night field trip

Tonight I went up to Burnaby Mountain with my photography class for a night field trip. When I got out of the car I instantly regretted not wearing my snow gear! It was FREEZING cold (at least it wasn't raining!). I went to my trunk - dug out whatever gym clothes I had in there (thank goodness I live out of my car!). Put on nearly 3 layers of clothes and still felt the crisp breeze. :-) Polyester work pants just don't cut it. I was feeling mighty sexy with my work pants tucked into my socks so that my sweat pants could fit over top. I wasn't planning on being infront of the camera tonight so it didn't really matter what I looked like - as long as I could still feel my fingers after half an hour then I'd call it a "good" night. I did use my camera bag as a fanny pack (for the first time) tonight as it was easier to move the tripod/camera around with it like that then having it continuously slip off my shoulder.

It was nice being up there and learning how to take pictures at night. I think that's one of the biggest challenges most of us have. Trying to get the right lighting. Most of my classmates were frozen after half an hour of shooting. We can't really wear gloves and fumble with little buttons on our cameras. It was so cold that some of us tried so share whatever toques/gloves we had with those that didn't have any. :-) Peter (the actor) sang show tunes at one point while some of us danced around to keep warm. He even lent me his toque for a bit so that my ears wouldn't fall off. Oh - the fun times! Actually it's fun hanging with them as we're all bending, crouching, crawling, etc in attempts to get the "perfect" angle for a shot. Plus we all have our own styles of photography so it's nice to look at other people's interpretation of the same scene. Too bad I didn't take any pictures of them "taking pictures" - as it's amusing watching people set up equipment or cope with the elements.

Here's a sample picture from tonight. See more here. In this picture my instructor is actually walking around under that tree and flashing it because it's REALLY dark outside (though you can't tell from the pic). You can't see him in the pic because he's moving. :-) Cool camera trick eh?