Winter Wonderland Weekend – part one

We got away this past weekend for a belated 5th anniversary mini vacation. We’re lucky to live close enough to Whister (gorgeous home of the 2010 olympics) that we can easily escape there for a weekend of R&R.

So, our little guy had a weekend of grandparent surfing (thanks Grandma’s and Grandpa’s) and Belle (our dog) and Kev (the husband) and I (I) headed off for a snowy retreat.

We stayed at a beautiful place called Nita Lake Lodge and the plan was basically to do as little as possible! RELAX! Slow down the hectic pace of every day life and just BREATHE. It was grand.

Kevin was happy to hunker down and have a movie marathon and I really wanted to play with my camera this weekend and experiement. I’ve been meaning to explore it forever as I love photography.

So please indulge me as I share some pictures of our fantastic getaway.

First up, the lodge. Our room was a ‘one bedroom lake view’ and was like a little mini suite. Gorgeous! It faced Nita Lake and the view from our room was spectacular.

bedroom – love the dark colours.

What a grand bathroom entrance! And the floors had under tile heating. I’ve always wanted that!

The tub was a huge soaker and you could soak and look out past the bed at the view. Which was….

aaaahhhh.

Here are a few shots, first of the entry (and Belle waiting for Kevin – such a daddy’s girl). I love those armoirs and inside the first one was a little kitchenette – complete with granite countertop! The second image is the main living area.

I love westcoast style interior design.

The first evening we relaxed, ordered room service and watched “Crazy Stupid Love” (so funny). Then I went out on to the deck with my (well, my friend’s) tripod and played with the settings on the camera. I have a Canon XSi and external flash. I tried various combos of the two and did a bunch without flash as well. I love pushing the camera to see how far I can go with it (without the flash). It’s such a challenge and so fun. Here are a few of my favourite photos from the night.

I’ve put the camera settings below each for anyone interested. The first and last shot were taken with my 18-55 mm lens and the ones inbetween were taken with my 50mm fixed lens.

let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!
(Flash, iso: 400, ss: 1/60, fstop: 3.5)

Bokeh!
(Flash, iso: 400, ss: 1/60, fstop: 2.8)

I love how the snow looks like little sparkles.
(Flash, iso 1600, ss: 4 secs, fstop: 7.1)

And here is the SAME shot but with different settings.
(NO FLASH, iso, 1600, ss: 13 SECS, fstop 7.1)

It creates such a different feeling doesn’t it!? Such interesting light.

I love this last photo as it was taken at around 11pm in the pitch dark yet you’d never know! With the camera on the tripod I turned OFF the flash and set the camera to 1600 ISO with an fstop of 7.1 (same as the above shot). The shutter speed was set to 25 seconds (almost twice as long as the image above).

So that was the end of Day One! Already relaxed (after only about 6 hours up there) I went off to sleep excited about Day Two. More to come tomorrow!