Bridal Veil Falls – Summer
Summer…ah.. can’t wait. It is my absolute favorite time of year. After 4-5 months of winter it feels great to lose the big coat and the long-johns.
- It’s time for the 3rd season from the falls in Kagawong, Manitoulin Island, also known as Bridal Veil Falls. If you missed the other two, click here and here. The opening shot is taken in early June – well both are actually. Again this time, its has a snapshot look to it, but thought it was worth putting up here on the blog.
As I mentioned in my last post, I usually stop here for lunch when I go by on my way to Gore Bay. (A well-informed source has told me that the chip stand across the road from the falls should be pretty good. I’m gonna have to try that this year). Anyway, this shot is taken basically at noon. Not much sunlight down at the bottom, huh? But plenty at the top, on the bushes and the crest. It can be a bit tricky to get a good shot here when the sun is out, with out using bracketed exposures. The shot above is combined with 5 frames , and I was lucky that the couple under falls didn’t move much during my exposure. I left them in there to get a sense of scale. The shot is taken from the same vantage point as the two previous posts.
As you can see in the shot, the water that is going over the edge has slowed down a bit compared to the spring shots. At the end of the fall it gets even worse, as you will see in my last segment from this location on my next post.
The falls goes over the edge in two places. The main one of course, and then a smaller to the right of it. If you remember the winter shot from a couple of weeks ago, that’s why the crack in the ice fall occur But at this time of year, it’s just dripping from small one, and in the shade from the big trees there are some very saturated green colored moss which I couldn’t resist to shoot as well.
Enjoy.
The SuperScooper
Nikon D300, Nikkor 18-200mm, 44mm, f/16, 7 exposures, handheld, HDR
Speaking of forest fires, (see last post), I was on a service call at the Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR) at our local airport here in Sudbury. After the service call was out of the way, I had the opportunity to take some shots at the water bomber, a Bombardier 415, which was being prepped for take off the next day. The sun was, as you can see, in a really bad spot and I only had about 3 min to shoot and couldn’t really go on the other side of the plane, so I grabbed some brackets from this side to make sure I just didn’t get a silhouette of the plane. I knew there were gonna be some sun flares, but this was my chance so I ran with it.
About the 415. It’s a Canadian built water bomber and is one of MNR’s work horses in the fight again forest fires. Used mainly in Canada and the US. A fair share of the 76 ever built is also flying in different countries in Europe, such as Italy, France and Croatia. This plane is a further development of the older Bombardier 215 which the Ontario MNR is still using. The 415 is capable of scooping up 1620 US gallons or about 6140 liters of water in 12 seconds by skimming the surface of a lake. For that reason, this model is also called the SuperScooper. It has a range of about 1500 miles or 2400 km so on a tank of fuel this plane can deliver around 100-130 loads of water, depending on proximity of water such as lakes or rivers of course. There is no question that this plane is invaluable in the fight against forest fires.
A nice spot
Nikon D300, Nikkor 16-35mm f4, 27mm, f/22, ISO200, 7 exposures
One of the spots I like to go shoot is about 1 hour drive from my house. I drive by this place just about once a week as part of my daytime job, so I can kind of keep an eye on whats going on there. It’s the Duchesney Falls in North Bay, Ontario. Being visible from the highway, it’s fairly easy to determine if there’s too much water going down or too little. Too much water, and you wont get the small interesting trickles or mini falls over or between the rocks – those are the ones I like to shot, it’s also a bit tougher and of course very dangerous to get to close to the falls. Too little water is just as bad.
Nevertheless, it’s still a great place to practice photographing water falls all year round.
The shot above could be an example on why it’s not such a good idea shooting water falls in direct sunlight. The foaming white water, the wet highlights are instant blinkies even at fast shutter speeds, and remember fast shutter speeds will not give you the silky look. This is shot with my new Nikkor 16-35 mm f/4 lens, and I did not have a 77 mm polarizer or ND filter to put on, so I decided to try some bracketing on this location. In Photomatix, I made 2 tone maps. 1 for the overall scene and then a shadow map for some contrast (see Rob Hanson’s blog for this very cool technique ). In Photoshop I combined the overall tone map with the shadow map, and masked in the water from exposure that looked the best.
Take a seat…
Nikon D300, Nikkor 18-200mm, 95mm, f/5.3, ISO200, 3 exposures, handheld
…and let me tell you a story. Just kidding.
Last week, Scott Wood had a blog post about keeping old shots that did not make the cut the first time around. It’s an interesting discussion because if you shot a lot, like I would expect a guy like Scott Wood do, you will in the end up with countless of gigabytes of images that will never be edited or printed. And what will you do? Delete or buy more storage? I am afraid I’m one of those guys who just store images. I do of course delete total miss shots, like camera shakes, out of focus etc. But the rest I tend to keep. After reading Scott’s post, it made me think about my collection of images and I decided then that today’s post would be an image that originally wasn’t flagged, rated or had been edited in any way. Just one of those I keep. Turned out to be a fun exercise.
About the image.
Any one familiar with Hans Christian Andersen? Well, he was a Danish poet, writer, a story-teller and famous world-wide for his fairy tales. Had he lived today, he would be 206 years old. His work is published in more that 150 languages. Quite a feat if you ask me.
The images above and below are shot in Odense, Denmark. The place of his birth. You can tell the city is proud of him. There are many references to this guy all over this city. His characteristic silhouette is even featured as the stop/walking guy on the cross walk signs.
As I went through the files from that day, I discovered I had bracket the bench shot so I chose to run with it.
This bench is out side one of the buildings dedicated to H. C. Andersen, and I think it is a part of the statue you see below. It’s like he invites you to sit either next to him or on the bench (above) that would be to his left and slightly in front of him, and listen to one of his many stories.
His fairy tales usually had a moral ending to it – this experience makes me think that I wont start thinning out my collection of images anytime soon. I’ll buy a bigger hard drive first.
Nikon D300, Nikkor 18-200mm, 20mm, f/4, 1/80sec, ISO200
Just for fun…
Todays image was shot last year in late July while on vacation. It is one of two old identical front doors to the Aarhus Theater, located in Aarhus, Denmark. I wish I have had the time to stay after dark when the building just comes to life as the light inside shines through the painted glass panes. Looks pretty amazing I tell ya.
The title of the image is part of a rough translation from a slogan used by the Royal Theater in Copenhagen. Actually the real slogan would be “Not Just For Fun” but I had fun processing this one, so I cropped out the “Not”. Usually the slogan will be accompanied by two masks one sporting a smiley face and one a sad face. Sort of like a global theater logo.
Watch your step…
Nikon D300, Nikkor 16-35mm f4, 29mm @f8, ISO200, 9 frames
I think this will be the last one in this mini series from the old farm-house on Hwy 17. The other two posts are here and here. I have had a ton of fun processing these, trying different techniques and methods.
This image was inspired by Rob Hanson’s newest, amazing and in-depth hour-long HDR Processing Technique tutorial. Link to it here. I can’t wait to try it on some landscape brackets.
As always, feel free to leave a comment or a critique.
Come on in…
Nikon D300, Nikkor 16-35mm f4, 16mm, f/8, ISO200, 9 frames
Quick post today with the second shot from the abandoned farm-house of Hwy 17, just outside Blind River, Ontario. Here is a quick link the earlier post from this place.
Every time I look at this image, I’m amazed how trashed it is. Can you tell I haven’t done a lot of UrbanEx? I do know when I go by there again, I’m going to spend a bit more time shooting. There are so many details in this house that I missed last time.
Time to step it up…
- Nikon D300, 30mm, f6.7, ISO200 9 brackets
Its time for some HDR on this site. It was one of the reasons I started this blog. – to get better at tonemapping. I have watched guys like Mike Olbinski, Brian Matiash, Bob Lussier, and Jacques Gude for a while now. Since I started this “blog” my list of sites to visit has grown quite large and new ones are added all the time. There are some really amazing photography on all those sites. I will have an updated my blog roll list to show that very soon.
On to todays RuralEx image. Ghost towns or abandoned factories are hard to come by in and around my town. But on Highway 17, just outside Blind River, Ontario, is a couple of candidates. 2 abandoned farm houses, just about 100 feet from the Hwy, a couple of miles apart. The image above is the stairs to the second floor just inside the front door of one of them. I have wanted to shot that place for a long time, so a few weeks ago, I finally had a chance to do something about it. The next couple of posts will be brackets from this house.
I would appreciate any comments or hints about how I can improve. My tool box is Photomatix Pro, OnOne suite 5.5, LR 3 and PS CS 4.
