Photo of the Week 2014-01-27

A "good old fashion Canadian winter storm" resulted in the closure of many highways and county roads in Southwestern Ontario this weekend. Included among them, Hwy 6. The section of 6 from Wiarton to Tobermory was closed by 11:00 am on Friday and my plans to leave for the the cottage after work were reluctantly scrapped in exchange for an uneventful weekend at home. Two amigos that would normally accompany me on a photo outing were down, each with their own afflictions, so I decided to stay very close to home. Actually I barely went out, except for clearing the accumulating snow, occasional walking of the dog and dinner at a new restaurant with Lynn Saturday night. I spent most of my time reading or working on photo projects in process.

One such photo project was experimenting in Photoshop with watercolour effects on some of my images from Italy. Recent discussions with the aforementioned amigos about sketching, pen and ink and watercolours had stirred my interest in creating both conventional and digital versions of select images. This weekend was the time to work digitally.

There is a seemingly unlimited amount if material online for just about anything and watercolour effects in Photoshop are no different. The challenge like everything else on the interwebs is sorting through the crap to get to the useful stuff. I selected a few links and investigated, eventually ending up using one from a UK photographer. His approach was not complicated and after some trial and error, I was able to produce something decent. I'm not sure that I'm completely done with the work on this image yet. It still needs a few tweaks and perhaps a complete re-do from scratch to see if how much I can refine the end result.

morning canal

All in all, it was a great learning exercise and it distracted me from the frustration of not being able to get up north.

DJE

Photo of the Week 2014-01-20

I've been going through my library of images making final selections and printing those that I will soon be putting on display at the Upper Deck Mercantile Gallery in Tobermory. I have arranged for a modest section of wall space at the gallery located on Highway 6 as you arrive in town. Selection of images has been difficult and I'm not sure that I have made all of the final decisions but I'm close.

During the process, I knew I would come across images that I overlooked before but now caught my eye. Here's an example from one evening at Singing Sands a couple of years ago.

evening triad

DJE

Photo of the Week 2014-01-13

coming and going .... coming or going ....

I've been knocked on my butt with some kind of cold or flu bug since Thursday and it keeps coming and going to the point where I don't know if I'm coming or going ...

I've not felt well enough to go out this weekend for photography or anything else for that matter. So here is my image for this week, from an outing last weekend.

coming and going ...

DJE

Photo of the Week 2014-01-06

An annual event, the "First Light Challenge", initiated by a friend several years ago, had me out of a warm bed at the cottage and in -15*C (-25*C windchill) at 7:00 am heading for the exposed platform of the lookout tower 20m in the air at the Fathom Five Marine National Park Visitor's Centre in Tobermory. The object of his challenge is to make an image at precisely sunrise on the first day of the new year.

I knew it would be a tad on the chilly side, so I was bundled up in my winter coat, pants and gloves with balaclava, hat and hood up (I should have made a selfie). I had chosen the lookout tower hoping that there may be a break in the clouds, enough to show some hint of sunrise at 8:06 am. I began my climb of the tower in the relative shelter of adjacent cedars and quickly reached an elevation where there was no hiding from the driving wind. Eyes watering and being very careful not to miss step, I negotiated the frozen creaking metal grate stairs and was in position with 20 minutes to spare.

I set up the 5DIII on tripod and made some images of the surrounding views with both it and the 7D handeld, preparing for the final shot. I had in mind to capture a sweeping wide angle landscape from the high vantage point but without the bright sun and colour of sunrise as a focal point, I changed to a shot of the distant shores of Dunks and Little Dunks Bays with the mist coming of the relatively warm waters of Georgian Bay sweeping over the shore and forest at exactly 8:06 am, January 1, 2014.

First Light 2014 - Tobermory, ON

After the challenge shot, I gathered up my gear, carefully tread back down the tower to the car and headed for another location to capture some more images. Below is a serise of shots from the outing. Enjoy !

Tobermory 2014-01-01

My Perch for "Fiirst Light" 2014-01-01

Waves at mouth of Big Tub

Cold New Year Waters

 

Big Tub Light

Big Tub Light in Mist

Winter Shores

All my very best wishes for a safe, happy and healthy 2014.
DJE