WORKSHOP ANNOUNCEMENT: Lake Superior Wild & Scenic Photography Retreat

Join award winning photographer Andrew McLachlan for an all inclusive, intensive, photography retreat on Lake Superior at Rock Island Lodge. Rock Island Lodge is situated on a seven-acre peninsula along the wild coast of Lake Superior. Capture the true essence of Lake Superior while we walk in the footsteps of the Group of Seven as we explore the stunning scenery of the region.

The Lake Superior Wild & Scenic Photography Retreat will provide participants with 3 full days and 2 half days of photography!

The dates for the retreat are October 30th – November 3rd, 2019 (4 nights).

The maximum number of participants is 10.

Often referred to as Canada’s inland sea, Lake Superior offers the most dramatic scenery available for landscape photography in Ontario. Being well-travelled along this coast I will ensure that you are in the right location at the right time, receive in-depth photographic instruction, and are inspired to capture breathtaking imagery. We will focus our efforts on landscape photography at sunrise and sunset, mid-day photography, as well as starry nightscapes (weather permitting). Mid-day photo sessions to specific locations will based on the current weather conditions that each day provides. There will also be plenty of time set aside each day for image review and Photoshop image optimization instruction. The dates for this retreat were chosen as they coincide with the onset of Superior’s storm season, which often means rough seas and waves crashing into Lake Superior’s rugged coast.

The accommodations for participants during this retreat will be divided between two locations; Rock Island Lodge and the High Falls Motel & Cabins. Accommodation is limited at Rock Island Lodge; therefore, lodge rooms will be assigned to those that register first. Once the Rock Island Lodge maximum is met additional participants will be placed at the High Falls Motel & Cabins for their accommodations. The High Falls Motel is located about five minutes away from Rock Island Lodge.

Itinerary:

October 30th:

• Check in at 2:00 p.m. at Rock Island Lodge

• Meet & Greet Sunset photo session at Rock Island Lodge

• Dinner at 7:00 p.m.

• photographic presentation

• night sky photo session (weather permitting)

October 31st, November 1st, & 2nd:

• morning photo session

• breakfast

• free time / mid morning photo session

• image review / Photoshop instruction at Rock Island Lodge

• lunch (either on site or bagged lunch in the field)

• free time / early afternoon photo session

• late afternoon/sunset photo session

• dinner

• image review / Photoshop instruction

• night sky photo session (weather permitting)

• On the evening of November 2nd we will have an image sharing / critique session of your favourite 5 images crated during this event.

November 3rd:

• morning photo session

• breakfast

• participants depart for home at 12:00 p.m.

What’s Included:

• In-depth photographic instruction during each of the photo sessions with LCD review

• Image review and Photoshop instruction

• Accommodation at Rock Island Lodge or off-site at High Falls Motel & Cabins

• Wednesday – dinner

• Thursday, Friday, & Saturday – breakfast, lunch, & dinner

• Sunday – breakfast

What’s Not Included:

• Transportation to and from Rock Island Lodge / High Falls Motel & Cabins

• Transportation to nearby locations within Lake Superior Provincial Park (car pooling of participants is encouraged here)

• Alcoholic Beverages

Workshop Fee:

$1195.00 CDN plus taxes per person based on double occupancy

$1395.00 CDN plus taxes per person based on single occupancy

*If you have attended any of Andrew McLachlan’s workshops in the past you will receive a $50 discount*

To reserve your spot in the Lake Superior Wild & Scenic Photography Retreat a non-refundable retainer of $350.00 CDN is due now.

I accept payment by email transfer or by cheque made payable to Andrew McLachlan.

Please contact me by clicking here to register for this event.

A Waiver of Liability will be sent to registrants, which should be returned with payment of the non-refundable retainer. Closer to the date of this event participants will be asked to fill out the Rock Island Lodge Waiver and inform of any special dietary requirements.

The balance owing will be due no later than July 1, 2019.

Cancellation Policy:

61 days prior to the workshop date a full refund less the non-refundable retainer.

60 days prior to the workshop date or less no refunds.

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Lake Superior Wild & Scenic Photography Retreat Notes

Sunrise on Lake Superior
Nikon D800, Laowa 12mm Zero D Lens
Singh Ray 3-stop Reverse Graduated Neutral Density Filter
ISO 50
f16 @ 0.6 sec

 

The recently concluded, inaugural, Lake Superior Wild & Scenic Photography Retreat was a fantastic success. A very BIG thank-you to Don Johnston for his hard work and assistance with this event. We had 10 fabulous participants that were eager to explore the landscape amid wind, snow, and rain. Our efforts were not only to photograph the grand, magnificent scenes before us, but to also concentrate on the smaller details at our feet as they can often tell an important part of the story as well. We were grateful that the first two days presented beautiful sunrises and sunsets. On the third day we had a lovely sunrise at the onset of what turned out to be a very windy and rainy day, which allowed folks time to rest after a busy first two days and to process some of their imagery from the first two days as well. On the fourth and final full day of photography we enjoyed many areas of Lake Superior Provincial Park from the Sand River area to the Old Woman Bay area under mush calmer conditions although it was chilly with the air temperatures hovering around 2 degrees Celsius.

Lake Superior has long been my favourite location within Ontario for landscape photography. The possibilities are endless. During this retreat I enjoyed composing scenes with my Laowa 12mm Zero D Lens as it was my first trip to the region with this extreme wide angle lens in my gear bag.

Below are a series of my initial edits from the retreat…stay tuned for more imagery soon.

I will be planning a second annual Lake Superior Wild & Scenic Photography Retreat. For those that are interested in registering for the event please do send along your contact info to me, by clicking here, if you are not already on my contact list. Don Johnston and yours truly are very well travelled along the Lake Superior coast and know where to be during the given weather conditions to maximize the photographic efforts.

 

Sunrise on Lake Superior
Nikon D800, Laowa 12mm Zero D Lens
Singh Ray 3-stop Reverse Graduated Neutral Density Filter
ISO 50
f16 @ 0.8 sec

 

Sunset on Lake Superior
Nikon D800, Laowa 12mm Zero D Lens
Singh Ray 3-stop Reverse Graduated Neutral Density Filter
ISO 100
f16 @ 13 sec

 

Sunrise on Lake Superior
Nikon D800, Laowa 12mm Zero D Lens
ISO 100
f16 @ 1.3 sec

 

Sunset on Lake Superior
Nikon D800, Nikon 18-35mm lens at 29mm
Singh Ray 3-stop Reverse Graduated Neutral Density Filter
ISO 50
f16 @ 5 sec

 

Wave Polished Stones on Lake Superior
Nikon D800, Nikon 28-300mm lens at 170mm
ISO 50
f18 @ 1/8 sec

 

In-camera Wave Blur, Old Woman Bay, Lake Superior
Nikon D800, Nikon 200-500mm lens
ISO 50
f32 @ 1/5 sec

 

Crashing Wave on Lake Superior
Nikon D800, Laowa 12mm Zero D Lens
ISO 50
f16 @ 1/60 sec

 

Moonlit Lake Superior
Nikon D800, Nikon 18-35mm lens at 31mm
ISO 3200
f11 @ 13 seconds

 

Sunset on Lake Superior
Nikon D800, Laowa 12mm Zero D Lens
Singh Ray 3-stop Reverse Graduated Neutral Density Filter
ISO 50
f16 @ 1.3 sec

 

Sunset on Lake Superior
Nikon D800, Laowa 12mm Zero D Lens
Singh Ray 3-stop Reverse Graduated Neutral Density Filter
ISO 100
f16 @ 5 sec

 

Rugged Lake Superior Shoreline
Nikon D800, Laowa 12mm Zero D Lens
ISO 100
f16 @ 0.8 sec

 

Wave Breaking at Katherine Cove, Lake Superior
Nikon D800, Nikon 18-35mm Lens at 35mm
ISO 50
f22 @ 0.5 sec

 

Wave Polished Stones, Lake Superior
Nikon D800, Nikon 28-300mm Lens at 125mm
ISO 100
f16 @ 0.6 sec

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Lake Superior Wild & Scenic Photography Retreat

Sunset on Lake Superior, Ontario, Canada

Lake Superior offers landscape photographers some of the most dramatic scenes anywhere in Ontario. Stunning sunrises, jaw-dropping sunsets, thundering waterfalls, and so much more await at the Lake Superior Wild & Scenic Photography Retreat being held on October 17 – 21, 2018 at the Rock Island Lodge. Registration for this event is open. Folks wishing to register can contact me directly by clicking here and for further information please click here.

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Lake Superior Provincial Park

Sunset at Gargantua Harbour, Lake Superior Provincial Park, Ontario
Nikon D800, Nikon 18-35mm lens @ 26mm
Singh-Ray 3-Stop Reverse Graduated Neutral Density Filter

 

I finally had a chance to go through my image files from my September trip along the shore of Lake Superior Provincial Park. One of my most favourite locations within the park is that of Gargantua Harbour. A long, winding dirt road brings you to within walking distance of the lake, where you will come to a fantastic beach to the left and to the right the shoreline is scattered with large boulders which have been rounded and smoothed by the waves of Lake Superior. A couple of other bays that are often quite productive for landscape photography are Old Woman Bay and Katherine Cove. As you view the images make note of the captions and you will notice that for some of the imagery I chose to use my B+W 10-Stop Neutral Density Filter. I will often resort to this filter when I am wishing to blur the wave action to a silky smooth texture, but the ambient light is still too bright to facilitate this, therefore, I will add the 10-Stop ND filter and presto I can usually go down to 30 second exposures with easy. When using this very dark filter I find it is best to use Live View and open up the aperture of the lens to compose the scene and focus the lens. I will then stop the lens down to my desired f-stop and click the shutter.

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

Gargantua Harbour, Lake Superior Provincial Park, Ontario
Nikon D800, Nikon 18-35mm lens @ 18mm
30 Second Exposure
B+W 10-Stop Neutral Density Filter

 

Gargantua Harbour, Lake Superior Provincial Park, Ontario
Nikon D800, Nikon 18-35mm lens @ 18mm
Nikon Neutral Polarizing Filter

 

Old Woman Bay, Lake Superior Provincial Park, Ontario
Nikon D800, Nikon 18-35mm lens @ 24mm
Singh-Ray 3-Stop Reverse Graduated Neutral Filter

 

Katherine Cove, Lake Superior Provincial Park, Ontario
Nikon D800, Nikon 18-35mm lens @ 20mm
25 Second Exposure
B+W 10-Stop Neutral Density Filter

 

Katherine Cove, Lake Superior Provincial Park, Ontario
Nikon D800, Nikon 18-35mm lens @ 35mm
25 Second Exposure
B+W 10-Stop Neutral Density Filter

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Looking Back on 2016 – The Top 10

Daybreak, Sleeping Giant Provincial Park, Ontario

 

Looking back over the past year I came to the realization that I created some of my own personal favorites during 2016. As this year comes to a close here is the selection of my most favorite images. From the stunning daybreak display above on Marie Louise Lake in Ontario’s Sleeping Giant Provincial Park, to the Bullfrogs on Horseshoe Lake, to beautiful vistas along the Niagara Escarpment in Bruce Peninsula National Park, to winter scenes close to home, and to the highest cliffs in Ontario at the Top of the Giant Trail over-looking Lake Superior. I arrived just in time to capture nature’s beauty when she was ready to put on a stellar show!

I am eagerly anticipating the arrival of 2017 as I will commence several new ventures with my photography, including a schedule of upcoming workshops that I will announce shortly.

I would like to take a moment to thank you all for your support of my work and to wish you all a very Happy New Year and all the best for the year ahead.

Please do remember to click on each of the images to view the sharper, larger version.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

Bullfrog in Wetland on Horseshoe Lake, Parry Sound, Ontario

 

Halfway Log Dump, Bruce Peninsula National Park, Ontario

 

Winter Stream in Thornton, Ontario

 

Daybreak on Horseshoe Lake, Parry Sound, Ontario

 

Red-eyed Tree Frog – captive

 

Top of the Giant, Sleeping Giant Provincial Park, Ontario

 

Ferns in Autumn Woodland, Torrance Barrens, Ontario

 

Northern Water Snake, Horseshoe Lake, Parry Sound, Ontario

 

Night-scape, Sleeping Giant Provincial Park, Ontario

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Oakville Camera Club Presentation

Katherine Cove
Lake Superior Provincial Park
Ontario, Canada

On Monday, April 27th at 7:00 p.m. I will be presenting “A Photographer’s Guide to the Ontario Landscape” for the Oakville Camera Club at the Queen Elizabeth Park Community and Cultural Centre located at 2302 Bridge Road in Oakville, Ontario.

The presentation is based around my popular eBook, which is an in-depth resource to landscape photography in Ontario. The eBook will be available for purchace, on CD, at the presentation for the low price of $20 CDN.

Hope to see you there 🙂

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Odds & Ends

Sunrise on the Agawa River in Ontario’s Lake Superior Provincial Park.   Nikon D800, Sigma 15mm Fisheye Lens, ISO 1250 f11 @ 1/400 sec.

I have been on a mission lately to go through some of my folders of older RAW captures that for one reason or another has eluded the optimizing step. Surprisingly several of the ones I took the time to work on over the last few days were from one of my favorite places on Earth – Lake Superior. The rugged terrain and stunning shoreline vistas to be found in the Lake Superior region are a must see for anyone who enjoys landscape photography.

Rocky Shoreline of Lake Superior.                          Nikon D800, Nikon 18-35mm lens, ISO 50, f22 @ 1/13 sec.

In the scene below I was playing around with my B+W 10-stop Neutral Density Filter to create some motion blur to the mid-day clouds and also to ‘calm’ the waves of Lake Superior.

Lake Superior Provincial Park near the Coldwater River                                    Nikon D800, Nikon 24-85mm VR Lens, ISO 200, f16 @ 20 sec.

Often I will use my Nikon 80-400mm VR lens to extract intimate scenes from within the landscape as I did below with the spruce trees reflecting in the water’s of the Agawa River.

Spruce Tree Reflections in the Agawa River.                                                                          Nikon D800, Nikon 80-400mm VR Lens, ISO 400, f22 @ 5 sec.

Often Lake Superior has some decent wave action whereby you can play around with wave blurs crashing into the shoreline. Below was not necessarily a day of impressive waves, but it was a day of fun trying to capture interesting blurs from the waves here as they did hit the granite shoreline.

Wave Blur on Lake Superior.                                                                                                Nikon D800, Nikon 18-35mm Lens, ISO 100, f29 @ 1/10 sec.

When faced with a lovely sunset at Katherine Cove as seen below, rather than opt for a graduated neutral density filter or in-camera HDR, I decided to create two exposures – one for the rocks and one for the sky and then manually blend them in Photoshop CS6 to achieve the desired results.

Please do remember to click on each image to view the larger, sharper version.

Stay tuned for ‘Odds & Ends – Part 2‘

Katherine Cove in Lake Superior Provincial Park.                                                       Nikon D800, Nikon 80-400mm VR Lens

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Superior Stones

Lake Superior Shoreline Details. Nikon D800, Nikon 80-400mm VR Lens, ISO 200, f22 @ 25 seconds.

I have been busy trying to catch-up on a back-log of image processing over the last few days. Today I spent some time optimizing some of my images from my 2013 trip to Lake Superior Provincial Park. I remember this mid-September evening well, the temperatures were getting chilly, the sun had all but gone, and I was playing around with some long, intimate landscapes of shoreline details at Old Woman Bay. These small stones are often a mix of colors and are rounded and smooth as silk, from centuries of wave action.

Please do click on each image to see the larger, sharper version.

Lake Superior Shoreline Details. Nikon D800, Nikon 80-400mm VR Lens, ISO 500, f22 @ 30 seconds.

Lake Superior Shoreline Details. Nikon D800, Nikon 80-400mm VR Lens, ISO 100, f6.3 @ 1.6 seconds

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Black & White Conversions

 

Lake Superior Provincial Park. Nikon D800, Nikon 18-35mm lens @ 22mm, ISO 100, f16 @ 20 seconds, B+W 10-stop Neutral Density Filter

This evening the winter wind is howling outside and snow squalls are rolling through the region, so I decided to play around with converting some older photos to black and white. I have always liked the original color versions of these images but for one reason or another I never did get around to optimizing them. Often when situations like this arise I will open the images into Nik / Google’s Silver Efex Pro 2 for a B&W conversion that suits the scene. In the opening photo, which was created on the shores of Lake Superior near the mouth of the Coldwater River I used a 10-stop neutral density filter to ‘calm‘ the incoming waves and help reveal the boulders beneath the surface. A small crop from the top to evict a rather boring cloudless sky rounded out the image optimization.

In the Georgian Bay scene below that was created in Ontario’s Killbear Provincial Park I used my Tiffen 3-stop neutral density filter to achieve the same calming effect on the bay, which allows us to focus our attention on the foreground rocks, which received a light-handed dose of Nik / Google’s Detail Extractor from Color Efex

Georgian Bay at Killbear Provincial Park. Nikon D800, Nikon 18-35mm lens @ 18mm, ISO 100, f16 @ 5 seconds. Tiffen 3-stop Neutral Density Filter

After creating the above scene on Georgian bay I simply turned around to create one of the terrain that was behind me. Killbear Provincial Park is noted for its spectacular vistas of Georgian Bay and the rugged granite shoreline is wonderful for both color and B&W images.

Rugged Terrain at Killbear Provincial Park. Nikon D800, Sigma 15mm EX DG f2.8 Fisheye Lens, ISO 400, f16 @ 1/200.

And finally below is an older capture created on the Sixteen Mile Creek at Hilton Falls Conservation Area upstream from Hilton Falls. This lovely river and waterfall are situated on the Niagara Escarpment. Many of the waterfalls and rivers of the Niagara Escarpment are best viewed in early spring when water levels are typically high.

Sixteen Mile Creek in Hilton Falls Conservation Area. Nikon D800, Nikon 18-35mm lens @ 24mm. ISO 100, f16 @ 1.3 seconds, Nikon Neutral Polarizing Filter

Please do remember to click on each image to view the larger, sharper version.

On another note: I am now active on Intsagram. You can connect with me on Intsagram at MCLACHLANWILD. I have also added an Instagram widget to the sidebar of the blog for easy access. Hope to see you over at Instagram too 🙂

 

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Catching Up

In-camera Aspen Tree Blur near Coldwater, Ontario

Here are a few recently optimized images from my photo excursions in September and October that I wanted to share with folks. I have been swamped lately with various projects as well as getting caught up on a large backlog of image files sitting on my hard-drives…never seems to be enough time and the backlog keeps getting bigger. Hope you like this collection of recently edited photographs.

To read my most recent article in Denise Ippolito’s Creative Photography eMini-Magazine click here. Be sure to subscribe to this on-line creative photography magazine as it is loaded with tons of useful info and tips and it is absolutely free.

Please click on each of the photos to see the larger, sharper versions.

Thompson’s Rapids in Ontario’s Almaguin Highlands

Sand River, Lake Superior Provincial Park, Ontario.

River aux Sables at Chutes Provincial Park. Massey, Ontario.

Magnetawan River in Ontario’s Almaguin Highlands.

 

 

 

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