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