J. Whyte Photography

No trip to Rome feels complete without a stop at the Pantheon, and it’s one of those rare landmarks that actually lives up to the hype. Tucked into a lively piazza full of cafés and street life, the Pantheon somehow manages to feel both central and timeless. One minute you’re dodging scooters and espresso cups, the next you’re standing inside a 2,000-year-old building that’s still doing exactly what it was built to do. For photographers, the Pantheon is an absolute dream—especially because of the light. The massive oculus at the top of the dome is the only natural light source, and it changes the mood of the interior constantly. Late morning and early afternoon are especially great for photos, when sunbeams cut dramatically across the space. A wide-angle lens works best here to capture the scale of the dome, but don’t forget to zoom in on details like the patterned marble floors and the intricate coffers overhead. If you want cleaner shots, aim for an early morning visit. The crowds ar...

I recently did a quick trip to the almost ghost town of Travers, Alberta.  Like many small towns in Alberta, in Travers there is still life amongst the abandoned buildings and the wildly overgrown grasses and trees. The town strangely incorporates two worlds, one of the living and one of lost memories.   Travers wasn't always dying. Travers was once a boom town along the Canadian Pacific railway. Three grain elevators were built, including the first in 1914 by the Home Elevator Co. Later a UGG elevator and an Ogilvie elevator were added to the elevator row.  Sadly, the last of the grain elevators was demolished in 1989. As Travers grew, the intrepid newcomers built a bank, barber shop, butcher shop, harness shop, two hardware and lumber yards, blacksmiths, livery barns , restaurants and boarding houses, garages and machine dealers, three grocery stores, pool room, men's clothing store, hotel and real estate office.   Not much is left today. There are a few abandoned ...

There is good photography advice and there is bad photography advice. The difference between good and bad often depends on who is receiving the advice, because everyone is in a different situation.  What works for some won't work for others. And in many ways, I think the advice from professional photographers often translates poorly for enthusiasts who only go out when they can.  Pay for Photography Experiences and not New Camera Gear  It's pretty common to hear a photographer / influencer explaining to their audience why it's better to save up money to pay for photography experiences than spend those extra dollars on new gear.   Usually, we are being told this by an influencer who is standing on the deck of an Antarctic cruise ship right after returning from photographing penguins on a glacier.   And look, I get it. It makes a certain amount of sense. If you only have a limited amount to spend, then it makes sense to allocate as much as you can to getting o...

Close to the Alberta border is a lovely little (almost) ghost town named Loverna.   In fact, I think its one of the most interesting lost towns on the Canadian prairies and one I hope to visit again sometime soon.   Loverna is located about 50 km northwest of Kindersley  at the intersection of  Highway 772  and  Range road  290.  In Loverna, you will find old abandoned storefronts, abandoned churches and abandoned homes.  In fact, it has a church that was abandoned as a church and converted to a home and then abandoned as a home - an abandoned church house!  Loverna's history is directly tied to the railway system that was designed to gather and move grain and oilseeds produced by farmers on the prairies.  Originally, the  Grand Trunk Pacific  went through town as it was completed in 1913 and connected Biggar, SK to Hemaruka, AB. The line was planned as a thorough route, but changes to the design of the network of tra...

Whether you are a travel photographer or any traveller really, its nice to have that one place you always visit when you return to a city or country.  For me, revisiting and photographing places over time reconnects me to past memories, building layers of perspective one on top of the other. Sometimes if feels like I am building a single memory that extends over decades of time. Perhaps a better way to explain it is that several distinct memories blur into a single memory, you know when you can't quite put your finger on which visit that was?  Its a strange thing, but for me its familiarity and nostalgia rolled into a memory and the anticipation of future visits. Sometimes I am alone, sometimes with my family. But always with my camera.  So, I have this one place in London, England that I always visit when I am there. Every time I have visited London, I have gone there, paid the small fee to enter, climbed the stairs, sat in the pews and listened. I plan to visit this spo...

Calgary has a number of brutalist buildings. In fact, the city came of age at a time when brutalist architecture was popular, and so we have religious buildings, education buildings and many office structures spread around the city.  One of the acknowledged brutalist landmarks is Nelco Square.  Nelco Square was completed in 1979 in the community of Franklin. According to Heritage Calgary , Nelco Square is considered "a  superb example of a late Brutalist-style office building in Calgary."   Designed like many brutalist buildings, Nelco Square has a multi-story building plan with the higher levels wider than the lower ground level floor. Nelco Square also has "symmetrical fenestration separated by pronounced vertical window fins at the top storey and decorative concrete panels with embossed rectangular motifs" while the "lower recessed two storeys have exaggerated pilasters and minimalist ribbon windows."  (Source, Heritage Calgary) Discovering the  Mystery...