Winter Wonderland

Over the Christmas holidays I took another trip to the Bruce Peninsula and ultimately Tobermory. Three of us started out on the morning of Dec 28, taking a "scenic route" beginning on Hwy 6 towards Owen Sound. North of Durham we found ourselves driving through an area that had recently received a thick blanket of snow. We spotted a small bridge and creek only a few meters off the highway. It was the first stop of the trip and well worth it.

Just off the Beaten Path


Winter Creek


A little farther on, we decided on another quick stop, this time at Inglis Falls just south of Owen Sound. I think Inglis is one of the most picturesque falls in Southern Ontario. I had never visited there for photography in winter. I made a few quick exposures before we continued on ...

Inglis Iced Over


Inglis Frozen Downstream


... more from the trip in the coming days.

DJE

Photo of the week 2010-12-27

Christmas 2010 - Jessica's Reach


Children are such great photographic subjects, just follow them around or watch them for a while and you are bound to be presented with a photographic moment.

Jessica was unsure of the me with my camera watching her during family Christmas celebrations this year. After a short while she went on with the things that young ones do at these gatherings, paying only sporadic attention to me. That's when the moment occurred ...

... no worries, all the decorations are fine, Jessica's mom was close at hand to watch over her, and the decorations.

DJE

Photo of the Week 2010-12-20

... another image from my visit to the Bruce Peninsula.

Big Tub Lighthouse


Tobermory virtually shuts down after Thanksgiving, at least as far as I could see when I was there last week. The hotels, resorts and restaurants were for all intent and purpose "closed for the season".

After posting images, I received several comments from friends who were intrigued about photographing on the Bruce Peninsula in winter. Most had visited during warmer weather to capture the glorious sunrises and sunsets, and the scenic beauty of the Niagara Escarpment along Georgian Bay. I too was captivated by what this area has to offer ... a return in the heart of winter is in order.

DJE

Photo(s) of the Week 2010-12-13

Normally I'll have an image in mind when I make plans to visit a specific location. Even if I have not been to the location before, I've likely checked it out on the internet and searched for images by other photographers. So when I took a vacation day this past Friday to visit the Bruce Peninsula, I was looking for a crisp clear sunrise shot across Georgian Bay with a rocky shoreline in the foreground.

Although the Bruce is easily accessible by car from Guelph where I live, the challenge is to be there early enough to capture sunrise when the drive can be 3 hours or more. So with another photographer, I set out and knocked off most of the drive Thursday evening before grabbing a motel for the night.

I have not visited the Bruce Peninsula extensively but from searching online I have a general familiarity with some of the more popular locations for photography. There are a number of locations where we could have set up for the shot I wanted and we decided to make our first stop at Cape Croker, specifically the lighthouse at the tip of Cape Croker. We arrived just after 7:00 am and weren't in a hurry because there was thick cloud cover and intermittent heavy snow and high wind ... we knew there would be no spectacular sunrise this day.

So what do you do when the elements do not cooperate and your planned shot is scuttled ?
... you capture what you are given.

Here I present a series of images from that first stop of the day:

rocks & wave


Cape Croker - waves 'n shore


cold wave


DJE

Photo of the Week 2010-12-06

I was doing some printing and framing over the weekend to fulfill some requests for images as gifts for Christmas and Lynn asked me to print another one of these. The first one I framed and it hangs in the house where it frequently reminds me of our wonderful trip to Quebec City in 2009.

Quebec Streetscape


Lynn and I were relaxing after dinner on Sunday and she remarked that her favourite images of mine are the ones when she was there and can recall experiencing the scene first hand. It's an interesting point. I guess that's why I love going back through my image library. There are thousands of images. Every one brings back the emotion of experiencing the scene when I first made the image.

That can be something easily lost with the medium of digital photography ... the images are archived to disc and not printed out or viewed after that. Whether it's by the photographer, a family member or friend ... images should be experienced and enjoyed. Unless the photographer takes the time to go back through the library ... or to load them to a computer screen saver ... or best of all to print and display, the joy from one's own images can be lost .

Photographers, make sure you go back through the library, digital or analog, enjoy your images. Print them. Load them on digital frames. Post them on the interwebs ... I do and I enjoy.

DJE