Okanagan Part 1

I'm going to share the photos from my trip in parts because there are so many of them:)

One of the first places we went to was the White Lake Grasslands Park (located west of Okanagan Falls).  This beautiful and unique area was established as protected land in 2001 to preserve its fragile grasslands, open pine forests and endangered wildlife. It has everything from thinly forested areas, to rock cliffs, to rolling hills and open fields.  It was interesting being there not only earlier in the season but also during a cooler, wetter summer and seeing green on the hills and flowers blooming.  Unfortunately the lake wasn't pure white yet, due to the high rain fall, but it was still spectacular (and hot)!

We also went to Hardy Falls in Peachland.  It was very luscious in the park and there were trees in bloom with white flowers covering them which made the air smell just amazing!  There had been a rock slide next to the water fall at some point which blocked the bottom of the fall from view, but I still took a couple photos although they weren't as stunning as I was hoping for.

More to follow later...

Okanagan Trip

We just got back from an amazing trip into the Okanagan!  The fam and I went away for a week long vacation to OK Falls (which is located between Oliver and Penticton) and had a great time!  The scenery there is spectacular and so completely different from what we have here on the Island that I got a little trigger happy and shot just shy of 800 frames in six days.  Needless to say, I have a lot of editing to do now!  Some of my more memorable moments were doing a sunset shoot of a farm house built in the 1860's, sneaking some photos of a nesting Red-Necked Grebe, and getting up close and personal with a nest of newly hatched Sandpipers!  I'm one lucky gal :)

I've barely scratched the surface of the editing, so you'll have to be patient with me...but I will leave you this cutie to tide you over.

Stolen Flowers

I "stole" some flowers from my Mom's garden the other day and brought them home to take some pics.  Along with these, I picked a dark purple Iris, but it didn't look so good by the time it got here:(  Here are some shots of the heartier of the two flowers (I'm not sure what they are called...any one know?).

Second Wedding Shoot

Last week, Keri (of Keri Coles Photography) and I had our second wedding shoot of the season at Hatley Castle.  It was only a two hour shoot, so we were a bit pressed for time, but I think we did well! 

Here are a few samples:

Wedding Shoot

I had my first wedding shoot of the season last week and it was tons of fun!  I back-up shoot for Keri Coles Photography.  Keri is a fantabulous photographer and I can't wait to see the shots she got:)  It was an eight hour shoot, so we were pretty tired by the end, but we had a wonderful day!   The bride and groom were so great to photograph and made our job a whole lot easier!  (And, I loved the bride's dress, she looked so gorgeous!)  We have another wedding tomorrow so I can only hope it goes as smoothly as this one did.

Here are some of my favourite shots:

Rainbow Drops

I've been wanting to try this for a long time and I finally got around to it today.  Let me know what you think:)

China Beach

I took a few snappity-snaps when we were out at China Beach this past weekend and thought I'd share :)  On a side note, I have two wedding shoots this month (back-up shooting) and a family portrait session next month, I'm very excited!

Raptors

Editing of my raptor shoot is now complete!  It sure takes a lot longer to process images when I only have nap times to work, but that's ok!  I had a great shoot last weekend and got a ton of shots.  I only wish it had been a bit overcast so that I didn't get such harsh shadows.  Overall, lots of fun though!  I think the barn owls are my favourite:)  To me they always look like they're smiling! 

I use my ol' Nikkor 75-300mm lens when I'm shooting birds.  It's an old push/pull lens but it does the trick and is sharper than my newer Sigma lens of the same focal length (which I have now sold because I never used it).  If I had the money I would definitely buy a nice big, fast lens, but for now I'll make due with what I have.

Here are some of the shots, feel free to let me know what you think!

If you want to see the rest please go to my site: http://emilymacdonald.weebly.com/raptors.html

Raptor Shoot

I had a wonderful raptor shoot yesterday so I will upload the pics once I have them processed!  Have I mentioned how much I love birds of prey?!?!  They are so majestic!  And, my camera loves them too heehee!

P.S.  The whale from the previous post sadly died of starvation:(

Grey Whale

A grey whale washed up on shore out in Sooke over the past weekend, so of course I had to go take a look. It's not very often, if at all, you get the chance to get up and close with one of these giants.  It was sad to see one dead, especially one so young, but it was a great learning experience.  There's still some discussion between the biologists as to what caused the juvenile male's death, but one of the more prominent theories is that he was attacked by orcas.  He has big parallel gashes on his body that are the calling signs of orca bites.  Although I can't help but wonder why they didn't finish the job?  Apparently there was a grey whale spotted in the area over the past 12 days...my guess is that he was sick, but obviously I'm no expert.

There were lots of kids out there looking at him.  Two school busses over the couple of hours I was there and tons of parents with children.  If my daughter was in school, I would have pulled her out to go there.  It was really neat seeing the baleen close up and all the barnacles on his body.  I heard some kids say his skin felt like plastic, but I didn't touch him.


It was hard to get any good shots since it was so busy down there, but here are some of the ones I did get: