Today represented a textbook example of light and opportunity. I shot at three different times of day. The first was 7:20 p.m. last night on Tim's balcony. The second was about 1 p.m. along the harbour waterline and the Rotunda which is part of the Hemlock Ravine Park. The third was approximately 6:30 p.m. at Peggy's Cove.
The photos below are chronological.
And so the lesson begins. The last three nights have had exceptional sunsets. This shot was taken from Tim's balcony, and it was a failure. I was lazy; I didn't make the effort, and I got some pretty colors, poor composition, and a photo I'll probably not give a second glance to again.
And then there was my trip to shoot the Rotunda. To get there I had to walk along the waterline of the harbour, and as I did so I shot various interesting bits of rusted metal, wood, etc. as I went. This is some metal. Notice how the strong light makes it shine, even in black and white. The entire image is flat because of it.
In color with the saturation boosted, rusted metal takes on an unreal orange color that pops from the background; one way to break up the flattening effect of harsh direct light.
The Rotunda, in all its glory. Once the location where the local lieutenant governor and his French mistress and guests would listen to music and gaze out upon the harbour. The harsh light works in my favor by providing a mesh of sharp shadows that add character to the photograph, but there is a price...
A close up of the gold ball that adorns the Rotunda's roof. The price of the harsh light is that the gold color became over-exposed and the only way I could fix the problem in post production was to knock all the color out of the image and go with a black and white photo. There are still lines and shapes to engage the eye and make it an interesting photo. (Well, to me, anyway).
I can't resist a bug. This is, without a doubt, the biggest spider I've seen on my trip. Easily two inches in diameter, maybe three quarters of an inch tall. It was sucking contentedly on lunch, and didn't move around (other than its mouth), allowing me to get quite close and shoot it. It was perpendicular to the ground, pointing down, making it harder for me to get in front of it.
Some beach garbage is quite large. The harsh light burned parts of the black tires into over-exposure, making this shot interesting, but not great quality.
This shot shows the harbour as a beautiful blue and almost perfectly calm; I've seen the harbour in many states of agitation in my time here and it hasn't been the same day to day. The short depth of field makes the rock in the foreground pop as a subject, perfectly juxtaposed with the blur behind.
If I were to paint the tree out of the background in this shot, you'd be forgiven for thinking this is a mountain somewhere. In reality it's a weathered rock stained by gull excrement.
And here we have the first Peggy's Cove shot; some surf, caught at eye level. There's action, and what's more, there's awesome light. These shots take on depth and character, even in black and white.
More surf. The Atlantic was relatively calm, but Peggy's Cove is notorious for crashing surf.
My first shot of the lighthouse; it was early in the sunset and the rocks were already taking on exceptional color.
The real treasure was in the sky.
I found myself shooting everything but the lighthouse, and when I did it was more for balance than as subject.
The sky continued to get better and better as the sunset progressed.
A reflection in a near mirror-smooth pond.
The sky leading up to the grand finale.
At its peak the sky was filled with character; awesome clouds and colors. These are the ingredients of great photographs, opposed to my afternoon of OK pictures.
After the sun went down I stuck around for some long exposure shots of the surf on the rocks.
I tried a new angle on the lighthouse.
This was a hut of some kind down the coast a bit. Peggy's Cove is still a working fishing... town? village? The hut is lit by a Tungsten street light giving it an orange hue in this long exposure shot.
Slick black rock, surf and a dying sky.
Great fun was had when the sky was almost black and the stars peeking out; I attached my SB-900 flash and took this 10 second exposure of the lighthouse, complete with evil demon glow red warning light.
© Jeremy Buehler and Bug Noir (www.bugnoir.com), 2010.
