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Back to the outdoor shooting after last week's indoor shoot in Guelph ...
As winter recedes and spring struggles to make it's presence known, the sun moves it trajectory further north with each turn of our wondrous blue-green orb. Spring has only just arrived and the bright, blazing, ball disappears on the very edge of our little bay. Very soon we will not see it dip below the horizon from our cozy shore, then before we know it ... summer will be upon us.
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| Easter Sunset 2016 |
DJE
Every once in a while it's good to exercise creative muscles. When it comes to my photography, that means shooting something different from time to time. To help me work more of this into my shooting schedule, I've committed to attending more of the presentations and outings made available through the two photo groups I belong to. One recently provided an opportunity with generous access to a prominent Guelph landmark, the Basilica of Our Lady Immaculate. The opportunity to revisit some architectural and documentary photography provided some of that much needed excercise and a break from the nature and landscape photography that I have enjoyed over the past months.
In the days leading up to the outing, I pondered what approach I would take, how to capture something different, and what gear, particularly lenses I would use. Photographing the expansive interior of this iconic church proved to be a great opportunity to give my wide angle eye and respective lenses a bit of a workout.
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| sanctuary |
I made this image with an 8mm fish-eye on the 7DII standing literally with my toes bumping up against the step to the sanctuary. In this situation, I felt that the distortion created with the fish-eye conveyed the sense of grandeur in this space.
DJE
I've been down with a cold since last weekend. Finally starting to feel better by Saturday, I had to play catch up with preparation for our kitchen reno that starts on Wednesday. That meant clearing out the garage to make space for our old cabinets to be stored until they head off to a new home and making sure we were prepared to take delivery of new appliances in about a week. This left little time or energy for a photo outing this week ... so it was back to the photo library.
While having coffee Sunday morning, I started browsing back through my photo library and wondered what I was up to last year at this time. I checked and came up with an interesting image from a morning drive where I was racing sunrise.
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| mystic morning |
What I was doing was racing to get to a decent location with an interesting foreground, before I lost the colours and patterns in the morning sky. If I recall correctly, I was on my way in to the office for work, having chosen the more leisurely backroad route. When I noticed the sky, I re-routed a bit to a location I had visited before at sunrise. I found this old tree and fallen limb at the edge of a farm field and stopped to make the shot. Dressed in casual shoes and pants, I waded through knee high snow in the roadside ditch so I could get a composition shooting over the fence so it was removed from the shot.
I think my shoe came off in the snow a couple of times as I tried to get back to my vehicle. I remember turning on the heater and resting my foot by the vent for a few minutes to warm it up and dry my sock before continuing my otherwise uneventful morning commute.
DJE
'It doesn't look like there will be much of a sunset' ... I said to myself as I cleared the remaining snow from around the BBQ at the front of the cottage as I prepared the grill for it's first use of the year. Everything was in order, it fired right up and after a quick burn to get rid of any unwanted bits and bugs I checked with Lynn. I was a bit early to begin grillin', so I grabbed Murphy to take him for a quick walk.
Along the way, as Murph kept sniffin' and tuggin' to find just the right spot, I saw some colour in the sky through the trees. When I rounded the bend nearing the end of our road, there were a couple of vehicles parked and I thought 'sunset' ! Vehicles often drive down our dead-end road and then back out again, just like Lynn and I had done while we were searching for a place to buy. There are not many public access points where one can easily get to the shoreline on the western side of the peninsula. I suspected the owners of these vehicles knew if was just a few metres (literally 10-20) through the bush at the corner of two properties where they could get to the shore and enjoy one of those glorious sunsets.
Not to be out done, I hurried back to the cottage, dropped Murph off inside and grabbed my camera to head down to the shore in front of our place. There was still half an hour before I needed to start grilling and sun was not down yet.
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| Transitions II |
When I got to the shore, the sun was behind a high cloud cover, but falling towards a narrow slit. Preparing for the instant that it would be exposed and crossing my fingers that the positioning would be right, I made my way along the shoreline looking for the right foreground elements to frame in the exposure. Then it all came together, I had the point of view, I had a foreground, the sun was just about at centre of the slit, bonus, there was a great reflection on the water/ice .... f/22 for the sunburst and 'click' ! Now one more in portrait orientation with that little rock poking our of the ice to add some interest ... 'click' !
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| Transitions III |
It's not quite that easy or simple. There were a few more clicks that resulted in images that were not as successful. But that was the plan and that is how I will remember the experience of capturing my last sunset of winter 2016 (we don't plan to be back until Easter weekend). I will be printing these two large, for the gallery, for the cottage or for home, so the memory will remain.
DJE
