A short film about the spirit of Christmas. Happy holidays!
Daisy yearns to be included in holiday festivities with her family. But what she finds is more enduring…
Credits:
A film by Fritz Mueller and Teresa Earle
Story and editing – Teresa Earle
Camera – Fritz Mueller
Composer and sound designer – Jordy Walker
Daisy’s family – Robyn Mueller, Stella Mueller, Teresa Earle, Bill Earle
Thanks to Jayden Soroka
Filmed in Whitehorse, Yukon
copyright Fritz Mueller Photography 2012
[by Teresa] This month Oolichan Books released The Wind River Variations, a collection of poems by award-winning B.C. writer Brian Brett on his travels on the Yukon’s Wind River. The collection is accompanied by Fritz’s black and white photographs from the Peel River watershed. Our friendship with Brian goes back a decade when we paddled the Wind River together on the Three Rivers Journey. This collaboration has been years in the making, honed over wine and spirited conversation.
[by Fritz] I’m a big fan of a fingerless glove made by Sportees that I depend on for winter photography – so much so that I blogged about it. Over the past year I’ve been doing lots of wintertime night photography. Cold hands have prompted me to further refine my glove system and I’m tickled with the results.
In deep cold I used to wear polypro liner gloves underneath the Sportees gloves, but polypro seems to transmit the cold, is slippery with lenses, gets smelly and hooks dry skin. Last winter I tried a pair of merino wool finger gloves made by Icebreaker, and they’re amazing. They don’t catch on dry skin, and they’re actually warm and pleasant to wear. I wouldn’t have thought that such a small item of clothing could make such a difference to my work, but photography is impossible without happy hands.
For anyone who spends a lot of time shooting in the cold, I strongly recommend this system: Icebreaker’s merino wool Glove Liners under Sportees’ Michie Dog Musher Gloves with chemical hand warmers tucked into the wrist pockets.
[by Fritz] In 2010 I got a call from Parks Canada asking if I could make 65-foot long photo-murals for their new visitor centre in Kluane National Park. I boldly said yes, having just a month earlier read about the new GigaPan Epic Pro robotic camera mount. This device incorporates technology developed by researchers at NASA and Carnegie Mellon University for the Mars rover missions to make detailed stitched panoramas of the red planet.
I was keen to use this technology to photograph Kluane’s oversize landscapes, so I scrambled to buy the device, which had been available for less than a year. I’d never made an image this size before, and I was fortunate to have a client who was open to exploring this with me. The 1,704 megapixel image below of alpine waterfalls in White Pass was a test shot in preparation for Parks Canada’s mural project. It was stitched from 196 photos taken with the 21-megapixel Canon 1DS Mark III. This photo isn’t particularly special, but it becomes much more interesting when you zoom in and explore the water, rocks and plants at full resolution. If you want to view it on an iOS device or the full-screen version go to the link at GigaPan.
In the end we made 7 photographs for Parks Canada – the largest mural will be 46-feet long and 16-feet high and is being printed from a 2,400 megapixel file. The exhibits are being installed this winter – check back in the new year when I’ll share these gigapixel images from Kluane.
There’s gold, and it’s haunting and haunting;
It’s luring me on as of old;
Yet it isn’t the gold that I’m wanting
So much as just finding the gold.
It’s the great, big, broad land ‘way up yonder,
It’s the forests where silence has lease;
It’s the beauty that thrills me with wonder,
It’s the stillness that fills me with peace.
from the Spell of the Yukon, Robert Service
[by Fritz] Last month I headed to Dawson City to shoot the Klondike National Historic Sites for the Canadian Tourism Commission. Most of the talent we pulled in were Parks Canada staff whose jobs had just ended for the season, along with some keen locals and a few tourists. It was supposed to look like a ‘summer’ shoot, but fall was in full swing here in September so we embraced it.
One afternoon we spent some time at Robert Service Cabin. Most visitors to Dawson seek out the home of the famous poet known for his verses about the Klondike Gold Rush. The weather had been cloudy and cold, but while we were there the sun beamed into the historic site. For a short time we were surrounded by magic light and golden fall colour.
While leading us around town on a walking tour, Parks Canada heritage interpreter Fred Osson became Robert Service. By the time we arrived at the cabin, we’d been listening to Fred recite Service ballads and spout off tall tales like Service. I found myself lowering the camera so I could watch the famous bard. I caught myself thinking: this actually is Robert Service, and I really am standing here on the boardwalk in 1903.
It’s easy to think about historic times in monochromatic black and white like we see in the old photos, yet Service’s life was full of colour. That afternoon Fred animated Robert Service’s world for us. Fred is incredibly gifted at what he does, and he took us back a hundred years. We re-created a historic photograph in front of the cabin porch, with Fred teasing us in and out of the past. Oddly, it was 100 years almost to the day since Service left the Yukon for good.
I’ve been to Dawson many times, yet I felt something significant at the cabin that day, like I’d travelled through time and found Klondike gold myself. It was a testament to the power of interpretation.
[by Fritz] YukonWild’s ad in this month’s issue of PhotoLife magazine promotes the Yukon. It’s a pleasure to endorse our wilderness tourism friends at YukonWild, and it’s great to see Yukon being marketed to photographers.
[by Teresa] Each year at tax time when we tally up all the business memberships, we usually have a brief debate about the merits of the various industry and business associations we support. It really adds up, so when you’re looking to trim the fat it’s a logical expense to examine. But we rarely cancel a membership – we believe in the strength of collectives, and most of these organizations work very hard to create value for members.
This year we’ve been watching the work of the Canadian Photographers Coalition, a partnership of CAPIC and PPOC that works to extend copyright fairness to working professional photographers. Canada’s copyright legislation is now being modernized, so the coalition has been very busy over the past year preparing for submissions and presentations and lobbying efforts in Ottawa. Ownership of first copyright on commissioned works is a core issue for image creators; as authors of these works photographers are seeking a small amendment to the new Copyright Act to ensure their rights of authorship are protected.
The Coalition produced a limited edition portfolio featuring 22 Canadian photographers from a range of regions and genres to present in Parliament to Ministers and committees working on Bill C-11. As one of the photographers profiled, we are pleased to have contributed to their efforts to push for copyright fairness for photographers.
[by Fritz] This summer I got a call from Shell Canada and Canadian Geographic to shoot the Kitchen-Kuiack family of Marsh Lake, Yukon. They’re one of six Canadian families competing in The Energy Diet Challenge. For three months Brian, Marguerite, Simone and Marika have been reducing every aspect of their energy consumption in a battle to win a 2012 Toyota Prius.
The busy Kitchen-Kuiack family were only available for two hours and the Shell Canada client was flying in for the shoot. The day before, I drove out to the house to quickly scout the location and meet Brian Kitchen. That day, the light conditions were perfect: overcast with bright open shadows.
Next morning it’s a brilliant, cloudless sunny day and by 8 am it already feels like high noon. When we arrive at 8:45 everyone cheerily points out that the weather is perfect. Not exactly! This kind of light is a photographer’s nightmare, with contrast so high that it exceeds the camera’s dynamic range. We have a long list of shots to cover in less than two hours so we get right to work. My mind is scrambling trying to figure out how to reduce the contrast with the location options we have.
We start with interior shots because it’s easier to manage the light by tacking black fabric over the windows to create an instant studio. I’ve brought my Einstein strobes and Paul C. Buff modifiers – Rob Galbraith has good reviews of this gear. We work through a series of individual and family portraits in the Kitchen’s cozy living room, including Thomas, the agreeable family cat. Because the energy challenge will be in the fall and winter, we light a fire in the fireplace, even though it’s July. I’m already sweating, and within 20 minutes everyone else is too.
Next we move outside, and though it’s a hot sunny day the Kitchens gamely wear jeans and sweatshirts. The locations I scouted yesterday don’t work today in the bright sun, so we change the plan. I’ve decided on a couple of distinctive backdrops where we can hide from the sun behind their sheds so I have more control over the light. I’m underexposing the camera and pumping in light with the Einsteins with 1 CTO gels to create a warm low-sun feel. Whew… less than two hours after we arrived, we’re packing up our gear and saying good-bye.
[by Fritz and Teresa] Last week our first book, Yukon – A Wilder Place published by Greystone, hit bookshelves across Canada. This book has been ten years in the making. Back in 2001, we thought it would be “neat” to make a book about a place we felt passionate about. It turned out to be more challenging than we could have imagined. When you pick up a book, or watch a movie, or walk through a gallery, the finished product looks so easy – like it all just fell into place. Making a book has given us a much better appreciation of how hard creators work!
All along we’ve been driven by a question that we posed to ourselves on a winter night a decade ago: what do we find so compelling about the Yukon? For us this journey has been defined very much by our desire to explore Yukon wilderness. Many of our richest life experiences have been in the northern wilds. We also know that we are incredibly fortunate to live in such a place. Vast, wild landscapes like the Yukon are increasingly hard to find. This week, as we celebrated the arrival of our book, the world population reached 7 billion people. We hope this book helps build appreciation for how special, rare and valuable Yukon wilderness truly is.
Let us know your thoughts about our photos and stories. Better yet, we’d love to hear your stories about the Yukon. What is it that YOU find compelling about the Yukon? If you’ve never been to the Yukon, tell us about your “wilder place”. You can share your thoughts here or on our Facebook page.
Our book is available in bookstores across Canada. Here are some other options:
Fritz Mueller Photography is one of three finalists for the 2011 Corporate Partner of the Year award presented by Canada’s national tourism association (TIAC). It took us awhile to get our heads around what this means, especially since the other two finalists are Montreal Airports and Halifax Waterfront Development Corporation (…does TIAC know how little our business is?).
We love working with the tourism industry and are extremely honoured by this nomination. Here’s what TIAC said: Fritz Mueller Photography (FMP) is the passion of Fritz Mueller and Teresa Earle, two extraordinary Yukoners whose invaluable photographic and literary contributions to the tourism industry have captivated locals and visitors alike for over 10 years. FMP makes an indispensable contribution to the Yukon tourism industry with their passion and dedication to producing extraordinary images and stories showcasing Yukon. This creative team of two is known for their professional product and contagious enthusiasm for our territory, and as a result, literally millions of viewers and readers across the globe have experienced Yukon for the first time through Mueller’s lens and Earle’s words.
The national tourism awards will be presented in Ottawa on Nov. 24 … stay tuned!
