Tag Archives: water

Photography, Poetry

A River’s Destiny

3 Comments

MeaudeauPano

 

 

 

A fine light mist

Hangs over a Northern lake

Draping the surrounding forest

Moisture laden branches dripping

Onto the lake’s surface

The remnant of a late summer storm

No winds blow now

The lake surface calm

 

The sound of running water

Can be heard not far off

A beaver dam holds

Back the rising water

Induced by the storm

A beaver can be seen

Repairing the leaking dam

 

The water drips through

The dam of sticks and mud

The dripping water

Becomes a trickle

Of a small flowing stream

The stream menders through

A grass filled swamp

Gnarled tree trunks

Grey with age

Stand like aging sentinels

Among the green grass

Waterfowl frolic and feed

 

The stream flows on

The sky is clearing

By late morning

The sun warms the land

Emerging from the wetlands

The river’s edge becomes rocky

The hills close in

Old growth pine and cedar

Dominate the rocky shoreline

 

With quicken of pace

The river flows onward

The merging of streams

Swells the strengthen river

The speckled trout abounds

In the clear and cold water

Of pools and rapids

 

A wide bend appears

A grove of Birch trees

In a burnt over area

Grace the river’s edge

The white bark luminous

In the late afternoon

 

There is a noticeable

Increase of water flow

The roaring sound of water

Can be heard ahead

Mist is seen in the distance

The river plunging vertically

Over a steep precipice

Into a swirling pool

Jagged cliffs are raised

Above the violent water

Manitoulin63

 

A family of Otter rollick

Below the misty falls

The river tumbles and surges

Through a rock infested gorge

To emerge into quiet waters

Leaving behind the towering hills

To flow through level land

 

A scattering of Maples

Are now a common sight

A grass filled meadow

Appears in the distance

A Common Merganser hen

With her half grown brood

Following helter-skelter behind

As she hurries downriver

 

A cow moose noiselessly

Steps to the river edge

Two calves follow behind

Lowering their heads

To drink their fill

Of the clear water

Before merging back into

The shadowy forest

Norway

 

The river flows on

Small birds in splendid color

Twitter and dash among

The overhanging tag alders

A hawk perched high

Watching for an unwary prey

A mink dark in color

Follows the rugged shore

With a bounding gait

Foraging for a meal

 

In the far distance

The shimmering waters of

Lake Huron is glimpsed

The river twists and turns

Through heavily forested land

To emerge through wind swept rocks

Merging into the vastness

Of Lake Huron

Photography

Winter Shoreline Patterns

5 Comments

Sudbury_0162

With the weather warming up I decided to go on a mid morning hike. Gathering up my camera gear, I drove to the Fielding Park parking lot. It was a bright cloudy day. Thus making for even lighting. I crossed the Fielding Road and picked up the trail that follows  the river flowing out of Kelly Lake. It was a beautiful morning. There was no wind. There was fresh snow on the ground. The evergreens had a blanket of snow. So nice to be there.

As I traversed the trail I was met by a lone chickadee flirting from branch to branch above my head. On the river ahead of me was a large flock of Common Mergansers. Walking on I spotted a dip in the far shoreline with interesting patterns. There were tracks following the shoreline that could add interest to the scene. Those tracks had to be an old set of tracks as there was a covering of snow in them.

I set up on the trail with my tripod. If you stepped off the trail you were in deep snow. I set this up as a tight shot. Up in the left hand side their is a clump of vegetation. But most important you will see a diagonal line running down to the water’s edge. This will help give more depth to the photo. I kept the water to a minimal to just allow the reflections to show. There is tremendous detail to be had in this composition. I must say that the tracks help create this scene.

The weather is changing here. It is warming up. So until next time happy trails.

Photography, Poetry

An Ole Shed

18 Comments

SanPoche_Tone_vig

A beautiful Fall day

The air is warm

A mist upon the air

No hint of the cold temps

That will soon come

It is a late afternoon

The sun hangs low

Over the colourful hills

A lone shed nestles

Among the white birch

Having fallen into neglect

The door stands ajar

The metal roof aging

Into a rusty red

The weather beaten walls

Becoming a sombre grey

The encroaching forest slowly

Enclosing the old building

The vibrant forest behind

Of green, orange and yellow

Has taken on a soft glow

From the late afternoon sunlight

Filtering through the trees

The surface of the lake

Has a  a soft ripple

From a caressing wind

Creating an artist’s palette

Of reflective Fall colors

Photography

The Creative Side of Me

4 Comments

CameronFalls0019

You take a small waterfalls. Then some lovely textured rocks. Wait for the right lighting. Shoot from a low angle to give the waterfalls the illusion of height. You then can create a magic and mystical place. Yet all in all this scene is only three feet high, depth about six feet and maybe five feet wide. There is not a whole lot of water cascading over the rocks. Thus a shutter speed of one second and the f-stop set at 22 for that added depth. Looking at this photo, you say to yourself, wow I would love to sit on those rocks to let the water cascade over and around me. But you will discover that you are bigger than the scene. This is what I call a micro landscape. Many scenes can be found within the big picture. In this location we have a large waterfall with water flowing where ever there is a path to follow. This is due to the erosion of the rock formation over time. At this particular waterfall the water drops in a series of drops. So you have your main waterfalls along with a host of mini waterfalls to work with. You wait till late summer for the water flow to decrease and expose more of the rock structures.

When shooting this close you will discover the intricate detail in the rocks. Depth is very important here to give the scene some dimension front to back. Another important factor is to shoot the waterfalls at an angle, not dead on. This allows you to create more dimensional depth to the waterfalls. Remember your photo is two dimensional, thus you need to give the illusion of three dimensional.Nature provides the material. It is up to you to make it happen. This is also a scene that requires the right lighting. Be able to recognize that. Be patient and wait. Enjoy the environment and then you may get your chance.

I would like to wish all my friends who come here for a visit a very Merry Christmas and be safe. So until next time happy trails.

Photography

Getting In Tight

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ChutesProvincialPark_2695

The flow of water. Unique rock structure with strong earth colors. Ferns turning a rusty red in the bottom left. Touch of red from a Maple shrub in bottom right corner. This all adds up to a beautiful composition. I came across this scene on my Fall trip to Chutes Provincial Park, just North of Massey, Ontario. As a matter of fact, I first discovered it on my original trip along this stretch of the Aux Sable River a few years back. The passing of time alters a scene.

This is a very tight composition. It allows for more creativity. You have water flowing in, then flowing out at bottom right. I maintained my f22 with shutter speeds set at 1.3 sec. This allowed me to capture detail in the water. That is very important to me as I like water to have character and life.

Check my Fine Art Prints section. I have added a new composition to the selections. It is titled Paradise Lagoon. I received an honorable mention at the 2013 Landscape Exhibition by MyArtContest

http://myartcontest.com/index.html

This is a very beautiful location. The water is turquoise blue. There are a series of waterfalls in an approximately half mile of river.  It is located North of Sudbury, Ontario in the Wolf Mountain, Wolf Lake locality. If you are looking for an unique composition to hang on your wall, this could be it.

I would like to bring to your attention the outstanding work of wildlife and pet portrait artist Colette Theriault. Colette has won many awards for her work. She resides in the Greater City of Sudbury. Check her website to view her work.

http://www.colettetheriault.com/

I will be at the Annual Christmas and Gift Show this weekend. It is located at Confederation Secondary School in Val Caron.

Saturday from 10 to 4

Sunday from 11 to 3

Well I must go and continuing packing. Thanks for stopping by. Until next time happy trails

Photography

Faces In the Rocks

7 Comments

Springhaven_3123

On a previous trip to Nares Inlet Gerard Leduc and I were walking the shoreline exploring for photo opportunities. Nares Inlet is part of Georgian Bay. I had parked my Ford Escape in the parking lot of Springhaven Lodge. As we walked the shoreline Gerard pointed out an interesting rock structure that jutted out into the bay. It had the shape of an Indian head. This was pretty cool. In my travels I have come across many such faces created by Mother Nature. Whether human or animal they are out there if you look. They are also called the faces of the Grandfather by native people.

I set my tripod up for the best angle to portray this feature. The water had a blue color that would really make the head stand out. The rock formation had a lot of detail from the colors available to the rock formations themselves. There was a clump of small rocks that I used for my foreground to add depth. If you look closely you will see a small brownish  rock in a depression that gives the impression of an eye on the head.

Well that is it for this week. Thank you for stopping by. Until next time happy trails.

Photography

Little Tree, Little Island

11 Comments

BirchIsland_2222

 

4:30 a.m. comes early. Hauled my self out of bed. Loaded the gear into my Ford Escape. Stopped in Lively to pick up a Tim Horton’s coffee and some breakfast. Next stop was for gas. Then it was off for my morning shot. I arrived on location at 6:00 am with an hour to spare. Sunrise about 7:10 a.m. The temperature was hovering around 0 C. There was mist on the lake but it was still too dark. Lesson learned. Stay in bed an extra hour.

But the end result was the above photo about an hour and a half later. A little tree on a little island. Beautiful golden morning light saturating the mist. I kept this photo tight so as not to distract from the subject. By shooting vertical I was able to do that.

Well that is it for now. Thank you for stopping by. Until next time happy trails.

Photography

The River Flows

9 Comments

Paradise_1566

 

The idea of this composition is to show the beautiful rock texture and the color of the water. With that in mind I have my flow in with the waterfalls in background. Flow out of the water at the bottom right corner of the composition. The tripod was set low to eliminate some water in the upper pool. On the left of the composition the rock in foreground gives added depth. I experimented with various shutter speeds to obtain character in the water. The water here is a wonderful turquoise blue. There is just enough green to give a final touch. There is also a little wildflower growing on the rock in the foreground. This location was in the Wolf Lake area North of Kukagami Lake region.

That is it for now. Thank you for stopping by. Until next time happy trails

Photography

An Evening in Paradise

7 Comments

ItParadise_1517

Tuesday afternoon I had decided to go back up by Wolf Lake to where I had photographed in June. The location was the series of waterfalls at Lagoon Paradise. By now the water levels will have dropped exposing the colorful rocks that were underwater. I picked up Gerard Leduc mid afternoon and we were soon on our way. We stopped at Tim Horton’s to pick up our coffee and then we headed East on Highway 17. It was a nice sunny day with a slight breeze. Just great to be out. It was not long before we turned off onto the Kukagami Road. We were now traveling on gravel roads. As we approached the Y, I turned left onto the Matagamasi Road. We drove past Bassfin Lake heading North.

It was an uneventful trip to our destination, but always some nice scenery to observe. We were soon at the drop off point and I parked the Ford Escape. Gerard and I loaded up our camera gear and started hiking up the logging  road. Picking up the trail off the road, the sound of  running water soon reached our ears. The humidity appeared to be high here among the trees and both of us were sweating. It is a fifteen minute walk to the waterfalls. We arrived at the water’s edge and found a good place to sit by the upper pool. Gerard and I ate our sandwiches while we waited for the sun to drop lower. Just being here observing the scene around us was a pleasure. I always enjoy the sound of running water.

There was some heavy cloud cover overhead that hid the sun for brief periods. I set up my tripod and 7d to capture the scene you see above. I now had a chance to try out my new 70 to 200 f4 Canon L series lens. It allowed me to get a better and tighter composition than my Canon 24 to 135 zoom would do. Especially for this particular photo. I loved the color of the rocks in this scene. Also I fell in love with the fern in the upper right hand corner. It is these little attentions to detail that can make or break a good composition. You also get a wide variety of earth  colors. I using a faster shutter speed I was able to get some very unique patterns in the water. It was then just a matter of waiting for the sun to hid behind a cloud to start shooting.

Suddenly the quiet was interrupted by a splash of water to my right. A young couple with their son and daughter had just arrived and were soon swimming in the pool. In conversation with the Father I learned that this was there first time here. They had learned about Paradise Lagoon from a guy on CBC Radio One talking about this location and the fact that it was located within the Greater City of Sudbury. I am also starting to see evidence of garbage in the form of water bottles and so forth. The price you pay for too many people finding these locations. Shortly afterwards five teenage boys showed up and were having a great time at the pool. This pretty much put an end to photographing for this evening. Also the fact that I had forgot to charge my batteries for the camera didn’t help.

While that is it for this week. Thank you for the comments and stopping by. Every one have a safe Civic Holiday long weekend. Until next time happy trails.

Photography

North of Capreol Part 2

2 Comments

NorthCapreol_0324

After discovering the stream mentioned in the previous post, Jan Winther and I returned late in the afternoon to photograph the series of small waterfalls that are here. When we arrived the sunlight was blowing the highlights on the water. It was a couple hours before we could commence shooting. The above waterfalls was the first location as the stream dropped in elevation making its way to the North River. At the base of the waterfalls it was a mess of downed trees and other junk. I set up to the left of the waterfalls to exclude the mess. Also I like to photograph these type of scenes at a bit of an angle. This gives the water depth and dimension. If you photograph a waterfalls dead on it becomes flat looking. You must create the illusion of depth in your work. I will also do creative sharpening on the foreground to enhance this effect.

Now I had protruding rock on the left along with a good chunk of rock in the foreground. I created a composition of one third of forest and two thirds water falls looking at it vertically. You have to know were the water came from, which you can see through the cedar trees and you have an exit point at lower right in the composition. There is a lot of structure detail in the rocks. The cedar boughs have a color range from light to dark green. Almost looks like light from the sun painting some of the boughs. This helps also to create a very nice composition.

As we progressed into evening a few black flies started to appear. Welcome to Northern Ontario. They mainly hovered around us but did not seem to have any interest in biting us. Well that is it for this week. Thank you for coming by. Until next time happy trails