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Posts Tagged ‘bruce peninsula national park’

Georgian Bay_BPNP_2119

Halfway Log Dump on Georgian Bay, Bruce Peninsula National Park, Ontario

Earlier this week I held my first-ever Bruce Peninsula Photographic Workshop with fabulous participants in attendance.The Bruce Peninsula is on the Niagara Escarpement, which is designated as a UNESCO World Biosphere.

We began the workshop with a visit to Halfway Log Dump on Georgian Bay and were greeted with a rather pleasant sunrise. The endless cobblestone beach at Halfway Log Dump has always been one of my favourite sights in Ontario.

Our next stop was at Indian Head Cove and the Grotto. The water levels on Georgian Bay are quite high this year and have submerged much of the foreground elements at Indian Head Cove however, there were many stunning vistas to capture, particularly when using wide angle lenses to exaggerate the rugged details along the small cliff face at this location.

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Indian Head Cove on Georgian Bay, Bruce Peninsula National Park, Ontario

 

 

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Indian Head Cove on Georgian Bay, Bruce Peninsula National Park, Ontario

As the end of day approached we ventured over to Dorcas Bay / Singing Sands to photograph sunset. Our first sunset opportunity was thwarted by rain, but on the second night we did have glorious conditions for sunset with pastel tones in the western sky and nice clouds to the east.

Dorcas Bay on Lake Huron in Bruce Peninsula National Park, Ontario, Canada

Dorcas Bay on Lake Huron, Bruce Peninsula National Park, Ontario

 

Dorcas Bay on Lake Huron in Bruce Peninsula National Park, Ontario, Canada

Dorcas Bay on Lake Huron, Bruce Peninsula National Park, Ontario

Our second morning outing was cancelled due to heavy rain so we opted sleep in, have breakfast, and hold a Photoshop class until conditions improved to get back outside. After lunch the rain had subsided and our trip to Little Cove was a go. A light fog had developed along the Georgian Bay shoreline which was quite pleasing.

 

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Little Cove on Georgian Bay, Bruce Peninsula National Park, Ontario

The timing of the Bruce Peninsula Workshop was scheduled to coincide with the newly emerging leaves of the forest trees, which tend to present all shades of green for very pleasing forest imagery as well as intimate photographs of the new growth.

Aspen Trees in early spring, Bruce Peninsula National Park, Ontario, Canada

New Growth on Aspen Forest, Bruce Peninsula National Park, Ontario

Sadly there are many abandoned homes on the Bruce Peninsula, but some of them make wonderful images, especially for applying creative edits such as I did with Topaz Impression for the abandoned homested below.

Abandoned home on the Bruce Peninsula, Ontario, Canada

Abandoned Homestead on the Bruce Peninsula, Ontario

Our final morning was a return trip to Halfway Log Dump for a second chance at sunrise photography. This morning proved to be a better sunrise than the first morning, hence the reason I do make repeated visits to the same locations for sunrise photography. You will NEVER be presented with the same conditions as you had the day before 🙂

On this morning there was heavy cloud cover, but as the sun rose it found enough of an opening to illuminate the pre-dawn sky. After the sun had risen it was blocked out by much of the cloud cover, however, there were numerous shoreline scenes worthy of photographing and some of them would be prefect for creating black and white conversions.

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Halfway Log Dump on Georgian Bay, Bruce Peninsula National Park, Ontario

 

Georgian Bay_BPNP_2573

Halfway Log Dump on Georgian Bay, Bruce Peninsula National Park, Ontario

 

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Halfway Log Dump on Georgian Bay, Bruce Peninsula National Park, Ontario

 

Georgian Bay_BPNP_2570

Halfway Log Dump on Georgian Bay, Bruce Peninsula National Park, Ontario

We will be offering the Bruce Peninsula Photography Workshop again in 2020. To ensure you do not miss out on this opportunity please do send me a note by clicking here to be added to my workshop contact list.

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Georgian Bay_586

The Niagara Escarpment at Georgian Bay on Bruce Peninsula National Park

Recently I accompanied a couple of past workshop participants an outing to Ontario’s Bruce Peninsula, which was well planned as the wintry scenes will come to an abrupt end with the onset of warmer, rainy weather forecasted for this week.

The Bruce Peninsula lies between Lake Huron and Georgian Bay. A section of the Niagara Escarpment, a UNESCO World Biosphere, also runs along the Bruce Peninsula. The Niagara Escarpment is known for stunning limestone cliffs and outcrops as well as being home to eastern North America’s oldest trees and forest ecosystem. In winter this region takes on an incredible transformation as the cliffs of the Niagara Escarpment are adorned with massive amounts of ice. There are several caves along the base of the cliffs that are only accessible when Georgian Bay freezes over. The interiors of these caves are  incredible to explore as well, especially with a wide angle lens.

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The Niagara Escarpment at Georgian Bay on Bruce Peninsula National Park

My choice of lens to use on this trip turned out to be the amazingly wide and razor sharp Laowa 12mm Zero D Lens on my Nikon D800. The close focusing capabilities of this lens easily allowed me to capture all the amazing icy details in the foregrounds, yet take in the grand landscape before me. The Laowa 12mm Zero D Lens was also extremely useful when entering the small caves along the base of the cliffs as I was easily able to capture a significant portion of the cave’s interior details while peering out through the cave openings.

Georgian Bay_650

The Niagara Escarpment at Georgian Bay on Bruce Peninsula National Park

All in all the outing to this area was short. We spent a mere 4 hours photographing the wintry details of the Georgian Bay coast. We had hoped for another opportunity on Sunday, but our plans were thwarted by significant winds and rain. Nonetheless, I created some of my personal best winter landscape imagery on the outing.

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The Niagara Escarpment at Georgian Bay on Bruce Peninsula National Park

I was so impressed with the winter landscape opportunities along the Georgian bay coast in Bruce Peninsula National Park that I may offer a winter landscape photography workshop to this region in 2020. Folks that may be interested in such an event should contact me by clicking here to be added to my workshop email contact list.

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The Niagara Escarpment at Georgian Bay on Bruce Peninsula National Park

 

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The Niagara Escarpment at Georgian Bay on Bruce Peninsula National Park

 

 

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Halfway Log Dump
Bruce Peninsula National Park, Ontario

In May of 2016, I made a three day visit to Ontario’s Bruce Peninsula National Park. Today I revisited the folder of images from that trip to optimize several of the photographs that were tucked away due to my backlog in editing the files. Bruce Peninsula National Park can be found at the tip of the Bruce Peninsula near Tobermory, Ontario. It is also on the Niagara Escarpment – an UNESCO World Biosphere site. One section of the park lies on Lake Huron while the remainder of the park is facing beautiful Georgian Bay. Georgian Bay provides landscape photographs with a plethora of stunning vistas with ragged cliffs, cobblestone beaches, and unlimited shoreline details to photograph. A short distance out into Georgian Bay lies the Fathom Five National Marine Park, which is home to the famous Flower Pot Island. If you are a landscape photographer the Bruce Peninsula needs to be one of your bucket list items.

Halfway Log Dump
Bruce Peninsula National Park, Ontario

 

Indian Head Cove
Bruce Peninsula National Park, Ontario

 

Indian Head Cove
Bruce Peninsula National Park, Ontario

 

Flower Pot Island
Fathom Five National Marine Park, Ontario

 

The Grotto
Bruce Peninsula National Park, Ontario

 

Flower Pot Island
Fathom Five National Marine Park, Ontario

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Halfway Log Dump, Bruce Peninsula National Park Nikon D800, Nikon 18-35mm lens ISO 50, f16 @ 3 seconds Singh-Ray 3-Stop Reverse Graduated Neutral Density Filter

Halfway Log Dump, Bruce Peninsula National Park
Nikon D800, Nikon 18-35mm lens
ISO 50, f16 @ 3 seconds
Singh-Ray 3-Stop Reverse Graduated Neutral Density Filter

It has been roughly 10 years since my last trip to Ontario’s stunning Bruce Peninsula National Park. Last week I made a much needed return trip to to the park and spent several days exploring familiar locations within the park as well as discovering some new sections too. From the endless cobblestone beach at Halfway Log Dump, to the iconic view of Georgian Bay from atop Halfway Rock Point, to sunsets in the town of Tobermory, to finding new perspectives from which to photograph the extremely popular Indian Head Cove, this post highlights some initial edits of my favorite images from the trip. As you read the captions you will notice that I opted to use my Singh-Ray 3-Stop Reverse Graduated Neutral Density Filter for the sunrise and sunset images. I never leave home with this filter as it is the one piece of gear I consider critical to creating my sunrise and sunset imagery. You will also notice that I chose to use long shutter speeds for the sunrise and sunset scenes as this will cause the water to blur to a smooth, glass-like surface that will not distract the viewer or compete for attention within the image.

A few of the images within this post were created with the Sigma 12-24mm Lens, which I rented specifically for use during this trip. The stunning shoreline along Georgian Bay within the park begs for extreme wide-angle lenses to be used. I will do a review of the Sigma 12-24mm lens at a later date as time permits.

Please do click on the images to view the larger, sharper versions.

Halfway Log Dump, Bruce Peninsula National Park Nikon D800, Nikon 18-35mm lens ISO 100, f16 @ 1/6 sec Nikon Polarizing Filter

Halfway Log Dump, Bruce Peninsula National Park
Nikon D800, Nikon 18-35mm lens
ISO 100, f16 @ 1/6 sec
Nikon Polarizing Filter

 

Sunrise on Georgian Bay, Bruce Peninsula National Park Nikon D800, Nikon 18-35mm lens ISO 100, f16 @ 1.6 seconds Singh-Ray 3-Stop Reverse Graduated Neutral Density Filter

Sunrise on Georgian Bay, Bruce Peninsula National Park
Nikon D800, Nikon 18-35mm lens
ISO 100, f16 @ 1.6 seconds
Singh-Ray 3-Stop Reverse Graduated Neutral Density Filter

 

Halfway Rock Point, Bruce Peninsula National Park Nikon D800, Sigma 12-24mm lens ISO 100, f16 @ 1/5 sec

Halfway Rock Point, Bruce Peninsula National Park
Nikon D800, Sigma 12-24mm lens
ISO 100, f16 @ 1/5 sec

 

Halfway Rock Point, Bruce Peninsula National Park Nikon D800, Sigma 12-24mm lens

Halfway Rock Point, Bruce Peninsula National Park
Nikon D800, Sigma 12-24mm lens

 

Sunset on Georgian Bay, Tobermory, Ontario Nikon D800, Nikon 18-35mm lens ISO 100, f16 @ 8 seconds Singh-Ray 3-Stop Reverse Graduated Neutral Density Filter

Sunset on Georgian Bay, Tobermory, Ontario
Nikon D800, Nikon 18-35mm lens
ISO 100, f16 @ 8 seconds
Singh-Ray 3-Stop Reverse Graduated Neutral Density Filter

 

Indian Head Cove, Bruce Peninsula National Park Nikon D800, Nikon 18-35mm Lens ISO 100, f16 @ 1/8 sec.

Intimate View of Indian Head Cove, Bruce Peninsula National Park
Nikon D800, Nikon 18-35mm Lens
ISO 100, f16 @ 1/8 sec.

 

Indian Head Cove, Bruce Peninsula National Park Nikon D800, Nikon 18-35mm Lens ISO 100, f22 @ 0.4 sec. Nikon Polarizing Filter

Indian Head Cove, Bruce Peninsula National Park
Nikon D800, Nikon 18-35mm Lens
ISO 100, f22 @ 0.4 sec.
Nikon Polarizing Filter

 

Indian Head Cove details, Bruce Peninsula National Park Nikon D800, Nikon 18-35mm Lens ISO 100, f16 @ 1/8 sec.

Indian Head Cove details, Bruce Peninsula National Park
Nikon D800, Nikon 18-35mm Lens
ISO 100, f16 @ 1/8 sec.

 

Sunset on Georgian Bay, Tobermory, Ontario Nikon D800, Nikon 18-35mm Lens ISO 100, f16 @ 8 seconds. Singh-Ray 3-Stop Reverse Graduated Neutral Density Filter In-Camera HDR

Sunset on Georgian Bay, Tobermory, Ontario
Nikon D800, Nikon 18-35mm Lens
ISO 100, f16 @ 8 seconds.
Singh-Ray 3-Stop Reverse Graduated Neutral Density Filter
This image utilized In-Camera HDR feature on the Nikon D800

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Sunrise at Halfway Log Dump

I have always considered myself to be mostly a landscape photographer. I find the work of three Canadian photographers to be very inspirational – Daryl Benson, Darwin Wiggett and Mike Grandmaison. Check-out their website links in the sidebar and I’m sure you will agree that they consistently produce high quality work that stands out among the masses. Thanks guys! Several years ago while I was in Ontario’s Bruce Peninsula National Park, which is a landscape photographer’s paradise, I had the pleasure of meeting Mike Grandmaison. It was 5 a.m. at Halfway Log Dump and I was waiting to shoot sunrise images (see the image above). The cobblestone beach here is seemingly endless. Along came another photographer and I said something like “Hey, aren’t you Mike Grandmaison?”, it was, and we spent that morning exploring the rugged shoreline at Halfway Log Dump talking about photoshop, the landscape in front of us and Mike offering suggestions and comparing exposure settings. Since then Mike has become a friend and mentor. A turning point for me, if you will, as my landscape work began to improve significantly after meeting Mike, sharing images via email and offering processing techniques and suggestions.

Mike recently opened the Canadian Gallery in Winnipeg, Manitoba. The gallery contains many of Mike’s finest photographs as you can see when you click on the link. To see a recent interview with Mike that was featured on Smibs TV regarding the opening of his gallery click here. Mike’s name for the gallery is also most suitable as he has crossed the country on numerous occasions building an impressive collection of truly inspirational imagery.

Below is an image of Mike, on the dock, at my family’s cottage on Horseshoe Lake in Ontario’s Muskoka Region. The image Mike composed here was featured as a double page spread in his coffee table book about Muskoka.

I hope you enjoy Mike Grandmaison’s Canadian Gallery and interview and find his work as inspirational as I do.

 

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