Fall shots – IV
Please click the image for a larger view.
I wanted to show you this 4 image panorama I made from this location. Kind of gives you a nice view from the vantage point under the highway bridge. Gorgeous place. I hope to find time to go there again one morning and to find more mist on the water. Of course, this time of year, it’s a totally different image. Colors and leaves are gone, so it’s a bit sad to look at right now to be honest, but i think with the right light and a bit fog, it can be quite interesting. A reminder for next time, a slightly longer lens (this is shot with a 35mm), and perhaps shooting the panorama with the camera vertical. It is a wee bit narrow… 
Enjoy.
The Extremist.
My good friend Ken Bennison asked me to come with him on a trip up the West Branch this past weekend. But before I get to that, I should explain the title on this blog post. It came up as we were waiting for the light to be in the perfect spot, and for the wind to die down a bit.
Extremist is (what I learned on this trip) more or less what his own family affectionately calls him, and it refers to the way he approaches his photography. There is a very good reason why Ken is an incredible artist/landscape photographer. He does what a lot of other people wont do. He gets up at an ungodly hour, drive,hike or canoe for hours, (obviously not at the same time, but most of the time he will have to do all three to get to his location of choice.) And when he gets there he will explore the area, figure out what he want to shot, and wait for the perfect conditions to happen. Ken is not afraid to wait for hours for his shot. He knows exactly what he wants in a picture, and if the conditions aren’t there, he wont even take the camera out of the bag, because he wont be able to use the shot anyway, so if he doesn’t get the shot, he will simply return to the same spot again and again until he gets the shot he has in his mind. And the results speaks for themselves. Check out his website. I should mention that Ken’s is shooting with a Canon 7D, one lens (28-135mm) and his trusty SLIK tripod. Yes, Ken only use one lens.
Anyway, so this past weekend we were up at the West branch north of Webbwood, Ontario. A place I haven’t been to in 2 years, so it was nice to go there again, and revisit some of the places I have shot before. Examples of previous posts can be found here, here and here. We are about 80 km (~50 Miles) in the bush, driving on a gravel logging road. The weather was perfect. No wind, sunshine and frost in the air. After having shot at a couple of locations, we wound up at the little lake where I had taken the Moonshine shot a couple of years ago. All of a sudden the sunshine starts to come through the trees, and lights up some grasses in the lake. Being the extremist that Ken is, gets up and wades out into the shallow waters. Ankle deep in loon and beaver crap he sets up his tripod and starts to compose a shot. I thought this would be a good time to get a shot of him in action, so I took a few of him shooting this sunlit grass, with some mist in the background.
The shot below is my shot from this location. Not being an extremist, I of course did not go into the water.
Fall at the falls – III
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Time to get close to the water. This is what I really like to shot. To take in the details in the rocks, the flow of the water, and the incredible colors you get this time of year. Often, you will see the colors of the trees reflect in the small rapids.
Enjoy. :)
Fall at the falls – I
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Of course I can’t stop going to the Onaping Falls when the trees are putting on a display. For some reason, the colors up there didn’t seem as vibrant and up front and center this year. I was probably too late. I decided to explore a bit upstream from the main trail, and the next few posts are from around the same area, but looking in different directions.
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P & R – West Branch
Nikon D300, Nikkor 18-200, 18mm, f/8 , 1/125s, ISO200
Second round of my “post & run” week.
The shot above is from an outing up the West Branch behind Webwood, Ontario last year I believe, with my good buddy, Ken Bennison who is an exceptional and award-winning landscape shooter.
By the way, the flower from my last post was just a common lily. Pretty amazing huh? (well, not the photo, the flower of course )
Thumbnail below.
Enjoy.
More falls colors
Nikon D300, Nikkor 15-35mm f/4, 35mm, f/6.7, 1/750sec, ISO20
It’s time for some more fall-fireworks from High Falls in Onaping, Ontario. Please feel free to click on the images for a larger 1200px view.
Above is from the trail that takes you along the falls and into the bush. If you walk far enough you will eventually end up on a look out that is over grown by now. Its called Sudbury Basin Lookout. Beautiful spot, but the sun was in the wrong place to get a usable shot from there.
Nikon D300, Nikkor 15-35mm f/4, 35mm, f/9.5, 1/125sec, ISO200
One more from the trail. This shot was also posted on Google+
Nikon D300, Nikkor 70-300mm f/4, 70mm, f/27, 1/2sec, ISO200
After walking in the bush for a couple of hours with a heavy backpack, I’m back at the falls dead tired and sweating like a ..well you know what I mean. I got there just in time for the late afternoon sun hitting the trees across the falls, which reflects these amazing green and golden colors along with the sky in the water. I could not pass this opportunity to grab a few shots of that. Absolutely gorgeous place.
Before I sign off, I want to say a huge Thank you for all your nice comments and tweets. Please know that they are all very much appreciated.
Fall colors at High Falls
Nikon D300, Nikkor 18-200, 29mm, f/27, 1.0 sec, ISO100, B+W circular polarizer
As mentioned in an earlier post, the weather has been outstanding up here lately. So there is no excuse, just get out there and shoot. I have explored the High Falls in Onaping, Ontario af few times now, and it changes every time I’m up there. The shots in this post are from the end of September, at the peak of the color show. I decided to put more than one shot up today, because I have a lot of shots from this place, and my blogging has been a bit on the slow side lately. It is nice to have some new ammo, so here we go.
Oh btw, if you are on a big monitor, feel free to click the images for a larger view.
The top shot is from the basin at the top of the falls. The incredible colors of the late afternoon sun on the trees and the sky paints the water. Amazing place to shot when it looks like this.
Nikon D300, Nikkor 18-200, 27mm, f/8, 1/3 sec, ISO200, B+W circular polarizer
This shot is roughly half way down the falls. At this time of year the water flow in the falls are really low, so there are plenty of opportunity to get very close to the rocks and the falls. It’s a very different story in the spring…
Nikon D300, Nikkor 16-35 f/4, 35mm, f/11, 0.7 sec, ISO200
The last big drop before the water slows down and continue its run down the Onaping River.
Moon shine…
Nikon D300, Nikkor 18-200, 65mm, f/5.6, 1/30sec, ISO200
You don’t buy that do you? I probably have about 20 versions of this image, and I have wanted to post one of them for a long time – well at least since I started this blog. Most of my versions are B/W with different levels of blurred back ground. Then the other day I was playing with this image again, I moved the temperature slider in LR3 by mistake instead of the Exposure slider, and I really liked what the blue cast did to the image, sort of like a moon beam hitting the rocks in the lake, so explored that a bit more from there, and this is what I came up with. I like this image a lot, and it’s probably one of those shots I going to make a 18×12 print of and hang in one of my bed rooms. I’m just not totally sure if I’m finished with it.
Your input and advice is always appreciated.
Morning fog…
Nikon D300, 56mm, 1/180s @ f8, ISO200 – Please click on image for a larger view
Today’s image is from late October 2010. It is shot in Espanola, Ontario. Espanola is a small town of Hwy 17 and it’s known for its paper plant – and by outsiders, unfortunately also the at times unbearable smell that is associated with paper manufacturing.
Usually when I’m in Espanola, I stay on the main road, but this time I decided to go down a side road that would lead to a pick-nick area by the lake.
So late October, early morning around 9:30, no wind what so ever. The fog is so thick that its hard to even see the side of the road I’m driving on. I get to the pick-nick area, and all of a sudden the sun peeps through clouds. The water is a mirror and with the fog slowly lifting it reveals this dock/boat house and the reflections from the trees and skies in the water. It was a great surprise because I did not know what I could expect at this location and I guess I got there just in time. 10 minutes later and I wouldn’t have gotten anything like this. So I quickly setup my tripod and camera and got some shots. Minutes later the wind was picking up and with the sun out, the fog was gone. I’m really happy I got this shot you see above. I have made many color versions of it, but this B/W version is my favorite.
Reflections…
Nikon D300, 200mm, 1/45sec @ f8
First off, thanks to every body who took time to check out my new blog and for leaving some nice comments. It’s been a great experience so far and I have in return come across some pretty cool sites that I probably wouldn’t discovered on my own. It has definitively made me want to post more of my images, so thanks again for the “push”.
When I’m out shooting, I like to look for patterns or symbols. I also like to shoot water, and water and patterns makes some really cool combos and/or reflections.
I went shooting last fall with my good friend Ken Bennison, around Massey, Ontario. We took Ken’s truck, and I was so smart (read: really really stupid) to leave my tripod in my car. (Whats more important on a shoot – Lunch or the tripod?- Well, I obviously choose to bring my lunch…) When I realized what I had done, it was too late. We were too far up the road. So hand holding a camera became a great exercise that day. Hand holding is not a huge problem until dusk comes around, that’s when it gets pretty tricky.
At the time of this shot, we were about 90 min up a gravel road, and I noticed this rock had a familiar symbol or pattern to it. It reminded me of a teacher I had a long time ago that drew eyes like that. The V shape on the side and the curve to complete the eye. Here the reflection in the water mirrors the crack and the semi-circle in the rock and completes the “eye” – twice. It looks almost like an ancient Egyptian symbol you would find on the pyramids.
It was a great outing that day, even though I was without a tripod. I have a couple more shots from that day that I will post later.
Be sure to check out Ken’s images. He has some pretty amazing stuff on his blog
Stay tuned.
