Cayo Santa Maria – Bird Life

On Cayo Santa Maria I found that the bird life was not abundant during my visit, but there were some photogenic and co-operative specimens to be found. There were a few small flocks of Brown Pelicans which for some reason completely disappeared during my last couple of days there. There were numerous Royal Terns, that were a challenge to capture in flight with my slow focusing 80-400 VR lens, however, by tracking them from far down the beach until they were filling the frame my success rate increased considerably. The Great Egrets and Little Blue Herons were a little on the skittish side here and rather difficult to capture. I was able to photograph a rather unique looking heron which will be the subject of an upcoming post.

Juvenile Brown Pelican

Adult Brown Pelican in flight

Bahama Mockingbird

Little Blue Heron

Royal Tern

Royal Tern

Royal Tern

 

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Cayo Santa Maria Landscape Results

Here is a collection of some of initial landscape results, or perhaps more appropriately they should be referred to as ocean-scapes, from my recent trip to the island of Cayo Santa Maria in Cuba. Much of the week there were strong winds that created rough conditions on the ocean – perfect for wave blurs. The last day or so the winds diminished and the ocean settled down quite a bit for some more peaceful ocean scenes. I found my 12-24mm lens to be my most used lens on this trip with my 80-400mm lens a close second, mostly for bird life. I used an assortment of filters for these images here, from ND filters to polarizers to grad and reverse grad filters. The islands in the Jadines del rey archipelago, a Unesco World Biosphere, are dominated by many mangrove sections that are very rich in birdlife. As fate would have it, while shooting landscapes one morning with my 12-24mm lens attached three Crested Caracaras flew by. I was a little disappointed that there was not as much birdlife on this island as I had encountered on a previous visit to Cayo Guillermo in the same archipelago, but nonetheless it is a beautiful location and I was able to add several new species of birds to my image collection which will be featured in an upcoming post in the coming days. Hope you enjoy this selection of imagery.

30 Second exposure at sunrise over Mangroves

Wave blur on the Atlantic Ocean

Daybreak on Cayo Santa Maria and Atlantic Ocean

Mangroves

Wave blur on the Atlantic Ocean at Cayo Santa Maria

Cayo Santa Maria ocean scene at low-tide

Rugged shoreline handheld from catamaran with 80-400 VR lens

Sunrise over mangroves

Atlantic Ocean at low-tide on Cayo Sanata Maria

Daybreak on Cayo Santa Maria and Atlantic Ocean

 

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Cayo Santa Maria, Cuba

Trying to get back into the swing of things and caught up on some much needed sleep after arriving home from the island of Cayo Santa Maria, in Cuba, at 3 am on Wednesday morning. Many images to process over the coming weeks, but thought I would post one photographed on my last morning there. At daybreak I was greeted with a low tide that left many rocks exposed that were covered during the periods of high tide. As usual, I went down to the beach long before sunrise to shoot many ocean-scapes. On this morning, I was able capture many wonderful scenes and was running up and down the beach to capture as many of these images as I could before the sun rose. I was also running to avoid being eaten alive by no-see-ums. Hope you like the photo.

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Cuba Bound

Hola! This will be my last post for about a week and a half. Tomorrow I will be traveling to Cayo Santa Maria in the Cuban archipelago,  Jardines del rey, a Unesco World Biosphere. I am including various images from my last trip to this region of Cuba on the small island of Cayo Guillermo. Hope you enjoy the images.

Hasta luego! (hope I said that right)

Sunset on Cayo Guillermo

Green-backed Heron

Rippled Beach Sand

Mangrove Wetland

Tricolored Heron

Black-necked Stilt

Sunrise on Atlantic Ocean

Sunrise on Atlantic Ocean

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Winter Details

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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Muskoka’s Frozen Landscape – Part 2

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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Black River in winter

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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Muskoka’s Frozen Landscape

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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Muskoka Winter Workshop

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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