Photo of the Week 2024-04-22

 

' 2024-03-01 18:16:02 '

 

Still on hiatus from normal photo activities, so enjoy another late winter sunset ...

 

DJE

Photo of the Week 2024-04-15

Odd as it may be, I haven't made any photos yet in April. No I was not among the throngs of photographers that shot the eclipse (a story for another time perhaps), and after returning from a golf getaway before Easter, I've been working my way through images made of sunset on March 1st.

 

' burning feather '

' vanes of fire '

' smouldering aftervane '

After capturing images of the much wider scene, I switched camera bodies to one with a longer zoom lens and concentrated on the unique cloud details of this particular sunset.

 

DJE

Photo of the Week 2024-04-08

 

Still working through the shots from sunset in the icy waters of Hay Bay just over a month ago ... 

 

' spring breakup '

 

Breakups are hard ... but saying goodbye to scenes like this for another year are especially tough ;-)

From a series of images made working the sunset on 2024-03-01

Photo of the Week 2024-04-01

 

Spring may have arrived and we may be entering April, but I am still working on late winter images. In particular, I have a set of images from Sunset on March 1st that have me remembering ... reliving ... a glorious display of fire and ice.

 

' sunset on the wing '

DJE

Photo of the Week 2024-03-25

 

From a November sunset session along the shore of Hay Bay, Lake Huron ... and I perhaps a little photo insight into how I spend my time from arrival to conclusion of the shoot.

When it started ...

' 2020-11-07 17:32:20 '

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The end result

 

' 2020-11-07 17:37:13 '

 

 

While waiting for a final flourish, I worked the scene, zooming in to isolate the colourful horizon with and without distant shore references for context.

 

' 2020-11-07 17:33:16 '

' 2020-11-07 17:33:35 '

' 2020-11-07 17:36:03 '

' 2020-11-07 17:36:44 '

... and that's how it goes, for me anyway.

DJE

Photo of the Week 2024-03-18

 

' 2024-02-08 17:23:04 '

Just over 35 minutes of working this sunset resulted in 60 exposures of which I selected 9 to process and publish online. That's more than one might expect, but my recent mindset had been to create a series showing the stages and progression as I work through positional and compositional variations.

While some of the "old school" might approach such a shoot with one or two exposures in mind (hearkening back to their film days), I scout the scene and make note of locations that might present an interesting point of view and work through as many of those as possible in the time I have.

Above is a screenshot of the RAW captures out of camera. Some followers had previously commented that they enjoyed seeing the range of captures I get from a session like this. It began just before 5:00 pm local, and with official sunset at 5:42, I didn't even shoot until sundown :-/ Oh well, it was time for dinner and the warm comfort of the cottage.

 

DJE

Photo of the Week 2024-03-11

 

' morning pink to the west '

I've been processing the backlog of images made this winter and decided to work with a little colour-grading in Lightrroom Classic. Based on some examples I encountered and liked online, I decided to work on my own blue-tone preset to use as a starting point for my processing.

When I applied the preset to this image, there was still a little pink left from sunrise reflecting in clouds to west and I decided that it should stay, subdued though it was.

 

DJE

Photo of the Week 2024-03-04

Wow! 

 

March already! 

Spring will arrive in just over two weeks and it seems like winter never really arrived here in Southern Ontario. That may please some, perhaps even many, but it causes me concern over what the summer may hold in terms of temperatures and water levels. I expect it will be hot, damned hot and dry, damned dry and that there will be complaints about that, likely from the same group that complains about winter, but I digress ...

 

...  I've not had as much "winter" to photograph this year. Though I've had both stints visiting Matt & Claire at their farm and many more at our cottage, it wasn't a "real" winter this year. Facebook has reminded me of that with memories showing deep snowdrifts along the cottage road and a deck drift from 10 years ago the blocked out view of the bay from the picture window.

 

That's not to say there were no winter photo opportunities, they just weren't as dramatic or intense as I would have preferred. Sunsets always provide opportunity for a striking shot. Not every one of course but I do have the fortune of having a place to see regular end-of-day displays.

 

' burning through the ice '

I submitted the image above to a monthly challenge for a photo group and it was selected as the March banner image for their home page.

https://guelphphotographersguild.com/

 

 DJE

Photo of the Week 2024-02-26

' winter's wide expanse '

Enjoying my relatively recent foray into the realm of ultra-wide angle landscapes, I marvel at the way expansive skies are captured. They appear gathered from the edges of sight, pulled into the frame to compliment the earth below, particularly when I'm photographing along the shore near our cottage. Often, as in the image above, the textures in the sky and cloud mirror the patterns and shapes in the rock above and below the waters of Hay Bay.

I'm looking forward to many more outings with the ultra-wide focal lengths and the opportunity to hone my skills while creating compelling landscapes.

 

DJE

Photo of the Week 2024-02-19

 

From my blog post almost a year ago ...

 

"Experimentation is sort of like R&D for my creative mind. It can fuel my inspiration and lead me enthusiastically in new directions or let me wander and simply provide rest and distraction from the normal routine. Once started, an experiment can quickly run it's course, amble on for long periods ultimately leading nowhere, or even pause for a while until the time is right to pick it up again, tomorrow, next week, next month, a year or more from now."

 

... and after a pause of nearly a year, the time was right to pick up again on a creative idea, and experiment, ' Rural Winter '

 

In the intervening months since producing the first small set of images for my 'Rural Winter' series, that creative fire has been smouldering, subtle but always active just below the surface, ready to accept the next charge of fuel, spark up and head off again. I say "that" creative fire because for me there are several, perhaps many fires burning in various stages. 

 

This particular fire sparked to life again on a foggy January morning and I headed out with cameras and a few visual sketches that came together in a handful of images, this my favourite.

' rural winter mist - I '

I hope you like it as much as I enjoyed the process of creating it.

 

DJE

Photo of the Week 2024-02-12

 

' Hay Bay Pano 2024-01-11 '

There hasn't been much snow in my neck 'o the woods this winter and I always look forward to the arrival of the white stuff. We've had a couple of decent dumpings but nothing to establish the winter wonderland that I love so much to photograph.

When I woke to a dusting of new snow at the cottage a few weeks back, I headed down to the shore before the morning walk to capture the scene with it's fresh, thin, pristine white covering. With nothing particularly dramatic to zero in on, I decided to capture the view in 14 separate exposures and then blend them in post to come up with this image.The foreground appears much more dominant in panorama than it truly is, however presenting the almost 180* view is attention grabbing for the impression it conveys.

I've just come back from another visit and it was virtually devoid of snow and ice, a shame since winter is such a beautiful time there. With luck, some type of winter will still pay a visit, even if it's fleeting.

 

DJE

Photo of the Week 2024-02-05

 

' once upon a clearing '

' a place to meander '

 

On my Boxing Day foggy morning walk, I detoured to check out 'the clearing', a magical spot that caught and has held my interest since my first romp though the woods of the Revolve Farms property.

It's not an area cleared of all trees, but certainly it's character is very different from the adjacent woods.

The ground is soft, a considerable portion of it is covered in reindeer lichen and moss that feels quiet underfoot. Clusters of juniper dot the spaces between trees, suggesting that you meander your way around. 

 

 

 

 

On this day, the clearing was particularly mystical. Fog and barren trees combined with a limited colour palette to create something special that I attempted to capture in camera and bring to these images with some touches in post processing.
 

 

DJE

Photo of the Week 2024-01-29

Over the past week I've found myself enjoying memories from the final month of 2023. A few days at Revolve Farms in uncharacteristic winter weather proved a pleasant surprise. A rise in temperature following the snow dropped by a recent system made for some very "atmospheric" conditions. The resulting fog and mist on Christmas Day allowed me to capture a number of images of which I ended up processing a dozen in a set entitled "Winter For at Revolve". Below are the final two I'll be posting ...

 

' Winter Fog at Revolve - IX '

' Winter Fog at Revolve - XII '

... from that day. Of course, there were other days, at least one anyway ;-)

 

DJE

Photo of the Week 2024-01-22

I know it's a month after but ... In addition to all the love and warmth we shared over several days during Christmas with family, hosted by Matt and Claire at their farm, I was able to get out with camera on a foggy Christmas Day morning and wander around the property ... 

 

'  Christmas Day Fog at Revolve - I '

 ...  while Lynn and I had Fortuna out for her morning runabout. It was a "let's see how 'Tuna is with recall when it's just Lynn and Doug" adventure before we were left in charge for a couple of days while Matt and Claire went to visit with her family.

I'm happy to report that 'little Tuna' was a wonderfully behaved girl from the get go. Fortunately I got to make a number of images that morning because it warmed up and rained for the rest of our time there keeping us indoors for the most part.

 

For the image, I decided to do a touch of colour grading and adjustments to enhance the ethereal feel of the scene out by the barn, looking back towards the house. As an added bonus, here's a collage of detail images I shot inside during our stay.

 

I hope your memories of this Christmas are as wonderful as mine ...

DJE

Photo of the Week 2024-01-15

At the cottage, it's almost always worth a trip down to the shore around sunset time, even if there isn't a sunset to be seen ...

 

' Evening Mood 2023-12-07 '

... and I still need the exercise developing my eye when using an ultra-wide (in this case 11mm) angle lens.

Recently, working with my 11mm Irix and 14-35mm Canon (at 14mm) has energized my creativity. I'm quite enjoying the process of seeing this wide, of seeking to find conditions, subjects, scenes, compositions that work for these focal lengths.

 

DJE

Photo of the Week 2024-01-08

A couple of months ago I decided to visit Halfway Log Dump in Bruce Peninsula National Park. The road in is not maintained during winter and is closed from early winter to late spring. I thought I would take the opportunity to go before the road was closed.

The shoreline along Georgian Bay at this location has provided many photo opportunities since my first visit over a decade ago. This time I would continue recent work on ultra-wide angle compositions, this time with my RF 14-35mm.

Though ultra-wide angle focal lengths can be used for stunning compositions, it requires practice to become proficient in their use, as I am experiencing while I work with focal lengths of 11mm and in this case as wide as 14mm. I made a number of successful images during this outing and in some cases worked a particular subject or view in various ways as I gain more comfort shooting this wide.

 

At one location, an old weathered cedar on a rock ledge caught my eye. My first instincts for a framing had me too far away, surprisingly so and I moved to the edge of a crevice using the lens zoom a bit to frame a shot (version A below).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Not satisfied, I moved back a step, zoomed back out to 14mm and included a spruce standing above the background treeline as another point of reference. When I reviewed the images on the computer, this ended up being my favourite version.

' old cedar on ledge '

Before finishing with this scene, I moved even closer to the point where I had to remove and set my back pack and tripod down to step off the main cliff onto a ledge in the crevice. Even then I braced my foot on the other side of the crevice to lean slightly more towards the cedar (version B below). Upon review, this wasn't what I was looking for either.

 

' old cedar on ledge -B '

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I'm enjoying the challenge of working ultra-wide and have made some satisfying images but that first stand out image is yet to be made.

 

Oh yes ... as things turned out and real winter weather yet to arrive, Emmett Lake Rd. was still open when I passed by most recently. Perhaps I will change another visit.

 

DJE

HAPPY NEW YEAR ! - Photo of the Week 2024-01-01

 

' FIRST LIGHT 2024 '

"First Light" is a challenge laid down by a long time friend. The idea is to get outside and capture an image at sunrise on the first day of a new year. At least that's how I've understood it.

This New Year's Morning had me out to Dunks Bay on the east side of the Bruce Peninsula in search of any hint of sunrise that would penetrate the heavy low cloud cover over all that I could see of Dunks and the greater Georgian Bay from my beach vantage point at 8:05 AM.

While I did make a few lacklustre images there before packing the gear back into the truck, the real show was delayed and started as cloud began to break in one small section to the sky to the NE. Good luck was on my side this first day of 2024 and the break had moved over Hay Bay as I arrived back at our place. I headed back down to the shore and grabbed some more interesting images, albeit 20 min after official sunrise but that was how First Light 2024 rolled in for me.

 

DJE