Spring Fever

Spring has sprung, but I'm feeling a bit uninspired these days. Does it show? I'm a little distracted. One of the reasons is that I'm investing a lot of creative energy in other media: painting, and re-learning to play guitar. When I pick up the camera, I feel like I'm 'phoning it in'. Time to get motivated again!

NEWSFLASH:
Topaz Labs just announced that TOPAZ SIMPLIFY is on sale for 30% off, reducing the price to $27.99 for the month of May. Use this link and enter the code "MAYSIMP" at checkout.

Turtle Power

As I hinted last week, I finally managed to get some turtle shots! For some background, there are eight species of turtles in Ontario and all but one of them are on the endangered list. The one that isn't is the Painted Turtle:

Every spring, the turtles venture out of their marsh homes in search of food, nesting spots and mates and often cross roads to find them, where they often meet with untimely ends at the "hands" of car and truck tires. In Haliburton County, organizations are in place to monitor the populations. Other people see turtles all the time, but I never actually have... despite driving around on appropriate roads in search of them. Until last week, when I came across this hefty Snapping Turtle specimen:

I should have added something for a sense of scale, but this guy's shell is probably half a meter long. I was tempted to remove the piece of grass on his head. Only for a second, though: it would be a good way to lose a hand! 

Birds of Prey

I also mentioned last week that I had visited the Canadian Raptor Conservancy with a group of 10 friends from here and from Richmond Hill Camera Club. We had a great time, weather was good, the birds were cooperative! And impressive as usual.

Others got better shots than I. Sometimes you're not in the 'groove' and that was me that day. I succeeded in getting many in-focus, well-exposed images but my timing was off, especially when they flew a bald eagle over the pond, and several of my colleagues got great shots where the bird's wingtips brushed the water. Mine weren't so exciting.

So I don't bore you, here are a couple more and that's it.

Baby Great Horned Owl 

Aplomado Falcon showing off 

We went into Port Dover for lunch (worth it! The pickerel and perch at the Erie Beach Hotel is worth the trip) then headed home. Along the way there was an apple orchard that had caught many of our eyes, so we stopped. Again, I was a bit disappointed. I think I was more concerned with the long drive ahead of me and didn't give it the time I needed. However I did get a few 'keepers'.

This is what caught our eyes. You'd think there's be some killer shots here! 

A bit of a painterly treatment from Topaz Impression helped this one 

This was what I had in mind when I stopped 

And here's a shot of John Kot doing his thing, with a little help from Impression/Monet. 

I also stopped at a wind farm, with the intent of doing a slow shutter exposure. That didn't work out, but here's a composite shot that didn't look too bad:

Half a dozen exposures blended in Photoshop

More Birds

To close for today, here are two more bird shots from Carden Plain (I was back there on Saturday) that I liked. I was wearing my springtime fragrance, "eau de Deep-Woods-Off". Yep, the black flies were out!

Eastern Phoebe 

Barn Swallow 

— 30 —

It must be Spring...

...somewhere!

No surprise, or it shouldn't be. I've seen snow coming down as late as early May!  Last night there were flakes of the fluffy white stuff that accumulated a few inches but the temperature is hovering around the freezing mark and it's melting. The maple syrup people aren't happy, nights are still getting down to the -10°C area and the sap isn't running, but it will get there.

Today I saw the first American Goldfinch pair at my bird feeder. Robins shouldn't be far behind. And a Cackle of Grackles is out there making a ruckus and scaring off all the other birds. The chipmunks haven't come out yet but the gulls are back at the landfill, competing with the crows for the delectable morsels of disgusting garbage... we've had bald eagles there all winter but I haven't seen them in a few days.

There was a red-winged blackbird at the feeder this morning (April 3) but he was too shy to let me take a picture. Remarkable because (a) it's the first one this year and (b)the red patch was outstandingly brilliant – almost fluorescent,

The ice fishing huts are off the lakes. Well, off our lake anyway... law says today is the deadline for removing them. My neighbour Jim Walker stopped by to chat, he says there's 30" of hard water in spots! That's a LOT. It's been a rough winter, very little snow but very cold.

It's the "Ugly" season for us landscape photographers. If you don't like muddy brown vistas, naked trees and wearing rubber boots that keep you dry when you step into deep gooey mud puddles, you'd best be patient. It'll get green again soon! And the flowers and buds will be out, bringing with them that sneezy drippy season if you have allergies and those itchy lumps cheerfully provided by our national birds, the blackfly and the mosquito!

T.G.I.S. !!

Painting is HARD!

Some people make it look so easy, but it's not! My regular readers will know that I've finally, after all these years, picked up a paint brush and started putting pigment on canvas. But it's really not easy.

I have a decided advantage over some of my other painting newbies: I get composition. I have a feel for light and how it affects the subject. But what I'm struggling with is putting lines and shapes where I want them, in the way I want, and mixing colours.

I've learned that you can make any colour out of Red, Blue and Yellow paint. You can tint it with white or shade it with black (frowned upon: you want black, you "make" it!), but I haven't been able to make the same colour twice! You mix up some, then run out and want to make more... good luck matching it!

So far. Not finished yet... I need to add some more bright colour and texture. And fix the edges of the leaves. I took some artistic license with the colours and with the composition (the leaves are supposed to be sitting on a log...)

Here's the original photo 

and here's sort of what I had in mind. This is courtesy of Topaz Impression and I haven't figured out how to emulate those brush strokes. Or colours! 

Thing is, I ruined this painting. I'm trying to fix it but it's not like rolling back the develop instructions in Lightroom or removing offending layers in Photoshop. Either I have to paint over what I've done (after it dries) or add to it, or just throw it away and start over.

I paint (and photograph) in an impressionistic mode. Two reasons: I haven't figured out how to paint fine lines yet, and I'm lazy and just want to stand back and throw paint at the canvas. I haven't got the nerve up yet to try a complex subject like a tree, but that's my next step.

It's fun, but it's hard. My goal is to be able to go out and paint "plein aire" some time this spring. Stay tuned...

Birds of Prey field trip

Shot in 2013 

These pictures were taken at my last visit to the Canadian Raptor Conservancy on Lake Erie just West of Port Dover. I've booked a return engagement for Sunday, May 10th for a group of 10 photographers. Cost is just $50 each plus tax (Right now I have about 7 people confirmed and a bunch of "maybe" folks. If you want to go, you need to send me an email RIGHT NOW.

Understand that this is NOT a teaching workshop: I'm not making anything, just facilitating the field trip. Priority goes to Haliburton Highlands Camera Club members.

Here's one I haven't previously published from that visit a couple of years ago. Great Horned Owl coming in for a landing. 

One final bird picture for today. I know, just an ordinary black capped chickadee staging on a twig near my feeder but I really like the sharpness and the "velcro" as Dan Busby calls it. And the diagonal lines, the lighting... I used Topaz Impression and started with the "Palette knife and Oil" preset for the painted texture.

— 30 —

What a weekend!

I spent the weekend shooting pictures with Linda Cresswell. I'm all tuckered out!

The original plan was for her to come up here and shoot trilliums and stuff but for one reason or another, we switched it up and I went down to the city. Linda lives just East of Toronto and we decided to shoot 4 or 5 different venues over the weekend. I'm nowhere near finished editing images but I can show you at least one from each site. More to come...

The Evergreen Brickworks
The first place we went was the old "Brickworks" just off the DVP at the Bayview Extension. If you are in the Toronto area or planning to be in the area, this is a MUST SEE even if you're not a photographer ... well I don't know how to describe it in a few words. There are a bunch of enterprises in there, all off-the-wall; the parklands rival most arboretums, there are hiking and bicycle trails, a farmer's market, a huge area where they cater to kids... visit their website: I can't describe it.

Linda took me into the first of many buildings. I would have been content to spend the entire day in that building. She dragged me to the outdoor kid's area. Like that character on "Friends", Oh–My–God! I didn't take as many pictures as I wanted to or could have, but I'll be back!

DIY Bike Space. One of the businesses in the Evergreen Brickworks is called Bike Works. Thomas, one of the owners, told me that the concept is to fix up and sell bikes, or rent them, or help people tune up their own bikes and even teach them how to maintain their machines. All profits go back into the shops at the Brickworks.

The Distillery District
Toronto's film industry has done a lot of movies in the Distillery District. Again an area comprised of old buildings, this has been turned into a tourist venue with restaurants, shops, art galleries, etc. This is higher end: everything here is expensive. Again I didn't take as many pictures as I'd have liked, but we did have a great espresso in a cafe, walked around and saw a bunch of places and Linda and I were even asked to be interviewed on a show being filmed for the Oprah network (we respectfully declined!)

Segway Rentals! You can even rent a Segway to cruise around the Distillery District (they're not street legal, though!). I think you can only go in groups, under supervision. That does look like fun!

Kensington Market
Everyone in the Kensington Market is weird. Linda and I were there, so by definition...

It was a zoo. By the time we got there, I was so tired and footsore, we didn't shoot much. We found a quiet unused patio and practiced our slow shutter speed/panning techniques.

Distracted Driver? I wonder if the law about using handheld devices applies when you're riding a bicycle! At least he was going the same way the traffic was (it was a one-way street) — most of the bikes and skateboards and other weird vehicles didn't care much.

Psychedelic Mural. I'm not sure, but I think the branches are actually painted on that wall, it's a trompe l'oeil. This person was so, shall we say 'stoned', she couldn't walk straight. The picture isn't blurry, she is!!!

Next we had a bite to eat in Chinatown (right there) and headed over to a spot I had scouted out as a good place to view the skyline.

CityScape at Dusk
I had a picture in mind. I wanted a shot of the Toronto skyline when night was just falling and the lights were on in the buildings. The spot we went to faced East. Had there been a good sunset, it might have been better to find one facing the other way, but it didn't matter. This is the bridge on Bathurst Street just south of Front Street (map).

We had to kill some time so found a Tim Horton's: did you know they're serving high end ice cream at some of their locations? You read it here first! Their double-double ice cream tastes like... a "double-double" (if you're not Canadian, you don't know what that is. OK, I'll help you out. Here). Anyway, we were at the bridge by about 7:15pm, just in time!

Toronto Skyline at Dusk. This is a 5-shot HDR, toned in Topaz. Suitable for canvas printing, a 20x30 would be good! Just in case you wondered if you could buy it... (link)

Another skyline shot. This is a longer time exposure, with a train going by on the tracks below. This HDR was processed with Nik HDR Efex Pro and toned further with Topaz Adjust 5. Exposures ranged from 1 sec. to 15 sec. The area where the train light is was blended in from one of the images. I said to Linda, "I feel like a Prairies farmer: praying for train". Finally, one started towards us from the downtown central station and I started the sequence.

Note: I had previously uploaded the wrong version of this image. Deleted and replaced with this one.

That was it for the day. We headed back to Ajax for a good night sleep and some relief for weary feet. Next morning, though we went to a completely different venue.

Thickson's Woods Nature Reserve
This is located in Whitby, Ontario and is a popular spot for birders and bird photographers (link). It's a marvellous place and I got to see and photograph some birds I've never seen in the wild. This is really difficult photography. Anyone who can do this well has my full respect.

Great Horned Owl. This fellow (a male, presumably because the female was with one of her chicks) was about 80' up in a tree and although it's a huge bird, about half a dozen people had to patiently tell me where it was and helped me to see it. I shot with my 400mm lens but you have to crank the ISO way up to get any kind of shutter speed. I don't know how they do it!

Cardinal. There aren't any cardinals up where I live, so I've never seen one in the wild. Another difficult 400mm shot. It took a lot of work to make this image sharp enough. 1/1250 sec at f/5.6, ISO 1250 in case you're interested.

Tree Swallow. Another tough shot, especially since it was the middle of the day and his eye was completely in shadow. I created the eye in Photoshop. Getting subjects in focus with the 400mm is not easy, I'm practicing for the moose trip in June (hey, that's exactly a month from today!) 

This was the most fun I've had shooting pictures in a long time. I'm definitely going back to all 5 of those venues. Next time, I may have some more pictures for you to look at, or at least I'll put them on my gallery and give you the link.

If you ever come to Toronto or can make it there to do some not-quite-tourist stuff, I highly recommend all of these venues.

— 30 —

A Real Animal Farm

The Muskoka Wildlife Centre
In January I attended a field trip to the Muskoka Wildlife Centre (MWC). It was organized by Janet Balon and Myrtle Herzog for the Richmond Hill Camera Club. It was a weekend long excursion but I could only stay for the day on Saturday.

It was quite a challenging experience. The temperature, when I left Minden, hovered around –30°C. The snow was white and crisp and squeaked underfoot. I dressed rather warmly in anticipation.

MWC is a unique facility. Their mandate is to provide a haven for rescued wild animals. Much of their funding comes from the government but they supplement it with revenue from visitors. To that end, they have put a program together to accommodate photographers who want to get up close and personal with wildlife. A team of keeper/handlers take photographers right into the enclosures with many of the animals and are skilled at getting the animals to pose in fence-free locations.

Some of the animals we got to visit were owls, wolves, a lynx, wolverines, foxes, a hawk and even a non-cooperative porcupine. In addition, there were some too dangerous to get too close to, such as a cougar and a moose. The bear, of course, was hibernating.

Winter photography is a bit of a challenge. You can read some technical details here.
I used fill-flash some of the time. Some of the techniques I used were wrong. I learned a lot from my mistakes and won’t repeat them. Here’s an article in my technical blog about using fill flash.
Anyway, I did manage to get some decent pictures. Here are a few of them.