Last week-end we went to Hardy Lake Provincial Park and Torrance Barrens. A great day for hiking and photography. Here are a few more pictures from the day. Three pairs of shots: the first in each pair is a picture from Lorraine’s camera and the second in each pair is the view from my camera.
Good thing we had two cameras.
Another late summer day spent hiking in central Ontario. We walked on one of the trails at Hardy Lake Provincial Park as well as the main loop trail at Torrance Barrens Conservation Reserve. Below are a few photos from the day’s hike. The first two from Hardy Lake and the last four from Torrance Barrens. Torrance Barrens is a dark sky reserve. An ideal location for stargazing. And some amazing terrain for a landscape photographer. At times, I found myself wondering if I was still in Canada. The barrens reminded me of Africa.
We packed up the car and left early this morning to spend the day at Algonquin Provincial Park. An amazing day spent hiking the Ragged Waterfall as well as the 7.7km Track and Tower trail.
Here are a few photos from the day.
This happens every once in a while. The perfect sky comes rolling in and I miss it. Last night, once I got home, the sky was amazing. A perfect evening sky for photography.
At this time of year, the days are getting much shorter and dusk arrives around 7:15pm. It had been a long day and I needed to get my supper in before heading out to take some pictures. I did not get out the door until 6:45pm and by the time I tried to find a suitable location to shoot, I lost the amazing sky. Things just got cloudy and bleak.
Here is one shot from last night. I made it black and white because it mirrored my view of the lost opportunity: a colourless and bleak landscape.
Food or photography? Tough choice but the dinner was truly outstanding.
My wife and my youngest son joined me yesterday to shoot the Elora Gorge. Elora is a scenic town located about 110 kilometres from our home. The day was perfect. We spent several hours hiking around the gorge. I took about two hundred frames of the area.
Here are a few of the shots. The last shot was taken at the base of the gorge. I was not alone. There were about 20 Mennonite women nearby. They had climbed down a very steep trail, full of sharp and pointy rocks, in their bare feet. And they congregated around an inlet to sing hymns.
I was very tempted to take their picture however I seem to recall that the old order Mennonites are not fans of photography. So I pointed the lens towards the gorge itself. It was a different experience to focus on the grandeur of God’s creation while a group of Mennonite women were singing hymns in the background.
Wireless issues still abound. Although the techies were able to fix the connectivity last night, my Vista Stinkpad won’t stay connected. My son’s MacBook Pro works just fine. Typical.
Anyway, having a great time. Here are a few more photos to share from this morning.
I have read hundreds of landscape photography magazines and dozens of books on landscape photography. And I have visited the websites of many of the top landscape photographers.
There are basically two ways to shoot waterfalls: slow or fast.
Slow can be really long shutter speeds of 1-2 seconds or more which make the water extremely soft or ethereal. Slow can also use faster shutter speeds in the 1/15-1/2 range which, depending on the speed of the water, gives it some texture yet still blurring it some.
Fast will completely freeze the water with shutter speeds in the 1/500-1/2000 range.
I see very few frames using a fast approach. In part because the best times to shoot are usually at or around sunrise or sunset.
I did some additional research last night because someone made a comment to me that points are deducted for slow waterfall shots in photography competitions. I reviewed dozens of criteria from Kodak to National Geographic competitions as well as other leading photography competitions and I could not find any reference to losing points for slow waterfall shots.
In fact, virtually all of the winning shots of waterfalls that I found used a slow shutter approach.
This image, from Tim Fitzharris, is indicative of the most common approach to shooting water. My attempt from the same region, Great Smoky Mountains, is below. If it is good enough for Tim, then it is good enough for me. You can select from his stock photography here.
My photography is focused on landscapes, travel and architecture. Last night, I was able to learn a little bit about sports photography at my son’s soccer game. With a 70-300 Nikon lens attached to my camera, I decided to work on some new techniques. Sports photography is very fast-paced. I had the camera fire in burst mode, shutter priority at 1/640th to freeze action, and boosting the ISO to somewhere between 250 and 320 given the late evening light. And I shot JPEGs, not RAW.
Much tougher way to take pictures. No one stands still while you frame the shoot. Here are a few of the shots from last night. My son is in the third picture down on the right trying to gain control of the ball.
