I'm on a two-month journey in Newfoundland. My goal here is to post some highlights, both in words and pictures, and to try to include some tips if you're planning to make the trek to the Rock.
You can click on any picture in the blog to blow it up. Most of the pictures are available as large format prints at very reasonable cost. Contact me.
I've started writing this on July 9th. Amin is, as I speak, winging his way back to Ontario. We spent a couple of weeks of awesome adventure exploring this place, although I regret we've only seen a couple of icebergs and whales, both from a very long distance. Perhaps when he returns mid-August for the tail end of the journey, we'll have more luck with the whales. Icebergs: another year. By the way, he left 'way too many snack foods here. I may have will power but I don't have "won't power"!
There are things we had planned to do but didn't: for instance, I've yet to get out to shoot a sunrise. We didn't plan to go out on small boats 3 times this week but we did; we also shot almost every sunset and did one blue hour night shoot in Twillingate, as well as an attempt at some star trails.
I had an incident. In all the years I've been shooting, I've NEVER dropped a camera. I had mounted my camera on the tripod but neglected to properly tighten one of the leg segments and it collapsed. You know that feeling you get when you're two steps too far away to catch it and you watch it fall in slow motion? Here's the result:
It could have been worse. The lens itself still functions (it's my 17-35mm f/2.8 Nikkor wide angle). The Xume magnetic ring adapter screwed into the filter thread is beyond repair and worse, I can't unscrew it. The lens is sticky when you try to get to 17mm but it works. It focuses, it's still sharp, but I can't use a filter on it. I ordered a replacement Xume ring so I can use my ND 10 and my polarizing filters on my 70-200, it'll arrive from Amazon soon. The D800 seems to be undamaged.
There was one other "almost" incident. Flashing blue and red lights in the mirror... but the nice RCM Policeman took pity on a tourist not familiar with the surprise 50km zones and let me off with a warning. It's hard to spot those signs when you're busy slaloming around bottomless potholes. Watch out for the ones painted orange (marked for repair).
And one more: a screw sticking out of the tread of a tire. Fortunately, it had only just penetrated and it wasn't in the sidewall, so $7 for a quick patch and we were on our way.
That's three. I'm done, right?
On July 1, we moved to our new digs, a beautiful 2-bedroom house in Crow Head, across the road from the Crow's Nest Café and in walking distance from the point of land overlooking the bay. The view from the deck is awesome.
 |
 |
 |
This is DEFINITELY going to get printed in large format. Contact me to reserve your copy. I'm also planning a sketch and/or painting of this scene. |
 |
 |
 |
This is a mixed-race family of foxes. The male (I think) has the coloration we're used to from the Algonquin Park area, it's a red fox. Mama and kit have cross-fox coloration. |
These foxes are very skinny compared to the ones we have at home: but they are acclimatized to humans just like our old friend "Papa Fox" from Algonquin. And, I fear, they'll suffer the same fate. Cars come over that hill at 60 to 80 kph and the foxes like to sit right in the middle of the road. They accept food from people, coming just short of taking it from the hand.
The Kittiwake Coast
The Road to the Shore
We drove along the "Loop" that skirted Hamilton Sound (Carmanville, Musgrave Harbour, Deadman's Harbour, Lumsden) then North Bonavista Bay (Cape Freels, Newtown, New-wes-valley, Greenspond). We ran out of time so turned back at that point.
The first part was a little boring... endless tracts of forest. We went into Carmanville... not much to see... then continued towards Musgrave Harbour. Best image from there was this one:
 |
Laundry day in Musgrave Harbour. Classic handmade Newfoundland quilts drying in the ever-present wind. We saw quilts like these in the museum in Durrell, priced around $500. I plan to try to paint this image. |
 |
I spotted this shed and fence row along the way and thought it would make a good painted image. |
Back on the road, what's that in the distance? An actual iceberg, just off Deadman's Harbour! It was really far away (some 15 miles out, according to a local) and had been grounded there for some time.
 |
Atmospheric effects prevented a sharp image — it was really far away. This was shot carefully with the 400mm on the tripod, I waited for the two cormorants to enter the frame. |
Newtown is a beautiful place. They call it "the Venice of Newfoundland", because of the Tickle (Newfoundese for 'stream' or 'river' or 'current') that runs through it. We stopped there for lunch. The striking hostess in the restaurant didn't want me to take her picture (Scandinavian look, braided blonde hair, beautiful face and figure) because "I hate pictures of myself"! But I'm learning to ask, and the worst thing that can happen is they say "no".
 |
There's an amazing church in the town, and I caught the reflection in the pond below. |
 |
Scenes like this are all around you. |
When I shot the church picture, I thought a better angle might be from the back deck of a café. They of course let me go there... then the store owner got to talking to us and it turned out he gives kayak tours of the Tickle. Amin went with him. It was expensive: $15! They were out almost an hour.
 |
 |
 |
By the way, there are power lines everywhere in Newfoundland. Because of the rocky soil, it's virtually impossible to bury cables here. I could tediously photoshop them out or simply leave them in. |
Curtis, the kayak guide told Amin that a pod of 30 whales had been seen that morning off the causeway to Greenspond. We couldn't get to the car fast enough. But no luck, the whales were gone.
Greenspond is an amazing town, built on an island, steep, windy roads and spectacular views.
 |
 |
...meanwhile
Back in Twillingate
Next day, we went out with Skipper Jim on his 22 foot boat. I've mentioned him earlier: we met last year when we went out on his boat, repeat performance this year. After I read John Gillett's book, I asked Jim whether he was the 'Skipper Jim' mentioned in it. Sure enough, it was him and he's another local with a colourful history in sealing and fishing. Jim's retired from all that and his passion now is the stars — he built an observatory which houses a 16" telescope and he waxed eloquently about what he's seen and his innovative construction. He's viewed galaxies and planets and the moon and, with a special attachment, the sun. Oddly, he's never attached a camera to the telescope so what he's seen remains in his mind or in a few simple sketches. He's very knowledgeable and an easygoing skipper on the water.
 |
We saw bald eagles, Osprey, a seal a waterfall and... a whale! |
 |
 |
 |
You can't shoot slow motion milky waterfall shots from a boat bouncing around in the waves. So I shot a string of 10 exposures and blended some of them together to make this image. |
 |
The whale was very far away when Amin spotted him spouting. Jim spooled up the engine and we set off in pursuit but he only came up the once. God knows how I managed to capture a couple of images, holding down the shutter button as we pounded through the waves. Here he is, my first (of many, I hope!) humpback whales of the year. |
 |
That evening we ventured up to the Durrell museum to try for some night shots. A lot of light pollution and then the clouds closed in, but I got this one. |
Back Cove
Next evening we made our way back to Back Cove, where we had scouted for sunset shots. Amin and I shot differently, he focused on brightly saturated skies.
 |
I liked the brightly coloured fishing stages casting reflections in the water |
 |
And here's a pure reflection. |
 |
I did a lot of editing to create this pastel silhouette. But this is how it really looked to my eyes. This will make an outstanding large scale print. |
Later that night we went up to the Lighthouse to try to get some star trails. Clouds moved in and the moon rose around 1am.
 |
I modified the boat silhouette image and placed it on top of the star trail image. The trail was created with StarStax and added editing in Topaz. |
 |
At 2am, before packing up, I shot this image of the Lighthouse and the rising moon. |
French Head
On Twillingate's north island is a point known as "French Head". We hiked up there the next afternoon. It was somewhat challenging given our late night and my knees and hips. OK, and the few extra pounds I carry around.
 |
Here's a shot Amin took of me. Note the cane... I have trouble stepping downhill, especially on uneven surfaces and the cane is a big help. I hate using it because it's an admission of my failing mobility but I have to get over that because it REALLY helps. |
 |
Where I was in the above picture was high atop the crest behind and to the left of the house on French Beach. We had walked a couple of km along that trail you see, then climbed up the slope behind. |
 |
Here's Amin on the path up the hillside. He says he has a rather severe expression in this shot. I like to think that even he was somewhat taxed by the climb. Let's just say that was the reason. By the way, it was about 15° when we left the house that morning and 28° when we got back to the car after the hike. We were both overdressed. |
 |
Another view of the trail. Do you see why Newfoundland is known as "The Rock"? |
 |
This cove was our destination. Still not all the way to the point but as far as we went. When we were out fishing a couple of days later, we saw that we were about halfway along the trail from the house to the point. |
I'll stop this here. Friday, July 7th. On the weekend we saw the capelin rolling on Wild Cove beach, did some more exploration and capped it off with a fishing trip with Captain John Gillett. Stay tuned!
— 30 —
No comments:
Post a Comment