Sunrise on West Hawk Lake

 

After having a  few tough months my wife decided and that we could use some R&R.  So she made arrangements for two nights at West Hawk Lake, our favourite vacation spot.  Time at West Hawk means hikes on Hunt Lake Trail, time spent on the beach and in the cold waters, firesides as well as relaxing breakfasts eating breakfast sandwich over a great cup of coffee and spending time in my grateful journal.  Oh I almost forgot, getting up early at least on one of the mornings to do some photography.  That's where this image comes in.  I woke up at around 4:30,  knowing that sunrise was happening around 5 and as tired as I was I got dressed and headed out.  One of the places I'd been thinking about was a 10 minute walk through the camping grounds.  I would have to be quiet so I would not wake any of the campers.  When I got to the spot I noticed the water level was down due to the lack of snow in winter and rains this last spring.  I fished around in my camera bag and got out my Nikon D90 with my wide angle Sigma 10-20mm lens.  I put my camera onto my tripod and stepped out onto one of the bigger rocks that were sticking out of the water.  The set up was difficult as it was very uneven and in fact had to put one of the legs onto a different rock to make it work.  The sun had not as of yet made an appearance but the sky was still bright enough that I keep on blowing out my image on the light side.  Blowing out is not a good thing as it means there is no information in that area that blows out.  I kept on under exposing but that meant my foreground was too dark and probably blowing out on the dark side.  That's no good either and I was getting a little frustrated.  I do not do HDR as I do not have the editing tools that can handle that.  For those who don't know what HDR is, it's taking a few shots at different exposures and than blending them together in the computer to make this perfect image.  So how can I make this work?  I step off of the rocks and went back to my camera bag.  I put my camera with the wide angle lens away and pulled out my other camera with a telephoto Nikon 70-300mm lens on it.  I wasn't sure what I wanted with this lens but I stepped out onto the rocks I had previously been on and started scanning the water.  As I was scanning I saw this cool colour layering thing happening when I went in tight, I loved it.  I hand held a few shots and noticed that I was not blowing out and liked what I was seeing.  So I put my camera on the tripod and set up a really cool vertical image.  I must admit it was something totally different for me but I was getting excited by what I was seeing.  Just to make sure I was covering every angle I set up a few horizontal shots and like them too although I was favoring the verticals.  When I had exhausted this set up I turned my camera around and started shooting wider images with the same lens on the opposite side of the sky.  After a few different set ups I packed up and went back to the cottage.  I briefly looked over what I'd shot at breakfast and liked some of what I'd shot out there.  Unfortunately Tuesday night we headed home.  It had been such a relaxing at West Hawk, my head was in such a good place and I wished we could have spent a month out there instead of just two nights.  When we did get home that evening I put my images on the computer and really liked the tight in images I'd taken out on the water.  I edited one and sent it to my friend Steve to see what he thought, he's an artist so I value his opinion.  He said he like the light but his wife had really liked the image.  I showed the image to my wife and she also really like it.  I than text the image to the family and my daughter loved it and said it would make a great background on her cell and my son agreed.  Well that's it, it's a keeper.

Dark Horse

 The last snow fall of the season and I had the morning off.  After dropping my wife off at work I drove home picked up my camera gear and headed south down highway 12.  As I drove past this particular pasture I notice a couple of horses and thought that could make an interesting image with it snowing.  I love horses and every time I get a chance to photograph them I take advantage of it.  So I did a U turn and pull up onto the shoulder of the road on the side that the horses were on.  I got my Nikon D90 with my 70-300mm lens out and  turned up the ISO to be able to handle any action they may throw my way on this early overcast morning.  The horses were a distance away and I figured I would need to have my lens as close to 300mm so I could to get the images that I wanted.  I got out of the vehicle and proceeded  into the ditch, stopped and took a few shots.  It was at this time that they noticed me and came running towards me.  My lens struggled getting focused on them as they moved towards me at a fairly fast clip, the falling snow was not helping the situation.  I kept on pressing my shutter release button and ever once in a while it was grabbing and would go off.  They came up to the fence where I was and I spent some time talking and petting them.  I took a few portrait shots of them standing there and then decided to move on and get some landscape images.  Later that day when I looked at what I taken in the morning I was disappointed with most of what I was seeing. One of the  shots though did get my attention as I loved the way the dark horse on the right looked. There was so much action, energy and pure wildness in the way the horse looked but the other horse was only partly in the shot and that was a disappointment.  There was no way to clone out that horse as there was just too much to clone out and cloning is not one of my strong point of editing.  Then in occurred to me that I could crop out the horse on the left on this horizontal image and make this a vertical, so that is what I did.  I love it!  This has again taught me, it's more than the crop that makes this image work, although it definitely helped a lot in this case.  It's more than good to be lucky, lucky to be good photographer making this image work but it's more about just being out there that makes this image work.  So get out there and make it happen!

My Monet moment on the Seine River

It was perfect conditions for some great photography.  The autumn colours were starting to show, there was a slight breeze but it was beautiful outside.  As I crawled underneath bridge I could see the wonderful colours reflected in the water, on the north side of the bridge, so that is where I set up.  As I was getting my focus it just didn’t look right, it wasn’t focusing properly.  I looked up from my camera and as I looked at the scene in front of me I realized it wasn’t the camera that was the issue it was me.  I put my prescription sunglasses on and that helped some but things just weren’t clear.  That really scared me and my anxiety started to rise.  I managed to get myself together and decided I was here and I really wanted to get these images.  I had to trust my camera, I had my f-stop set at 14 and that was where I wanted it, as I wanted to shoot slower to soften the water a bit but still wanted all the foliage on the sides to be in focus.  I focus 1/3 way into my scene and pressed my shutter release button on my camera.  I shot off another two shots under and over exposing.  I couldn’t tell if they were in focus but just assumed they were.  I then did a quick set up on the south side of the bridge and did the same thing with my focus and my exposures.  At this point my anxiety started to get the best of me so I went up to my car and slowly drove home.  This eye thing stayed with me for a few days and then it cleared up.  Was this from encephalitis or just simply anxiety which has heightened since meningitis and encephalitis?  Off that topic, it turned out the images I took looked great.  I have had a few people tell me the reflection in the river looks like a Monet painting, one of them being my oldest brother.  So this is my Monet!