Tales from Gales

Again, the last blog was some time ago. Life has a way of getting in the way sometimes! As a retired old guy, I can't claim I've been too busy, but as age slows you down, somehow you achieve less and less every day! So what's new and exciting?

As I said last time, Subaru is being really accommodating! My new engine is going in in a few weeks, the appointment is scheduled for the first week of December. When that's done, I think I'm going to find someone to do a detail job on the interior of the car... it's showing its 200K km age and I haven't been one to get it cleaned regularly. Almost like getting a new car!

My D800 is back in the shop. Something is wrong with how it recognizes the connection with a "D" lens (you're supposed to set it to minimum aperture when mounting. It's giving me an error and won't let me shoot with it).  Sun Camera, again: they're very good and very accommodating. I should get it back next week when I come in for Ron Goodlin's Antarctica presentation in Thornhill. If you're in the area, you should come!

Boat's safely tucked away in the garage, ATV is prepped for winter (except I haven't mounted the plow yet), sump pump line is freshly repaired, firewood is stacked and ready... bring it on. For those of you hating me right now, hey! We live in Canada. If we didn't love winter we wouldn't live here. Right? Right?

You'd think this was a picture from last year... but you'd be wrong! Keep reading. 

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I have a list of subscribers to this blog. Whenever I put up a new post, I send them a heads-up email via MailChimp. In that email I always include a photo that I have not posted anywhere before. So they get to see stuff nobody else sees.

You can get on this list by clicking the "Newsletter" button over on the top right of the blog. No spam, and you can unsubscribe with one click at any time.

 Here's the picture I sent them last week:

I was sitting at the computer composing the MailChimp email on October 19 when I looked up and saw this AMAZING sunset. I grabbed the only camera within reach (my iPhone) and ran out to the dock. It took me about 3 minutes to get there and the sunset had DEGRADED to this. I shot a pano, uploaded it to LR and then opened it in Topaz Studio. I applied the "van Gogh" preset in Impression, dialed back the effect a little and this was the result.

People ask me why I live up here...

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The big thing is the successful conclusion of the Gales of November 2017 workshop up in Wawa. With travel and some other appointments along the way, it was a bit more than a week's trip for me. I came back with a head cold which slowed me down a bit last week, but I'm back in the swing.

I promised the group, "there will be weather". There was. Not what we expected, mind you. No wind, no waves, but we got SNOW! Interestingly, it's as if someone drew a line about halfway between the Soo and Wawa: snow to the north, none to the south. The photo above was taken on the way home on Sunday.

I can't say enough about David and the staff at Rock Island Lodge. They made it comfortable and friendly for everyone. And Judy shared her recipe for her homemade granola which I made a few days ago with some success!

Smallish batch in a big mixing bowl. I have some idea now about how to make it, so I'll play more with the next batch. More dried fruit and seeds for one thing! Someone called me "Mr. Suzy Homemaker", but hey, I like to eat!

Since we had more people than the lodge could accommodate, many of us stayed at High Falls Cabins which was a great place to stay as well. Anna and Zen really know the area too!

What I didn't talk about yet is Ben Eby. He came up and joined me as co-instructor. As ever I'm impressed by his talents and knowledge. He brought with him a set of complementary teaching skills: while I claim to be "right-brained" I realize that I'm really not, but he is! I know he spent a lot of time biting his tongue listening to me go on and on, and then he turned it around to easy learning sessions for people. And he has the energy of a younger man...

So we agreed that next year, Gales is going the be the "Ben" show, not the "Glenn" show. Hopefully health and other things will let me come up and be his assistant in 2018.  Bookmark www.photography.to/gales for a heads-up on next year's encore!

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I didn't shoot a lot of pictures, my role was to facilitate the workshop not take pictures for myself. Here are a few... admittedly there are more I haven't gone through yet, watch for them here or on my Facebook page (you're my friend, right? facebook.com/faczen is where you'll find me. Oh, and a special offer for those interested in Gales if you're a subscriber to this blog.

Without further ado, some pictures, but these are just the ones before the weekend workshop! We traveled up a day early to do some scouting and for a chance to enjoy the splendour of Lake Superior's North Shore.

Ben and Dave and Amin and I were convoying up on Wednesday and we all had to stop for this shot. Do you wonder why I like to spend the better part of a day getting from the Soo to Wawa? 

another stop at a little beach just North of Agawa. I like to add a sketch texture to these rock pictures but this is really how they looked to my mental eye. 

Pretty well the only waves we saw the whole weekend. Also at that little rocky beach

Same spot. Ben, Amin and Dave, from near to far. 

If you stop at Katherine Cove and take the little trail through the woods to the next cove south, you might see this...

We stopped at a few other places, like the Sand River and Chippewa Falls, but I don't want to take the fun out of finding these views yourself and discouraging people from coming up to the Algoma District.

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During the weekend itself we modified the schedule to try to take advantage of the weather and lighting conditions. For instance, we headed over to the badlands a day early because of the heavy snowfall, figuring it would lead to some interesting textures and landscapes.

A winter wonderland? I think if I posted this a few weeks from now (or you're reading it and it's getting closer to Christmas), this picture wouldn't have the appeal it does now. Later, I expect people to think, "I hate winter"! But since this was the first snowfall of the year... this was taken on the way out of the Badlands.

Pretty well everyone took pictures of these snow-covered berries. The only spot of colour anywhere
 

Faced with a monochromatic landscape, what do you shoot? Karen Young contemplating that very question!

Here's what I shot. Not distant mountains, snow-covered piles of rock with trees in the background, not sky. I liked it enough to use it as the header on this blog. 

The next day we headed out to High Falls. They had turned off the water (closed the dam) but there were still some spectacular cascades down the rock face.

 

Later in the day we found a bald eagle but he was quite distant (I saw eagles three times during this trip. I got pictures but nothing worth sharing). Later, we went up to White Sand beach on the First Nations Reserve. 

I did a high resolution pano of this island then decided to paint it with an impressionist vision. 

The sun peeked out at sunset but I used Topaz to enhance the colours and add the star effect on the light. (PS: I had to include this photo of "The most photographed Michipicoten River Light in the world"!)

In the evening, we shot burning steel wool. This image by Amin Shivji was so different from the usual 'ring of fire' shot that I asked his permission to reproduce it here.  

Unexpectedly, the stars came out for a short visit later. I did a short seminar on how to shoot it, then a number of us went outside to try our luck. Ben Eby was particularly good at coaching people and from what I saw on the backs of cameras and on our dedicated Facebook page, many had considerable success. 

Here's my view of the lodge from the beach down below. At least two other people had similar shots (Dave and Ben) because we were all standing in the same spot! 

On the way home I stopped in the Agawa Bay area and found this image of leaves frozen in a puddle skimmed with ice. 

Gales this year was challenging. We were hoping for wind and waves and got none of that, but each and every one of our participants told us that they succeeded in finding ways to express their creativity and find quality images. A dozen people in a sharing and learning and catered environment. That's what it was all about. For some, it was their first exposure to Lake Superior's North Shore and several echoed the same sentiment: "we'll be back"!

As I said above, if you're interested in perhaps joining us, bookmark the web page or email me or Ben and we'll give you more information when the dates are firmed up for 2018.

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Last Gasp of winter

The past several days up here in the highlands has been that ugly, muddy, wet, soggy time of year when everything is melting. I have a "pond" on the north side of my house. It's not very deep but the bottom is so soft that you sink in a few inches, resulting in a 'soaker' every time you go out for some firewood (taking it around to the front door for now). The driveway is all rutted at the back, although the 10 or 12 little trailerloads of gravel I spread last year at the entrance has worked. It's a muddy mess back where my garage is (and where my sump pump line exhausts!). So I parked my car in the driveway last night, not wanting to drive over it.

So of course, this is what it looked like when I got up this morning! Last Gasp.

iPhone pano. But it's all mud under that white frosting. I heard Algonquin Park got 15-25cm of the white stuff. Tempting to take a drive up but, nah... 

I did get one more trip into Algonquin Park before the end of March. Still snowy up there, but spring is on its way (I wrote this before I got up to the white stuff this morning!).

I culled my images back to three favourites as I promised (I know, should only be one. But it's better than the NINE I wanted to post here!

This young fox was in the Spruce Bog. Too accustomed to the presence of Man, s/he  followed us around in the hopes of a handout. The late day lighting was perfect. BTW I had a shot I liked better but there was a leaf or something stuck on the fox's nose! (if you subscribe to my blog you'd see that picture. I always send an unpublished picture to my subscribers! Click the "Newsletter" link at the top of this blog to subscribe. No spam, one click to unsub.)

This is a mink, making its way along behind the creek. I don't think it wanted to go in the water like the otter. I had a shot of it at full gallop, but chose this as one of my three! 

And here's the otter, snacking on frog's legs. I had closer shots but thought showing the environment tells a better story. 

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This was created using a Photoshop Action called "Seven Styles Watercolor" (Google is your friend!) which I purchased for the princely sum of $6. I don't normally buy actions or presets, but this one was so intriguing when I saw it in the Topaz forums, that I had to try it. It could add a new creative dimension to my post-processing.

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It was a rainy day... practicing for Newfoundland

When I'm in Newfoundland this summer, there are going to be a lot of photo ops shooting colourful little outports overlooking the ocean, with weathered, textured fishing stages and probably less-than-perfect weather conditions. I want to work up some techniques for shooting under those conditions.

Karen was visiting from Toronto so we decided to go out and shoot some pictures despite the rainy weather.

This first shot was overlooking the lake from my dock area. Um, the sun wasn't there and the duck was in a different place! I was showing Karen some post-processing techniques. Also my "blogframe" action (I wrote this one myself!). It needs updating, it doesn't work right on the Mac, especially since the fonts aren't available. Next time I get ambitious. 

One thing you need to do is work the scene. Sometimes you shoot close, sometimes more landscape. This ice fishing hut had lots of texture in the weathered wood but I decided that it competed with the graphic nature of the picture, so I smoothed it away. 

Then I thought that this scene might be typical of an outport in the rain, so I gave it a painterly treatment, bringing out the colours, especially in the reflections in the muddy foreground. This was actually a good test: I had the wrong lens, so I shot 6 images and stitched them together using the merge to pano function in Lightroom. I resized it before working on it, it was almost a 100 megapixel file!

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I have two trips to look forward to: Newfoundland in July and Lake Superior in October. I can't decide which one is going to be more fun! Anyone want to come along?

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Ready for winter?

I'm ready!

There's a whole checklist of things that had to happen to get ready, and I'm done. Today, my neighbour Jack came over to help (wrong word: he did the work!) by sweeping the chimney and removing some trees that had grown too close to the house. The other day I got my ATV back from the mechanic, it now sports a dedicated 4WD switch (electrical problems. It was intermittent) and the battery from my boat is now mounted on the back of the ATV to help power the winch that controls the snowplow. The car's been serviced, the furnace people were here three times to iron out issues with the heat, I've split and stacked all the firewood, snow shovels are by the doors. The boat's parked in the garage, the gazebo and lawn furniture are in storage. I'm done.

Let it snow! 

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A few more Lake Superior pictures

I still have lots more to process, mostly "people pictures" from the weekend. Here are a few more landscape shots from my trip

I didn't record exactly where this was. It was somewhere south of the Montreal River Harbour, maybe Alona Bay? 

Another shot in the same location 

Commercial fishing boat at Mamainse Harbour. 

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Algonquin Park

I managed to get a few days at home early in November. I woke up one day and decided I'd drive up to Algonquin Park to see what there is to see before winter sets in. It was certainly a lucky day! I got there early and saw this cow and calf moose. I took a bunch of pictures, then decided to move along, to see what else I could find. I really wanted to find a bull moose!

 A couple of fellow photographers were there (Jerry and Dave from Barrie) and one of them said, "a bird in the hand, you know..." so I stayed a bit longer!

Yearling male. You can see the nubs of his antlers coming in.

My favourites are the last two; they're "environmental portraits" which tell of the animal in its surroundings. Closeups are fine, but I prefer to tell a story

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Eventually they moved on, and so did I. Next stop: check out if the Pine Martens were back. I wonder where they go in the summer...

They were – or at least one was – but the backlighting was horrendous and it was really dark where he was. Still, I got a shot or two! 

Continuing east, I drove up Opeongo Road to see if I could find that elusive Bull Moose... no such luck, but I did come across a couple of spruce grouse!

Check out the gorgeous colours of this male bird! 

The spruce and ruffed grouse share a defense mechanism: they freeze and they're very hard to spot in the bush — are you kidding me? Maybe for the Ruffed grouse and the female Spruces... I think they were handed a short supply of brains. It's a wonder any of them are still around! Dig the bright colours and contrasty feathers!

I decided to hold off on the foxes until after I turned for home (no, I'm not going to share where they hang out... don't ask!).

This is "Papa" fox. He's been around for a while and he's really good at posing for a shot! 

So all in all, not a bad day... kidding! It was an awesome day.

The next day, at 11:30 at night, after I had posted a few pictures, my phone rang. It was Dr. Ron. "I'll be there at 7 am, we're going up to Algonquin. {sigh}. SURE!  Up we went!

While we were waiting for the foxes to show up, this blue jay entertained us. 

I think the Blue Jay should have been named Canada's National Bird instead of the Grey Jay or WhiskeyJack. This name is a variation on Wisakedjak, a benevolent trickster and cultural hero in Cree, Algonquin and Menominee mythologies

Right on schedule, our furry friends showed up. This is either Mama or one of last year's kits. 

Off to look for Pine Martens. Again, we found birds to shoot:

A fearless red-breasted Nuthatch comes down for a treat! 

Hard to see, as I said earlier. Here's a Ruffed Grouse hanging out in a pine tree. Dr. Ron spotted this guy.

And our friendly neighbourhood Pine Marten came for a visit. There was a bit more light than the previous visit, so I managed a decent picture. 

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Parting Shot

That was a long couple of days! Rewarding, wouldn't you say?

Then there was all that hype about a "Super Moon". Folks, the super moon looks exactly like any other full moon, except it was (wait for it) 7% bigger. Whoopie. But I was duty bound to go out and shoot it. When I got back to the computer, as I said, it looked just like every other moon shot. So I decided to play with it and came up with this:

Super Moon Rising over Horseshoe Lake. This is a composite image, the foreground is from a shot at the Shuyler's Island Causeway, looking for Northern Lights last summer. 

A lot of people on Facebook liked this image and asked for it as "wallpaper" for their computers. So I made a 1920x1080 pixel version and uploaded it to  http://www.photography.to/wallpaper/moonwallpaper.jpg. If you want it for your computer background image (wallpaper), just go to the link, right click and save it, then follow the procedure in your operating system. Enjoy!

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Chains upon my feet...

...from the "musings" department

I've said this before: if you want to learn how to set up a photo, watch TV. Or movies.

Last night it struck me again. I was doing something on the computer and although I don't normally watch NCIS Los Angeles (I do admit to watching the original NCIS and New Orleans, though), it was on in the background behind me. I turned around and saw a scene where the curly blond haired guy was sitting, talking to the old, short lady (his boss? – told you I don't watch it!) – and the scene made me come to a stop. It was outstanding.

The subjects were perfectly lit – they were in a dark room, on a staircase, with a doorway in the background and some light that appeared to be sunlight dappling the floor in front of the doorway. The lighting, the composition, the depth of field, the textures, were absolutely outstanding. If you took a still from that shot and entered it in an international Salon level competition, you would win, hands down. Then she walked away, through the dappled light, while the camera stayed focused on the guy's face. What a visual story!

But it's not just this shot, it's pretty well ALL of them. Go switch on your TV. Doesn't matter what you watch, a talk show, a sit-com, a commercial, a movie, a football or hockey game: it's perfect. Look at it and try to figure out why!

These are the big guys. The people who make big bucks doing photography and videography. They have unlimited budgets, all the equipment you dream about, and a staff that includes set designers, lighting experts, makeup artists, etc., as well as graphic designers and people who sit there and design and storyboard the shots. Do they do a better job than you can with shot setup, design and execution? You bet they do, better than I can or anyone that I know.

Sure there are differences between stills and video.  So hit "Pause" on your PVR and look at the still. Is there any question in your mind what the subject is of the picture? Is the subject in the middle or off-centre? Is it too flat or too contrasty? What about colour balance? Is it in focus? Is the exposure too bright or too dark? I can't see what you're looking at but I'm pretty sure I know the answers to those questions.

Use it as a learning experience. Sure, you don't have a team to set up your shots, you don't have an unlimited equipment budget... but there are tons of things they do that you could also do. One of those things is to stop and study a scene (if you're doing landscapes) BEFORE you press the shutter, even before you take out your camera. It's called "Pre-Visualization".

99% of the pictures I see, whether on Social Media, in competitions... would be instantly rejected by these big guys. Everyone is trying to emulate them, with little success (I was going to say 'varying success' but a 99% reject rate is not 'varying'). I may not be good enough to get in that 1% very often, but that isn't going to stop me from trying. I need to take more time to think about it. How about you?

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Gales of November Workshop

The Rock Island Lodge 

I've been invited to several workshops this year. Exotic places like Cuba, Costa Rica, Africa, Iceland, Yellowstone. You know what they all have in common? They're all THOUSANDS of dollars. US dollars to boot. The Gales workshop IS in an exotic location: the Canadian Wilderness, on the shores of Lake Superior, where the Group of Seven wandered and expressed what they saw in their art. And it's NOT thousands of dollars.

There's only room for a dozen people (although if demand is high, I can do a second session). It's already about half full. Think about it. If there's any chance you might be able to make it up to  Wawa next October, PLEASE go to this webpage and take two minutes to do the short questionnaire and leave me your name so I can keep you in the loop.

PS: I'm still working on the web page. Bottom line? It's a 3 or 4 day field experience for intermediate or advanced photographers who want some fresh ideas and an opportunity to experience some outstanding landscapes and express themselves in the company of other talented people.

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Topaz Labs year-end special

They're at it again! Topaz Labs is offering a 35% discount on any and all products until the year-end. If you've been waiting to take the plunge or add some more of their outstanding plug-ins, now's the time!

Some of the newer Topaz products require a higher graphics functionality to work. If you're not sure it will work on your computer, download the free trial before finalizing your purchase. Be sure to complete the transaction before the year-end, though.

Here's the link to their site. Enter the coupon code "TOPAZ2015" at checkout to get the discount.

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Triggertrap update

They've been listening! I love my TriggerTrap but one thing I've run into is the drain on the iPhone battery. Even if you turn the brightness all the way down, you still only get about 90 minutes out of an iPhone6. So I ordered (but haven't yet received) an external battery pack for the phone. This is not something TriggerTrap can fix (other than to remind you to turn your screen brightness down when doing time lapses).

But they did address the other issue, which is that brightly coloured and white screen glow which can affect your images if you're not careful. So their update 4.1 includes a "night mode". Much better!

Also they included a ND filter conversion calculator in the Timed Release mode: just enter your base shutter speed, the ND filter strength, and TT does the rest! I had printed out a table on a laminated card, then I lost it somewhere... no more mental arithmetic.

If you want to know how TriggerTrap works without paying anything, simply download the app (for iPhone or Android) for free and try it! To make it work with your camera, you need the hardware, which you can buy from a European or North American source. Free shipping until the end of the year! Here's the link to their site. There's also a bunch of useful video tutorials on their site under Inspiration→howto. Give it a looksee!

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Are we having fun yet?

It sure is a lot easier (for me) in Photoshop and Impression! MUCH harder with brushes and canvas and oil paints! Two of my oil painting works-in-process.

Chippewa Falls, Lake Superior. It's a tighter crop than the last version, from much the same vantage point as J.E.H. MacDonald painted it. I didn't paint this one plein air, I came back to it and did another painting. This is oil paint on board, 9x12.

South Lake Road, Minden Ontario. This is in process; I want to change what the tree looks like but have to wait for the paint to dry a bit before I go over it. You saw a black-and-white version of the original photo in last week's blog, I'm happy with a lot of this image, especially the foreground, but not the tree.  Painted in oils on canvas paper, 9x12.

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Winter has finally arrived

...at least I think so. The forecast for Monday is warm and rainy, so I'm not counting my chickens. But the world looks so much nicer with a blanket of clean white snow than muddy brown!

I did take the opportunity to get my ATV out with the snowplow for the first time this year. We had about 4" of snow (I was going to say about 6" but then I would be open for all those off-colour jokes...). And new this year, "Chains upon my Feet". What a difference! In fact, my 4WD wasn't working yesterday (it's mysteriously back today) and I actually had difficulty on a slippery surface until I put on the chains! It feels unstoppable (I know enough not to get too cocky, though).

Putting the chains on wasn't too difficult, although I threw one after my first attempt. It was easier when I figured out that using the motorcycle jack to lift the tire off the ground was the trick. I need to get some heavier duty bungee cords to hold them tight. And with them on, no playing around doing donuts or they're likely to come off and damage something.

I didn't do much to this image. Almost straight out of camera... well it is a 5-exposure HDR processed in Nik HDR Efex Pro 2, I did a radial filter to add haze to the background, then I added the yellow light to the headlights which were actually off... all right, I'm lying, but really only about 10 minutes work, all in Lightroom!

This is the original SOOC 

And this shot is just the way I saw it... in my mind!  Among other things, I added a masked motion blur layer to give it a sense of motion (I know, doesn't make sense since it's obviously not being driven), blurred the background and treated it with Topaz Impression, then Texture Effects to give it a vintage feel 

"Waiting for Hard Water". Every year I do a picture of the ice fishing huts at the Red Umbrella Inn, waiting to go out on the ice. Well as you can see, despite the fact that it's December 20th, no ice yet. I think it'll be some weeks before they can go out, but I could be wrong. This is one of their smaller, older huts; the one at left in the foreground is brand new and 4x the size.  

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