No products in the cart.
pre-production
Beausoleil Island Artist in the Park – First Thoughts
13
Jun
Jun
{map courtesy of Parks Canada}
If you’ve been staying up-to-date with us on Facebook and Twitter you’ll already know I am thrilled and honoured to be invited to be an Artist in the Park on Beausoleil Island in Georgian Bay National Park this summer. I am hugely thankful to be given an opportunity to spend a week on the island to make art in one of the most beautiful locations in Ontario.
As soon as I received my invitation a few months ago my head started swimming with all the things that I’ll need to get in order:
- little to no electricity
- how will I charge the camera batteries?
- or the laptop? – how will I download memory cards?
- what camera filters will I need?
- put together and prioritize my shot list
- meet and greet
- what will I plan?
- which photographs should I bring?
- in which format?
- no fridge or stove, will have access to a barbecue and and ice
- cooler
- what will we eat for the week?
- how will we pack and store my equipment?
- pack list
- are we better to rent bicycles when we get there or should we try to bring our own?
- there are bears
- and rattlesnakes too
I feel like I’m a digital photographer entering into an analog world for a week. It’s going to take a huge amount of planning to get the most out of this trip and I’d like to take you with me through the journey of pre-production to final images.
Have you ever spent a week without electricity or a fridge? What did you eat? Are you a photographer that’s had to download and back-up memory cards without reliable access to power? How did you handle?
ooooohhh this planning sounds like so much fun!! (i’m a great list maker, so this would be perfect.)
and also congrats! the week itself sounds even more fun than the planning!
Thanks Ally! You should see the lists flyin’ around here, you’d be in heaven!
This sounds like a fun experience! Good luck with it 🙂
Would you mind if I shared this link on the FPOE blog- we do a regular Travel feature now. Thanks!
Caitlin
Yes! Definitely spread the word on the FPOE blog. Shoot me an email if there’s anything else you need.
Congratulations Jennifer on being honoured this way. What a fantastic thing!
I have just returned from volunteering for a couple of weeks on a project in Gwaii Haanas National Park on the west coast, with one of my roles to take photographs.
That project was based in a parks cabin with solar power, so recharging batteries and backing up were not such a concern as it sounds for you.
Even so, I bought another 16gig card for the trip (I took 2) and another battery for the camera. I chose to shoot jpegs since I did not have enough cash for lots of cards to shoot RAW. I also took along several USB memory sticks, but not a computer as I knew there would be one there I could back up onto, and use to transfer to the flash drives. Since it is a very wet environment (including salt water) I also stocked up on a couple of packages of rain sleeves. I bought a more or less waterproof back pack camera case as I did not want to be lugging a pelican case through the woods.
In the past I have used a small portable solar recharging kit. We made it up from a small panel and an inverter, battery and other bits and pieces in a suitcase. It worked really well and in those days (20 years ago) it cost about $300 – we used it for radios, camera, light and other batteries, and laptops too.
I only own one digital camera (Canon 5Dii), and most of my lenses are repurposed older ones from film cameras. I took along a Nikon 24mm f2.8, Takumar 35mm f3.5, Canon 50mm f1.4, Takumar 100mm f4 macro and Takumar 200mm f4. For my task I only used the 200mm three times (once for a falcon shot, the others to pull a landscape closer). I did not use the 35mm at all, but the 24mm was a staple as was the 50mm. I used the 100mm macro frequently, for portraits of people working and for close ups of finds and other uses too.
For filters I had a neutral density fader filter (ranges from about 1 to 7 or 8 f-stops) and polarizing filters as well as the usual UVs for lens protection. Lens hoods were important to help mitigate rain on the lens more than anything else. I included a cleaning kit for the sensor (blower and a brush to gentle wipe it if nothing else works, not really recommended, but I have done it before), just in case, and also useful for the lenses.
I took along my heavy tripod, but because it was heavy only used it in combination with the neutral density filter for some long exposures of water. I forgot to bring along a small tripod substitute thingy that straps with velcro to trees, rails and so on, but wish I had remembered as it could have been useful and is highly portable.
Hope this helps. I am just starting to post my pictures from the project, I came back with nearly 2,000 shots (many of them for technical documentation and of little other interest) so it is taking a lot of time to separate the wheat from the chaff.
Good luck with your project. I wish I had been able to only take pictures – I missed a lot of good opportunities because I was busy with other duties, had totally dirty hands or felt guilty taking photos when heavy labour was in progress that I could help with.
Sounds like quite an adventure! A small solar recharging kit is definitely something to think about, I’m adding it to my list of things to research.
Gear-wise I basically know what I’m bringing, I started my pack list from day one. It’s just the little bits like filters that I’m not sure about. I typically don’t use them but I think for this location they may be advantageous so I’m looking into it.
Thanks for sharing such in-depth gear details of your trip! I really appreciate it!