Photo of the Week 2026-08-17

 

 

' Just another Huron  sunset... '

With all of the stunning sunsets I get to experience at and around the area of our cottage on the Bruce Peninsula, it's easy to lose track of one single photo made amongst a series. I rarely make just one image when photographing a sunset. It's my 'M O' to work through different many different exposures and compositions. How many?

 

Well here is a screen capture of the raw files from my Lightroom Catalogue made over a 10-15 minute period during one such outing ...

 

 

DJE 

Photo of the Week 2026-08-03

 

Last week, we were invited to dinner at our friend's cottage at the very SW tip of the Bruce Peninsula. I've always known that the view of sunset from there would be amazing. Until this occasion, my timing had not been right. With dinner done, we retired to the deck for some wonderful conversation until someone said ... "hey look at the sunset" ... and I was off to grab the camera bag.

 

As I arrived, the ladies were already at the shore, in conversation down on the rock and I heard "where's Doug?", and "over here", "the view is from here" and the like. 

 

' Flying in a V '

I started working the shoreline with the 14-35 wide angle zoom using some rocks and trees as foreground elements before swapping it out for the 24-105 thinking I wanted a little more reach to bring Russel Island more prominent in the frame. 

 

As it turned out, my preferred compositions were made at 24mm from a spot a little further west along the shore. The 1/50 sec shutter speed left the gull blurry from it's motion and mine as I perched a bit precariously on the rock ledge at water's edge.  

 

DJE 

Photo of the Wek 2026-02-02

  

' Singing Horizon I '

' Singing Horizon IV '

Digging into the archive this week for a couple of images made at Singing Sands, BPNP, Northern Bruce Peninsula, back in February 2020 ...

 

I've been reviewing the image catalogue lately, particularly shots that I've processed and marked ready for posting. Some go back over a decade and it's interesting to revisit these waypoints from my journey. Images selected for this week suggest what I might find when I get to the cottage in a few days. Ice stretched far out from shore over the shallow water of Dorcas Bay at Singing Sands, the textures, patters and tones mirroring those in the sky.

 

While locating the image files and seeing the collection of shots I made that day, I encountered of some personal favourites that are now printed, framed and displayed on walls at the cottage. Actually, some of my all-time favourite work. 

 

DJE 

Photo of the Week 2025-06-16

 

A few days of the cottage at just the right time allowed me to capture some of the many spring wildflowers currently in bloom. I had planned to present a selection of those photos but there are quite a few and I chose to showcase just two for this post. Others will follow on my social media streams, but for now ... 

 

' lone slipper '

' slipper triplet '

 

I shot these (on morning walks with Lynn and Sullivan) handheld with the RF 85mm f/2 Macro on an R5 at fairly wide aperture for background blur and was very pleased with the results ... some of my favourite images of the Yellow Lady's Slipper so abundant in June on the Bruce.

 

DJE 

Photo of the Week 2025-03-10

 

' Moody Skies at Burnt Point '

A Black & White treatment seemed appropriate for the moody skies over Georgian Bay ... well it did given I've been working to keep B&W as an option when shooting and processing.

 

As I work my way through captures from last year, I came across this image that I liked but lacked something in colour. I decided to flip to B&W and process to the moody feel that I had when viewing the scene in person.

 

DJE

Photo of the Week 2024-08-05

' blowin' smoke '

 

After a full day of work on the waterside shed, I 5took some time to relax and take in this gorgeous sunset. Over the course of almost an hour, 30 min before official sunset to almost 30 minutes after, I moved around the shoreline for different compositions making a number of exposures.

 

Sometimes it's not until after making the exposure and looking at it on a larger screen, that I see images in the clouds ... I see the profile of a man with smoke coming out of his mouth ;-)

 

DJE

Photo of the Week 2024-07-22

 

' MW Arching Over Hay Bay '

A first go at capturing the Milky Way Arch. Six vertical images, themselves each a stack of 4 exposures, stitched into a panorama. Processed in LR, PS and ON1.

 

There is no shortage of 'nightscape' images on the internet showcasing the Milky Way over dramatic landscapes. There are nearly as many processing styles, with options ranging from subtle single exposure versions to the surreal using stacking and tracking techniques to extract the last photon of light and detail.

Recently I was treated to a clear sky forecast while at the cottage and decided to take advantage of it to try out the new (to me) Irix 15mm f/2.4 for some night sky shots. I spent some time planning with PhotoPills, TPE and other online resources to determine time and position of the Milky Way core. I had not thought to try a stitched panorama capturing the full MW Arch until I was out on the shore near midnight and noticed just how much of it I could see.

The process of image capture was relatively simple, though it was my first time out under the night sky with my R5 and with a hew lens as well. I ended up capturing six sets of four images over a roughly 150* (estimated) field of view. I applied lens profile correction in Lightroom, then exported to TIFF's, then used Sequator to stack each set of 4 exposures, following some online tutorials. The resultant output from Sequator (also in TIFF format) were touched up for light pollution and bright cottage lights in PS, saved back to the TIFF and then stitched in LR using photomerge.

 

Challenges came mostly from the quarter moon shining bright to the SW, blazing lights from cottages across the water, and the ever present glare of Tobermory and the Ferry dock megawatt lights. All the aforementioned challenges were tackled using a combination of Lightroom, Photoshop and ON1 Effects adjustments, dodge, burn, clone, heal and curves techniques and tricks to achieve the result shown above.

 

DJE

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 2024-02-12

 

' 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 2024-01-15

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

Photo of the Week 2023-10-23

 

From the series ' 2023 Bruce Autumn Roads ' featuring favourite roads near our cottage in their fall colours.

 

' 2023 Bruce Autumn Road - XVIII '

Hoping I had not missed peak colour, I made the drive along a favourite, soon to be (seasonally) closed, road near our cottage. Catching autumn foliage at optimum colour and in optimum light is all about timing, part yours and part mother nature's.

 

On this outing, I felt that my timing was slightly off getting the most colourful display and the lighting, though it began with some spotty strong sunlight, ended up being a fair bit more flat than I would have preferred.

That said, a group of three maples I knew of did not disappoint. They were a lovely hue of rich orange when they came into view. The rest of the nearly 10km trek in and out was lovely too, just not as vibrant as the spot captured in the image above.

Last week I wrote about my process of capturing sunset and highlighted that there can be a lot more that simply snapping off a single shot. That was the case for this outing as well. Between the two roads I travelled, I clicked the shutter nearly 80 times. At each spot I pulled the truck over to the roadside, parked with the 4-way flashers on, checked for other vehicles approaching, got out and walked to frame my composition and returned to the vehicle.

Not all of the images I made passed the initial edit. But a lot did and I processed over 2 dozen which are being posted to my online flickr gallery which you can see via the link in the opening line of this post.

DJE

Photo of the Week 2023-07-17

 

' dissipation - IV '

Returning to the cottage after a short morning walk with Mr. Murph, I headed down to the shore where patches of dissipating fog were creating a succession of surreal scenes over Hay Bay .

 

At times, the sun would be shining almost completely through leaving me in a localized clear area where all could be seen. The fringes of these areas shrouded what was beyond. Other times, the fog was more immersive creating a softening of everything around me except the most immediate. At various points during the experience, patches of blue sky would appear and drift along high in the scene.

I stayed for a while and made quite a number of images which I have edited down to half a dozen or so for a short series called "dissipation".

 

DJE

Photo of the Week 2023-06-26

 

' paintbrush season '

Summer officially arrived a few days ago but I still have a few images of spring wildflowers to share.

 

This "Indian Paintbrush" was isolated, using shallow depth of focus, from a rather large patch of them along the road near our cottage. It seemed an exceptional season for this bright scarlet flower, at least in areas close to our cottage. A large number of plants showed up in places I had not seen many previously and larger "patched" in areas where I had.

DJE

Photo of the Week 2023-06-12

 

I've been waiting for wildflower season on 'the Bruce' and it's here. In the couple of weeks since my last visit, Yellow Lady's Slipper, Indian Paintbrush, Blue-Eyed Grass and Gay Wings have come into bloom and I'm on the lookout for any opportunity to make unique compositions.

Though I haven't found anything particularly different, I have found the Lady's Slippers somewhat more sparse and Indian Paintbrush more plentiful. At least that's the case in the locations I visit annually this time of year. I also noticed an abundance of Blue-Eyed Grass in a couple of surprise locations, one right out front just off the shoreline. These little beauties close up for the night and in overcast conditions, making them hard to see so I'll have to wait for the sun to come out again for a photo opportunity. In the meantime, there are Lady's Slippers ...

' a bunch of beauties '

DJE

Photo of the Week 2023-05-29

Spring wildflower season is off to a crazy start on the Bruce Peninsula. The orchid bloom is still a while away but the Trillium are in bloom, and Wild Strawberry flowers are plentiful along roadsides. Another roadside wildflower making a grand presence during my walks along the cottage road network was Wild Columbine, Aquilegia canadensis.

 

The lovely red and yellow blooms were a surprise treat this weekend. The are common, and I regularly encounter them in small clusters but this year must they dominated the side of the road along a stretch near our place. Even so, my favourite image is of a single bloom against a shadowed forest background.

 

' Wild Columbine '

I told you they dominated the roadside

 

 

DJE

Photo of the Week 2023-05-08

 

' below the surface '

I've been working to improve my sunset photos by including more foreground elements into the compositions. At first, I found it challenging from positions along the cottage shoreline. Last week's photo used a pair of chairs as foreground which worked fairly well, if a little cliche. Subsequently, I published an image using the silhouetted shoreline rock to add some foreground interest.

For this week's POTW, I chose to show the rock just below the surface of the water since it really is a defining characteristic of our shoreline and the waters of Hay Bay. I think it works quite well and intend to try it again when waters are this calm.

 

DJE

Photo of the Week 2023-03-06

 

' A visit from Oakley '

Almost 9 years ago to the day, I had my first close encounter with Oakley on the ice of Hay Bay. Today, Oakley made a return visit, or it could be Oakley Jr. given the time gone by. In any event, it was a great experience to see and observe the activity of this critter.

 

Lynn and I had just finished out morning walk with Murphy, which he concludes with a trip "down to the water" (or ice as it is in winter). I hadn't always joined them but since seeing an otter far off across the bay a couple of days before, I made a point of following to see what was going on.

Looking out over the ice, I noticed a far off dark spot and watched it for a while until I saw movement. That was enough to send me back to the cottage for a camera with my longest lens mounted on a monopod. When I returned, I framed up on the spot and made a number of shots from the treeline before moving closer and potentially spooking the whatever it was. I could see it was an otter and wanted to get closer. I re-positioned out on the shoreline where I was quite visible, framed up again and could better see the otter grooming as it lay near what I assumed was an opening in the ice.

It seemed quite content to continue with a wary glance now and then to keep an eye on me. EXIF data from the first series of captures at the treeline showed I was focusing to a distance of more than 150m. After repositioning twice more, I managed to get within 100m but that was as close as I could get in a direct line between me and my subject. I was at the edge of thin ice along the shoreline and took my eye off the subject to assess other options to get closer. When I looked back to the otter it was gone, off under the ice heading somewhere else on the bay. I remained there for several minutes scanning the ice from left to right, near and far without any sign of my subject.

Thinking the encounter was over, I collapsed the monopod and trekked back across the ice to our place, always looking down, my footing (no time to put on ice cleats). As I approached the snow covered shore at our place, I glanced to my left and there was the little bugger had come out of an opening in the ice in front of our neighbour's. Unseen, I froze, raised the camera and grabbed a few hand held shots. Trying to keep stable on the uneven spot where I had abruptly stopped rather than look for something flat, less slippery and risk losing this closer photo opportunity, I cautiously extended the monopod, framed the subject, zoomed in to the max and fired off frames at maximum burst speed. Unsteady and trying both to keep my balance and capture Oakley bounding towards shore at our neighbours, I was spotted. It froze for just a second, turned to stare at me, then hurried back to the safety of water, keeping one eye on me. Stopping for one last look before slipping back below the ice, I was able to grab some final shots with the subject well lit by morning sun over my left shoulder.

 

What a great encounter! Another for the memory bank.

 

Note: EXIF data from this last series of shots indicated a focus distance of just over 40m. I was shooting at 400mm with a 1.4x converter on full frame for an equivalent focal length of 560mm to get the lead shot for this post. I cropped the image about 5% to remove some foreground for better balance but that's about it.

 

DJE 

Photo of the Week 2023-02-20

' sky pyre '

The final image in a series where I 'zoomed' closer and closer capturing sunset on the Huron horizon.

 

With sunset photography, scouting or knowing the location in advance helps me form a plan of how I will shoot. I use that plan as a guide only and adapt as I respond to what the scene is presenting.

 

I 'scouted' this familiar location along our cottage shoreline earlier in the day for ice formations with the idea of using sunset reflecting through or from them. I used The Photographer's Ephemeris to determine that sun would set almost perfectly centred behind the mouth of our bay. But conditions did not turn out as I had anticipated and my response was to shoot a series of images using the lens to zoom in tighter and tighter into the point where the sun had fallen below the horizon.

 

Here are the other images from the series ...

 

between the ice and sky - still  closer

 

 

 

 

 

 

between the ice and sky - closer

between the ice and sky

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

scouting the probability of sunset - II

DJE