Weather and HDR Crash Course with David Nightingale

Yesterday was an interesting day.  I scheduled time off work to attend the HDR Crash Course workshop by David Nightingale.  It was an awesome, quick, down and dirty intro to Photomatix.  I've been using Photomatix for about a year and a half, but still did not know what all of the sliders and controls were for.  He really explained those quite well.  He even gave some tips on clearing up noise, how to better read histograms and a few other things. I also met some other photographers interested in HDR taking the course. They all were very talented and I enjoyed talking with them. Dave Wilson organized this whole thing and he did a great job!  Thanks to both Daves!  Today and tomorrow, David Nightingale is putting on his advanced two-day post-processing course with instruction in Photoshop.  I would've really liked to have attended this as well, but it didn't work out this time.  If he comes back, I will have to find a way to get to it.

Another thing about yesterday was that our class was supposed to start at 9:00am.  However, we received a little snow here the night before and the course had to be pushed back a couple of hours.  No biggee because a portion of the time was allotted for heading to the capitol and shooting there.  We ended up shooting just across the street from where the course was located.  This made it really a crash course.  However, I don't feel as though I missed out on anything.  It was still worth it!  One good thing about the snow is that it closed down a LOT of businesses including mine, so it looks as though I didn't have to take time off after all!  Pretty cool!

Inside the Peak 2 Peak Gondola

This shot here is from the inside of the "Peak 2 Peak" gondola that spans Blackcomb and Whistler Mountains in Whistler, BC, CA.  It's a huge gondola holding upwards of 28 people or so and holds all kinds of records.  You don't even have to ski to ride it.  I think it was made for the Olympics in 2010 so it's still quite new!  The views from this thing are spectacular as well.  Also, once in a while, when the clouds are low, you can end up going through clouds which makes you unable to see anything and gives a weird sensation of floating.  Oh, and one other thing... they have a couple glass bottom gondolas that allow you to see everything below as you are riding.  Some friends that went with us to Canada took it and really loved it.  If you ever get out there, I highly recommend trying it out!