OK, it's c-c-c-cold!

How much do we take things for granted?

Last night, I went to brush my teeth before going to bed and wondered why the water trickled instead of flowing from the tap. I know that the pressure is down when I flush the toilet, but this was next to nothing. Without going into a lot of detail, a few minutes later, it stopped completely.

It was frigid out. (OK, a little detail, that's what writers do. They paint pictures with words).
How cold was it?

It was so cold, you could see your breath with your eyes closed. If you blinked, there was a chance they'd freeze that way and you wouldn't be able to open them. Your nose would run but it would freeze in your beard, unless you were a woman in which case, I don't know what happens because I've never seen a woman with snot on her face. Except on TV when she's just finished a downhill ski race (how come figure skaters' noses don't run? Would the Russian Judge take off points for snot?). If you take off your hat it's hard to put it back on again because your hair has frozen in spikes in the few hatless minutes. Unless you're bald, in which case you look a lot like a snow cone.

It was so cold that they delayed the start of the dogsled races because the Siberian Huskies were getting frostbitten feet. Once they did get it started and you were shooting pictures, your lens was hard to zoom because the lubricant in it wasn't, well, lubricating. After a while, you couldn't focus because the focus ring on your $2500 lens was frozen solid. Besides, your breath had iced up both the viewfinder and the LCD on the back of the camera and you couldn't see anyway.

It was so cold that you couldn't feel your toes anymore, even though they were encased in heavy wool socks inside thickly insulated snowmobile boots. When you walked across the snow field, the snow squeaked in protest. You could carry your heavy camera gear across the field without feeling any pain because, well, everything was numb, except your fingertips which ached and the tip of your nose which had been touching the back of the camera and it still hurts a day later.

If you're a numbers person, the air temperature was only around -25°C which is just about -13° in Fahrenheit, which isn't so bad, we've all grown up in colder... those of us in Canada and the True North, that is. But it was windy. So the broadcast meteorologists, guys in suits or blond women with ample chests and low cut tops. who stand in front of their green screens and point to invisible cold fronts and low pressure areas and the jetstream, who have made up this measurement called "wind chill" say, "it's -25° but it feels like -40° windchill.

As an aside, I read this morning that the windchill temperature atop Mount Washington was -114°F or -81°C this morning. So I guess, in the grand scheme of things, it wasn't that cold here. And I remember skiing at Stowe, VT when it was actually -40° (C or F, take your pick) and they gave us 4 or 5 woolen ponchos to ride up on the chair lift. And night skiing in the Laurentians at Mont Habitant at 40 below. But I was so young. In my teens or in my 20's. Now I'm 72 and SO much wiser. And so more brittle.

 I've lived in Canada my whole life. Not like those wimps in Vancouver, who go sailing in the morning then skiing in the afternoon in shorts and a windbreaker. Or in Toronto where they call in the army at the hint of a snowstorm and where traffic grinds to a halt because half the population doesn't believe you need snow tires to get up those little hills but you do. No, in Montreal. Where as kids we used to dig tunnels and forts in the 10' high snowbanks created by the snowplows, and our parents warned us to watch out for the snowblowers which would suck them up and spit them out into caravans of dump trucks. We used to play broomball in our late teens or early 20s on outdoor hockey rinks (I wasn't a skater) and you'd play a 5 minute shift then go cough your lungs out from the condensation freezing as you breathe (and because like every other idiot in the day, you used to smoke a large pack of DuMaurier a day). Further north. I've been at the corner of Portage and Main in Winnipeg in winter. I was once on a bus from the Edmonton airport to downtown in an 'ice fog' which is caused by water particles in the air freezing into an opaque cloud.

Yes, I know, other people have been in colder places. But I've lived up here in the Highlands for over 10 years now and never once did my water freeze up. My sump pump line, yes, but not my water lines.

Back to the point of my story. We're spoiled. Yes, I've been winter camping (once. I'm dumb, not stupid!). Yes I've had to carry water up from the stream for cooking and washing. But never at home! Do you know how much you rely on having water? I brought in half a dozen pots full of snow to melt so that I could flush the toilet when I have to ("if it's yellow, let it mellow. If it's brown, flush it down". Gross. But true!) I filled up water jugs at my neighbour's for drinking and cooking and brushing my teeth. Shower? Uh-uh.

So here I am in mid-whine. Then I thought about my ancestors who NEVER had running water. And I thought about a large portion of the world's population who don't have access to water, especially clean water. And I thought, I really am a privileged asshole. Spoiled by the luxuries of the modern world. What would it be like if I'd been born 100 years earlier? Or 200 or 300 years? What would it have been like having to do everything physically, manually? Could I have survived?

Now if I run out of cashmere soft 3-ply toilet paper, I can sit at the computer and access the Amazon site, place an order online and two days later get a shipment from the FedEx guy and the hardest thing I have to do is open the box. Or if I do go to the grocery store, I get in my car and turn the key and the most exercise I get is pushing on the gas pedal and carrying in the bags of groceries. Including fresh vegetables that come from Mexico or Peru or even Israel or Morocco, in the middle of winter.

If I'm that spoiled, what about my children? What's it going to be like for my grandkids? We exercise by running or lifting weights or stretching our muscles when  we don't have to: what are they going to do? Or maybe they won't have to, they'll be so reliant on chemicals and medications and nanobots and machines that will keep them alive while they sleep. Or will they sleep?

Does anybody care? Or is it not important, is it evolution? But I weep.

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JPEG vs. RAW

For those who don't appreciate the difference, perhaps this example will help.

Yesterday I shot this dark brown dog on a white snowy background in bright sunlight. I set the camera to save a RAW image (Nikon NEF) on one card and a JPEG Fine on the other card (shooting a D800, 70-200 f/2.8 — 1/640 sec at f/8, ISO 250, matrix metering with +1.3ev exposure compensation). To get a good exposure on the dog, clearly the snow was going to have to be too bright.

After doing the best I could do in Lightroom with the two images, here's what I got. If nothing else, look at the ability to recover detail in the RAW image, in areas like the snowbank which are completely blown out in the JPEG.

I hope this helps some people understand the advantage of shooting in RAW.

The RAW file. Even though the back of the camera (which just shows a JPEG preview of the image) was blown out, detail was still there in the broader dynamic capture range of a RAW file. 

...and this of course is the JPEG. Once you've blown out the whites, nothing you do can bring the detail back. 

What prompted me to shoot this was because Topaz Labs had pre-announced their latest hot product, JPEG-to-RAW-AI which is a standalone product using AI learning to get the most out of a JPEG. i admit that it couldn't save this picture because the detail just didn't exist in the blown out JPEG. You can't recover what's not there.

I've tried the product. It works, on less extreme images. It's intended for when you shoot with your iPhone and capture an image you'd like to enhance and maybe print large. There's no cost involved in trying it: you can get a 30 day free trial to see if you like it. If you commit to buying it before February 8th, you get a 20% discount and there's a way to get 15% even more that I'm sharing with my blog subscribers (click "Newsletter" at upper right to be added to the list. If I see that you subscribed, I'll send you the code).

Topaz explains how it works and gives much better examples than I can. Here's the link, and you need to use this link for the discount:

https://topazlabs.com/jpeg-to-raw-ai/ref/32

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Newfoundland Update

I'm still procrastinating. I need a push to get me to commit. A couple of people have tentatively put out feelers about joining me, at least for part of the trip, but nothing definite yet. "Speak Now, or..."

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Picture time!

I haven't shot much for the past few weeks — it's been too damned cold to spend a lot of time out there.  But then again, it's been a while since I posted to the blog, so here's a bunch!

We did a session at the Haliburton Highlands Camera Club bursting balloons. Some shots were just balloons, others were with people bursting them with their hands. You can't keep a straight face when a balloon bursts in your hands!

With some added effects 

I know I wasn't nice to Hana! But I felt this shot needed a 'grunge' touch and also I composited broken glass into her glasses!

Next was the Dog Sled Races. It was soooo cold... my lens actually froze up and I couldn't focus. Here are a couple of shots anyway...

Last weekend was the first of two weekends of the Pond Hockey championships. It's a fun tournament but some of the play was serious. Again it was really cold so I didn't stay long, but I got this sequence:

The "Ice Team" did a great job and had fun doing it. Can't imagine how, it was soooo cold! 

As I said, some of the players got into it big time. I thought gloves were going to be dropped at some point. 

I thought this shot epitomized what the games were like. 

The less serious teams are playing this weekend. Much more fun photos, wait for it next time!


I shot frozen bubbles a few times. But you know me, I can't leave well enough alone and I love Topaz Studio!

Bubble world approaching the edge of the universe 

It was so cold that the bubble liquid froze before I could get it out of the wand! 

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Parting Shot

Yesterday I could only stand about 10 minutes out in the cold, so I shot a few bubble pictures then retreated indoors to the warmth of my computer chair. I decided to composite a few images into one, so here they are:

BTS ("Behind the Scenes") shot of my setup. I used the BBQ as a windbreak and a dark background, added some extra light, and blew the bubble through a straw onto the upside down glass. 

I used these 3 pictures for the composite 

And here's the finished result:

 

See you next time! And don't forget to subscribe if you want the Topaz discount code!

— 30 —

Get over it.

Is this a  "New Year's Resolution"?
No, it's more of an epiphany.

In the last couple of blogs I've been bitching about getting old. Aches and pains, lack of energy and motivation, growing contact list of doctors, awful sleep patterns, a GRANDSON in the Air Force, for God's sake. The list goes on.

Then I say, without meaning it, "consider the alternative".

OK, enough. I can't promise I'll be less curmudgeonly, but I'll try. Think positive.

Three things happened in the past few days that are pushing me on this track:

1. The oncologist I saw last week said, when I commented on my age, "the patient I just saw before you is 91. Get over it."
2. My aunt passed away this morning. She was 102. My mom was 95. My dad died young, at 89. Get over it.
3. On a completely different note, I went to Algonquin Park on Wednesday. Because I can. Whenever I want to. In fact I can do anything I want. Whenever I want to.

I want to write. I want to make pictures, with the camera, the computer, a paint brush, charcoal and pencils. Time for the excuses to end. 
Get over it.

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In a conversation with my cousin Howard today (it was his mother who passed on at 102) we looked backwards at our lives — we basically grew up together — and we realized how much stuff we've done over the years. If I created a character in my novel who had done, and mastered, all that stuff, nobody would believe it. I'm still going to give it a shot!

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Topaz Labs sale

If you're reading this and it's not Boxing Day yet, you still have time to take advantage of the Topaz Labs year-end sale.

I'm committed to the Topaz products. Virtually every picture of mine that you see has had a whiff of Topaz. Whether it's painterly effects, textures,  noise reduction, extra clarity or sharpening, upsizing or simplifying, their products are superb.

I recently started using AI Clear and now I'm committed to it. It does such a good job of increasing the acuity of an image that a lot of the methods I've used in the past have been relegated to the shelf.

Is there a learning curve? Of course there is. Not that steep though, you can work your way through it.

If you're cost conscious, you want to take advantage of this sale before it's gone. If not, you owe it to yourself to try their products: you can do a full 30 day free trial on anything in their program.

Here's the link: https://topazlabs.com/ref/32/

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Newfoundland Portfolio

I spent some time working on my Newfoundland pictures from last summer. I put a selection of them up online using Adobe Portfolio. All of the pictures in this group are large hi-res, so for the most part they'd be great printed!

So far, these are the best images. Click a picture for full-screen. Hover over it for the description.

Longliner approaching Gull Island, off Twillingate. 

Right now I'm recommending canvas wrap printing: I have a good, responsive and inexpensive supplier. You can get up to 40" width, you can hang them without framing, and I can do a large format print for about $100, delivered, including taxes. I can get regular prints too.

If you like any of the images, please communicate with me, tell me the title or description, and we'll go from there.

Here's the link: https://glennspringer.myportfolio.com/newfoundland-2018.

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"The time had come, the warden said, to talk of many things...". 
Of animals and ecology and climate change and the Park 
(sorry, Lewis Carroll).

Before I get into pictures from yesterday, I want to talk about some things I learned from a Park Warden named "David" with whom we chatted for a while.

PS: I got carried away, writing this: if it's too much for you, just look at the pictures.

OK, OK, here's a picture!

Male Pine Grosbeak. I learned from David that this is a second-year bird, not wearing full-colour plumage yet. 

David was a nice guy, despite the patches on his shoulders and gold badge on his chest. A bit crazy hanging out with us on the back deck of the Visitor’s Centre in a short sleeved shirt, everyone asking him from time to time, “aren’t you cold”? “I wouldn’t do this if it was 40 below, but it’s a nice day…”. Me, in a down jacket over a wool sweater over my thermal underwear… Knowledgeable guy, knows his birds, nature, the park. “I don’t think that’s a hoary redpoll, look at the shape of the bill. I think it might be just a light coloured common redpoll”.

The conversation turned to feeding and baiting, and where do you draw the line. Aren’t they really the same thing? You could tell that David was not comfortable at times. You had the impression he was expressing a personal opinion and being really careful not to contradict the Park’s official position. He made an interesting comment, that it’s not a digital divide, unethical baiting on one side, managed feeding on the other, "it’s a continuum", he said. 

At one point he grudgingly admitted that it wasn’t necessary to have the feeders at the centre, the birds would survive the winter anyway, or most of them would. The feeders were really there to cater to the visitors and yes, the photographers.

Of course we went to pine martens and foxes next. There was a couple we all  had run into up at the turnaround on Opeongo Road that day. When we (Amin and I) were there, they were holding a handful of bird seed or trail mix to hand feed the chickadees and Canada jays. But other people in the conversation said they saw this couple feeding cheese and meat to a pine marten there. One said he left without shooting any pictures because he couldn’t condone the behaviour. 

All of us have seen the deplorable setup at Mew Lake. The pine martens live in the garbage bins and through some sort of misguided logic, some people think there’s nothing wrong with spreading peanut butter or cat food on the tree branches in the hope of slowing down these fast-moving predators so they can get a picture. After all, they're eating garbage anyway. Last week I had to wait to get a shot when the animals weren’t busy licking the trees. Someone said they saw a visitor one day, nailing hot dogs to the tree. “Can’t something be done about this? Can’t you charge people”?

“When we get there”, David said, “people say the one who did this just left. We’re just taking pictures”. It is a chargeable offence, harassing wildlife, but hard to enforce. But David went on to explain why it’s wrong. He used the famous foxes on Arowhon Road as an example.

The foxes up there were so habituated to Man that all you needed to do was to stop your car and open the door, and the foxes would appear. Crinkle a potato chip bag and you’d almost have one in your back seat. They waited for people to appear, guaranteed food sources. As a result, several things happened. First and most obvious, the animals were interacting with two tons of metal and plastic and the inevitable occurred, the cars won. Papa fox and one of his daughters are now living their lives out at Aspen Valley rehab, Papa still limping around on often broken limbs after car collisions. 

My favourite picture of Papa fox, shot a few years ago. 

But Papa has lived a long time, some say between 12 and 15 years, unheard of for a fox: it's like a person living to 120. Still fathering a litter of kits every year until recently, which meant that there was a continuing presence of foxes in that territory for a long time. Not just a pair... many. Maybe as many as a dozen. There are turtle beds along the trails and with the constant pressure of a dozen foxes, virtually no turtles have survived. We've changed the ecological balance, at least in that part of the park, in a few short years, by feeding the foxes in order to get some pictures.

But there's more. These foxes are so tame they would conceivably take food from the hand. "What do you think would happen", David asked, "if a fox nipped someone, perhaps a child, in the process of taking food from the hand"? The answer was obvious: the foxes would be hunted down, trapped and euthanized. 

Now let's get back to the pine martens at Mew. There used to be one or two. This week I saw five, someone else said six. True, some of them were kits (or whatever a baby pine marten is called). What do you think is happening to the squirrel population? Voles? Are we changing the environment for the sake of a few pictures? When is someone going to get bitten (not "if". It's going to happen)? Then what. How is it different from bears or wolves invading campsites? 

Back to the question at hand. What's the difference between baiting the wildlife, and feeding the birds? Nobody's going to get bitten by a chickadee landing on your hand for a peanut. And since the Park itself is setting a poor example by setting up feeders and putting out suet, how can they begin to prevent people from doing the same.

There has to be a line drawn in the sand (or the snow!), though. And by the end of the conversation, we all agreed: it's between feeding mammals and birds (yes we talked about baiting snowy owls but it's not germane to Algonquin Park). And let's not talk about the supposedly "Wild" turkeys at Mew who peck between your feet and come out when people show up.

Is it ethical to take pictures of habituated animals, even if you're not the one doing the feeding? Should we be flocking to Mew Lake or Opeongo after the martens? A conundrum wrapped in a mystery, buried in an enigma (thanks, Sir Winston). I'm on the horns of a dilemma. It's just that they're just so damned cute...

And to that couple who were throwing cheese and hamburger to the Pine Martens up in Opeongo, don't do it in front of me. You know what side I'm on.

Sure the Pine Martens are cute and photogenic. But there are at least 5 of them living at Mew right now, what's that doing to the population of squirrels and voles in the area? And what happens when someone gets too close and gets bitten? 

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What else did I shoot at Algonquin yesterday? 

Not much but it was a great day, like every other time I've managed to get to the Park!

Colours on that immature male Pine Grosbeak are exquisite.

Here's what a mature male looks like 

Common Redpoll 

American Goldfinch 

— 30 —

But soft! What light from yonder window breaks?

North-Facing Window Light
A random thought about lighting

In response to a question on Facebook, I used Yousuf Karsh as an example of who I'd like to emulate when I grow up. So I leafed through some of his famous portraits and came across one of my favourites, his shot of Albert Einstein (someone else I'd like to be like, and of course never will!).

Because it's someone else's picture, I won't reproduce it here. But please click this link to see the photo I'm talking about.

Photographers spend a lot of money on studio lighting. I get it, if you want to have predictable results all the time but, and I've said this before, all they're doing is trying to emulate natural lighting. For me, the best light is "north facing window light". The window doesn't actually have to face North, it just means that there's no direct sunlight and the window serves as a source of soft light, like the huge reflectors and softboxes most studios prefer.

I remembered this picture I made a few years ago of my ex-girlfriend Rosa's friend Valeria, sitting at her kitchen table. It  was placed in a kind of bay window alcove so light came from the huge windows to her left. It was a freezing cold winter day (I remember it was one of the few days that actually reached 40°C below) in Bancroft, there had been a fresh fall of snow so the world was bright white and all the light came through the window.

I don't think I consciously emulated Karsh's lighting but you have to admit there is a great deal of similarity between this image and his (if you didn't click the link above, please do now).

The only thing I did in terms of light setup was to spread a newspaper on the table in front of her to reflect some of that beautiful light upwards to fill in under her chin.

As I look back in my archives I realize that I love using natural window lighting for portraits. The best example is this one:

This was a digital painting that won me the top portrait prize in the GTCCC some years ago. George was a groundskeeper at a place called "Deep Gorge" in upstate New York and I had asked him to stand by a window. FWIW, I tried to contact him later to get a model release, only to discover that he had died. His co-workers had dedicated a cabin to his memory and I provided a print for the cabin.

My son-in-law preparing my grandson for his graduation dance from 8th grade some years ago. He's now a Seneca College student, preparing for entry to a Canadian Forces program that will hopefully lead to him flying fighter jets. He's also a little taller now, towering over me! 

My neighbour, Vic, in the living room of his house on 12-Mile Lake, illuminated by, you guessed it, North-Facing Window Light. In hindsight, this one emulates the Karsh lighting best, don't you think?

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Topaz Labs Spring sale!


Topaz Labs has announced a huge spring sale: 40% off everything in their stores from now until May 7th! That's 40% off their already discounted prices, best prices ever!

Note: if you already own some of the Topaz products, their smart website will calculate a top-up price once you log in. This is an opportunity to get these amazing tools at a huge savings.

If you're not familiar with Topaz, they started with some great plug-in tools for most photoediting apps (my favourite is "Impression" which turns your images into painterly art. Second favourite is DeNoise which quietly does exactly what you think it does!). 

Then they introduced "Studio" which is a FREE standalone photoediting platform on its own (although it can be run out of other apps too: my usual workflow is to call it out of Lightroom). It comes with a number of totally free adjustment tools but they have some premium ones where you can play with them for free but to get full access, you need to buy them. They have a bundle called the "Pro Pack" which gives you everything all in one shot.

You can also get a 30-day free trial of anything through the links below.

Here's the link to Topaz Lab's new FREE "Studio" platform.You can also use this link to access any of the "Pro"-adjustments, plug-ins and special discounts currently in effect. 

https://web.topazlabs.com/ref/32/

For the original plug-ins, here's the link:

http://www.topazlabs.com/505-0-1-69.html

No need to enter a coupon code, Topaz will apply the 40% discount automatically.

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Steel Wool fun

The other night, the camera club went out to shoot steel wool again. We've done it a few times before, and I ran a session up in Wawa as well— something to do at night if the weatherman wasn't going to cooperate and give us stars to shoot.

What you do is take a bit of steel wool (half a clump?), stick it in a household whisk (the thing you use to beat eggs into submission), tether it with some kind of rope like a dog leash, set it on fire (easy to do with a lighter or even the spark from a 9v battery) and swing it around to paint with light, being really careful not to hit yourself with it or to set the forest on fire. Leave your shutter open for a while. You'll get pictures like this:

This was a 12 second exposure at f/11, ISO 100. 

If you work at it, you can get pictures like this one:

This was about 4 seconds. I zoomed the lens while the shutter was open and I added texture using Topaz Studio. 

or this one:

I edited this in Lightroom. I increased the exposure dramatically and used the "Guided Transform" tool to straighten up the perspective. This image was very well received on Facebook. I did get some comments about the post which  I left in because it adds depth, perspective and tension to the image. Some liked it others didn't. You? 

Now for those of you who don't understand why you need to shoot in RAW...

... here's the "before" shot, straight out of the camera.

If you expose for the burning steel wool, the rest of the image is going to be dark.  

In this case, I increased the exposure by 2½ stops for the overall image. But I wanted the stone fountain to be even more visible so I painted it with the adjustment brush in LR and added another 4 full stops. That's a total of 6½ stops! Try that with a Jpeg.

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House still for sale!

Hurry before someone grabs it up! I'm still waiting for those multiple offers they promised me! LOL

Dining Room 

Kitchen

Almost time to put on a bathing suit, your boat in the water, or relax in the gazebo with good company and a good book!

Here's the link to the MLS listing

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Carden Plain: too early

With the weird spring (I'm still looking out on remnants of snow from last week!) it was too early to visit Carden Plain and see a wide variety of birds. But it was a nice day yesterday and I made the trek. Nothing exotic but always interesting... I had also intended to head down to the Lindsay area where, I heard, there were meadowlarks in the fields off highway 35. Never made it. I got to Carden a little before noon, and didn't leave there until well after 5, headed to Fenelon Falls for some groceries (I figured there'd be a bigger variety there in the Sobey's — yes but their prices are even higher than here!), then made it home a little before 8. A nice day.

Here are some pix:

I started in Minden and found one of the ubiquitous RWBB's coming in for a one-point landing. Can't resist shooting these guys (until later when there are thousands around!).

Ruffed Grouse crossing Deep Bay Road 

He headed for the base of a tree where he figured I couldn't see him. Almost... 

The bluebirds are back! Only a few of them and they stayed well away, this guy was sitting in a Hawthorne quite some distance away (cropped!) 

 

A pair of Northern Flickers showed up for a quick look. As did this European Starling.

I ran into a couple of people: first, a team of Conservation Officers out making sure that turkey hunters (season opened the day before) were following the rules... nice folks out of Minden. By the way, unless you have a good AWD vehicle and know how to use it, don't go into the wetland portion of Wylie Road beyond the bridge. Them thar puddles are deep, y'hea?

On the way out, I met a couple of birders who told me they had seen  some Loggerhead Shrikes at the Cameron Ranch. And meadowlarks. So guess where I went? Nope. Not around. There were a couple of small sparrows at a distant Hawthorne, and I heard the meadowlarks, but no joy.

However I managed to convince a couple of Wilson's Snipes to pay me a visit, investigating the sounds my iPhone was making! They posed for a couple of pictures!

 

One of my favourite birds. 

And so it begins! Next time...

— 30 —