October 14, 2019

Fall Colours Field Trip (Ingramport, Nova Scotia)

The last fall colours field trip of 2019 had a poor start...the initial location where I'd arranged to met the students had NO colour to be found, but fortunately, there was a backup location just down the road. Fifteen minutes later, the students and I were out, looking at colour, and making images.

Digital original

As tends to be my default with water, I worked a lot with neutral density filters, and was very pleased with the result. I am particularly pleased with the look of reeds and grasses reflected in the time-smoothed water - I certainly will see if I can incorporate that into my work with models in the future.

Digital original

After working with long shutter speeds for the first part of the field trip, I switched to my macro lens, and made some details of plants...and the colour just didn't work for me, so I converted it into monochrome, and was much happier with the result.

Digital original, 2 frame stitch

The final image was actually made below a highway bridge - the river the passed below was slowly moving, but with a neutral density filter, I was able to introduce enough blur that the colour of the foliage, as opposed to the surface of the water, became the focus.

October 06, 2019

Fall Colours Field Trip (Shubie Park, Nova Scotia)

Digital original

I am fully aware of the irony of making in posting a blog post with the title Fall Colours, and leading with a monochrome image, but the above photograph was the first image of the field trip which spoke to me - and no colour was anywhere to be seen.


Digital original

Shortly after the monochrome images of the twigs were made, I caught sight of a small rock in front of a wall of fall colour - and the lower I moved, the better the reflections became, so I inverted my camera, and worked just above the ground. I experimented with a couple of different shutter speeds and in the end, 1/4 of a second provided the perfect mix between stillness and motion.

Digital original

The last images were a mix of the early monochromatic stick images, and the rock reflection's burst of colour. Some thin water grasses emerged from the lake, and with a long lens and careful composition, I managed to get the hint of colour into the frame, making a very quiet, yet colour-dependant image.