johngreep.com

Haley

John — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 03:48:30 +0000

Heidi and Gary have added a new member to their family. The adorable Haley was a treat to photograph. She was very patient with us as she went through a few costume changes and had to endure the endless flashes.

As you can see, Haley has some great parents that are more than excited that she’s here.

Bella Returns

John — Sat, 19 Nov 2011 05:20:38 +0000

I photographed Bella and her family last year. She’s still a bit shy to start, but it didn’t take her long to warm up to the camera. I mostly gave her some distance and again encouraged her to play. Being a little older now, she responds more to direction.

Glenmore Park on the North side of the reservoir in the fall is a great place for pictures. It was still warm enough and we had a lot of leaves and color to play with. The wind picked up a bit to challenge me on some shots, particularly overlooking the reservoir, but once we got down near the water, we found some relief and a few good places to pose at.

This year’s composite image reflected the fall colors more. The bright playground just added a lot of pop to the photo. Can you count all of the Bella’s? This one is my all-time record for the number of merged photos.
A beautiful fall day in the park is perfect for a picnic. It was nice to relax and finish the session with a delicious lunch together.

Devry Convocation

John — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 20:21:16 +0000

Devry held their 2011 convocation ceremony Saturday in Calgary. I was excited to be the official photographer again this year. The occasion also marked their 30th Anniversary. City of Calgary Ward 10 Alderman and Devry graduate, Andre Chabot, was invited to be the feature speaker.

The portrait session before and after the ceremony certainly kept me busy. I enlisted the help of my daughter to help set up and to organize the graduates for their portraits. She did a great job. She even did a great pose for me on my new backdrop to help me lock in my exposure settings.

Prince’s Island Park

John — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 14:43:39 +0000

A sunny lunch hour stroll with friends around Prince’s Island Park made for fun photographic adventures. One of our goals was to get some softer, long-exposure shots of the river. The bright sun made it difficult to slow down the shutter, even with a polarising filter. I managed some nice shots of the fountain as slow as I could get.

We jumped from one place to the other like it was a candy store. There was so much to photograph, but we only had an hour. One of the guys discovered a leaf hanging from a spider web. It looked like it was just floating there on its own.

I’m anxious to set up another outing. We’re getting close to fall and I want to get out while the leaves are turning colour.

Below are some of my favorites. The whole set is here.

Helaman’s Encampment

John — Fri, 22 Jul 2011 18:57:21 +0000

To celebrate 100 years of LDS scouting in Alberta, Helaman’s Encampment brought together 3000 youth and leaders at Camp Impeesa. The mission was to promote Book of Mormon use, high adventure, increased brotherhood, and have spiritual experiences.

For the week of July 4th to the 9th, each day was packed full of activities for both scouts and venturers. I spent most of my time with the scouts on activities such as swimming, zip-line, tower building, bridge building, rappelling and wall climbing, orienteering, and hiking.

Men Of Truth And Soberness

They were all young men, and they were exceedingly Valiant for courage, and also for strength and activity; but behold, this was not all – They were men who were true at all times and in whatsoever thing they were entrusted. Yea, they were men of truth and soberness, for they had been taught to keep the commandments of god and to walk upright before him.

Alma 53: 20 – 21

Each activity was organized around a theme or story within the Book of Mormon. The wall climbing and rappelling were based around the account of Samuel, a prophet who preached from atop a city wall, declaring the coming birth of Jesus Christ. The people were angry and tried to hit him with stones and arrows, but could not.

Perhaps the most difficult, and most rewarding activity was called “Get thee into the mountain,” significant of the command to a Nephite prophet to ascend a mountain to speak to the Lord. The hike for us to the top of a local peak took most of the day. When reaching the top, we were rewarded with a spectacular view of the valley and surrounding mountains. There were incredibly strong winds near the top that made it difficult to even stand.

Impeesa is in the heart of bear country. Any food preparation and storage had to accommodate that fact. Food was supplied in the morning and evening that we would cook ourselves. Any leftovers that might attract bears had to be discarded. We had several bears come close to camp. During one of our evening firesides, a bear had come within a few metres of the group and had to be chased off.

Each night we attended firesides where we heard from several speakers. Each of them were amazing to listen to and very inspiring, with stories of courage and faith.

Elder Richard K. Melchin (Fifth Quorum of the Seventy)
Edwin Moliki Mulialo (Teachers Quorum and Varsity Scout adviser, former NFL guard for the Baltimore Ravens)
Elder Gifford Nielsen (Sixth Quorum of the Seventy and former NFL quarterback for the Houston Oilers)
President Charles Dahlquist (Former General YM President)
President David Beck (Current General YM President)

By the end of it all, I was pretty well exhausted. We had such tightly scheduled activities that we needed to hurry when preparing and cleaning up meals. The early part of the week was hot and sunny, which was nice, but added to some of the exhaustion. Near the end of the week, we had a small storm blow through, which left the last day a bit cooler and more windy. Coming home was both a treat and a let down. We had such a great time and didn’t want it to end yet, but we were glad to be home.

AJ and Ashley

John — Mon, 25 Apr 2011 23:47:59 +0000

Rexburg, Idaho is a neat town. It’s a bit out of the way for someone just travelling through since it lies a fair bit East of the I-15 heading South to Idaho Falls. If you’re headed to Yellowstone, you may want to drop in and take in some of its charm.

Travelling to Rexburg takes you over the Continental Divide – twice. At these points, the weather is quite predictably bad during the winter. Our April road trip was anything but flowers. From Great Falls, Montana to the Idaho border I had to contend with white-out blizzard conditions, taking care to avoid jackknifed trucks and numerous other vehicles unable to maintain the pavement (including a highway patrol vehicle). We made it without incident and were very pleased to have a dry highway for the return trip.

BYU Idaho, formerly Rick’s College, is probably what Rexburg is best known for. AJ, a Calgary native, has been attending BYU Idaho in the music program where he met Ashley, who is local to Rexburg. So, that is the reason for my travel .

The temple in Rexburg was much larger than I had anticipated. Nothing but an extreme wide-angle lens could capture it close up. It’s a very beautiful building. The outside only hints at the amazing beauty inside.

The weather was still a bit unsettled, so the photos needed to be taken quickly before more snow settled in. It was still quite cold. AJ and Ashley were really fun to work with and were very easy to photograph. The overcast sky also gave such a nice even lighting that, aside from the cold and snow, was ideal for photography.

The reception, just South of Rigby, was also great. Their custom-made cake topper featured Charlie Brown kissing the Red-headed girl. AJ’s sister made a video slideshow that featured part of the Charlie brown cartoon where he’s floating on air after being kissed by the Red-headed girl. It was all a part of their romance story.

Overall, it was just a marvelous time and I was happy to be a part of it!

Winter Frost

John — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 16:00:19 +0000

I had a great day for shooting Hoar frost. A friend and I took advantage of a sunny noon hour to take some photos in the parking lot. The bright sun caused the South facing frost on the sides of the trees and bushes to melt, while the still frigid air maintained the North facing frost. It made for an interesting contrast.

The combination of a zoom lens and and small aperture allows the background colors to really show through without revealing the otherwise unsightly scene. The effect is known as Bokeh. I looked for cars in the parking lot that had nice shades or reflections that made for more interesting background tones.

Some branches formed delicate ribbons of frost, that I suspect was aided by a light wind. It’s just amazing to see.

My whole set of photos can be found on flickr.

Christmas Vacation

John — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 20:06:01 +0000

Christmas is a great time for photos. Our family spent Christmas in a cabin on Mt. Baldy, near Oliver, B.C.. It gave me a lot of opportunity to get out into the snow and take a few photos. I particularly wanted to play with HDR, and I was delighted to find a few subjects that tend to work well in an HDR presentation. My son, William, and I went snowshoeing up to the top of the mountain to take some shots. It’s a marvelous view. It took us just over an hour to get near the top. Being later in the day, we needed time to be able to come down before dark, which is what we did. We got back to the village at last light and made it in the door just as it got dark. One of my favorite photos was of a tree that looked like a giant bird. There are bare spots on the trunks that look like knees, a branch that looks like a head, and great white fluffy feathers.
During the trip back to Calgary, I took some time to stop at a couple of the lakes to get some waterfront shots. The weather was mild enough that most of the lakes are still open, which is odd, since some looked totally frozen over. The beach shot here may seem inviting, but I wouldn’t have ventured to go into the frigid waters. Just a quick look at the snow on the mountains and the barren tree should give a gentle reminder that it was cold that day. It was above freezing, so I went out with just a light vest. I could have used the parka. It was probably for the better. Being cold made me work faster, which was good for my impatient family waiting in the van.

The last great adventure of the day was the heavy blowing snow from just East of Field B.C., right to the city limits of Calgary. It was mostly whiteout conditions for the last hour or so of a 13+ hour trip. I was definitely glad to be home.

Leon & Louise Family Portrait

John — Thu, 23 Dec 2010 16:46:30 +0000

It’s always fun to photograph Leon and Louise’s family. They were celebrating the American Thanksgiving, so they had everyone together, which is difficult to do. They have a nice park behind their home, so the original plan was to do the portraits there. However, just a week before our scheduled sitting, we had our first snowfall of the season. So we reverted to the basement, which still worked out well.
For the smaller portraits, the backdrop works well. The larger groups, I relied on the power of post-production. The simple background made it easier to fix so that it extended to cover the area I wanted.
For this shot of the boys, I wanted a more HDR look, so the backdrop didn’t matter as much anymore. I think it turned out great!
Photographing the children is always the most difficult. They had a great playset that I could work with. The idea is to at least try to make it seem, to the children, like it’s just play time. Getting them on the playset is easy. Getting them all looking at the camera at the same time is the hard part. Again, post-production to the rescue. I took as many as they could stand and then, after the best photo was selected, I was able to photoshop good faces from throwaway shots onto the selected photo. See if you can figure out which faces were replaced in the photo of the children. I’ll give you a hint: only two were replaced.

Brent and Carol Wedding

John — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 23:24:37 +0000

I had an exciting opportunity to be with Brent and Carol when they were married in Regina Saskatchewan. We had considerably better weather than at their engagement photo shoot. Also, after so much driving last month, the trip to Regina didn’t seem as long as it might have.

We only spent about an hour at the temple doing family photos, some formals, and the composite shot. I love doing composite shots. They are so much fun when you’re letting them be spontaneous and silly in a bunch of different ways. It seems a bit odd to them at first, but when they see the results, it’s always exciting for me.

The rest of the formals were done at the park in Moose Jaw. One of the groomsmen is wheelchair bound, so it was a neat challenge for me to compose the shots in a way that was inclusive, yet still flexible in showing the beauty of the park. Her little sister was certainly a feature in a lot of photos and is cute enough to steal the attention of everyone. She’s very shy, but absolutely opens up in front of the camera. At the reception, during the dance, I got down on the floor and all the kids just loved that. It was so fun.