bug noir

Friday, September 24, 2010

Halifax: Day Seven, Rain Day

Today was a rain day, and I didn't take a picture. I did, however, switch hosts; tomorrow will be a full day of taking advantage of the excellent weather forecast in the 'valley'.

These photos are from day four.

Tried to capture the leading lines created by the wood in this long exposure.

This reminds me of an Ansel Adams photo; mine is not nearly as good, for many reasons.

Roots are one of the thing about the woods that keep me going back... I tried a few ways to capture them.

This shot is the closest I've come to capturing the feeling of the ravine.

Another fine example of a charismatic root.

Walking tall shadows.

This guy was very annoyed by my presence, and he yelled at me for about 10 minutes.

The 'large intestine' root... according to Tim.

Another stump, lit by tree-filtered light.

Dead soldiers overlooking the harbour.

Halifax: Day Six, More Harvest Moon

Tonight we went to another beach, and it was massive. The Harvest Moon is still in its glory; I took more light shots that included some experimentation with lenses, motion and combining flash and long exposures.

It quickly became apparent that standing in the middle of the giant beach would leave my photos without a decent frame of reference. I tried to aim at the closest end of the beach to capture a much needed anchor.

The sky was much more alive tonight, and the cloud cover remained interesting for the entire sunset.

Camera movement combined while aimed at the small stones where the surf broke against the beach made for this cool blur.

The moon rose gigantic, and promptly disappeared behind a cloud bank. It was so fast I almost missed it; three more frames like this fired off in rapid succession and the moon completely disappeared.

I had time to shoot some surf with a struggling 18-200mm...

...and then the moon reappeared from behind the clouds.

It was a true orange color, that I had a difficult time catching before it went higher in the sky and lost the hue.

I settled for trying to capture the sunset along the horizon, and some of the scary sounding waves breaking on the point where I stood. Scary, because they were large and broke very close to me, sounding like thunder.

Before we left the sky had become overcast, indicative of tomorrow's weather forecast.

Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Halifax: Day Five, Back to the Woods

My problem with the forest park behind Tim's place - which is a beautiful ravine and trails system - is that I can't capture what I see when I go into it. The quiet cool light, the whispering of the hemlocks, the crazy exposed roots systems... but I haven't figured out how to capture it yet.

I spent time in there for three days now and tried three different lenses and haven't been able to nail it. Today was the 105mm and macro.

This has absolutely nothing to do with the woods. But I was checking the 35mm lens on my camera and took this photo by accident. Can't wait until I do more still life over the winter... need to get some cool subjects!

A baby pine cone amongst the lichen.

A fried lichen egg.

Fuzzy fungus; I remember taking shots of larger versions of the same fungus in Richmond Hill.

Different fungus, like miniature oak leaves with spikes.

Depth of field fun on a dead birch, showing bug paths under the bark.

Birch bark.

I cheated a bit on Fall colours for this one.

Restless roots.

A mini water fall.

Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Halifax: Day Four, Night Seascapes

Tonight we went to Cow Bay (no joke) and took some night shots of the surf. It's almost a full moon, so the light was wild.

The lines in this photo and the next are caused by the seafoam (white) sliding back into the ocean after a wave recedes. Horizontal lines are caused by a receding wave meeting an advancing wave.

I think I could probably take a photo for every wave, and the receding pattern would be different every time.

The moon created a bright reflection along the water, that became brighter with longer exposures.

It was a fairly clear sky, and the moon in this black and white shot looks almost like the sun peaking from behind a cloud.

Combining the moon's bright reflection with a crashing wave around a dark object like a rock creates unique, powerful patterns.

The smoothing effect of a long exposure makes magic happen.

Monday, September 20, 2010

Halifax: Day Three, Spiders and Wood

Today I spent the afternoon in the woods, learning a local park and shooting a variety of subjects. Shooting in the woods on a cloudy day meant carrying and using my tripod. It's a very nice spot and I'll probably go back when I've had a chance to chew on the photos I took today.

One challenge I'm having is accurately judging the exposure of images on my laptop screen. I'm missing my larger and more accurate desktop monitor. The result is I'm not sure if I'm adjust the images too bright or too dark.

Someone asked me for a photo of birch trees; I am fairly certain this isn't what they had in mind.

Baby trees.

I definitely want to do more of these. Water droplet reflections are an aspect of macro photography I haven't really tried yet.

Dead trees make very cool skeletons.

I thought this stump looked vaguely spider-like. This was ironic, although at the time I didn't know it yet.

You see, when you spend your time looking at the ground, you don't see what's around you. Or who's watching you...

I saw one spider. And then another. And another... until I realized I was surrounded by hundreds of them in the small spruce trees around me.

I'm usually ok with spiders but when there are so many around, and they're all so big, it made me a little uneasy.

And so I moved on, back to the trail and out of the spider habitat. There was more artful tree stumps.

This one reminded me of the scene in 2001 A Space Odyssey, when the monkeys are standing around the obelisk.

Some interesting clouds appeared over the harbour, and I was able to use them to add texture to the background of this tree.

I hope this fills the birch tree photo request.

I climbed a ravine wall for this one; the textures in the tree stump kept me busy for a while.

Beside the tree in the last photo lay this one; two methods of decomposition. This one was carpeted with lichen.

More stump texture.

Putting the fun back in fungus.