Hello and welcome to my website! My name is Benjamin Carnochan and I love photography! I live up at Kennisis Lake of Haliburton County, Ontario where Mother Nature shares her beauty in the many lakes, beautiful scenery, and the wildlife that makes the Haliburton Highlands so attractive.
I grew up and lived in the Haliburton area most of my life with some short trips to Newfoundland and Alberta, but I have always been drawn back to the Haliburton area. I have a deep admiration and appreciation of wildlife and the outdoors. There is really nothing I like better than to grab my camera and go look for the many opportunities to capture pictures of this great area and beyond.
My interests in the arts started when I was very young. I started to experiment with oil painting then slowly merged into watercolours. I always liked paying particular attention to detail when doing my paintings. Capturing detail and perfect composition in any form of art is where one is most rewarded but is also very time consuming. Having this inherent ability to see and appreciate this detail and composition led me to photography where the challenge was to capture that perfect shot every time in a photograph.
I picked up my first film camera, a Fujika 35mm format camera with a Karl Zeiss lens back when I was in Grade 11. I experimented with the camera, taking many bad and some good shots, but more bad pictures. I also experimented with night sky photography, with some really amazing results. The camera followed me into my first year of college where it ceased to work properly. It would have cost me quite a large amount of money to repair it, so I stopped photography for a little while as my student budget didn’t allow for this small hobby.
Then in the spring of 2005 I bought a Canon EOS Rebel Ti 35mm camera with two lenses from eBay and my photography started again in earnest. I continued shooting slide photographs until 2006 when I transformed into the digital world. After moving to digital I have not picked up another film camera since.
I have also been experimenting with a new type of photography called HDR or High Dynamic Range photography where multiple, different exposure shots, are taken with the camera then merged together to produce a more true representation as to what your eye can see. I have produced some Fine Art pieces using the HDR method, one being my 1970 Volkswagen Type 3 Squareback, which can be viewed in the Gallery. Aside from the Fine Art pieces, I rarely change photographs other than adjusting the white balance, contrast, saturation, and exposure to keep the photo as true as possible.
My photography has been published on the front cover of the Haliburton & Area Canpages phone directory for the 2009 year and has appeared in the Highlands Communicator Magazine. My photography note cards are for sale at the Rails End Gallery and Highland Images in Haliburton, Ontario and can also be viewed at the Royal LePage Lakes of Haliburton Real Estate Office at Kennisis Lake, Ontario. If you cannot view the photography in person please feel free to check out my website, make comments on the photo blogs, and check back regularly as the galleries are updated periodically with new photography and information. I hope you’ll enjoy the images as much as I have when taking them!
Ben
