Albas BC – The Shuswap’s Most Powerful Waterfall is part of 23 Shuswap marine parks and it’s official name is Shuswap Lake Marine Provincial Park – Albas Falls Site. All locations are popular for fishing and water sports; hiking and nature study are popular at some sites. Some sites are road accessible, but most are water-access only.
Shuswap Lake Marine Provincial Park – Albas Falls Site is an undeveloped camping area located at the northwest end of Seymour Arm. Some areas are road accessible. Camping is only permitted in specific areas. A trail that begins near Steamboat Bay follows Celesta Creek upstream approximately 1.5 km, then crosses the creek and returns to the lake. Noted for a series of beautiful waterfalls and some interesting features from early logging days. Bears are frequent visitors in this site.
Pictographs & Petroglyphs of the Shuswap, Kootenay & Vancouver Island BC, an account of visits to various sites in British Columbia’s Shuswap, Kootenay and Vancouver Island regions. In BC, more than 500 examples of either pictographs or petroglyphs (ancient rock paintings or carvings) have been discovered. This is more than any other province in Canada.
Many of the pictograph sites in the Shuswap are found on large rock walls above water and are therefore not easily accessible to everyone. Given how well known some of these sites are to locals and summer tourists boating on the lakes in the region, they are in remarkable good conditions.
The Kootenay’s Slocan Lake features more than one dozen sites along is vast rocky shorelines. In the past, there have been reports of some vandalism by a teenage party at Slocan Lake but little information is available on the web about the incident.
Petroglyphs, rock carvings are much more resilient to the impacts of ageing, erosion, weather and people’s activities. On Vancouver Island, a great site is found in Petroglyph Provincial Park, located at the south end of Nanaimo featuring a high concentration of 1,000 year old prehistoric rock carvings.
Sproat Lake Provincial Park – One of the finest panels of petroglyphs to be seen in British Columbia is located at the east end of Sproat Lake on central Vancouver Island. One of the park’s most significant features is a panel of petroglyphs called “K’ak’awin” on lakeshore rocks depicting mythological figures.
In 2003 “Exploring BC’s Pictographs” by Simon Nankivell and David Wyse was published by Russel Mussio of Mussio Ventures Ltd. (Backroad Mapbooks). This pictographs book, described as “An explorer’s guide to one of BC’s best kept secrets in the mysterious world of Indian rock paintings” has been apart from other publications as site locations are described in great detail including geographic coordinate information. Sources tell the publication of this book caused discomfort with First Nations peoples in the Interior of BC and that Mussio Ventures, under political pressure sought not to pursue a planned re-print.
A quiet, beautiful campsite is perched above Malaspina Strait near Dinner Rock Island, between Powell River and Lund, BC. During recent safety upgrades, a number of danger trees were removed. The actual “Dinner Rock” is a small rocky island that lies in sight just off to the south of the campsite.
Dinner Rock was the site of a a tragic accident on the night of October 11, 1947. The MV Gulf Stream, a 145-foot passenger in service for Gulf Lines Ltd., was en route from Vancouver to Lund when it drifted off course in poor weather conditions and collided with Dinner Rock Island. The lives of three children and two women were lost in the accident. The vessel hit the rock with such force that it slid up onto the steep shore where it rolled over and partially sank.
Margaret Falls at Herald Provincial Park BC is a popular destination campground and day-use area. The park covers 79 hectares of beautiful beach and forested uplands, and boasts a 128-site campground, boat launch and large day-use area. Swimming, fishing and bird-watching are popular activities, as is the self-guided nature walk to Margaret Falls. The park’s location is just 14 kilometers west from Salmon Arm along the shore of Shuswap Lake. Established in 1975, the park is a great place to visit year round.
The site of Herald Park was originally settled by the Herald family at the turn of the century and remained a family farm until the 1970s. The land was then turned over to the Provincial Government with the exception of the “homesite”, where Ms. Jesse Herald continued to reside until her death.
An older video of Margaret Falls taken (a bit wobbly) with Canon’s 2011 model PowerShot Elph 300 HS pocket camera. The winter time stills (Canon PowerShot SX60 HS) were produced without a neutral density filter to soften the water’s movement due to the low light condition in the Reinecker Creek canyon.
A neutral density filter, or ND filter, is a physical filter made of resin or glass that attaches to the front of your lens. They can be used on film or digital cameras and block out some of the light in your image. If certain areas are too bright for a desired camera settings, an ND filter may be the solution. Less light enters the lens, because the filter in front of it has a higher optical density. A photo of a waterfall or a stream where the water looks silky smooth was taken with an ND filter and a longer shutter speed.
Cool Rock Formations of Western Canada are a great attraction to photographers because they offer cool shapes and textures. Anyone who is particularly interested in abstract photography may find himself in heaven when coming upon such geological feature.
The video slide shows images captured at different location in British Columbia, including the northern part of Mabel Lake, Slocan Lake in BC’s Kootenay region; A rock pool is located in the spill channel of BC Hydro’s Wilsey Dam at Shuswap Falls in BC, Gray rock textures of an unusual rock face at a Vancouver Island beach near the town of Ucluelet, Wally Creek along coastal highway #4 between Port Alberni and Tofino; Botanical Beach Provincial Park.
British Columbia Driftwood Photography is a story about ‘Driftwood’ which is often found on ocean beaches and along rivers and lakes. Driftwood is is a very interesting to photograph. It often appears in bizarre shapes and with detailed textures especially after it has been in water for a long time and has been bleached by the sun. Sometimes, the leftovers of trees take on shapes that look like sculptures, shapes of animals or creatures.
In some waterfront areas, driftwood is a major nuisance. However, the driftwood provides shelter and food for birds, fish and other aquatic species as it floats in the ocean. Gribbles, ship worms and bacteria decompose the wood and gradually turn it into nutrients that are reintroduced to the food web. Sometimes, the partially decomposed wood washes ashore, where it also shelters birds, plants, and other species. Driftwood can become the foundation for sand dunes.
A subset of driftwood known as drift lumber, includes the remains of man-made wooden objects, such as buildings and their contents washed into the sea during storms, wooden objects discarded into the water from shore, or lost cargo from ships. Erosion and wave action may make it difficult or impossible to determine the origin of a particular piece of driftwood.
Driftwood has an interesting history tied to itself. Carried by Arctic rivers, driftwood was the main, or sometimes only, source of wood for some Inuit and other Arctic populations living north of the tree line until they came into regular contact with European traders. Traditional Inuit boats such as the kayak were fashioned from driftwood frames covered in skins. Driftwood could be used to make bows and arrows if it was straight grained and in reasonably good condition.
Canoe Beach is located in the semi-rural community of Canoe, British Columbia. The community lies on the south side of Shuswap Lake, northeast of the city center, just off the Trans Canada Highway.
Canoe Beach is the only public beach in the immediate Salmon Arm area and draws significant local tourist traffic in summer months. Winter days can be splendid at Canoe Beach as the lake is usually calm and wildlife is often observed on or near the water.
The Secwepemc peoples were known to use the mouth of Canoe Creek as a site to launch dugout canoes for travel around Shuswap Lake. It is thought that the fact that early white travelers were impressed by the dugout canoes drawn up on the beach is the source of the name of this community. Cameras used for this video: Canon PowerShot SX60 HS & Panasonic Lumix DMC FZ300.
St. Ives Winter Photo Shoot @ Shuswap Lake in British Columbia produced a number of very cool images of melting snow and ice on beach rocks and the local wharf. The locality is mostly recognised for it’s recreational summer activities by local tourism operators and local resorts. It is however a stepping stone for endless adventures and explorations to remote areas on Shuswap Lake.
At Cinnemousun Narrows – where the four arms of the lake meet one can push on to Anstey and Seymour arms. A number of nearby marine parks invite boaters and paddler to enjoy sandy beaches throughout different seasons.
The late afternoon sun on this glorious day was just right to illuminated the ice crystals above the water. Fall and winter are probably the best times to photograph in this part of the world as the low angle of the sun provides lighting that is not encountered during any other time of the year. The images from the St. Ives Winter Photo Shoot on Shuswap Lake are spectacular. Check out our St. Ives Winter Photo Shoot @ Shuswap Lake video and subscribe to our channel here.
Exclusively produced with Canon’s SX60 HSSuperzoom bridge camera and Canon Powershot G16, the first model of the G series back then featuring built-in Wifi. Video editing software at the time were Windows Movie Maker and VideoPad.
Water Photography – Capture the Power – Water in general, is a very interesting medium. Whether it is the complete still of a lake or a chopped chaos on the ocean, captured images of the motion are fascinating. How to photograph or ‘capture’ the power of water depends largely on what effects are intended to achieve. In light technical terms, images of moving water are often ‘softened up’ to make them look somewhat magical.
This is done by the use of neutral density (ND) filters mounted to a camera’s lens. This (darkened) lens provides the photographer with broader range of exposure settings. However, softened water photography fails to bring out details, such as individual water drops or spray. So, the keys to create images that capture the power in water photography with the most details are: high speed shutter speeds with small apertures. Details are the main attributes necessary to depict the raw power of water as it moves.
In water photography, to capture the power of the water, creeks and rivers make for ideal subjects. In addition, waterfalls offer amazing opportunities to capture detailed motion. The following video was produced at Shuswap Falls and Wilsey Dam in British Columbia, an easily accessible site featuring raging waters in rocky channels and in waterfalls.
The first sequence in the video are stills shot in high frame-rate bursts to literally freeze the movement and show details that softened water photography never reveals. Following are motion pictures (actual video clips) shot at 60 fps initially but hen slowed 50, 25 and 12% in post editing. Cameras used for this video: FujiFilm XT-4 and Panasonic Lumix DMC FZ300.
Ansel Adams and Alfred Stieglitz – The Greatest Pioneers of Photography – Adams, Ansel (Feb. 20 1902 — Apr. 22, 1984), photographer and environmentalist, was born in San Francisco, California, the son of Charles Hitchcock Adams, a businessman, and Olive Bray. The grandson of a wealthy timber baron, Adams grew up in a house set amid the sand dunes of the Golden Gate. When Adams was only four, an aftershock of the great earthquake and fire of 1906 threw him to the ground and badly broke his nose, distinctly marking him for life. A year later the family fortune collapsed in the financial panic of 1907, and Adams’s father spent the rest of his life doggedly but fruitlessly attempting to recoup.
Seen in a more traditional art history context, Adams was the last and defining figure in the romantic tradition of nineteenth-century American landscape painting and photography. Adams’s vast archive of papers, memorabilia, correspondence, negatives, and many “fine” photographic prints, as well as numerous “work” or proof prints, are in the John P. Schaefer Center for Creative Photography at the University of Arizona, Tucson.
Ansel Adams and Alfred Stieglitz – The Greatest Pioneers of Photography – Adams’s star rose rapidly in the early 1930s, propelled in part by his ability and in part by his effusive energy and activity. He made his first visit to New York in 1933, on a pilgrimage to meet photographer Alfred Stieglitz, the artist whose work and philosophy Adams most admired and whose life of commitment to the medium he consciously emulated.
Alphred Stieglitz was an American photographer and modern art promoter who was instrumental over his 50-year career in making photography an accepted art form. In addition to his photography, Stieglitz was known for the New York art galleries that he ran in the early part of the 20th century, where he introduced many avant-garde European artists to the U.S.
