Left Brain Challenge

The Right Brain is considered the creative, artistic side.

The Left Brain is the calculating, scientific half.

Those who know me know that it's only in this part of my life — say for the last 15 or 20 years — that I've indulged my creative spirit and done my best to discard and ignore the old technical part. Without success, I might add. I moved over to Mac from PC, for example which is a source of never-ending frustration because I can't dive into the code like I used to. Not that I really want to, I just want to be a "user" and let others solve the technical issues. Which doesn't always work, but that's another story.

I 'play' guitar and keyboard (in quotes because I'm really a hacker) but I can't remember how to read music much, despite years of training in my youth. I 'paint' and 'sketch', also in quotes because I suck. I write: no quotes there, I do that, but the only way I'll finish my novel is if I have another 20 or 30 years ahead of me! And of course I photograph and digitally manipulate images.

I used to shoot guns and ride motorcycles but always with the left brain engaged, respect for the mechanics. No, I've really had enough of the cogitative life.

So WHY IN HEAVEN did I decide to get a star tracker? It's one of the most complicated contraptions I've tried since Rube Goldberg was a kitten.

Here's my camera mounted on an iOptron Skytracker Pro. The thing on top is my iPhone which runs TriggerTrap software to operate the camera shutter. I could use a remote, but hey, this is more complicated!

What does it do? Inside the red thing is a motor that turns the camera mount at the same speed as the earth rotates, ideally in the exact opposite direction, so the stars stay put in the frame. Note: if you're a "flat-earther" you can skip to the next article because this won't make sense to you. The camera is mounted on a ball head so you can point it where you want, and that's sitting on a counterweighted arm — which technically isn't needed with a wide angle lens, but I was trying to learn how to set it up.

Since everything rotates around the North Pole, you have to align the thing with the Pole which is close to (but not exactly on) the star Polaris.The thing on the right with the rubber band on it is a Polar Scope (the rubber band is to keep the lens caps from falling off), a little telescope you use to align the thing. Without boring you to death with detail, that's the hardest part: you roughly point it North, tilt it to the correct angle for your latitude (there's an app for that), look through the scope by bending over at an impossible angle and you should see Polaris. I saw A STAR, I think it might have been Polaris... then you use some clumsy controls to put it in the right place in the scope. Sure. When it's -2°C, windy, and the stupid ball head control gets in the way. Oh yeah, and you have to make sure the tripod is perfectly level (with a bubble level). Once it's aligned take care not to move anything or you have to start all over again. That's harder than you think.

OK, why? Well if you shoot the milky way, for instance, a typical exposure would be say 15 seconds at f/2.8, ISO 3200. If you know anything about digital photography, the high ISO generates lots of 'noise' which interferes with a sharp, clean image. Any longer, and the moving stars will leave tracks instead of being round dots (if you're in focus. Another issue...). So to get the ISO down, you need to keep the shutter open longer, hence the tracker to keep everything still in the picture. My go-to exposure would be 4 minutes at f/4, ISO 400, not too far off, I think.

With all of that said, I went out on Wednesday night to give it a try. The moon was too bright, there were clouds coming in, but I got a couple of shots.

This is a 4 minute shot with the tracker on. As I said, it wasn't perfect, but not a bad first attempt. You can see that the foreground is fuzzy because the camera was moving the whole time, but the stars were (reasonably) sharp. 

This is a shot with the tracker turned off.  You can see how much the stars moved during the exposure but the earth stood still. I turned on the inside light in the car for a bit at the beginning of the shot.

So what you do is blend those pictures together in Photoshop, then fiddle with it for an hour and this is what you get. Pretty cool, eh? 

Here's another one, facing ENE but I forgot to shoot a foreground shot so it's fuzzy. 

I'm looking forward to getting out on another clear (but WARMER!) night to try again, maybe with the Milky Way this time! Exercising those computational muscles on the left side of my brain!

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Newfoundland

Planning is well underway. I only have a few days left to book, I'd really like to find something around Greenspond for the end of July, but may have to settle for the Bay Roberts area (not that there's anything wrong with that, but I'd love the chance to roam around Greenspond for a few days). No available accommodations there that I've been able to find.

I booked the ferries: July 4th outbound, August 18th inbound. That gives me a couple of days on the Western shore on either end of the trip. I'm still open for people (photography or artist types) to share part of the time with me. 

If you want to see my Newfoundland pictures from 2017 and 2018, go to my Portfolio page, here:

https://glennspringer.myportfolio.com/newfoundland

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House Sale

I had an offer a couple of days ago, but it didn't work out. Still available, great location and house and price, perfect for someone from Toronto looking to move out of town or even to use as a cottage as a stepping stone to moving up here. 

Here's the listing site from my agent:

http://www.trilliumteam.ca/viewlisting.php?id=1344553

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Algonquin Park visit(s)

I was up in the park twice. Last week, Amin and I went for a drive up — we had a great day but didn't see much, other than the Pine Martens. We did run into a few friends, the "Susans" and we met Dave Nicholson who had never seen a Marten, so we sent him to "the spot" where he saw one for the first time.  


I grabbed this Canada Jay picture there, and turned it into a sketch:

Then Ron called and said, "let's go to Algonquin Park". "Sure, what time?" and I met them up there Saturday morning. He brought Rob Klein and Lil Schneidman with him, Lil is the outgoing president of the Richmond Hill Camera Club. We'd met before but with my memory for faces and names... sorry Lil!

That didn't go exactly as planned. As I was driving east on Highway 60 out of Dwight, a deer decided to remodel the front of my car. The insurance is covering everything but the deductible and I'm off in search of a body shop tomorrow.

Here's the deer. Not going far with a broken back half. I shot the picture while waiting for the police. The nice officer dispatched it with his Glock: I volunteered to do it but for some reason he wouldn't lend me the gun... We left it for the wolves and other critters in the bush. 

This is one of the shots I did for the insurance company. A lot of plastic to be replaced, a little sheet metal, and maybe a little internal damage to the A/C Condenser. We'll see. The plastic did its job, no damage to the frame or anything, I think. Subarus are tough! 

When I finally got to the Park, I met up with them and shot some pictures. Almost all were with the 200-400mm 'bazooka'. It's soooo sharp but it's soooo heavy... except as noted below. Enjoy.

The obligatory Pine Marten shots. See what I mean about sharp? This one is cropped quite tightly, too. 

I hate Grackles. They empty my feeders in half a day, chase all the other birds away and their call is annoying and noisy. But they do have pretty iridescent  feathers!

A common Redpoll 

A digital sketch of Turtle Rock up on Opeongo Road. More complicated than it looks because it was a composite of 12 separate images shot with the 70-200mm f/2.8 lens and edited in Topaz Studio. 

 Here's Lil, using a similar technique.

We stopped at the ice cave on Hwy 60 on the way back. Careful footing to get up to it, here's Lil trying not to fall.

And this is a merged-HDR pano shot from the entrance to the cave. With a little help from Topaz! 9 shots HDR merged in Lightroom, done with the 24-120 lens.

'til next time!

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Paying it Forward

A challenge for you

I was recently given a Tim Horton's gift card. So I went into Tim Horton's, asked for the manager and gave her the gift card. I told her to use it for people who come in who need it more than I do. I asked, "Do you know whom I mean"? She said, "I know exactly whom you mean". So do you.

It's just a small thing but I hope I made a few people a little happier for a moment. If half the readers of this blog did the something similar then a whole lot of people might get a little smile. Feels good. Be in that half. Pay it forward.

New Banner

I changed the banner last week and since some people can't see it, depending on how they view this blog, here it is:

As I worked on this image – I've created different versions of it, cropped a variety of ways – I realize how strong my attraction is to images with lots of negative space. If you look through my work over time, I've done a lot of images with absolutely nothing in the background, usually white but a number of black images too. And although "fill the frame" is a mantra of mine, I'm learning that wider shots that include more background, tell the story much better.

Topaz Labs February Special

Topaz Labs Plug-ins for Photoshop and Lightroom are brilliant. I'm addicted to their products, particularly Impression which I find outstanding and frequently include in my workflow.

You can buy individual products or the complete bundle and if you enter “faczen” in the discount coupon box at checkout, you get a 15% discount. You can also do a 30 day full free trial on any and all of their products. (highly recommended for Topaz Impression and Topaz Glow: they don’t run on all systems because they need higher functioning graphics cards. Try before you buy!).

There are larger discounts from time to time on specific products, for instance Topaz ReStyle is on sale for $20 off ($40 instead of $60) in February, using this coupon code: ‘febrestyle’. Here’s the link to their site (which includes my affiliate code), or click the Topaz box at the right.

ReStyle is a plugin designed to alter the colors in your image with its unique array of toning effects.

The technology behind ReStyle uses a cutting-edge process to map the color and tone statistics from a source image.

With this, creative possibilities extend to many inspiring choices. Restyle is a useful tool for the photographer or artist looking to alter the overall feeling and mood of his or her image. The program can even be used to revamp the tone of graphics and textures.

I used Topaz Impression to finish this image that I shot last week. The "Georgia O'Keeffe" preset helped me produce the rich blend of pastel colours in the water as well as the textures in the snow. FWIW, this was a 5-shot HDR bracket. I pasted the ducks back in because they were ghosted in the HDR (on purpose: I was trying to smooth the water). 

Here's another shot from the same day, same spot (well, I was in a different position). I startled these Goldeneyes into taking off and used the Impression "Impasto" preset for the brush stroke effect. 

These shots were taken at roughly the same spot, but on a different day! I say "these shots" because this is a composite of two images, plus some background manipulation. There was in fact a wild turkey right where this one is in this shot but he was in a less flattering pose, so I replaced him!

Snowy Owl

Thank you, Kathy. Thank you, Kathy. In case I forget to say it, "Thank you, Kathy"!

When she put up some Snowy Owl pictures I said how envious I was. She texted me the next day and asked if I wanted to go shoot some. You don't have to ask me twice, but Kathy (McKelvey-Brown) has magic eyes. She sees stuff nobody else can. Grey owls in grey trees. Turtles. Ducks. So I figured I'd never see them. I was half right.

She told me where she had seen them the day before and when we drove there, (2 cars), she pulled over. I got out to talk to her and she said, "didn't you see the owl? It was in that tree, and when you got out of your car it flew away". Rats. I never saw it. Then she said, "There it is!". A white spec in a tree 300 meters away. Magic eyes.

Cutting to the chase: I got the hang of it and had at least half-a-dozen sightings, two of them after she left and I spotted them on my own! Without further ado...

They sit on top of power poles or on fence posts, looking for prey in the snow with THEIR magic eyes. White bird, white snow, white sky... 

This one took off from the pole when I got a bit too close (yeah, like in the next county!). I have a 200mm lens plus 1.7x telextender on a full-frame D800. Not quite enough for birding. 

I captured this owl in flight. Now if I didn't tell you this was a composited image, would you have known? There was nothing but the bird and sky in the original shot so I added in a background. This is the same bird as the previous shot, about 1/2 second later. Back button autofocusing and predictive tracking in the D800 does a fantastic job! So does Topaz Adjust 5 and ReMask.

Want a print of this image? Send me a note.

By the way, you know I'm a landscape guy, right? While driving around looking for owls, I came across this scene and it called out to me to be photographed:

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Don't Leave Home without It!

Musings

1. Are you cooking your steaks wrong?

This has absolutely nothing to do with photography!

A friend of mine (Sean, I think it was) sent me a link to an article asking that question. I tried it and came to the conclusion that they were right, I've been doing it wrong for 50 years.

Follow this thinking:
If you sear the outside of the steak first and then BBQ or broil the steak (the way I've always done it), you will end up with only the centre of the steak correctly cooked (your call: rare or medium-rare. If you like your steak well-done please skip the rest of this story and click here for a tasty treat you'll enjoy).

Now for the rest of us: that means that most of the meat will be overdone. The article suggests to slow-cook the steak over low indirect heat until it reaches an internal temperature of 115°F. NOW sear it at very high temperature to give it that crispy outer crust. Note that it will continue to cook internally so the done-ness will be right. There's another reason too – it will melt in your mouth! How do you make a tough piece of meat tender? You cook it slowly, at lower temperatures. That's why crock pots work.

This also works for lamb chops, roasts (I've been doing them that way for a long time) and even hamburgers. For what it's worth, that's how high end steak houses cook. Try it!

2. Unsubscribing from junk mail

You know those "unsubscribe here" buttons at the bottom of most junk mail? Should you or shouldn't you? It's possible that they're waiting for you to click on it so they can verify that you are legitimate and gather your email address for additional spam. What does everyone think? 

By the way, the unsubscribe on my Newsletter is totally legitimate. I use MailChimp and by clicking it, you get totally removed immediately from my mailing list. Not that you would ever want to do that!

Press Accreditation for Pan Am Games

My Press Accreditation application has been approved as a photojournalist for the PanAm Games this summer. Specifically, I've applied for the Canoe and Kayak slaloms to be held at the Minden Wildwater Preserve July 17-18. I'm looking forward to photographing and reporting on this marvelous event. If you are in the media (or know someone who is: please pass this on), I am shooting as a freelancer and would be delighted to submit images to your publication(s). Please contact me directly via photography@faczen.com.

    

 

Some sample images

By the way, I would like to borrow or rent an extra camera body for the event. Nikon, of course, minimum D7100 (or D4s or D800 or...). A crop-sensor body would be useful for the extended tele capability, but I have enough reach with my present gear. Please get in touch if you can help!

Workshops

It's time to start thinking about 2015 workshops. I still have to rewrite my workshop pages (www.photography.to/workshops.htm) but here's what I have in mind. I have three or four basic introductory sessions that last half-a-day and cost $50. Basic photography, Lightroom, Photoshop, specific topics. All of them can be expanded to two day sessions ($150) at the end of which the student will have a working knowledge of the topic. Photography workshops can include a field trip as day 2. All sessions are designed to run up here at my house, but I can also travel if it makes sense.

My schedule is pretty open, so I don't want to set firm dates at this point. Not in the July 11-20 window, though! (PanAm Games). So this is a preliminary heads-up and anyone considering moving up to the next level should read what's on the site above (remembering that I haven't updated it for 2015 yet) and contact me (pardon the anti-spam attempt. I'm sure you understand).

Star Light, Star Bright

The other night, when I got home from the camera club meeting I looked up and actually saw stars.They looked pretty crisp, it was one of those dry winter evenings, temperatures hovering around 0°F (-18°C). Unfortunately I have some local light pollution (one day I'm going to take a .22 to that all-night hydro light in the Inn parking lot next door!), which you can see in this shot, illuminating my garage.

It was the first clear night in a long time: in fact I can't remember a cloudless night since last summer when I did stars workshops! (there may have been some but not predicted more than a day in advance). For fun, I thought I'd include the garage in the foreground and shoot the Eastern sky above it. Besides, Venus was up there blazing brighter than anything else. Besides, I got to set the camera up in my driveway and go inside where it was warm!

This was one single frame, before stacking but after doing lens correction to remove the distortion you get by pointing a wide angle lens upwards. Lightroom did a neat job of straightening everything up.

I took a total of 162 exposures over 81 minutes (the arithmetic isn't tough: 30-second exposures!), tweaked them in Lightroom and exported them to StarStaX. As usual, too many stars! So I took them back to Lightroom and darkened them down, then I used the lens correction tool.

For the tekkies: D800 full frame with Nikkor 17-35mm f/2.8 at F=17mm. 30 seconds at f/2.8, ISO 1600. That's a little bright, even for a single shot (ISO 1000 is enough) but you need much less when you're stacking them.One time I'm going to see what I get at ISO 400. Anyway, the sky was 'way too crowded so I took only 80 of the images into StarStaX and turned on "comet mode". I processed the images in reverse order to make it look like the comets were raining down instead of up.

Turns out it wasn't totally clear. The red you see at the bottom of the picture is from a cloud layer that moved in across the shot. The red glow probably comes from the village of Haliburton, about 20 km away. It was interesting to watch it develop so I took the same images and loaded them into MS Movie Maker and did a short time-lapse (15 seconds) which you can find here on YouTube.

Take your camera with you!

"What kind of camera should I use"? "The one you have with you"! Yesterday I was stopping off at the landfill (PC word for "garbage dump"). I almost left the camera at home, it was a grey, not very pretty day... but threw it in the car anyway. GOOD THING!

What is that huge bird? It's a juvenile Bald Eagle! And there's his sibling, and there's mom (or dad)! They just sat there while I took off the wide angle lens, put on the telextender and the 70-200. Still pretty far away... so I took a few shots, then started walking closer to them. Came over a little rise and startled a herd of 6 deer! And when they ran away, the eagles also decided to make themselves scarce. 

Still I got a few shots... and the message is, "Don't leave home without it"! You never know...

Not a great shot, couldn't get close enough and the lighting wasn't great. This was about half a frame. Mom and the kiddies. Actually it's probably Dad because the adult actually looks smaller than the juveniles and males are generally smaller than the females.

Of course the deer are so curious that even though I startled them, this guy came back to see what the fuss was about! Since they shed their antlers in the winter, I can't tell whether this is a buck or a doe but I suspect it's a male because my impression was that it was bigger and healthier than the others in the herd. Also I think he was leading them.

I used Impression (Impasto, brush 14 if anyone cares) on the deer and the background. I masked out the brush effect on the snow and burned in the slight shadows to give it a more realistic look. 

'til next week!

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An Eclectic Week

I know the word "Eclectic" is an adjective (well it could also be a noun...) but but I wonder if you can use it to describe a week! Oh well, I just did. So there.

I spent a lot of time this week on business and administrative tasks (especially with the new Camera Club) and it was nice when some friends came up and dug me out of my computer chair to go out and shoot some pictures. A day or two in Toronto and Uxbridge with family and spending some time with a friend who's a bit under the weather (me too, for what it's worth), then back home and at the keyboard again!

Although it's a nice day out, I don't feel like going outside. I think the most commonly heard greeting here lately has been, "so had enough of winter yet"? I have. Been a Hell of a year.

At least I have a ton of pictures to write up here. But before we get started...

Nikon/iPad?

Do you have a Nikon and an iPad? there's a free app out there called "Nikon Manual Viewer 2" that lets you download any Nikon manual and view it, formatted perfectly for the iPad. Very slick. The more you read your manual, the better you know your camera. Not only DSLR's, but also mirrorless and even P&S cameras, plus all the Nikon Speedlights. Thanks to Moose Peterson for the find.

Topaz DeNoise promotion

Topaz is running a 50% promotion on Topaz DeNoise until the end of March, their image noise reduction plug-in is designed to fix heavy image noise and grain.

"Other NR software tend to strike a good balance between processing speed and quality. By contrast, DeNoise focuses entirely on the quality of the results you get. (The trade-off is that it takes longer to process an image in order to get better results.) For example, notice below that the books stay sharp and that there's no soft edges or smudged details: http://topazlabs.s3.amazonaws.com/mktg/books.jpg"

This technology makes DeNoise useful for "tough" cases of image noise. It can save photos that photographers might otherwise throw away.

Use this link to go to the DeNoise page where there are great examples and even a tutorial at the bottom: 

To get the 50% discount, enter the coupon code 'mardenoise' when ordering. You can also do a 30 day free trial.

Here's a shot where I used Topaz DeNoise. Indoor hockey arenas are notoriously difficult to shoot in. This shot was taken at 1/800 sec, f/2.8, ISO 6400.

In this shot I did NOT use DeNoise, I did the best I could with the Noise Reduction in Lightroom 5, which is generally very good, but not as good as DeNoise! By the way, the title of this picture is, "If Looks Could Kill". Coach not happy. 

So who takes photos of referees at hockey games? People whose grandsons ARE referees! He works really hard at it. And it's hard to be unbiased: he penalized the home team in this championship match with less than 3 minutes left in the game. Fans not happy!

By the way, Ryan PLAYS hockey too. He played in this game and 15 minutes later was refereeing in the other rink. 14 years old, almost 6' tall, work ethic... hmmm.

He promised me a goal. Didn't keep his word :( . Can't say he didn't give it a try, though!

Some wildlife

I actually shot this one last week.

I was asked whether I got these deer to pose for me. Of course I did. You don't think they'd line up perfectly like that without a little direction, do you? 

In almost the same spot, a week later. This wild turkey tom was a bit less cooperative, I couldn't get him to 'display'. In fairness, Maureen and Jon feed these critters in winter, so they do hang out around their house.

Myrtle and Joe came up for the day last week. We tried to get the deer but weren't successful, but we did get to shoot some other neat stuff. 

I've been away from skiing for many years so I shouldn't be shocked at innovation on the slopes. First of all, there are kids doing things on skis and snowboards (which didn't even exist when I skied) that aren't natural. These shots were all taken at Sir Sam's Ski and Bike (they do crazy stuff with bikes in the summer!) near Haliburton.

And I bet these kids never even HEARD of a rope tow! Now they have something called a "Magic Carpet" which they stand on like a moving sidewalk, sheltered from the weather, no less!

Everyone wears a helmet, some cooler than others!

I took my camera for a ride up the magic carpet, then Joe and Myrtle did too. 

In case you're wondering, I walked down that walkway on the right. I miss skiing, but my knees certainly do not! 

One more shot. This kid was too cute...

I have other 'keepers' but I don't want to bore you too much!

OK, that's enough for today! I have to save some stuff for next week, you know!

— 30 —

Busy, Busy weekend!

New Header Photo

Every couple of months I like to change the header picture on the blog to reflect the season. Today's new header is wishful thinking, I think! Last night it was almost 30°C below and we have a ton of snow on the ground. The theory is, "if you think it, it will happen". Think warm thoughts!

The new header is actually an old photo that I took with my D70 back in 2006 on the Cabot Trail, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. It's amazing what quality a 6Mp camera delivers, even in today's terms. I enhanced it within Lightroom and Photoshop, then I applied the excellent "Paper Textures" extension in Photoshop CC. It's free, and if you install it, note that there are TWO versions, "Paper Textures" and  "Pro". Install both.

When I replace the header photo, I put the old one here for reference or it's gone! So here's the header picture that was up to the end of February.

The ongoing New Laptop saga

Strictly speaking, not a new laptop, just a new boot drive. The old one gave up the ghost, so I had a new drive installed. We put in a 256Gb SSD drive and loaded the operating system and programs on it. Data resides as it always had, on a second internal drive, backed up to various plugged in external drives.

By the way when I say "we" I mean I paid for it, and James Keller did it. He really knows what he's doing and is starting a fresh computer services business in Haliburton. He has my vote.

So my data was safe but I have to reinstall all of my programs. There are probably 20 of them that I use regularly, and a bunch of others that are more sporadically required and lots of support stuff. Today I discovered that I didn't have a PDF reader installed, for instance, or Dropbox. I've got the critical ones done but there are 7 or 8 of the main programs left to do and who knows how many of the utilities. What a pain.

I also discovered that I was missing some important pieces of the puzzle. For example, my Lightroom and Photoshop preferences and presets! So if I were you, I'd go look for those and make sure you have a backup somewhere. Also your Outlook file if you use that client. It's usually in some obscure location!

FWIW, the laptop sure boots up quick now! And since the swap files are on the SSD, I imagine Photoshop will fly much faster when working on some of those huge D800 files!

How's this for an HDR location?

I came across this old building last week. The sign on it says "Ontario's Coolest Building".What an awesome HDR site, especially if we can get inside (which we might be able to do after the winter). And across the road is a larger structure that had collapsed, so there's just some brick walls and framework left. Ill try to set up a shoot there!

This is a 5-shot HDR, then I added a Topaz Simplify layer.  

This is the yellow sign on the building (click to blow it up if you can't read it), shot through my car window. Hey, it was cold, OK? 

It was a busy weekend

It started with Ron Goodlin's wildlife presentation on Friday night, attended by almost 50 people. A wonderful program, turns on the 'envy' genes, both about his skills as a photographer and speaker, and his ability to travel and his great equipment.

Forgive the lousy iPhone photo! 

We went to the dogsled races on Saturday. It was a snowy, flat day, that got even worse later on. Sunday was clear but Saturday was a long day and I didn't get there the next day until much too late (someone told me the 8-dog race STARTED at 3pm. In fact it ENDED at 3pm. {sad face}.

It took a bunch of editing to make a useable shot out of this one. Really flat lighting and snow falling made it a difficult capture, especially since it was with my 400 mm lens. By the way, that looks like a GoPro camera on her chest: they're really ubiquitous. This was the 6-dog race on Saturday afternoon. 

This is an 11-week-old puppy. I tried to steal her to take her home, but couldn't get away with it. This has to be one of the cutest puppies I've ever seen. Her name is Nyx, after (Νύξ), the Greek primeval goddess of night. Apparently she will be bred in 18 months, so I gave her my card and said to call me in 18 months and 8 weeks! Do you think she bought the jacket to match the dog's eyes?

Dr. Ron, lying down on the job as usual! Ron, your camo isn't working! I SEE YOU!
I tried getting down on the ground too. It took 3 people to help me get up. {sigh}. 

The lighting was MUCH better on Sunday. This shot is only lightly edited. Could have used a touch more depth of field... 

But that's not all. I decided to drive home via Bethel Church Road, which leads to the white water venue on Horseshoe Lake Road. First thing that made me put on the brakes and grab the camera was this seasonal home.

It's a log building, boarded up for the winter, with a fastidiously applied coat of pastel blue and green paint. I thought it lends itself well to this painterly treatment. I had to climb up a snowbank to get this vantage point. Then one more step and I was in up to my hips. I didn't expect that, and didn't bother to take gloves with me, and couldn't use my healing right hand to help get up... you should have seen me floundering around!

That's still not all! As I got to Horseshoe Lake Road, I saw a herd of deer at a house on the right. I quietly got out, changed lenses, walked over to the driveway... and they ran off. I went to the white water, scouted around a bit, nothing doing, headed back. The deer were back again. This time I managed to get some shots. Even better, this one youngster was too curious to be frightened and I got to within about 15 feet!

Love his expression and the pink tongue sticking out! Notice his ears aren't even up! He's going to have to learn some caution or he won't make it through hunting season next year! He was trying to wind me, but I was cross-wind to him. 

An eyeball shot.Told you I was close! 400mm and cropped, but hey... 

...and you thought I was done for the day! When I got home, I saw these great clouds, the sun was about to set... I thought I'd get that colourful sunset I had missed last week. Again it didn't materialize. By the time the sun went down, it was cloudless. I spend two hours waiting for it out on the ice, to no avail. I sat in a fishing hut (no heat, but out of the wind) for an hour or so. Anyway, I took this burst while setting up the camera for later.

7-shot HDR and I painted in the lights. Then I added the stars. If those clouds had hung around for another hour it would have been more spectacular! I'll get one yet! 

So I figure that's enough for one weekend. Until next time!

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