Photography Archives - E & S Photography - Winnipeg Drone and Camera Photography

Jasper National Park Road Trip

Over the April long weekend in 2019 we decided to take a whirl wind trip from Winnipeg to Jasper National Park located in Alberta. We packed up our camera get in the Forester and headed out at 4 AM on Good Friday.

14 hours later and after a few quick stops, we were in Jasper National park, enjoying the majestic Rocky Mountains. If you are from the prairies or have grown up on flat land most of your life, this is the greatest feeling in your life… Texture.

Once arriving in Jasper first order of business, check into our hotels, then go find something to eat and drink!

Not much can be said about our hotel, it was a very tired travel motel called Maligne Lodge, lets say over the next two nights it was very loud, and would probably recommend booking somewhere else. That being said, it was cheap and a place to stay.

Once checked in we proceeded to find food at a local watering hole called De’d Dog Bar and Grill. The drinks were great and the food was not bad, prices were reasonable for the Jasper area as a resort town.

Next day, we met up at the Other Paw Bakery for a coffee and headed out to Maligne Canyon hiking trail. Our goal on on this adventure was to go from the main parking lot, down to 6th bridge and back up.

We packed our cameras and gear and headed out to the trail head, it was a lovely clear sky and crisp day in Jasper National Park, the perfect day to hike and tour. Arriving at the Maligne Canyon trail head, we geared up and started the decent down to the 1st bridge.

The trail was muddy in spots and still frozen streams made for amazing pictures, we eventually found a flowing water fall of spring run off and spent an hour or so taking pictures.

We then proceeded down to the 5th bridge, stopping to take pictures and just enjoying the wild mountain air. The trails were not very busy and allowed for us to take our time, get great pictures and relax. What an amazing day!

After a great morning of hiking, we loaded up into the Forester and headed up to Maligne Lake, a short 30 km drive from the Maligne Canyon trail head. The roads were wonderful and clear, with towering mountains and vistas all around. Once arriving at the lake, it was like traveling back to winter. The entire lake was frozen, with breath taking views of all the mountains.

What a treat, we took some pictures, walked around and enjoyed the fresh clean mountain air. After we headed back towards Highway 16 East and went to visit a small lake which looks like emeralds. As you can see in the picture below it was just stunning.

As you can see, it was a long day and we were all ready for a beer, some good food and to relax. So we headed back to Jasper and grabbed dinner at Jasper Pizza Place, it was very good wood fired pizza. We enjoyed a beer and headed to bed as we had to leave back to Winnipeg early in the morning.

We had a great trip as you can see, and will be back again in the near future. What have been your experiences in Jasper National Park? Where should we go next? Let us know by contacting us today OR on social media. Stay tuned for our next article!

Wedding Photography

Are you getting married? Looking to capture your special day without blowing your budget? We are here to help! Let us capture your special day with our new wedding photography packages.

Our packages start at $1500, and include 2 photographers! Other options are available including live streaming and drone photography.

Click here to find out more about them.

Don’t see something that fits your budget? Looking for something different? Please contact us and we will be happy to help and make the perfect package for your special day.

The Power Of Nature

This article might be a bit of a deviation from our standard material, but bare with us as we discuss the philosophical side of photography and the Power Of Nature.

Over the past few years of wandering Canada and taking landscape photos, Ewelina and myself have learned something very important. Our need to be in nature, is what inspires and drives us to do photography.

First maybe a little bit of background is required, to help you understand how we got into photography. I have always loved nature, growing up camping and traveling as a kid, nature was important, but at that time I was probably too young to appreciate it fully. Fast forward 20 years, now in my mid 30’s, Ewelina re introduced me to nature, hiking and being outside. It filled a part of my soul that I had not known was missing, in the day to day rat race to get ahead.

From those trips, spawned the passion of photography, to capture the beauty and share it with friends and family. This ironically turned photography into the main driving force for us to get out into nature, travel and see the hidden beauty outside.

But why is this important?

Being in nature has helped us reconnect with the earth, ourselves and each other. After a long week of hard work, sitting, working on computers and life’s typical stresses we found the best way to de stress was to walk in nature.

This has been key to keeping our sanity in our busy day to day lives trying to start a family and get ahead.

An additional side effect has been the new found respect we have for the earth, environment and our role within it. Humanity has done significant damage, and if we ever hope to restore our planet we all need to reconnect with our role within nature.

As you can see nature plays a key role in our lives from de stressing, to photography, to wonder and amazement! Even while sitting in an office or pondering what is next, I an look outside and be amazed at the wonder which nature brings to us and it inspires Ewelina and myself to do more traveling, take more photos to share our experience with everyone who visits our site and social media platforms.

Why?

We do photography because we love nature, plain and simple.

There is nothing else to really say, we love nature, and photography brings us back to enjoy nature every weekend, every day and hopefully for the rest of our lives.

How do you enjoy nature? Why did you get into photography? Let us know we would love to hear from you!

Tenba Bags DNA 11 Messenger Bag Review

Hello everyone! It is that time of year again, when we review a new great product that we have used in the field. Today’s review is the Tenba Bags DNA 11 Messenger Bag.

Initial Impressions

This messenger bag was chosen after many months of research looking for a new highly portable bag when traveling or doing photo shoots. The requirements for this product were the following:

Lightweight and rugged
Good build quality and warranty
Easy to access camera and lenses
Can hold 1 full frame DSLR + 2 lenses
Can hold our DJI Mavic Pro along with the camera and lens.
Can hold a small tablet or laptop.
Weather proof

After looking through many products we settled on the Tenba DNA 11 Messenger Bag. It met all of our initial requirements and more!

After Use

With any product we review, we want to make sure it is used in normal situations such as hiking, wedding photography and day to day use. After about 3 months of use the DNA 11 Messenger Bag has shown us just how versatile it is!

For its small size, the Tenba DNA 11 Messenger Bag is ideal for day to day photography needs. Inside we can fit our Nikon D750, with our ultra wide lens and another lens, along with filters, iPad, adapters, batteries and our DJI Mavic Pro! You can see in the photo below, all the items which will fit into this bag, it is a one stop photography shop.

Tenba DNA 11 Bag and Everything It Holds

I am sure you are now thinking, oh well now it must weight alot and not be comfortable. I would have agreed without testing it, you can carry this bag for hours and day without any discomfort thanks to the grippy shoulder pad, and optional waste wrap strap to keep it from swinging around. This made the bag perfect for our trip to Mexico and our daily photography needs, it went everywhere with us.

As you have seen, we have taken this bag, on a few journeys including planes, beaches, and cars. It is rugged! Rain basically runs off the outer bag protecting the equipment, and if it is truly raining you can put on the provided weather cover, which makes it almost weather proof! This is a better feature then most other bags on the market. The bag also has good solid stitching and you can feel the quality just touching it.

Ok so it’s well built and can carry a ton of gear, how easy is the bag to access and get to your equipment? It is probably difficult right? Wrong! The Tenba DNA 11 Messenger bag, is so well designed you can access 90% of your equipment through a top zipper. This allows for easy access into the main compartment, where your camera, lenses, ipad and drone are hiding out. If you really need to open it up, there are 2 quick release straps on the front and military grade quiet Velcro keep it all secure, but easy to open in a rush. There is also a back zipper which gives you access to a misc paper, document and pen holder, perfect for cards and travel documents.

Well that is great and all, but does it actually protect your equipment? You bet! The main compartment is a removable padded container which is strong enough to protect your delicate equipment. Additionally, the quick release straps are in fact secure as well since, then require a slide to unlock instead of an up pop and combined with the Velcro keeps everything locked in place.

So what else can it do? This bag, can do it all, it can hold a device up to 11″ and even has small little areas on the side for a water bottle. We believe the only thing missing is the kitchen sink!

Is there anything it cant do? In our experience this bag meets all of our needs. Our only concern, might be it cannot hold a small Gorilla Pod tripod, but then again, that was never a requirement, and we can use our other backpack for this if required

Tenba Bag In The Field — Tenba Solstice 20L Backpack

Final Thoughts

If you are looking for an ultra portable bag, that can do it all the Tenba DNA 11 Messenger bag cannot be beat! If it’s a little big Tenba also offers other smaller sizes with the same build quality and features. We highly recommend this bag and believe it is a great product.

2019 Update! Where did 2018 go?

Hello everyone,

We wish to apologies for the lack of updates on our blog and website! It has been a crazy end to 2018, but we are back with lots of great pictures, videos, wedding photos and stories to share!

So I am sure everyone has been asking, what have you been up too if you are to busy to update your blog and website? Well that is a great question!

Since our last update we have gotten our feet wet in Wedding Photography, you can see some of our work by clicking here. We would like to send a special congratulations to Mr and Mrs Craig who trusted us with their photos on their special day!

If you have been following us on Instagram (and why aren’t you) we have been to Mexico and posted some lovely pictures! Expect more of them to appear in our portfolio and on our Instagram as well.

We are also in the process of updating our website portfolio and posting more great drone and gimble videos to our YouTube channel! We will update our block once these have been added and posted. For real time updates of course follow us on Instagram or Facebook!

So stay tuned we will be back with more updates shortly.

Random Act Of Kindness - Anniversary Truck Picture

News – Random Acts of Kindness

On our recent trip to Hecla, MB, has inspired us to start a new program called “Random Acts of Kindness”. We all have done something nice to a stranger before, and we all know how good it feels to make someone else’s day. With our passion for photography, and frequent trips around Manitoba (and other locations), we have decided help others capture their beautiful moments.

It all started with the beautiful couple in the picture below – they stopped us on the side of the road and asked us to take a picture of them with their cell phone. Since Sean was just taking pictures of the landscape, he offered to take a picture with his camera. We found out that they were celebrating their anniversary, and they found out that we are professional photographers – they couldn’t have been happier! In the evening we processed their picture and sent it back to them. They were very pleased with results, as they never had such a beautiful picture of their truck before. Knowing that we made their anniversary a little bit more special, made us feel pretty darn good!

We’re looking forward to our next adventure and a chance to make new friends!

If you, or someone you know is looking for a professional photo shoot of their automobile, or any other hobby please send them our way – we promise that you’ll be satisfied with our quote!

Mexico Nayarit – Easter Long Weekend

Hello everyone, we are here writing from lovely sunny Mexico near Puerto Vallarta in Nayarit. We have heard the weather back home is a little cold, so we thought we would share a few pictures to help warm everyone up.

On good friday, we managed to capture this breath taking sunset out on the beach overlooking the Bahia De Banderas.

Sunset Over Bahia De Banderas

The next day we had some fun flying the drone around the complex we were staying and captured this wonderful beach shot, showing the stark contrast between the stand and ocean.

Bahia De Bandera Beach

On Sunday we ventured into Bucerias a little town just north on the bay and enjoyed wandering the quaint streets, the busy of the markets and locals enjoying a 4 day weekend.

Bucerias Street Flags

Today we are heading into down town Puerto Vallarta and hope to capture more amazing images! We will post another blog post shortly, of course if you want live updates, follow us on Instagram or facebook.

Spruce Woods Provincial Park Epinette Trail

This weekend we have the privilege of traveling to Spruce Woods Provincial Park and hiking the Epinette Trail. We have been here previously in the summer and decided that it would be a wonderful trail to snow shoe in winter.

We left mid morning on Saturday, piled into the trusty white BMW and headed west on highway 1 towards Carberry Manitoba. As with any road trip we of course made a quick stop for fuel, snacks and drinks.

The drive out was fantastic, clear skies, dry roads and no rain or snow which was predicted for the day. We eventually got to Carberry and turned down highway 5 and proceeded to Spruce Woods Provincial Park and the Epinette Trail trail head.

We had intended to snow shoe the trail, but thanks to a week of warm temperatures, there was almost no snow to walk on! We put on our boots, strapped on our backpacks and started walking the 1.7 KM to Cabin 2 which we will stop for a break and lunch. Unfortunately due to the wind gusts we were unable to fly our drone, but we did not let that stop us from having fun!

On our way out, we stumbled upon some breath taking views, showing the creek, surrounded by pine trees frozen and locked in winters grasp.

Spruce Woods Frozen

Further down the trail, we managed to get right down next to the frozen stream and take HDR pictures of the water, golden grasses and blue skies. It was just an amazing sight and made one appreciate the beauty of mother nature even in winter.

Spruce Woods Golden Sky

Feeling invigorated we proceeded to finish the hike to the cabin and started a small fire in the wood stove to heat the cabin slightly and just give a warm feeling. We dug lunch out of our packs and enjoyed a small sip of maple whiskey as is our hiking tradition. It was a wonderful stop we even took pictures from inside the cabin and agreed that we will be back in the spring as well to enjoy Spruce Woods.

Spruce Woods Cabin Fire

After a nice break, lovely fire and good food, we packed up and headed down to the stream just north of the cabin. Here we stumbled upon flowing water, surrounded by snow, golden grass and pine trees. We took a variety of photos from different angles and the beauty speaks for itself. Sean also managed to lose a lens cap for his ultra wide angle lens!.

Spruce Woods Spring Stream

Sensing the afternoon was turning into evening, and a 1.7 km walk through snow ahead of us we packed up and headed back towards the trail head and our car. It was a great day in the woods and we will be back here many times to go further down the trails to Cabin3 and even Cabin4.

You can see more of our picture in our portfolio, Instagram and Facebook.

Pinawa Swinging Bridge Through Crystal Ball

Traveling Manitoba – Grand Beach and Pinawa

Thanks to a break in the winter weather, we were able to do a bit of traveling in Manitoba and ended up at Grand Beach and then Pinawa.

Saturday we packed up our cameras and new lenses and headed off to Grand Beach. This would be a great opportunity to fly the drone and test out our new lenses we had picked up earlier in the week. We had a bit of a shopping spree and picked up an Ultra Wide Angle, 35 MM F/1.8, Fish Eye and Macro from Photo Central.

Of course it was also a great chance to use our snow shoes! Hiking through the snow dunes which covered the board walk we were able to get some great drone video of the stark frozen lake, and also took some amazing pictures which can be seen below or all of them in our portfolio.

Winter View of Lake Winnipeg From Grand Beach

We had so much fun outside that we decided on Sunday to head up to the Pinawa suspension bridge. So we charged our batteries, packed our snow shoes and headed out! 1.5 hours later we were there and it was amazing. Cool, quiet and peaceful as you can see from our pictures below.

Pinawa Swinging Bridge Through Crystal Ball

As you can tell it was an amazing weekend! We are now planning our next adventure to CFB Rivers which is an old abandoned military base! Stay tuned and as always contact us if you would like us to take your pictures!

Winnipeg Ice Castles

This week we had the pleasure of going to the Winnipeg Ice Castles located at The Forks in downtown Winnipeg. It was worth the trip and fighting the minus 40c cold.

Our evening started out with dinner at The Forks itself, with a great meal form Kyu Grill in the main area. This area was recently renovated and now includes many restaurants, craft beer and coffee sellers. It was a perfect setting to begin our Ice Castle journey!

Once we completed our meal, we dressed up in our parkas and headed out to the Ice Castles located near the Human Rights Museum. What an amazing sight! Large structures made of frozen water, lit with various colors as you can imagine a photographers dream!

I must admit, I have been having issues with the F-stops and shutter speed settings in dark environments on the Nikon D7000, so some of the pictures did not turn out well. However we did manage to get some lovely shots which you can see below and more of them in the Portfolio.

Ice Castles Ice Cave Lovely

Ice Castles Winnipeg Colors

Ice Castles Sean and Ewelina

If you have any ideas for our next adventure or would like us to help with your project please contact us.