll see the list of lighthouses currently not being petitioned.

“Any lighthouses not claimed by community groups or municipalities by May 31 will either be put up for sale to the public or torn down.” CBC

Download the January 2012 issue of The Guiding Light. (PDF)

Today’s Image – Cape Tryon Lighthouse

With access only through private property, this light is located on the north shore west of Cavendish in the French River and Park Corner area. The still active Cape Tryon Lighthouse is a bit of a staple in Island marketing and an often photographed location. I had a chance to visit early this morning under some very chilly conditions. The regular high coastal winds did not help. The Cape Tryon Lighthouse is located on land currently trying to be protected from development by the L.M. Montgomery Land Trust.

This lighthouse is one of the many listed on page 20. What will be it’s fate on June 1st 2012?

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Predicting Weather

Today was interesting. What started with very high wind warnings mixed with rain and snow fall followed by a night without electricity, the sky was looking dark and dull at 6 am. I made the mistake to stay home and watch what could have been the most dramatic sunrise of the year to date. Snooze you lose.

It ended up being a very nice day but by mid afternoon it looked like those heavy clouds were rolling in again and the sun would be gone well before sunset. I decided for the second time to stay home. Another mistake as the sun once again proved me wrong. Trying not to write off the complete day and only 30 minutes before sunset, I quickly made my way downtown to Victoria Park to make 6 images before days end.

I have pretty much accepted that I can’t predict how the light will be.

Today’s Image – Brighton Beach Range Front

Ice breaking away into the North (Yorke) River at the west end of Victoria Park and the start of the community of Brighton. In the distance is the range light that shines directly out to the entrance of the Charlottetown Harbour. Charlottetown City Councillor Rob Lantz wrote a blog post earlier this week titled “Saving the Brighton Beach Range Light” which relates to the post I made yesterday.

An Island of Lighthouses

…or should I say without lighthouses because that could be a very real possibility after May 31st. This deadline is the day the federal government will stop maintaining the majority of the lighthouses that currently surround our coast. We were reminded again this week that communities must step up to support the maintenance if we wish for these buildings to remain standing. Some very prominent and iconic lighthouses are on the demolition chopping block.

The Lighthouse map issued by the Prince Edward Island Lighthouse Society has 63 listed in total making it the highest concentration of lighthouses in any province or state in North America. 21 are already decommissioned, 13 are listed as private and only 3 not accessible by car. 9 are opened to the public.

Today’s Image – St. Peter’s Harbour Lighthouse

With upwards of 60 lighthouses and ranges around our small coastline – not all of them are still in great shape. Particularly the one just west of Greenwich. It has for sure seen better days. Nested in the dunes, this lighthouse is accessible by an unpaved road or a long walk on the beach.

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