There are different ways to greet the sun when it rises in the morning. Some prefer it with a shot of rum, others by doing yoga. I prefer the shot, with my camera. The important thing is to arrive at an interesting, lonely spot, way before the sun even thinks about rising above the horizon.

The horizon is easy to find, out in the open. If you have a large body of water at your disposal it will be even easier. By the way, you don’t have an excuse for a crooked horizon this time.

Read more: Sun salutation

Many times I hear from professional photographers that you have to have some kind of symmetry in your pictures. Why? "Well, it is better” is the answer. To what is better or not in my pictures I have no answer. I am not an art photographer, although some of my pictures hang on people’s walls. I try to record what I see and what moves me somehow.

I believe that if I don’t have a story or some mood for a picture, the picture will usually not see the light of day outside my Lightroom catalogue. Believe me, I have lots of pictures in there. But sometimes, just sometimes, the picture is good enough to be shown for one reason or another. Often it is to illustrate a story, not so often it is the picture that induces the mood.

Read more: Mood and symmetry

What do you get when you create a group of 16 photographers and go out shooting in the night? Fantastic shots everywhere and a lot of fun. Last week I went with the Manitoba Foto Friends to Riding Mountain National Park. When I mention a park, many people around the world have no idea what a park in Canada entails. Imagine that this park is about as big as… say… the city of Paris plus the suburbs.

So there we were, shooting our hearts out on the shores of Clear Lake in the park. The evening kicked off with a pretty sunset.

Read more: A night in the park

Over the last few years I have been asked many times about how I take my night shots. Mostly if it depends on the camera, the settings, the lenses and what not. Usually I don’t really answer the question. Because there is no real definitive answer.

What I can talk about is how I started out and what has become of my view of the night sky and night vision.

Read more: Acquiring night vision

This hasn’t happened a lot lately. Having a job, a home to care for and lots of other things to do that arrive without warning, free time seems to be in short supply. So when the opportunity arises, I take it with both hands.

Last week we went for a short drive into the Whiteshell Provincial Park. Nothing fancy, just starting at Rennie and finishing on the other end of highway 307. When we arrived at Brereton Lake, we thought it would be full of people, swimmers and so on. After all the summer has been quite warm. Unfortunately, the recent t-storms have rendered the water pretty cold. As well as a bit murky.

Read more: An afternoon off

It sounds like the title of a song. It might as well be, when the time from dusk till dawn is spend inside Winnipeg, shooting… For many people, being outside during the night is a “sin”: you should be at home, be with your family and enjoy the homely life. For photographers, this enjoyable, indispensable part of life must inexorably be supplemented with time outside. With a camera, of course.

While I don’t consider myself a photographer, that is, a professional one, I do like to go out during the night, shoot all kinds of cityscapes and landscapes and then come back to the comfort of my home.

Read more: From dusk till dawn

We’ve all experienced this. Early morning, you get up, taking care of Nature’s business and you look outside to see… nothing. Everything is white and no way to see a hand in front of your eyes. Well, maybe I exaggerate a little here, but you get the idea. My usual reaction to this phenomenon is to get back to bed. Sometimes, however, the opportunity is too good to pass up and I go outside instead.

The last time this happened, my cat had woken me up, triggering nature’s calls and a serious invite to feed the furry animal. After that was taken care of, I looked outside and thought to myself: “Self, you should go outside and shoot some of this!”. So that’s what I did.

Read more: Early morning dampness