The Gales of November, 2011 Edition

As many of my faithful readers know, this is the second year that I've attended the Gales of November workshop up in Wawa, Ontario on the shores of Lake Superior. The workshop is facilitated by Rob Stimpson — kudos to him for putting on this, the 11th edition of the event. Also to the Rock Island Lodge for hosting the group, their wonderful facilities, great food and attention to detail. Thanks go out to David, Megan and Judy — and we mustn't forget little Xavier and the ever-faithful Luna (a beautiful Pyrenees Mountain Dog).

My goal again this year was to get out of my comfort zone and capture some different images from my usual. Yes, I shot some HDR's, but only when it was the appropriate tool. I wanted to do more in-camera composition and less pixel-pushing on the desktop; I wanted to create images that could be considered as art. It was frustrating at times — once I went out for an afternoon shoot and looked around for 45 minutes before taking any photos. Sometimes I backslid, but again that's when some awesome picture opportunities presented themselves.

When I look at the 45 selected images from the trip, only 4 of them were taken with my new 10x Neutral Density filter. Changing directions is a slow process.  Am I happy with my results? Somewhat. Are there images I missed or messed up? You betcha. Are there any killer shots? You decide.

Here are a few images from the trip. The 45 pictures that I selected out of the 1779 shutter actuations I did are on my Smugmug site, in the November 2011 gallery. Have a look and enjoy, and feel free to comment or critique!

We travelled in style! Linda's husband was kind enough to let us use his Mercedes Benz Sprinter van. You can stand up in the thing, and it has enough space for just about everything I own! It only tipped over once, Bob, when we crossed the river bed where the bridge was out (just kidding!). I have to get one of these one day!

Shannon kept saying, "we have to find a grove of birch trees". Well, we did! This was just South of Sudbury on Rte. 69 and is a fantastic spot. I programmed it into the GPS for the next time I'm up that way.

This was my room at the lodge. Fantastically comfortable, great view over the lake... what more could you ask? (this, BTW, is what HDR is for!)

On Friday morning we went to Sandy Beach. I shot the same boardwalk and beach grass last year, but this year`s shot is better!

`Ron`s Tree`. Ron shot this tree last year and got an outstanding image. My turn to try! The tree is real: I created the leaves and the fog from scratch on the desktop. FWIW...

I was up really early on Sunday morning and took this shot looking Northeast in front of the Lodge. Could this be the Aurora Borealis? I didn`t see it but the camera did...

 

As I said, there are more images on my Smugmug site, including a couple of Art Deco prints I created. Hop on over and tell me what you think!'

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