Photo of the Week 2026-04-13

 

Back in November I picked up the vintage Canon FD 35 f/2 Concave - Chrome Nose lens. On a trial outing I took along the FD 35 f/3.5 S.C.for some comparison shots ...

 

The thorium element(s) of the 35mm f/2 lens had yellowed due to radioactive decay and the warm character shows in it's colour rendition. The second image was shot with the 35mm f/3.5, no colour correction has been applied to either image but obviously, I could cool or warm the resulting images in post processing if desired. But these two images were made with direct comparison in mind.

 

 

I have since set up a rudimentary treatment process to expose the lens elements to UV-C light which can remove some of the yellowing of the thoriated lens element. The results are temporary as continued radioactive decay will yellow the lens on an ongoing basis. Wait ! Radioactive ... yes I said radioactive, but not to the degree where it is dangerous or even a health concern and I don't sleep with the lens under my pillow. FYI - a few decades ago thorium was added to some optical glass formulas to improve optical performance and the Canon 35mm Concave and other lenses are revered for their sharpness. As for clearing some of the yellowing, it's an experiment in process with some improvement shown.

 

note: I lost track of what aperture I was using and was shooting handheld which required light cropping adjustment afterwards to align the. I really want to repeat the exercise with the camera tripod mounted shooting a range of apertures for comparing sharpness of each lens across settings ... and now I have a FD 35 f/2 S.S.C. Concave and FDn 35mm f/2.8 that could be added to the mix ;-)

 

DJE 

Photo of the Week 2026-03-30

 

Now I know that Spring has just arrived but I've delayed outdoor adventures for a bit while I convalesce after hernia surgery one week ago. Any recent photography activity has been limited to some shots of Sully around the house or working on the computer with images from previous outings.

 

And that's where today's photo caught my eye. Back in November, I mounted up a couple of vintage lenses on modern digital camera bodies and went for a frosty morning walkabout in the Guelph Arboretum. The sun rose magnificently in clear skies bringing it's warmth in colour as well as temperature. Low in the morning sky, it provided exquisite back-light for the remaining fall colours and foliage.

 

' morning smoke '

From a distance, this Smoketree (I did not take note of the specific variety) with it's feathery 'flowers' gave the impression that it was smoking or steaming which drew me closer. I enjoyed some close-up shooting using the back-lighting to bring an ethereal, abstract feel to the images.

I was using two different camera/lens combinations and cannot recall which lens was used for the image above, likely a 35mm or 50mm variant of the vintage Canon FD lenses I have acquired. Unfortunately key-wording was skipped for files from one setup on import to the computer and being a fully manual vintage lens, there is not electronic communication with the camera to have the info recorded in capture metadata.

Note to self ... don't forget to keyword when importing images, particularly those shot with vintage lenses.

DJE 

Photo of the Week 2025-12-22

 

With some time before sunset at another location, we drove to the marina area and on the way back found a high vantage point looking out over a winding section of the Michipicoten River. The location afforded a view of Mission Falls  but the sun had fallen too low and the falls were shrouded in shade by the time we arrived. Fortunately, there was more ...

 

' Fall Evening on the Michipicoten '

Light from the evening sun was kissing the trees along the banks of the Michipicoten making the golden tamarack glow. Shooting with a telephoto through the slight haze that had moved in softened the distant trees enhancing the mood of the scene.

 

DJE 

Photo of the Week 2025-11-24

 

' Sand River Scene I '

' Sand River Scene II '

From a stop at Sand River on the way to Wawa ...

While my companions took to the riverbank, I made my way back to the highway and the short distance to the bridge for these views. The day was grey and overcast which made for very flat lighting. Off and on rain did wet the remaining yellow foliage and made it pop against the green of conifers. A bit of atmosphere from drizzle to mist up the background might have been nice.

 

As I often do, I framed both vertical and horizontal compositions of the scene, here using the leaning snag as an element of interest (if only there had been an eagle ;-). I prefer the horizontal framing that shows more of the boulders along the far riverbank. 

 

DJE 

Photo of the Week 2025-10-20

 

With any luck, today I should be on my way home with a 'bucket load' of images from a return Algoma Getaway with some photographer friends. Last time was 2023 when we attended a guided photography workshop. This time, with knowledge from the last trip and the collective mind of our group we planned our own. Images from this recent trip will surely follow, but since I'm up and on the road, here's a previously unpublished image from last time ...

 

' persistence '

DJE 

Photo of the Week 2025-10-13

 

HAPPY THANKSGIVING ! 

 

I spent some time with family over the weekend, in the wonderful setting at Revolves Farms, where autumn has made colourful scenes ...

 

' fall colour outside a window '

The "timber-frame" is a great place to sit and watch morning arrive at Revolve Farms. With sun rising above the eastern treeline, it spills onto treetops outside the window of a favourite seat. Sipping morning coffee and getting the day started with this view is something special.   

 

DJE 

Photo of the Week 2025-03-03

 

' rocks 'n reflections on fall pond '

I'm making an effort to get out with camera when I'm home and visiting some favourite locations from the past seems right ... and maybe some new places too.

 

On a crisp, cold fall morning, I decided to go for a drive and see what I could see. Approaching the road to Snyder Flats, I decided to turn in and see how the place might have changed. As luck would have it, there was a little frost on the vegetation and with water temps higher than the air temp there was some mist over the pond to add atmosphere to the scene.

 

' morning pondside '

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

' sun on fall pond '

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I'm working through the many images added to the library since returni9ng from Scotland back in September. These from the beginning of November should tell you I have a few more to go ;-)

 

DJE

Photo of the Week 2025-02-17

 

Ever since Claire and Matt first led me here, I've been trying to capture the character of this special part of the woodlot at Revolve Farms. The area itself is not overly large, but there is certainly enough space to walk around. The area has no canopy overhead and vegetation is quite varied, large patches of reindeer moss, sizeable low junipers, soft ground. Here and there, these lovely scraggy, ragged, dark coloured trees with little to no leaves mixed with some other varieties of pine, maple and oak. It's a wonderfully soothing place to enjoy and I visit every time I'm at the farm.

 

I always take a camera on at least one walk through the area and have wanted to experience and capture it in a varietal of conditions, snow, fall colour, mist, fog, rain, early morning sun etc. So when we visited the farm last fall, of course it was one of the places I struck out for even though morning light was flat, there was a touch of mist in the air.

 

' craggy characters '

 

This image was captured in vertical (portrait) orientation and contained a fair bit of washed out sky. Thanks to a video on shooting woodlands I found (or rather YouTube found for me), I was provided with some inspiration to 'not look for trees'. I've always found myself trying to get the full tree in the frame when it's likely more about how the tree fits into it's surroundings.

 

In ' craggy characters '  I cropped out the sky and went for a square aspect ratio that shows the bases of three trees leading me off into the distance with moss, lichen and fallen oak leaves at my feet. I could lose myself for hours in scenes like this ... 

A bit of background ... 

This image and a number of others made at the location that day could have quite easily gone overlooked. The date was 2024-10-10, the day/night of the awesome aurora event across the northern hemisphere. After taking my walk through the woods, we departed the farm for home with some hope that I might be able to continue on to the cottage in hope of some dark sky captures of the northern lights. As things turned out, after arriving home another 3+ hr drive mostly in the dark was not in the cards. But I recalibrated and managed to get out to a more local dark"ish" sky area for what very well may be a once-in-a-lifetime experience. That outing spawned a collection of images that I interrupted my stream of posts from the trip to Scotland several weeks earlier. Fast forward to earlier this month when I finished posting the 300 plus images from Scotland 30+ from the Aurora and one or two from the New Year and I had a fair collection of images going back to Oct that I had not even really looked at other than to download and backup the originals. I had forgotten about my shots from the woods that day and were it not for instructions from the Dr. to rest and take it easy for 3 weeks following minor surgery to repair a hernia, I could very well have been out tramping around capturing lovely wintry scenes from home to the cottage. As it is, there has been a lot of time in front of the computer to review what I have and spend time online taking in photographic inspiration. Both led me back to this week's image  and the others from that magical walk in the woods.

 

 

DJE

Photo of the Week 2023-11-20

 

' Fall Colour @ Sand River Falls '

' Sand River -  lower falls'

' Sand River Falls - detail '

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A return visit for shooting at the Sand River Falls allowed me time to make the short hike from the trailhead up to the lower falls. Apparently there are three falls accessible by the Pinguisibi Trail that starts from the parking lot N-E of the highway but I was with a group of photographers and only had so much time allotted for our stop at this location. Given that, I quickly set out for the nearest (lower) falls after telling the group leader where I was headed (safety first). Along the way I was getting glimpses of the water cascading through the relatively narrow channels of the river. I had been informed that during lower flow levels, much of the jagged and undulating river course is exposed and can be accessed. Not so when the water is high and raging.

Rather than stop on my way up, I chose to head straight to the top of the falls and work my way back, checking out vantage points on the return trek. I arrived at the top of the falls and explored the area, able to walk out on a fairly extensive network of exposed rock and look further upstream hoping for a calm, still water basin before the plunge for some reflection images.

 

There was no upstream still water and I started looking around for other photo ops finding a small maple in full red leaf at the edge of the river just as it starts to plunge. I removed by backpack and placed it away from the water with my tripod and took just my camera out onto the rock in search of a composition that would suit the dramatic red leaves. I found something that worked using my lens wide open at f/4 and zoomed out at 105mm to blur the background a bit and place emphasis on the red leaves in the foreground.

 

A short time later on my way back down, I stopped just below the main plunge and tried a technique to add motion blur to water, one we had discussed the previous evening. There are options in most of the new cameras these days to make and blend multiple exposures in-camera. That option usually outputs a jpeg image and while it may be of sufficient quality, my camera can shoot a maximum of 9 frames in this mode and has the option of keeping the RAW captures as well as the output jpeg which is what I selected. I used the output jpeg on my rear LCD to judge exposure and the blur of the flowing water and retained the RAW files as a fall back. Lighting conditions were rather bright and it was difficult to select a longer shutter speed to help with the motion blur. The water was not blending smooth enough for my liking and I ended up blending the results of 2 sets of 9 RAW images in Photoshop to get the results shown in the additional 2 images above. Of course you can use ND (neutral density) filters to obtain slower shutter speeds and blur water nicely but I wanted to try something new.

 

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 2022-11-28

 

Fall colours have all but left 'the Bruce' now that leaves are mostly down ...

 

' lingering yellow '

 

... but oh what a wonderful smell those poplar leaves make when they lay think and wet carpeting the ground. Different than the smell of spruce so familiar on so many walks through and near the forests at the cottage, the smell of wet poplar leaves signal the end of fall. Musty and pungent they are my kind of aroma therapy.

' nature's doubloons '

DJE 

Photo of the Week 2022-11-14

 

Leaves may have mostly turned and fallen to the ground, but I still have plenty of fall colour images from 2022 in the library and waiting to be shared.  Knowing that late fall and winter bring a time of tones, I'll linger a while longer on images from what was a wonderful fall for photography.

' Autumn Wetland Pano '

' Autumn Wetland Section 1 '

' Autumn Wetland Section 2 '

' Autumn Wetland Section 3 '

I marvel at the variety of colours in autumn roadside scenes - these from somewhere along a Puslinch backroad.

 

 

DJE

Photo of the Week 2022-11-07

 

October has come and gone. With it, the vibrant colours of Fall in Southern Ontario have faded, all but gone for another year. Yet they live on, in my memory and images ...

 

Inspired by my recent ' Puslinch Autumn Roads ' series, I took a drive along another favoured backroad, this one on the Bruce Peninsula. Although I missed peak colour by perhaps a week, conditions were overcast and wet from an early morning rain, just right for a bit of fall atmosphere.

 

    

Fall colour on 'the Bruce' is mostly shades of green, vibrant yellows and golds. Jack Pine, cedars, spruce, birch and poplar now dominate it's forests.

    

If you get off the main highway and County roads, you can find areas where the underbrush stirs with reds and oranges dabbing colour into the scene.

    

For those willing to go still a bit further, there are hardwoods, maple and oak to be found in full celebration before their seasonal respite.

The scene above, still beautiful nearing saturation fatigue, must have been chromatic overload just a days earlier.

A new series is developed. Follow along on Facebook, Instagram and Flickr for more as I take you along ' A Bruce Autumn Road '

 

DJE

Photo of the Week 2022-10-31

 

The Elevated Park is one of a kind, a novel concept, an iconic railway bridge converted into a park. Just the idea intrigued me, and so did some of the photos I'd seen in an online article. So what did I do? I made note of the spot, and when I had occasion to be in St. Thomas, ON a couple of weeks back I paid a visit not really knowing what I might be able to photograph.

As it turned out, access was restricted (boo) where there was a significant amount of construction taking place on the municipal roads running under the bridge. The park itself was open, offering nice views of the Kettle Creek Valley in fall colours.

I walked the length of the bridge, stopping frequently to take in the view. At one spot, a single tree on the valley slope caught my eye. With a white trunk against the yellow, orange and green it stood out, as if posing for me ...

 

' Sycamore Posing 2.0 '

Note: the main image is titled 2.0 because it's a slightly cropped version of the original as it was composed in camera.

Following are a few additional shots documenting my visit to "a park in the sky, some 95 feet over the Kettle Creek valley.

 

 

 

DJE 

Photo of the Week 2022-10-24

 

I thought it was time to take my followers on a tour of local fall colours before the snow flies with a collection of images from the series ' Puslinch Autumn Roads ' ...

 

' Puslinch Autumn Roads II '

' Puslinch Autumn Roads III '

' Puslinch Autumn Roads IV '

' Puslinch Autumn Roads V '

' Puslinch Autumn Roads VI '

 

Fall wouldn't be the same if I didn't make my annual drive to capture the colours of autumn along the back-roads of Puslinch TWP ... and these were found just a few minutes away from home on Pioneer Trail.

 

DJE

Photo of the Week 2022-10-17

I've been out shooting since New Brunswick last month, quite a bit actually. But my fall colour and other captures from closer to home will sit for a while longer while I publish the remainder of the images from "out east".

One morning, I spent some time exploring around and under the Salmon River Train Trestle in New Denmark. Billed as "one of Canada's largest train bridges", it's quite an interesting subject, particularly with the fall colours popping.

' Autumn Trestle IV '

' Autumn Trestle III '

' Autumn Trestle II '

' "A" look up '

' overhead '

 

 

DJE

Photo of the Week 2022-10-10

Someone I recently ran into said "I thought you were still in New Brunswick"and I had to laugh. They had assumed that because I was still posting images from that area, I had not returned home. In some ways they may be correct, memories of that recent trip, any trip or outing for that matter, occupy my mind for some time ...

The namesake of Grand Falls NB was the subject for photos on the morning of my 4th day in the area. Though I had seen the falls during a brief stop the first day and as we passed by on various outings, this was the first time I had gone with the specific purpose of exploring the trails, viewing platforms and vantage points near the falls and downstream gorge. Following is a selection of images I made during that time.

This spot is on my list of places to revisit for further exploration ...

 

DJE