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 2022-09-26

 

' Afternoon at Halfway Log Dump V '

It's good to have some images in the 'back pocket' for those times when you suddenly remember that you need to prepare a post ahead of time and schedule publication while you will not have full access to your files and the internet. Fortunately I have tagged a number of images "for posting" in just such and event.

 

Almost a year ago, I visited Halfway Log Dump after a considerable absence during COVID lock down and the resulting BPNP closure. While working with the images I made that day, I gave luminosity masks a first try. This image, made late afternoon, had some deep shadow along the forest edge and luminosity masks allowed me to bring more of the actual feel from that day to this rendition.

 

Now that autumn has arrived to 'the Bruce', I really must plan a return visit for some more photography ...

 

DJE

Photo of the Week 2021-08-23

 

' 2021-08-20 20:43:45 '

Another Hay Bay sunset to close out the 8th year of cottage life on 'the Bruce'. I don't think I'll ever tire of taking in a Huron Sunset.

 

DJE

 

Photo of the Week 2021-08-02

When I think back a few years to hosting a couple of friends, Alan and Patrick, at the cottage for a photography weekend, I laugh. Not just because we had a fun time, sketching, photographing, telling stories ...

... but Patrick, who is very knowledgeable about flora and fauna, left me with a comment and observation that I am reminded of annually this time of year. It came after I mentioned that I had not been able to find many of the 40 plus species of orchid that call the Bruce Peninsula home.

As I recall, we had just returned from an outing at Sunset Park where low water levels had allowed us to carefully amble and ramble along the shoreline to make photos. Quite casually, Patrick said something like 'you know you have Helleborine out in your driveway'. I must have looked rather unimpressed until he added 'you know that's an orchid'.

I laughed long and hard then, and smile every year when the Broadleaf Helleborine blooms in a number of locations on our property ...

 

Helleborine Trio

 

 

DJE

Photo of the Week 2021-06-21

On the lookout for a Blue Flag Iris (Iris versicolor) to photograph this spring, I was surprised when the cottage neighbours found several growing along the edge of their property. Of course I took advantage of the opportunity close at hand ...

 

back-lit blue flag

A blossom's eye view of a back-lit Blue Fag Iris

DJE

Photo of the Week 2021-06-07

Blue-Eyed Grass

On my late spring walks at the cottage, I'm on the lookout for Blue-Eyed Grass along the margins of the roadway. I first encountered this lovely little perennial wildflower in the years we were driving up to 'the Bruce' while considering if we might buy a cottage there. Now, I'm treated to clusters of these little purple-blue flowers along the road just a few hundred meters from our driveway.

 

Blue-Eyed Grass in Sun

 

This year in the first week of June, I was pleased to see quite a number of the little flower buds early one morning. These flowers only open for a short period each day, closing up again in the evening once the sun begins to set. This makes them somewhat elusive to spot, as without the flowers, they look just like the other grasses in the dirt and gravel bordering the road.

 

Blue-Eyed Patch

 

Blue-Eyed Roadside

 

I'm managed to find several more patches to visit and photograph in the coming years ...

 

DJE

Photo of the Week 2021-03-22

 

I'm really going to miss winter, particularly since what we had wasn't really much of a winter at all. A trek out to the Lake Huron shoreline on Cape Hurd just a couple of days before the official start of spring, showed how winter is clearly in the rear view mirror for another year.The usual buildup of ice is all but gone, what was formed, now melted with unseasonably warm temperatures and days of bright sunshine.

 

I took advantage of a last opportunity to capture the beauty offered by Canadian winter ...

 

ice cloud

A bit of the back story ...

I invited my cousin Steve up to the cottage and we had a couple of days to show him around, eat well, chat about life and generally enjoy some time together. We had hiked the Hobson Trail out to the Huron shore and were exploring along the rocks to the south. We got to an area where there were a few remnants of ice and snow pushed up. The translucent turquoise glow on the underside from the strong sunlight caught my eye and I started working to find a composition. Leaning way over and shooting up under the ice I called to Steve and said "I have just the title for this one". His response ... "well from what I see right now, it should be called Doug's ass". I damn near fell over on my face laughing. Good people and good humour make for good times.

DJE

Photo of the Week 2020-12-28

Well, well, well ...

 

I forgot to get a post out yesterday. I think this makes twice in over 10 years that I've missed making a Photo of the Week post on Monday. So here we go, a day late and backdated to yesterday ;-)

 

' Sleeping Beauty '

 

The back-story: I made a solo trip up to the cottage for a single night just before Christmas to check on things and take some items up so we would have more room in the vehicle the next trip. It also gave me an opportunity to scout around and look for photo opportunities without having to be concerned with passengers.

 

The drive up was mostly unrewarding photographically as the weather was quite blah. After cruising some of the secondary roads north of Wiarton, I managed to photograph a Rough-legged Hawk and grabbed a far off shot of a female Snowy Owl sitting on a fence post out in a farm field, but nothing really noteworthy. That day remained heavily overcast and dull so there were not night sky photo opportunities either.The weather forecast was for rain the next day so I planned to take care of a couple of things and leave early morning with enough time to do some Snowy Owl scouting on the was home.

 

I made a mid-morning departure and about 30 min into the drive I decided to pull off the highway to refill my coffee cup from my thermos. Safely on the shoulder of a side-road, I screwed the cap back on the thermos and looked out the side window to catch ' Sleeping Beauty '

 

 

Sleeping Beauty

Talk about serendipity! I'm not sure I would have noticed this bird as I scanned the area to either side of the highway as I drove along, but there she was. Sitting pretty and completely at rest if not sleeping. I watched for almost an hour and she never moved for nearly 20 minutes when she opened her eyes a bit and shortly after began preening.

I particularly like this image because the owl is perched on a rock in a natural environment as opposed to on a fence post, hydro pole or other man made structure. She stands out well against the darker field grass background.

An there you have it ... a day late and well worth it IMO.

 

DJE

Photo of the Week 2020-11-23

I've made a lot of images at or from our neighbour's dock in the last while. With the late fall sun setting off Cape Hurd, it provides a nice vantage point and gives me a foreground element to work with. In this image, it's the reflection of the red sunlight on the dock side-boards in that foreground that make the shot ... in my opinion.

 

' dock ablaze '

 

Sunset arrives early these days up at the tip of the peninsula. To catch the sun's orb as it hits the horizon, I need to be out well before 5:00, earlier if I want to capture the sun higher in the sky with it reflecting off the water. Earlier on this day, a sunset image didn't seem likely. The sun was well behind a layer of heavy cloud and it appeared they might be no sunset colour to speak of. 

 

But when I went out to fire up the BBQ grill for dinner, a developing red hue sent me inside to grab a camera :-)

 

DJE

Photo of the Week 2020-10-19

An image was selected and queued up for the P.O.T.W. ... then the weather cooperated on a Saturday hike with cousin Steve who had come to spend some time with us up at the cottage. We had selected a trail that would show him the Georgian Bay shoreline from an escarpment lookout and from water level. Halfway Log Dump was the perfect spot to offer both views, and the weather cooperated for just long enough for us to get the hike in ...

 

Rock Overhang & Cave Point

West to Cave Point and Bear's Rump Island

East to High Dump and Cabot Head

West end of the boulder beach

It was great that Steve got up to our place for a visit, and that the weather was decent for our hike. It took a while but now he's seen autumn on the Bruce ... we want to show him winter.

 

DJE

Photo of the Week 2020-10-05

There are times when there is nothing recent that I'm moved to process and post. During such times I look to the catalogue and the collection of images I have accumulated for something to share. I have some candidates flagged for processing, some have already been processed and some flagged and ready for posting.

There are also times like the past couple of weeks, where I've captured a number of images I'm eager to review, process and share, and ... there is a bit of a backlog. I've been here before. I'm able to post new content frequently to my social media accounts. The number may dwindle over the coming days as the emotion attached to seeing, responding, capturing fades and the internal editor asserts himself. We'll see which make the cut and what hits the cutting room floor ...

 

At the moment, there are several sunset images in the queue, all from Hay Bay, Tobermory. So for this week, I'll share back to back sunsets from Sept 20 & 21 as summer 2020 slipped into history ...

Cloudless September Sunset

amethyst adieu

I'm contemplating a sunset calendar project ... thoughts?

 

DJE

Photo of the Week 2020-09-21

 

obstruction

Always drawn to the darkness within, rough brittle branches make it difficult to penetrate the slender closely spaced trunks in this area of the woods without getting scratched or poked to the point of bleeding. 

 

As if to impede access through this family of small trees, one alone seems to block the way, obstructing access for all but the most determined. Up to now, I've only stopped to peer through into the shadows and photograph ... one day I will forge a path in.

 

DJE

Photo of the Week 2020-09-14

 

woodland spirit

I've long pondered a project that would have me presenting a collection of images  conveying the sense of spirit I sense in some members of the arboreal community. I'd started a working document to explore the lexicon such a collection would use to title and describe such images. Those that follow my photography may (or may not) know how I select a title for a particular image. This can come quickly and easily as I select a subject scene and prepare my composition or it can come from the sub-conscious working of my mind as I move on to other things. Sometimes it's a struggle and on few occasions it never comes.I've often wondered why one way one time and another way the next ... a exercise for perhaps another time, fuelled by a whisky or two.

 

The scenes and subjects of the forest, that I react to, regularly have a perceived persona or character. Anthropomorphism is long rooted in human culture and storytelling. Perhaps most frequently associated with animals, domestic or wild, it also has it's application to trees, so I am by no means alone in this.

This weeks photo, ' woodland spirit ', is a first addition to the collection and a good example. I'll be adding more as I re-discover them in my image library and out in the woods ...

 

DJE

Photo of the Week 2020-07-13

Sometimes it's the right place at the right time ... fully prepared or not !

After stopping on an evening walk to use our friend's new dock as a different vantage point for some sunset photos I was underwhelmed with the show. Chilled from the dropping temperature and wind of Lake Huron I headed back to the cottage for the night ...

They call it Devil Island
(... and now I think I know why)

... but I had to head back out looking for the lens cap I had dropped somewhere along the route I had taken. I checked all of the places I stopped, including the deck and when I got to the end of the road I got distracted by the sky ablaze through the trees. Investigating a little further, I made my way a short few meters through the bush to what used to be shoreline, but the water level is up and now into the trees leaving no room for dry footing and a clear view out over the water.

Suffice to say I got my shoes and pants soaking wet ... but I got the shot !

DJE

Photo of the Week 2020-06-22

Slippers ... slippers ... slippers ...

Spring is a wonderful time on 'the Bruce' with the wildflowers making an appearance to add splashes of colour along trails, in the woods and along the roadways. Special among these flowers are the orchids and their most common variety the Yellow Lady's Slipper. They emerge and delight for only a brief period before fading and ultimately dying off for another season.

Over the last couple of weeks, I spent some time capturing the Yellow Lady's Slippers I see in the area close the cottage, before they wither and disappear for another year.

burgundy sepals

fading beauty

DJE

Photo of the Week 2020-06-15

There are a number of forest scenes along the roadside that always catch my eye while on my morning walk. The light is always changing with time of day, time of year. I'm fascinated by the way it penetrates canopy to highlight areas below. Add to that the emergence of wildflowers in spring and it can be pure magic.

Slipper Patch

This particular area had a large number of Yellow Lady's Slippers out in full bloom. I happened to pass by at just the right time when morning light was spilling through an opening in the forest to wash over some of the patch.

DJE

Photo of the Week 2020-03-09

Shooting as much as I do, it's easy for images to slide further and further back into lesser seen sections of the catalogue. I've taken to flagging images in various ways in an effort to minimize this. Some are flagged for future processing, others are processed and flagged as candidates for posting, still others, the best, are flagged to be printed.Still, some fall through the cracks and it's a pleasant surprise when they are "rediscovered".

Recently while performing some file maintenance on the image catalogue recently, I spotted shot that I had planned to work on but, as happens, had found a crack. Perhaps because it is and infrared capture that typically needs some processing to evaluate properly, I had not flagged it, perhaps because I was focused on another series of images. I can't recall.

"Rediscovered", I immediately flagged it and later processed it with standard Red-Blue channel swap, cropped in the Golden Ratio and processed it with a little contrast tweak.

Spring Creek - IR

This week's photo was captured one morning while exploring the backroads of the Bruce Peninsula. After making some conventional exposures of the scene, I used the infrared modified EOS M to capture this scene with 590 nm filter. 



DJE

Photo of the Week 2020-02-24

"It looks like a painting" - Compliment or not ?

Windswept Winter I

The comment "It looks like a painting" is one I see made on photographs from time to time. In fact one of my recent photos, the one featured above in this post, received it a number of times. As the photographer, I'm not sure whether to be flattered or a little offended.

Presumably the viewers making the comment intend it to be a compliment, but let's briefly question their choice to use a painting as the comparator. Is it that they are recognizing the artistic talent required to create a painting and are making the comparison with that in mind? Are they judging that the photograph is over processed and crossed the line losing connection to the original capture. Do they see painting as a "higher" form of art than photography and mean to suggest that the photograph is approaching that level? Do they really like it and not know what else to say? All are possibilities.

Then there is the debate around whether photography is truly an art form, one which I think you can guess which side I'm on. It's a debate that goes back to the very invention of photography. While there has been greater and greater acceptance of photography as an art form over the years, there are still those who say nay. And here in lies the 'niggle' with me. The comment "it looks like a painting" almost comes across as saying "it's nearly there" or "not quite" or "good try but it will never be an actual painting".

You might want to check out this link to an interesting bit on Photos That Look Like Paintings.

Here is a collage of several images I made on the outing that produced the one above. Quite a productive outing I might add. It's a bit unusual for me to get several 'keepers' from a single outing or more precisely a single spot during an outing. They've all been posted to my social media streams over the past few days and yes, more than one received the comment "it looks like a paining".

As to me being "a little offended" at the comment, I'm not really ... well, maybe just a little.

Edit: Here is another link that may readers may find interesting "The Bastard Art".

DJE

Photo of the Week 2020-02-03

This winter has not been especially inspiring photographically ... so far. That's left me searching for images to work on and post to feed the creative spirit. 

The archive is there and I've really enjoyed diving in over the last few weeks, starting with the blog post that showcased some of my images of the (now destroyed) Lion's Head Lighthouse. I've also connected with a waterfall group on FB and rummaged through some of the waterfall images I've made over the years. The exercise has had me looking at shots from 2009 to present and allowed me to find some previously overlooked files worthy of a second chance.

... but I've needed to get outside, breath some cool fresh air and give the shutter finger a workout, sot it was up and out on Saturday morning with a collection of kit, searching for worthy subject matter.

Winter - Spring Creek

It may have been the babbling water, it may have been the solemn silence, it may have been the raven's call ... there was a certain something seductive about this scene on a sideroad, off the beaten path, on the Bruce.

DJE

Photo of the Week 2019-06-03

Bonnet Cove Sunset - IR

Exploring the world in IR false colour ... looking for inspiration.