It is sometime in November
The Tamarack are gold and orange
I was wandering around a boggy area
The home of Tamarack
A splash of light caught my attention
A glow in an otherwise dark forest
Tag Archives: Swamp
Tamarack
The fall colors of the maple and oak are almost gone now. Standing out in contrast with the green of the pines and spruce, the tamarack displays its beauty. The tamarack is also known as larch.
The Algonquian people named this tree tamarack. The meaning, wood used for snowshoes. Its habitat is low lying areas such as swamps,and bogs. The larch is deciduous and the needles turn yellow in autumn.
I photographed this scene in the late afternoon. Sunlight was filtering through the clouds. The side lighting intensified the yellow color of the tamarack. The backdrop of the green spruce helped to allow the tamarack to stand out in the photo.
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What is Behind the Campsite.
This past Friday myself,my daughter and son-in-law headed for Muriel Lake in Killarney Provincial Park.We had to cover 5 lakes and 4 portages to the campsite.We did not get away till 4:00 that afternoon.A quick check into the park office for camping permits and we were soon loading the canoe at the George Lake beach.We decided to eat a quick supper before we left.It turned out to be a very hot weekend.
Launching the canoe we were off on our adventure.George Lake is about a 40 to 50 minute paddle to the first portage of 90 meters. Off loading our gear we quickly carried over to Freeland Lake and headed to the next portage.The wind was light so the going was easy.Freeland Lake has a fair amount of vegetation in the form of lily pads.
The Killarney Lake portage soon arrived and we carried all our gear and canoe over.This was a 380 meter carry over.You could feel the heat.Once out into the open water the beauty of the La Cloche Mountain system is much evident.We had a short canoe paddle at the upper end of Killarney Lake to get to the carry over into O S A Lake.There are a lot of campers at this time of year and most folks are friendly.
We quickly hauled over the 455 meters to O S A Lake.This lake is one off my favorite lakes to photograph.Launching into the turquoise blue waters,the sun fading,we made our way to the West end of the lake.Arriving at our last portage we made haste to make it over to Muriel Lake.This portage was 595 meters.By this time it was now dark.There was enough light to make our way to the West end of the lake.There are two campsites at this location.We chatted with one of the campers who told us were the campsite was.
We arrived at the general location of this campsite and proceeded to search for it on shore with flashlights.My son-in-law located it and we unloaded and got the tent setup.The mosquitoes are bad here once the sun goes down.I was tired so off to bed I went.
The above photo was a panoramic that I took the following evening.At the time it was hot and muggy.As I strolled along a path behind our campsite I came across this beautiful,serene scene.This would make a different take on what I usually photograph.I set the Canon 7d to take multiple exposures at different shutter speeds.With The camera set at vertical I proceeded to do six shots to cover the whole scene that you see above.
When I got home I processed each set of exposures in HDR.Then I did a photo-merge in Photoshop to create the 20″x60″ photo.I did not do any processing in HDR.This is a great way to bring out the shadow details.With the La Cloche Mountains in the background and reflecting into any open water,the various shades of green and grey deadheads over the swampy area added up to an interesting shot.
Well that is it for now.I will continue the story at another date.So until next time happy trails.
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Mile 29 Aux Sauble River
Late afternoon last Thursday Paul Smith and I head up to the 42 mile mark on the Aux Sauble River North of Massey.This location has a good set of rapids which are not of much interest in photographing.The river above the rapids is quite interesting with good photographing opportunities.
We had been here the week before when there was an overcast sky and the air was heavy with moisture.As a matter fact there was a fine mist in the air that you could not see,but the mist showed up in the photos.I had a lot of unsharp photos,especially with the rocks.
This time around the problem was that we had shadow to the left and right of us and brightly lit shoreline ahead of us.There was a touch of wind that did not stop completely.Another problem we ran into was that the fish were jumping at a tiny white mayfly that probably measured about a 1/8 inch. I had seen one fly by me close up so I was able to identify it as a mayfly hatch.You would press the shutter and a fish would jump creating ripples in the water.
I walked out to a rock above the rapids in my chest waders and noticed some reddish colored rocks in front of me.Looking at the far shore line I saw rocks and deadheads reflecting in the water.By combining the reddish rocks for foreground and the far shore for depth I created an interesting composition.I set my zoom lense at 44mm and the shutter speed at 4 sec and the f stops at f25.
Once we lost our lightning we packed up and headed back down the road.We decided to take the crossover road that connects the Tote Road to the Westbranch Road North of Webbwood. This road is used by loggers to get in to the area to cut trees and haul the logs to the sawmill.Paul and I were driving along when we drove down a small hill and before us was a swampy area with blackish water by the road.What caught our eye was a group of deadheads on the far side with reddish orange grass behind them.The water was dead calm and the lighting was gorgeous.We parked the truck and proceeded to photograph and low and behold we again had problems with fish jumping.
The above photo was one of the compositions that I came up with.Shot with a zoom setting of 65 mm and a shutter speed of 3.2 sec @ f22.One of the things that I had to watch out for was there was a lot of gray in the background that would not look good.The lightning lasted about a half an hour,before we headed home.
So until next time happy trails.
Ken Bennison's Photography 