Category Archives: Summer

West Coast

Posted on 08/23/2014 by Jens

This summer we’ve had such beautiful weather in British Columbia. I just spent a week camping on the west coast and exploring the beaches and landscape overgrown with vegetation.

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West Coast Sunset

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Things I Will Miss About Iceland

Posted on 08/02/2014 by Jens

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My three weeks in Iceland and a week in the Faroe Islands has come to an end. On the last night I stayed in Reykjavik and in the morning I had some time to explore the city. I used my tripod and the self timer on my camera to take this self portrait.

On the way to the airport I was thinking about all the things I will miss about Iceland:

  • the mountains
  • the huge glaciers
  • the large number of waterfalls
  • geysers
  • Icelandic horses and their full manes
  • black sand beaches
  • funky churches. The church pictured above is called Hallgrimskirkja and it was designed to resemble the basalt lava flows of Iceland’s landscape. It’s one of my favourite structures in Iceland because of its art deco style and symmetry. It took 38 years to build and has a huge pipe organ inside. I went up into the church tower where there is a great view of Reykjavik.
  • the wonderful Skyr yogurt. Blueberry was my favourite and you can’t get it here in Canada.
  • Kleina which is an Icelandic fried pastry. It is made from flattened dough cut into small trapezoids with a special cutting wheel called a kleinujarn.
  • getting a sandwich at the Sandholt bakery. They are worth standing in line for.
  • listening to the Calm After the Storm by The Common Linnets and Lof by Hjalmar. I can’t stop listening to the song by the Icelandic Reggae band Hjalmar.
  • watching Arctic Terns fly. They can hover like a hummingbird and feed by plunge-diving.

At home I’ve decided to put my images to the side for awhile. I need to take a break and then look at them again with an objective or fresh set of eyes. I will start uploading my favourite images to my website over the next few weeks.

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Treehenge

Posted on 06/22/2014 by Jens

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I woke up early this morning to take some images at sunrise. Even though I was outside at 5:00 a.m. I had already missed the golden light. In this photo, the way the trees have been planted and the design of the benches reminded me of Stonehenge in England. I like how the lights have been mounted underneath the benches. Despite taking over this small  mound, the grass is unable to grow directly under each light. The grass grows right up to the point where it can no longer tolerate the heat from the light bulb. A standoff exists between the grass and light.

After returning home I started to read the Sunday newspaper. There was an article about an individual and it stated that he had a keen interest in photography “…which is known as  a gateway into the wilder world of art”. At first I liked this quote, but the more I thought about it I realized it showed little respect for photography. Is the author saying that photography isn’t considered a legitimate form of art? It seems photography still struggles for credibility.

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The Pacific Northwest

Posted on 08/25/2013 by Jens

The Pacific Northwest is one of my favourite places to spend time with a camera. The rainforest, beaches and beautiful sunsets are incredible. At night, in your tent, you can hear the sounds of the surf and waves on the beach, which is a calm rhythm that helps you to relax and fall asleep.

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Pompei of the North

Posted on 08/10/2013 by Jens

” Travel is about the gorgeous feeling of teetering in the unknown. “ – Gaby Basora

Just off the southern coast of Iceland is a group of fifteen islands formed by submarine volcanoes, known as Vestmannaeyjar or the Westman Islands. I took a ferry to the town of Heimaey and hiked up to the top of the volcano Eldfell.  It was here, on January 23, 1973 at 1:45 a.m., without warning, a 1.5 km volcanic fissure split the eastern side of the island. Over the next five months 30 million tonnes of lava poured over the town of Heimaey and buried 360 houses. As the lava continued to flow it threatened to close off the harbour which would have destroyed the fishing industry. Firefighters hosed the lava with cold seawater and eventually the lava halted 175 m short of the harbour mouth. The lava created more shelter and actually improved the harbour. The picture below was taken from the top of Eldfell and shows the town of Heimaey in the background and the lava field. The Westman Islands are also home to about 10 million puffins who come there to breed.

Eldfell

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Land of Fire and Ice

Posted on 08/07/2013 by Jens

I just returned from a three week visit to Iceland. During my trip I saw beautiful mountains, volcanoes, glaciers and waterfalls. Jokulsarlon is a glacial lagoon that is 250 meters deep and it has huge chunks of ice that break off the glacier Breiðamerkurjökul. Tourists can take a ride in one of the amphibian boats pictured below, but they can’t get too close to the icebergs because they sometimes roll over. I witnessed a number of icebergs the size of a house, slowly start to roll over and it was very impressive. I didn’t take the tour, choosing to save my money and explore on my own. Just me and several hundred noisy and divebombing Arctic terns. You can see more of my images from Iceland and Jokulsarlon in this gallery.

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Turquoise Blue

Posted on 04/28/2013 by Jens

Summer will soon be here and I look forward to exploring western Canada and taking some images with my camera. The beautiful turquoise blue colour of this glacial lake in the Canadian Rockies is caused by the refraction of light off the rock flour which is deposited on a continual basis. I was fortunate to be there very early in the morning last summer.

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Hanging Glacier and Waterfalls

Posted on 03/24/2013 by Jens

Some photographers recommend leaving your images for a few weeks before editing them. If you look at your images to soon after taking them you may not be seeing them with the right amount of objectivity. Recently, I was looking at a portfolio of images that I took last summer in the Canadian Rockies and I came across this photo of some waterfalls next to a hanging glacier. I found it much more appealing now then when I edited my images right after my trip.

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The Joy of Night Photography

Posted on 08/03/2012 by Jens

Shooting images in low light is challenging, but it’s also very rewarding. After the sun goes down the world is magically transformed as the night seems more alive and richly coloured. I have always admired the photos of George Brassai and his 1932 book Paris By Night. He wandered the streets of Paris late at night taking pictures of back alleys, Metro stations and bistros.


© Jens Preshaw

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Celebration of Light

Posted on 07/29/2012 by Jens

© Jens Preshaw

Every summer in Vancouver there is a wonderful fireworks competition where different countries compete against one another. This year the countries competing are Vietnam, Brazil and Italy. As many as 400,000 people come out each evening to watch the fireworks. First up was Vietnam and I was able to capture this image during their show.

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