Despite the bug issues in the summer months, there's a lot I liked about Silent Lake provincial park. The big lookout trail is not too busy compared to places like Algonquin to the north. The scenery is very similar with a good mix of rocks, pine and hardwoods changing colour in the fall and the trail follows the edge of Silent lake for most of the northeastern side of the lake. There are many nice little pullouts when you can stop for a rest by the side of the lake and have a bite to eat or make a nice photograph of the changing leaves.

I started the trail at the day use area and quickly came upon a couple of small scenes with leaf fall on a small creek flowing out of Silent lake and the surrounding rocks. There was a nice beam of light breaking through the canopy and illuminating the scene with the rocks which created a nice natural vignette effect.

As I made may way along the trail, I stopped at a small rocky outcrop just across from an island in the middle of the lake. The shape of the island roughly mimics the hill on the far side of the water, filled with trees at pear colour.

As I continued along the trail, I encountered several of these small rocky outcroppings which allowed for a variety of images of the trees along the shoreline.

I encountered this scene fairly early on in my hike, but the trees were backlit in the morning sun, so I passed it by, planning to return towards the end of the day in better light. I had already made a photograph here on my last trip to the park, but I was hoping to do better with the foliage and warmer light. It would have been difficult to complete the 14km trail and make it back here, so I turned back at the 7km marker and did the trail in reverse on the way back to the car. Both the image above and below were taken on the return trip. When I arrived back at the scene below, some clouds were starting to move in towards the southwest and I had to wait a bit for a break in the cover, but despite the wait and being exhausted from the hike, I think the final result turned out well.

 

I returned to Algonquin Provincial park twice in mid to late September for my annual autumn colours photo hikes. Peak colour for the maple trees occurs around September 27th on average, and we had some fairly cold and raining days towards the end of the month which usually pushes the colour transitions forward. On both weekends I left early in the morning before sunrise to hopefully catch some of the first light on the landscape and avoid some of the traffic in the park along highway 60. It's also a lot easier to find parking at the trailhead before everyone else arrives. I tackled two main trails these two weeks, the "Centennial Ridges" trail (which was a first for me) and the "Track and Tower" trail which I have done several times in the past.

The fall colour transition was at about 50% the first weekend, which meant that the understory of the forrest was still very green. The maple canopy when viewed from the cliff tops was still rather patchy, but the expansive views over White Fish lake were still impressive.

After wrapping up on the trail I stopped at the Lake of Two Rivers to see one of the more iconic views along highway 60. As the sun was starting to set, the island covered with windswept pines was being lit nicely with some impressive cumulous clouds rising high overhead. I framed a shot to include both the island and the clouds together which seemed to complement each other.

On the following weekend, the maple trees along the highway were showing much better colour, and some of the trees were dropping leaves on the pathways and creeks along my hike. Although the lake and river levels were much lower than last year, I was drawn to a small intimate waterfall scene with red maple leaves scattered throughout.

Perhaps my favourite shot of the two trips was this scene along the shores of Grant Lake. With mostly evergreen trees surrounding the south side of the lake, the image doesn't have much fall colour, but the beautifully soft light on the mid ground white pine highlights the main subject in a very appealing way.

With the cooler autumn temperatures rapidly approaching, I managed to sneak in one last camping trip in mid-September to the near north of Ontario at Grundy Lake Provincial Park. The best part of camping in the early fall is the lack of bugs, which were pretty bad this year in the early summer due to all the rainfall we had. There was a bit of overcast weather and rain when I woke up Sunday morning, but for the most part the weather was not to damp or cold.

On Saturday evening, after I set up camp and had some dinner, the sun was breaking through the clouds and lighting up the island across the lake from my campsite. The warm evening light complemented the cool blue of the sky and lake nicely.

The next morning, despite a drizzle of rain, there was a break in the clouds below the horizon to the east, allowing the first dark red rays of morning light to mix with the twilight blue to create an intense purple predawn glow. I forgot the head to my tripod at home, so I had the balance the camera very precariously on a small fabric camping stool for the several seconds of exposure to capture the intense red and purple hues of the sunrise.

After the sun came up and I had quickly eaten some oats and coffee, the clouds continued to break up and create a bright over exposed sky. However, the light was still warm and created an attractive high key effect that backlit the trees nicely. You can just make out some of the mist rising out of the lake into the cold morning air.

After packing up my wet tent, I headed out for a hike along the shores of gut lake. Despite the overcast conditions, the lake was perfectly still and creating a beautiful reflection of the rocks and trees along the far side of the lake.

Fortunately, the clouds started to move out around lunchtime. I was set up at a stunning location right at the transition time when the sun just started to poke through the clouds and softly light the scene, but before the light became excessively harsh and contrasty.

Camping at Grundy lake in the late summer was a nice experience without the crowds of people or insects around. I think Isabella would enjoy coming here and this might be a good candidate for a family visit next summer.

 

Hogg's Falls is a small to medium sized waterfall in the Flesherton area of Ontario. I ditched the kids with their grandmother one weekend in late August and headed down to check the area out. The water flow level was relatively low, and there is the path down to the base of the falls from the trail so I tried setting up a few compositions with the stream as a foreground element. The biggest challenges were the high contrast between the shaded base of the falls and the canyon walls with the foliage and water up at the top. I waited for some clouds to pass overhead, but the foreground rocks looked best with some of the dappled sunlight on them filtered through the trees overhead. This was my favourite shot of the afternoon.

Wrapping up this series on our trip to the Rocky Mountains, I'm sharing some images of the wildlife we encountered throughout the parks. From small critters, a variety of birds, up to large elk, sheep and even bears, we saw some sort of wildlife almost every day of the trip. Here are a few of the animals we encountered:

Ground Squirrel and Chipmunks

Elk

Deer

Bighorn Sheep

Mountain Goats

Bald Eagle nesting

Loons

Bears!

We saw over a dozen bears on lakesides and the roadsides as we travelled around the three parks. Most of the bears were black, but three of them were Grizzly bears, with their distinctive large claws. One of the grizzlies has a large tag around its neck which likely housed a GPS or radio tracking device. We were somewhat concerned about running into a bear on the trails, but despite several recent reports and sightings at Sunshine Meadows and Lake O'Hara we managed to avoid any encounters in the wild. The bears were mostly scavenging for berries, while the grizzly was flipping over rocks and debris looking for insects and small animals.

 

In addition to the iconic locations and shots that have been a bit over done, there are tons of unique images that can be captured by focusing on interesting light, or zooming in on smaller details or intimate landscapes, even from some of the most popular spots.

Canyons and Waterfalls

The various canyons throughout the mountains are filled with wonderful abstract shapes. Smooth flowing water rushing up against hard rock, an assortment of trees and shrubs sprout out of various cracks, and it's all lit by soft canyon light.

Glaciers

The various glaciers seen all the way up the Icefields Parkway gleam brilliantly against the various mountain peaks they flow past. The ice is filled with interesting layers of dust and rocks, and the azure shaded ice melts in abstract patterns and shapes

Dappled Light

Even cloudy days in the mountains result in great light, as beams break through the cloud cover and illuminate small patches of the landscape. These make for dynamic and images when captured with a telephoto lens.

Mountain Peaks

One of the best things about being up in the mountains is seeing the alpenglow hit the peaks at sunrise or during the last moments of sunset. The various peaks can take on different characteristics depending on how close you are or which side you view them from. Even on overcast days the chance to capture the mountains peaking out through the clouds provided great photographic opportunities.

Don't forget to look down at your feet as well...

 

Yoho National Park sits directly adjacent to Banff across the provincial border in British Columbia. It features several of the same mountain peaks that can be seen from Lake Louise, but they are approached from the western side instead. We only stayed for a couple of days in a log cain in the park (it was fairly expensive) but the park is less than 30 mins drive from Lake Louise and we made a couple of trips over to visit various sights.

The easiest attraction to get to is the Natural Bridge, where the Kicking Horse river has cut a channel through a rock ledge creating a natural overpass. The site is directly next to the road and is a popular stop for big tour buses. The area was a bit crowded, with people climbing on both the bridge and the rocky area upstream. As soon as one group left another would show up, making it extremely difficult to capture an image without people in it. But that just seems to be par-for-the-course at these well known spots in the Rockies. The shot below was a bit challenging due to the high contrast from the mid July sun and limited angles available, but I found the shape of the cut in the rock interesting and tried to frame it along with the surrounding landscape.

Emerald Lake is almost as hectic and overcrowded as the shores of Lake Louise; the pedestrian bridge and lodge restaurant are popular photographic subjects, especially in the evening or wintertime. On this day some rainclouds were rapidly moving in creating rather flat light, so I took a couple of long-exposure shots and we moved on to our next stop.

We returned to Emerald lake a few days later after our trip up to Jasper, on another rainy day, figuring it might be worth exploring the other side of the lake along the hiking trails to look for some different views. At the base of one of the avalanche slopes the forest gave way to a nice meadow filled with bright pink fireweed. As I approached the scene, the sun broke through the clouds, illuminating the fields and peaks above and I captured the following image.

Takakkaw Falls is the second highest waterfall in Canada and is directly fed by a large mountaintop ice field that is shared with Banff park to the east. The water hasn't passed through a lake yet, so the river downstream is whiter and filled with sand from the glaciers that feed it. The trail from the parking lot leads you right up to the base of the falls, but they look more attractive back a bit near edge of the river. There was some light rain passing overhead as we arrived, so I waited patiently for quite a while hoping for a break in the clouds that would better light the foreground and the give some of that dramatic patchy dappled light that I love to shoot in.

I can easily say that the part of our trip I was most looking forward to was a visit to Lake O'Hara and the surrounding alpine trails. While most of the popular attractions in the area suffer from large crowds, Lake O'Hara is accessible by a bus ride down an old 11km logging road, and there are only a limited number of seats available for the two buses each day. In order to obtain tickets for the bus, they had to be reserved online in April and the tickets usually sell out for the entire year in a matter of a few minutes. We were extremely fortunate to be able to get 4 spots on the first bus. 

Our experience at the lake did not disappoint! Due to the strict quotas and limited access there were far fewer people around on the trails and it was a much more pleasant experience. We chose to take the trail up towards Lake Oesa, with a few smaller alpine lakes in between, and stunning views of the peaks along the way. The trail started out by going around the edge of Lake O'Hara, giving amazing views right from the start.

The path soon split off into a series of switchbacks rising up a steep hill. The kids did a great job making this assent and before long we were treated to a great view of Lake O'Hara from the top of a prominent rocky cliff.

The first of the smaller alpine lakes we passed was Lake Yukeness, at the base of it's namesake mountain. We saw a marmot searching for food amongst the rocks next to the lake, but it scampered away rather quickly once it saw us. The trees surrounding the water looked nice backlit by the sun, resulting in the shot below.

After scrambling up some rather steep steps and pathways adjacent to a rushing waterfall, we arrived at my favourite of the smaller alpine lakes, Lake Victoria. The colour of the water was an amazingly clear and bright blue, with very picturesque rocks, waterfalls and the snowy mountain peaks off in the distance.

Our final destination for the day was the expansive Lake Oesa surrounded on three sides with towering mountain peaks. The lake is actually quite a bit larger than it appears in the shot due to foreshortening and the extremely wide angle of this panoramic image. We stopped here to eat lunch and enjoy the surroundings before descending the trail the same way we came from to get back to the trailhead.

As the afternoon drew to an end, some clouds started to make their way across the scene, casting shadows and dappled light on the ridges, waterfalls and lakeside trees. I captured this final image before we boarded the bus to return back to the parking lot. Lily was so tired from the day that she fell asleep on the bus, despite it being one of the bumpiest rides I've ever taken.

Lake O'Hara lived up to all the hype, all my expectations, and was easily my favourite part of our entire trip. I hope to be able to return one day and explore some of the other trails in the area including the hanging valley of the Opabin Plateau which we didn't have time to explore this time around.

I have heard it said the the Icefields Parkway is one of the most scenic drives in all of Canada. The highway follows the valley between two ridges of the Rocky Mountains all the way up from Banff to Jasper National Park and beyond. At about 300 km in total, the drive would only take a typical morning or afternoon except for the shear number of breathtaking attractions, lookouts and and trails along the way. On both trips between Banff and Jasper it took us all day to make the drive, and we probably didn't even cover half of what is there to see.

The Columbia Icefields are massive in a way that difficult to truly comprehend, the vast majority of the ice is not even visible from the various stops, and the glaciers that you can see look much smaller and compressed when viewed from the base. The day we drove up to Jasper was fairly rainy and windy, and it was particularly cold at the base of the Athabasca glacier as the air flowed down the surface of the ice.

Tangle Creek Falls is a small waterfall directly adjacent to the road. Mountain goats frequent the area and you can scale up the waterfall to capture it from a variety of angles.

The Icefields Parkway has a prominent switchback close to the border between Banff and Jasper parks to gain elevation going up into the mountain pass near Parker Ridge. At the top of the switchback is a pullout that gives an impressive view down the valley.

Near the town of Jasper, Mount Edith Cavell is probably the most picturesque of the nearby summits, with its rocky bands alternating with snow standing in contrast to the surrounding peaks. The Angel glacier can be seen half way up the mountain and the Cavell glacier at its base.

Sunwapta Falls is an interesting waterfall that features a small island in the middle of the river before the waters plunge into the gorge below.

Athabasca Falls is a very busy attraction close to the road which features a large and easily accessible main falls and a twisting gorge with attractive rock cuts beyond the falls.

The highlight of our visit to Jasper was a boat cruise on Lake Maligne out to the famed Spirit Island. We booked our tickets for the last ride of the day hoping to catch some warm evening light hitting the small peninsula. I was worried with the overcast conditions that day, that the lighting would be dull, but after a short wait there was a brief break in the clouds that allowed me to capture the image below.

Overall, I like Jasper a lot (especially the sticky buns at the Bear Paw Cafe). The biggest difference compared to Banff was the overall poor condition of the forests. Up to 50% of the trees in many locations were dead and turning orange, largely due to beetle infestations. 

In the third instalment of my trip to the Rockies, I'll share some locations from Yoho National Park across the boarder in British Columbia.

There are some locations, despite having been photographed constantly by the thousands of others, on an almost daily basis, that are still awe inspiring and worth experiencing and photographing. One of those iconic locations is here in Canada in the Rocky Mountain National Parks, including Banff, Jasper and Yoho. Unfortunately, most of these locations are so well known that massive overcrowding comes with the popularity. The best opportunities to see these spots is still in the morning, when only the more adventurous folk are awake. The two worst spots for crowding that we experienced on our trip were the Moraine Lake and Lake Louise areas in Banff National Park. Despite the traffic congestion, road closures and dense crowds it was still a fun experience. While in Banff we had the chance to visit several of the more popular spots with varied weather including rain, sunshine, a blizzard in July (!) and plenty of dappled light and colourful sunrises/sets.

One of our first stops was to see the majestic Mount Rundle from across the Bow river at the hoodoo's viewpoint.

Along the Lake Minnewanka loop road we stopped to check out Two Jack Lake where we got another view of Mount Rundle across the water and couple of Loons out searching for breakfast

Also on the loop is the vast Lake Minnewanka and it's rocky shores which looked great in the spotty light from the dramatic clouds passing overhead

We made a couple of trips up into the town of Lake Louise to explore and hike the areas around Lake Louise and Moraine Lake and despite it being so crowded and having to wake up and head out well before dawn, views around the area did not disappoint

Another classic view point near the town of Banff is the Vermillion lakes, a series of small ponds close to the bow river just outside of town. From the shores of the second lake, there is a great view of Mount Rundle, with a reflection in the water and lit by the last rays of sunlight streaking down the valley at the end of the day

My favourite spot to view the town of Banff and surrounding mountains and lakes is the "Green spot" part way up the side of Mount Norquay. On one of the days we visited we were treated to a rainbow as a series of showers passed through

A short drive up the Bow Vally Parkway lies the beautiful Johnston Canyon. We made our way there early in the morning on a rainy day to avoid the crowds. The canyon looks great in overcast light, and it was much easier to take photographs along the paths without other people around.

We ventured up the Icefields parkway to stay for a couple of days in the town of Jasper. Along the way we stopped at a couple of locations including the always popular Peyto Lake and the more secluded Mistaya Canyon.

In the next post I'll share some more images from the ice fields parkway and Jasper National Park...

This summer our family took an extended trip into Western Canada to visit some of the Rocky Mountain Parks including Banff, Jasper, and Yoho. We decided that we wanted to fly into Calgary Alberta, rent a car and drive through the Rockies and finish our vacation with a few days exploring the West Coast and flying home from Vancouver. Lilyanna is a bit of a dinosaur nut, and I was curious to explore the desert and prairie areas of Alberta as well, so we began our vacation by driving a little east from Calgary and visiting Dinosaur Provincial Park and Drumheller.

The badlands at Dinosaur PP are a strange and otherworldly landscape when experiencing them for the first time. The first stop, just before entering the park, is a very short trail that leads you to the edge of the prairie that overlooks the vast canyons of the badlands. Having arrived just at sunrise, the warm golden sunlight was just starting to touch the tops of the rock formations, hinting at the adventures which awaited us for the rest of the day. The badlands are expansive from this viewpoint, showing an interesting contrast between their smooth vertical cutouts and the sharp horizontal multicoloured bands of sedimentary rock.

As we explored and took guided tours of the park, I was particularly attracted to the interesting graphics of the rock formations around the park.

One of the more famous hoodoos in the park is the aptly named "Phred the Camel", who just happens to have a pyramid shaped formation in the background as well.

In addition to the grand vistas and towering rock formations, there were numerous interesting small details to be discovered along the trails, with miniature hoodoos, stunted shrubs, cacti and fossils all waiting to be discovered

We were fortunate enough to avoid any rattlesnakes, scorpions and coyotes, but we did see a few of the mule deer wandering through the wilderness

On the second day of our adventure, we returned to the badlands one final time to capture some sunrise images. Here I captured my favourite picture of the location, with beautiful pink light illuminating the hoodoos and coulee of the badlands. The warm light on the rocks looked amazing contrasting with the blue of the clear sky as the sun rose to illuminate the scene. Overall it was an awe inspiring experience enjoyed by everyone in the family, and I would love the opportunity to return some day.

This past weekend I took a hike along the Mizzy Lake trail in Algonquin Park to look for some wildlife and landscape images. After the bad experience with the mosquitoes on my last outing, I made sure to pack a long sleeve shirt, and was more carful to evenly apply the deet spray all over my arms, neck and back. The mosquitos were still horrendous, but I managed to escape the trail with way fewer bites this time around. Overall the trail was pretty nice, with a good mix of forrest, lake, wetland and beaver ponds and I saw several different animals at different points on the trail. The highlight of the hike was a female moose grazing on aquatic vegetation. The animal either wasn't aware of my presence up in the forest, or it didn't give a damn and happily spent over an hour working its way through the wetland munching on the lily pads as it went. There were beaver dams in several of the lakes, and the beavers were most active on Dizzy lake trying (foolishly) to make a lodge underneath the boardwalk at the edge of the lake. I can't imagine the park wardens will allow the beavers to continue their construction project.

Along the trail I also spotted a garter snake, several loons, and family of river otters (I wasn't quick enough to get a picture of them before they disappeared into the lakeside grasses). The orchids and bushberries were blooming along the trail as well. Overall, I was very impressed by this moderate level trail for both the wildlife opportunities and the beautiful landscape.

 

Silent Lake Provincial Park is located between Peterborough and Bancroft in the Kawartha Lakes region of Ontario. The lake is ideal for paddling and features a trail that circumnavigates the waters with several lookouts and points of interest along its 15km length. It features a classic northern Ontario landscape with rock and white pines. The trail is in the moderate to difficult category, with a lot of ups and downs as the trail follows the lakeshore and passes through small ravines. I visited the park this year after one of the most wet and rainy June months in a while. Although I brought (and applied) a bunch of mosquito spray, the bugs were abundant and barely gave me a moments rest as I pushed through the forrest at almost a jogging pace. The only time the bugs let up was when I managed to make my way down to the waters edge, where a mixture of the sun and breeze out in the open cleared them away. I succeeded in getting a couple of images, shown below, but by the time I made it back to the car I has several dozen bites covering the back of my upper arms where I must have missed with the bug spray. 

This June I took Isabella on her first camping trip over to Rockwood Conservation area near Guelph. The trip was mostly focused on camping, hiking and exploring, and a brief canoe paddle around the river on our last day. The campgrounds are close enough to home, that we could pack up and leave if she wasn't enjoying the experience. Overall the trip went well, the mosquitoes around the campsite were't very bad, and it only rained a little over the weekend. Isabella enjoyed her experience enough that she would like to go again, perhaps on a more adventurous outing.

Arrowhead Provincial Park is located just north of Huntsville, about a 2 hour drive from home. There are a few nice lakes, a picturesque waterfall and the meandering Big East River that all provide numbers activities for visitors. One of the main attractions in the spring is the presence of a large number of trillium flowers, the provincial flower of Ontario. With the springtime warmup in full swing and the flowers in bloom, I decided to take a weekend trip up to the park to visit Stubbs Falls and the nearby flowering woods.

Afterwards, I headed down to see the largest lake in the park, Arrowhead Lake, where I explored the shoreline to take in expansive views of the trees just starting to display their fresh bright spring foliage.

Also within the park is the "Big Bend Lookout", which is a very short trail to a wooden deck overlooking a loop in the twisty Big East River that flows through the park. The view is nice, but nowhere near as impressive as some similarly named locations elsewhere. It would probably look quite nice with a fresh layer of snow in the early or late winter months. As I stood there taking in the view, the rapid erosion of the banks was readily apparent with chunks of the sandy slopes falling into the river below.

My final stop for the day was a small trail around Mayflower Lake near the park entrance. As I worked my way through the woods near the lake edge, there was a lot of recent beaver activity with logs, tree stumps and fresh wood chips scattered about the ground. I counted at least 2 or three beaver lodges in the lake, but didn't see any of the animals at work. There was, however, a rather large snapping turtle sunning itself on a rock near the waters edge who stayed put just long enough for me to capture a portrait with my telephoto lens.

 

 

With the spring thaw rapidly approaching and the days getting longer, we took the kids to a couple of Maple Syrup festivals this month. Buying the tickets online allowed us to attend several locations over the course of a few weeks. The kids are in it for the Maple syrup and pancakes which should be a surprise to no-one, and I get a chance to wander around and photograph some wintery scenes at the local conservation areas.

After laying low for most of the month of January, I was getting a bit antsy to get out and explore some of the local parks covered in a layer of fresh white snow. I took a short drive over to Rouge National Park and explored the river and surrounding forrest in the valley. The trail was fairly quiet as evening approached, and it was lovely being out with only the sounds of breeze in the trees, the crunch of snow underfoot and the gentle trickle of the river where the ice gave way to open water.

I made a trip down the Christmas Market in the Distillery District in Toronto to photograph the decorations and hustle-bustle of the festivities. Here is my favourite image from the day:

Presqu'ile is further to the south than my adventures in the previous weeks, along the shores of Lake Ontario. As such, much of the foliage is less developed than Algonquin, which was already past peak for the maple trees by mid October. There were a few pockets of coloured maples, particularly near the day use area down by the water on the south side of the island.

I also saw a flock of wild turkeys over in the calf pasture area, at least 6-8 birds in the group.

The day was calling for overcast and rainy weather, not uncommon for October in southern Ontario, but not ideal for grand landscapes. Due of the weather I tried to focus more on landscape details, like individual trees along the shores of the lakes, reflections in the water and small waterfalls in various streams. I started my adventure by revisiting Ragged Falls just to the west of Algonquin Park. The water level this time around was a fair bit higher due to the rains, making the falls more chaotic, but the river was surrounded by a variety of colourful trees leading to the following composition:

Once I got into Algonquin Park itself, I stopped at several roadside pullouts to shoot any small scenes that caught my eye.

Next, I decided to tackle the Track and Tower trail, a 2.5 - 3 hour hike in total (unless you are like me and constantly stopping to take pictures). As the trail progresses it passes by some small creeks and ponds which were looking nice surrounded by some colourful trees and fallen leaves.

At the end of the trail loop is a rocky overlook, an amazing vista that is difficult to truly capture in photographs. The crowns of the maple trees are typically the first to change colour, so even in the early stages of colour development, the view from above is breathtaking.

Perhaps the highlight of the trip, rather than the colourful leaves, was the sighting of a female moose close to the edge of highway 60. A number of cars were starting to stop along the edges of the road, and soon a park warden came along to warn people away before the animal became too stressed out.

There were nice views along highway 60 as well, but traffic was a bit crazy. I arrived early enough to miss a lot of the crowds and lineups in the morning but leaving the park was a bit slow.

 

My mother has a small place on Lake Huron near the town of Southampton. As a kid, we took our summer vacations up there and it was a great place to relax, meet other kids from all over the province and wander around enjoying the small town and beaches. Every summer we pack the kids into the car and take them up for a week to spend time with their grandma and play at the beach. I usually try to sneak off for a day, for a bit of solo camping and photography. For the past couple of years I have chosen Bruce peninsula national park as my mini getaway, the rugged shoreline and aquamarine lake make a beautiful photo subject. The area around Indian Head Cove and the Grotto can be a bit busy with summer vacationers, so I usually try to get up and head out early, around 5 am, for a bit of solitude and the beautiful sunrise light. I assembled several images into an Adobe Spark page here:

 

Killbear Provincial Park is a popular attraction along the shores of Georgian bay, near Parry sound. After a short car camping trip up there in June it's easy to see why that is the case.

My plan was to wake up early in the mornings for photography, then nap in the morning and go hiking in the afternoon, scouting for locations to shoot when the light was better. Finally, after dinner I would pick a location for an sunset shoot before returning to camp for bedtime.

The biggest highlight of the of the park for me is several areas of bare pink rock, characteristic of the Canadian Shield, with wind swept white pines clinging to any crack or crevasse where they can get a foothold (root-hold?).

The park is home to several endangered snake species: I saw 3 snakes while I was there, none of which were the famous massassauga rattlesnake. I’ve only ever encountered a rattlesnake once, in Bruce Peninsula, before it briefly rattled at me and shimmied off into the brush. The snakes I saw in Killbear were equally as skittish, disappearing into various bushes and crevasses as soon as they caught sight of me. One paused briefly at the base of a tree, allowing me the opportunity to capture this shot of it.

Deer were also plentiful in the park, and I encountered them on three occasions on the roadside, or near trails. They didn’t seem to have any fear of people or vehicles, not even the fawns which would be less acclimatized to people due to their young age.

Most of the time I was there it was a bit hazy, especially towards the north, due to some of the really bad forest fires we have had this summer in northern Ontario and BC. The haze made the sun sets rather bland, with little colour and the sun just disappearing into the soup before even setting. Mornings worked out far better, with some nice colour and/or clouds to interact with the light.

 

 

 

With summer in full swing here in Ontario, and a free weekend available, I hopped in the car and traveled north in search of rugged Ontario waterfalls and "wilderness". I paid a visit to a small park just outside of Algonquin called Ragged falls and the sights did not disappoint. The falls were stunning, and completely available for scrambling and exploring all along their decent. I capped the day off with the exploration of the river downstream in a much more secluded location before some rainy weather rolled in and sent me packing.

Presqu'ile Provincial Park is known amongst birders for its spring and fall migrations. When I visited last fall, there wasn't much birding action. Like most landscape and nature photography, conditions can be hit or miss, and animals may not cooperate. Hoping for better luck I returned this spring to look for the spring migration and explore some new areas of the park for potential landscape images

Marsh Landscape

The park has an extensive marsh habitat spread over the east side, with a boardwalk trail weaving its way through the rushes and tall grasses. The plants can really restrict views during the later summer and fall months, but seem to be trimmed back in the spring, yielding more expansive views of the wetlands. A lot of these plants are actually an invasive species and part of the the management of the park may involve giving them a periodic trim.

The Shorelines 

Birding is the highlight of a visit to the park if that is one of your interests (and fortunately it is something I enjoy). The park is a peninsula that juts out into Lake Ontario and acts as a rest stop for migrating birds, including many varieties of ducks, shorebirds, herons and many species of songbird. Unfortunately, my experience over several visits has been very hit and miss. The shorebirds mostly use the beaches as a temporary rest stop and I’ve encountered mainly Canada geese and seagulls. I’ve seen social media posts about other birds visiting in the days before and after my visits, but my luck hasn’t been that great. This trip was mostly the same, although there a few Caspian terns present as well.

I had much better luck on the eastern side of the island near the lighthouse where I was able to observe and photograph several of the small passerines, including some warblers and cedar waxwings feeding on berries.

Dune Landscape

The land in the northern side of the park is dominated by sandy dunes and pannes (depressions between the dunes that often fill with water and aquatic life in the spring). Before leaving the park for the day I briefly explored the dunes searching for a landscape composition. The area was more forested and chaotic than I expected, but I found a couple potential subjects including this interesting gnarly tree below.

 

Continued from Part I

Our time with Dr. Andrews was limited due to to her busy schedule, so the photoshoot was broken up into 15min slots spread over two different days. This would give us the opportunity to create a couple different looks in various locations, as well as having Brenda in different outfits for the images. We had some simple headshots in mind, with basic backgrounds that could be used for almost anything, as well as some standard "Scientist in a Lab with a Lab Coat On" shots planned.

In addition to the safe portraits I wanted to do something creative with coloured lights that looked cool just for the sake of it. Dr. Andrews and her collaborator, Dr. Charlie Boone, have set up a cool custom-built robot room which I thought I could give an interesting tech-y sort of look by making the room turn blue with Dr. Andrews lit up in the middle of it. The room is a bit cramped for space, needing a wide angle lens to capture the group of large yeast transferring robots.

Ideally, I could turn the lights down, or minimize the shutter speed of the camera to both kill some of the ambient exposure as well a the warm colour of the lights present. Unfortunately there are a large number of windows surrounding the room, and on a sunny day the ambient light levels are too high to effectively work with the sync speed and power range of the small speedlights. So I needed to work with the ambient light levels and make them part of my overall exposure. One technique that I've used before to get a "blue hour" evening look to a photograph involves cooling the colour temp of the White Balance on the camera to Tungsten and warming the key light with a CTO gel to compensate. This gives a "normal" looking white to the flash but renders everything else lit by ambient daylight to a cool blue colour as demonstrated below.

Once again, I am testing the lighting with Jovana to get everything nailed down before our shoot with Dr. Andrews. I wanted to restrict what the warm key light was going to hit, so I decided to put the light inside of a small soft box, up high at camera left. The edge of the light is just barely hitting the closest robot, but is exposing the face of my subject well. I have positioned a bare speed light on a stand all the way at the back of the room, and gelled it with a dark blue Roscoe Just Blue filter. The speed light is aimed back towards the camera to light up the robots and ceiling of the room. The dark blue filter combined with the Tungsten WB gives the room a very rich blue hue, but required the flash to fire at full power. I felt like the closest robot was looking too dark and fired another flash inside of it, gelled with 1/2 CTB filter to light up the interior and give it some interest.

I think the image is looking pretty good at this point, however the lens was set to a fairly wide angle and we were going to have to be careful not to distort our subject too much because Dr. Andrews was going to be towards the side of the frame and we also didn't want to push her too far back into the space. Here is the lighting diagram for our setup:

Here is our final shot, corrected for distortion and lighting balance across the frame.

Overall I'm happy with the way the shot turned out and I think it's pretty cool looking. I also took a shot with both Dr. Andrews and Dr. Boone together, which Jovana has already used in an article that was featured on the Donnelly Centre website and in UofT News in April. 

 

The cherry blossoms are just past their peak outside of Robarts Library on UofT campus. I had a chance to head down earlier this week and got a couple of shots that I think are nice. It wasn't too crowded the day I went, but the location is much smaller and way less popular than High Park, which is just madness this week.

The magnolia tree's are starting to look nice now as well

Jovana Drinjakovic, the writer for our research institute, contacted me in March about helping her set up a photo shoot with the director, Dr. Brenda Andrews. Jovana writes up news articles and press releases for the Donnelly Centre to highlight various researchers when they win awards, or have their research published. Although Dr. Andrews is frequently in the news for her various accomplishments, Jovana only has a very small pool of "stock" portraits of Brenda for her writing and needed a greater variety of images to use with her PR work.

Location Scouting

One of the locations in our building that I thought would make for an interesting backdrop is located directly adjacent to the front entrance. This spot has a nice juxtaposition of the warm brickwork of the building next door against a cool glass sign with the name of the building. There's also the beginning of the bamboo gardens just off the the right and a broad flight of steps leading up to the the main floor. The variety of textures and tones are interesting, and the sign provides an important context for the portrait and who the subject is. The front of the building has a large multi-story glass facade, allowing lots of natural light into the main lobby. I was a little concerned about A) direct harsh sunlight in the afternoon because our building is south facing, and B) a green cast from the windows. A quick scouting of the location below showed that the sunlight was not a problem for out 2PM scheduled shoot time, although I was still a little worried about balancing the green cast of the ambient with my speedlights.

Test shoot with Jovana

Jovana agreed to act as an assistant/stand-in and I set up a test shoot a couple of days before the main shoot to play around with some ideas and get the lighting and settings nailed down. We wanted to try and get a couple of different looks in the lobby area, including a close portrait headshot with the bamboo in the background, but we were going to be very limited in time with Brenda present and needed to have everything, including camera settings, flash power and positions and subject position marked out in advance. I wanted to light the image with a big ( 7 foot, octa-style umbrella with diffusion front) modifier just off to camera right as the key to add a beautiful layer of unobtrusive soft light. I added 1/4 CTO gels to the speedlights inside the key to complement the skin tones and colour of the brickwork. The natural window light worked as a general fill, and the green cast wasn't too much of a problem with a custom white balance. The only other problem we had to deal with was pedestrian traffic, as we were set up right next to the main entrance of our research institute. I solved that problem by blocking off the area with a background setup, ie. two stands with a 12 foot bar stretched between them, forcing people to go around the set.

I wanted to draw a bit of attention to the sign as well, and also cool it down to provide contrast against the brickwork and subject, so I positioned a speedlight just off to camera left, aimed directly at the sign, and put a 16-degree grid on the front to restrict the light just to the centre of the sign with the name. I put a light blue coloured gel on the end of the grid to provide that cool pop of colour, and had to crank up the power quite a bit because the reflectiveness of the glass sent most of the light off away from the camera.

I was happy with the overall lighting levels and colour tones, but after going over the images, I thought that I should also add some light to the bamboo leaves at the back right of the image. I figured the best way to light the leaves with a broad warm source would be to bounce a speedlight off the bricks around the corner, and let the warmed up bounce illuminate the foliage. I also thought it would be a good idea to get down into the gap between the railing and wall and clear out some of the dead leaves scattered about. Here is a setup diagram for the final lighting of the image.

When shoot day came, the overall ambient light levels were a bit lower than before because of the weather outside. That was easily solved with a bit of adjustment to the shutter speed, which allowed me to bring up the fill from the windows without affecting the flash exposure. I arrived and started setting up about 2 hours early to make sure everything was right and the shoot went off without any issues.

Despite her apprehension, Dr. Andrews was a perfect subject who gave off a lovely warmth, was very receptive to direction, and worked well with us to get some great shots. After the photo set with the institutes sign, we shifted over to the stairs to do a series of headshots, with the garden as a backdrop, which I think turned out great as well.

To be Continued...

 

 

One weekend near the end of March, we took the kids to the Maple Syrup Festival held at Terra Cotta Conservation Area. This was the first time anyone from our family has been to this location, and I was as interested in seeing what the local landscape was like as much as the festival. Don't get me me wrong, I definitely have a sweet tooth and I love maple syrup as much as the next sugar-aholic, but the festival is not the most economical way to get a fix. The festival was well done overall: there was a scavenger hunt for the kids, several stations offering a maple sugar buzz (pancakes/toffee/popcorn etc), and the conservation area employees were generally knowledgeable and entertaining for the kids. Lily particularly enjoyed the tractor ride, lumberjack show and pancake house.

After visiting the syrup making demonstration, and getting the final scavenger hunt punch, I wandered over to a small waterfall feeding a lake to try and capture a landscape shot. I didn't bring a tripod along, so it was a challenge getting the shutter speed down enough to smooth out the water a bit, proping the camera against tree trunks and fallen wood for stability. It's amazing how harsh the pure afternoon sun can be in late March, with no tree leaves or clouds to soften it down. I don't think I got any portfolio grade images, given the harsh light and sterility of the late winter/early spring forrest, but it was a fun exercise none-the-less.

For the past 5 years, the Toronto Zoo has been host to a couple of panda bears on loan from China. The zoo originally started out with a pair of adult bears, with the hopes that they would breed, and indeed that is exactly what happened a couple of years ago to great fanfare. The 2 young panda cubs are now old enough that the entire lot are moving to the Calgary zoo for a few years, as part of the original agreement, before their eventual return to China. Here a a few snaps over the years showcasing the panda's doing what they do best (mostly sleeping and munching on bamboo...)

New Arrival: This shot was captured in the summer of 2013, not long after the pandas were first put on display

Enjoying a nice Bamboo meal

F1: In March of 2016 the public is introduced to two new young pandas, born here in Canada Farewell: At the beginning to 2018 the pandas are enjoying their final weeks here in Toronto The youngsters are now almost as big as their parents

 

I work as a scientist in a research lab at the University of Toronto. Our lab is in a research institute named the Donnelly CCBR after a benefactor, Terrence Donnelly, who's ongoing commitment has helped fund the construction of our building as well as supporting research activities. The building we inhabit is only a little over 10 years old, and has a number of interesting features that make a great backdrop for photography. One of those features is the exterior brick walls of the adjacent, much older, Rosebrugh building which acts as one of the walls of our centre and encloses a bamboo garden on the ground floor.

Recently, a number of students in our institute were awarded a scholarship named the Jennifer Dorrington Award, which is given to graduate students for excellence in their research projects. I was asked by the staff writer for our institute, Jovana Drinjakovic, for assistance in crafting the portraits of one of the students, Alexander Vlahos. Jovana was writing up a profile for each of the three winners this year and was looking for some advice on lighting setups for an accompanying portrait.

The first shot we setup was a simple portrait using the decorative brick walls and windows as a backdrop. Light levels were fairly low in this corridor, so I stated by setting up a speedlight to the camera left aimed at the brick wall background to provide the base level illumination for the shot. The key light was a second speedlight positioned camera left firing through a translucent umbrella. Finally a third bare speedlight was added on camera right, was hand held by Jovana and aimed at the side of Alex's head and shoulders to provide separation. The camera/lens was a 5DmkIV with 24-70mm f/4 shot wide open and at various focal lengths.

Next, we moved ourselves (and my gear) into the lab, where we tried to set up an "action" shot of Alex at work. I switched out my lens for a 35mm f/2 and set the aperture for f/2.8 and the ISO up to 800 to get a reasonable background exposure for the lab behind Alex. A speed light was attached to the top shelf of the workbench and Jovana held up a 4' circular reflector (no cover, 1-2 stop shoot through diffusion) between the light and Alex to act as our key light. I positioned the camera below the diffuser, close to the bench top while Alex played around with some old cell culture plates (that were destined for the bin). I had to balance out the colour temp difference between the ambient and the un-geled speed light in photoshop and added a little extra exposure to his face.

I would like to extend a big thanks to both Jovanna and Alex for being a great assistant and subject for this shoot, and to congratulate Alex on his scholarship. Hopefully we'll have the chance to work together on another photo project again in the future. You can read more about Alexander Vlahos' work in in Jovana's excellent writeup HERE

 

Back around New Years 2018, we took a family vacation down to Orlando for a visit to Disney. The girls had a lot of fun; 4 years old is a great age to run around meeting characters and going on rides, and both of the kids didn't want to go home at the end of the week.
On our final day, the flight back home wasn't until about 9 o'clock at night, so we had the day to wander around, take some photos, do some shopping and relax. In the morning I wandered down to the water and found several birds, including a great blue heron, great egrets, a snowy egret and what appears to be a little blue heron, a first sighting for me. I didn't bring my 400mm lens along on the trip, but the 70-200 + 1.4X extender worked quite well as the animals were fairly tolerant of my presence. I was satisfied with it's performance overall, and it worked well for travel.

  Camera:  Canon 5DmkIV with 70-200f/4IS+1.4xIII

  Shooting Info: 1/640 at f/8, ISO100, -2/3 ec, 280mm

This Great Egret was hunting small fish and amphibians in the vegetation at the side of the pond (it caught a couple while I was watching). These birds are quite slow and gracefully while hunting, culminating in a final powerful strike to grab their prey. I've seen fish impaled by that long sharp beak. I used negative exposure compensation to prevent the white feathers from being completely blown out by the strong Florida sunlight. I had to bring the overall exposure back up in Lightroom to compensate.

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  Camera:  Canon 5DmkIV with 70-200f/4IS+1.4xIII

  Shooting Info: 1/320 at f/8, ISO160, -2/3 ec, 280mm

This snowy egret had just landed and was slowly wadding through the water looking for prey. I took this frame while the bird had it's head slightly turned away, allowing some light to catch it's eye. Negative exposure compensation was used again to prevent the while feathers from being overexposed.

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  Camera:  Canon 5DmkIV with 70-200f/4IS+1.4xIII

  Shooting Info: 1/400 at f/8, ISO100, -2/3 ec, 263mm

This is my first sighting of a Little Blue Heron. The bird was medium sized (smaller than a Great Blue Heron, but larger than a Green Heron) and fully extended to see above the rushes. I gave this photograph a B&W treatment because the foliage was rather brown, drab and unappealing. The photo was also processed to make the bird brighter compared to it's surroundings to bring more attention to it.

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  Camera:  Canon 5DmkIV with 70-200f/4IS+1.4xIII

  Shooting Info: 1/800 at f/7.1, ISO100, -1 ec, 280mm

I see Great Blue Herons around here somewhat frequently, but this one allowed me to get fairly close to it, so much so that I was able to get a head and shoulders portrait with some great feather detail that looks nice printed big. The large negative exposure compensation was used again to prevent the white feathers on top of it's head from blowing out and losing detail. The heron was standing at the base of a low pedestrian foot bridge and I captured this photo by hanging over the railing and holding the camera at arms length with live view. The depth of field is pretty shallow at this close distance, so this final image is a composite of two frames; the main frame is focused on it's eye combined with a second frame that had the shoulder feathers in better focus.

 

I've been neglecting this site for quite a while....

Before the days of ubiquitous "cloud" storage, I mostly used the site as a backup mechanism. I used a publish collection in Lightroom to easily and automatically export favourite photos to my zenfolio account, where I could be sure that images would survive a disaster like a hard drive crash or house fire.

As I developed a much better system of backing up all my images, with multiple disks both locally and off-site, and larger volumes of Cloud Storage became available for cheaper, I haven't really been keeping up with the site. I'm not depending on it anymore if a disaster strikes, but I thought it was worth keeping around so that family members could access and see some of the kids photo's.

I'm not under any illusion that anyone is going to read this, or see my pics, but it's nice to have somewhere to "scream into the void" so to speak, and to have a creative outlet where I can get away from my day job. I'll be updating the galleries with a lot more recent images before the year is out, and maybe post some favourites to this blog.

My goal is to post at least one image a month, to try and keep the creative juices flowing, but knowing my habits, it's likely my posting habits will be erratic.

Cheers,

Mike