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Posts Tagged ‘winter photography’

Winter river details on Innisfil Creek_4938

Innisfil Creek in winter

Sorry for my lack of posts lately folks, I have been fighting a rather nasty flu bug. Today I finally felt like I had enough energy to actually get out and take a few fresh images, and while doing so came across this interesting frozen river scene. I was really drawn to this scene, not only for the pattern in the ice along the snowy bank, but for the way the river’s frozen surface along the right side of the composition appears to be flowing. Using a Nikon D800 with a Nikon 80-400mm VR lens, firmly mounted on a tripod, I composed the scene and then switched to the ‘Live View’ feature, zoomed in on a small section of the scene, manually focused the lens, and tripped the shutter.

Please click on the photo to see the larger, sharper version.

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Innisfil Creek, winter details

Above is a recently optimized photo from a couple of weeks ago. The Innisfil Creek is a small stream that flows through farmland and woodlots near my home in south central Ontario. I love to shoot winter details such as these. Often interesting patterns can be found in the ice formations along small streams and rivers at this time of year. I find over-cast conditions usually produce the best results, although some sunlit scenes can work well also, as you can see in the image below. What is different about these images is the way I have chosen to process the image files. After making the basic adjustments that I normally do in Adobe Camera Raw, I bring the image file into Adobe Photoshop CS5 and go straight for my favorite, recently upgraded, plugin from Nik Software – Color Efex Pro 4. My two favorite filters that are found within Color Efex Pro 4 are ‘Tonal Contrast’ and ‘Detail Extractor’. Both images in this post were tweaked with just a light handed use of each filter. If you haven’t tried this amazing plugin I urge you to download the trial version and give it a go. I think you will be pleasantly surprised at the results and will want to make it a regular part of your workflow for optimizing your image files. Download the trial version here and use the code ‘BAA’ to save yourself 15% if you decide to purchase a copy.

Holland River in winter

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Winter river details

Today was a rare day for the current winter season. We had snow! While we only received about 3 inches after a long period of freezing rain, it was nice to see the landscape cloaked in fresh snow. Once the driving conditions improved, I ventured down a few of the small gravel roads around my home to some nearby, smaller tributaries of the Nottawasaga River (a large river that empties into Georgian Bay) to photograph some winter river details. Winter often presents us with challenges when we are out photographing and one such challenge is finding away to incorporate some colour into the scene. In the above image, while standing at the side of the road, my eye was drawn to the golden-toned grasses that were submerged in the river. In the image below I walked down beside the river to change my perspective for an alternate look. The blue colouration in this photograph was achieved by capturing the scene after the sun had dipped below the horizon on a relatively clear evening.

Intimate winter river

Below is one of the first images I photographed at this location. While driving down the road, the jagged river ice here grabbed my attention and I decided to stop and explore the potential possibilities at this scene. I used my Nikon 80-400mm lens to reach out across the fragile snow and ice-scape to photograph this interesting river ice. The river is about a foot and a half below the ice formations in this photo and appears very dark as a result. It has a black and white sort of feel to it that I like.

All images in this post were photographed with my Nikon 80-400mm lens, which is my favorite lens for intimate landscape work.

River ice

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Winter tree at dusk, Thornton, Ontario

The above photograph was taken on Saturday evening as the sun dipped below the horizon. The day before this image was captured we received about 3 or 4 inches of fresh snow, and it was rather windy also. The outside temperature for the Saturday evening shoot was roughly -25 degrees Celsius – refreshing indeed. I have been enjoying using my latest piece of photo gear, which is a pair of Aqua Tech Sensory Gloves, for winter photography. I quite like how these gloves fit, and best of all they allow the photographer to expose just the tip of the thumb and index finger, on both hands, while the remainder of the hands and fingers stay warm inside a waterproof, breathable, insulated glove. The silicon palm allows for maximum grip of camera and lenses. In the past I would always take my gloves off to operate the camera controls because I never really found a pair of gloves that were user friendly towards camera controls and such, but the Aqua Tech Sensory Gloves so far, seem to solve that issue. If you are interested in these gloves you can check them out here or any other camera dealer that sells Aqua Tech products. Below you will see a photo of my left hand inside an Aqua Tech Sensory Glove with the thumb and index finger exposed. Follow this link to Outdoor Photography Canada to read Editor Roy Ramsay`s editorial on yours truly in the Winter 2012 issue of Outdoor Photography Canada. I am quite honored to have been selected by Mr. Ramsay for his editorial.

Aqua Tech Sensory Glove

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This winter the persistent cold made for some wonderful conditions to shoot the details of winter while up in Muskoka last weekend. I love shooting ice formations at the edges of rivers at long exposures to blur the flowing water. The possibilities in these situations tend to be endless. Here is a collection of various winter details from last weekend’s workshop.

Potts Creek

Muskoka River

Black River

Rosseau River

Black River

Muskoka River

Winter sun casts shadows of trees on gentle slope for a winter abstract

Lichen encrusted rock and fresh snowfall

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Here are a few images from the Muskoka Winter Workshop last weekend. Above is a panorama of Wilson’s Falls on the Muskoka River stitched together from a series of 8 vertical images.

Wilson’s Falls on the Muskoka River

Black River in the village Vankoughnet

Potts Creek

Potts Creek

Rosseau River – as I made my way home from the workshop I decided to hike in along an unmaintained cottage road to one of my favorite locations on the Rosseau River. I believe the animal tracks along the river bank are that of a mink.

 

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Downstream from yesterday’s post of the Black River was another small section of open water. Again the best position for the photo was out on the frozen river, close to the flowing water with my 12-24mm lens set at 12mm. Being very familiar with this location, I knew that I was perfectly safe to be standing where I was to capture this image. If you are unfamiliar with such locations it can be dangerous to set out onto frozen rivers.

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A testament to just how cold it has been in Ontario’s Muskoka Region was witnessed during this past weekend’s workshop. Many of the regions most impressive waterfalls were almost frozen completely over which provided the participants with many opportunities to explore their creativity. I am busy getting caught up things around the office, but wanted to post a quick image captured during this workshop. This photograph is from McCutcheon’s Falls on the Black River. I carefully walked out over the frozen river to get as close to the flowing water as possible and used my 12-24mm lens to fill much of the foreground with this open section of the raging river. I will post more images form this workshop over the next several days.

Hope you like the photo.

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This coming weekend I will be co-leading a workshop in Ontario’s Muskoka Region with Raymond Barlow. There are still a couple of spots open if folks would like to take advantage of the awesome winter landscape that awaits in this region of the province. After receiving a significant snowfall today it should be a perfect winter wonderland. To find out more about this workshop and to sign-up please click here.

Winter river detail

Pattern in ice along river bank

Winter woodland stream and ice formations

 

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One of my favorite Photoshop plugins is Fractalius. It is a fun plugin to play with and create very interesting results from all sorts of imagery. Lately, I have been using it on some winter photographs to create abstracts, such as the Fractalius results on the snowdrift above, or I have been applying it to some of my winter trees, silhouetted at the edge of day, for an alternate version of those images. I quite like the results of using Fractalius on some of these landscape imagery. Hope you do too!

Winter Sugar Maples at sunset

Winter Sugar maples at dusk

Hoarfrost on winter Sugar Maple and farmland

Snowdrift and trees

Winter Sugar Maples at sunset

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