August 17, 2010
G’day Everyone,
We’ve recently returned from another outstanding Tom Jordan Memorial Boreal Coast Tour and rather than extolling the photo opportunities of this tour, let me simply show you a couple of the images I harvested this year and let our esteemed participants offer their commentary. By the way, if you’re still wondering about the name of this tour, you’ll have to either 1) come on the tour or 2) purchase my memoir – http://www.sojournsinnature.com/store.php#Nesting. 
Also, while the Blue Ox Moose Tour is filled, there’s still some room for additional participants in the upcoming Fall Foliage Magical Mystery Tour – http://www.sojournsinnature.com/fallfoliageworkshop.php. Come join us to capture New England’s autumn grandeur.
Atlantic Puffin in Flight with Fish
Canon EOS 1-D Mark II N
Canon EF 70-200mm f/4 L IS USM lens at 200mm with 1.4x teleconverter
1/2500″ @ f/8, .33 EC, ISO 400
evaluative metering, aperture priority
IS mode 2, CF 17 at automatic 13 pt. expansion
handheld
Read more…
Posted by Gustav under Hot Shots,Maine,Workshops & Tours | Comments (4)
April 18, 2010
During the recent early spell of summer around the first week in April, I grabbed the opportunity to spend a couple of days with my cousin Harry in Buffalo. My friendship with Harry goes back to the summers of the 1960′s and early 70′s when he and I would hunt and fish and ride dirt bikes on my uncle’s farm in the Allegany Mountains of western New York.
Harry earned his pilot’s license shortly after returning safely from Vietnam where he spent two tours of duty as a helicopter gunner. He’s an avid and skilled pilot and owns a small Cherokee single engine plane. He frequently flies into the municipal airport here in Newport, Vermont and I’ll go and pick him up and we’ll pal around like we used to, going out in my canoe for the day and target shooting in the meadow behind my house.
As usual, when we’re together, he’ll take me up in his plane and very often, if the conditions are benign, he’ll let me fly it. However, the day after I arrived in Buffalo, I wasn’t interested in taking over the controls. I had come prepared to do something that I could only do with Harry’s help, something I had been wanting to do for some years but owing to the difficulty of coordinating my and Harry’s schedule with the weather, just hadn’t had the opportunity to do, and something that required my keeping my hands on the controls of my camera while Harry adeptly manages the controls of his plane. What I hoped to do during this visit with Harry was to photograph something that likely has been photographed more often than anything else in the world besides babies. I wanted to get a novel view of Niagara Falls from the air on a clear day.
Read more…
Posted by Gustav under Aerial Photography,Hot Shots,Technique | Comments (2)
March 28, 2010
This image was taken 20 minutes after sunset, on an unusually calm evening, on the shores of Lake of Two Mountains in L’Ile Bizard, Quebec – just a few kilometers from where I live.
When shooting sunsets, it’s worthwhile to wait a 15-30 minutes after the sun has dipped below the horizon to see what happens. The wind usually dies down, the sky can take on some beautiful & rich colors, and the lower contrast between land and sky is easier to control.
I really love this type of image - the simplified composition, calm water and pastel colors convey a sense of tranquility and calm. I hope you like it too.
The colors are “real”, and obtained by stacking three separate filters: a Singh-Ray 4-stop Neutral Density filter to slow the exposure to 20 seconds, a 3-stop Graduated Neutral Density filter to darken the bright sky, and a polarizer to eliminate the shine off the wet rocks and to help see through the water’s surface.
Image specs:
- Canon EOS 5D Mark II
- Canon EF 17-40mm f/4 L USM at 21mm
- f/13, 20 seconds, ISO 200
- Singh-Ray 3-stop hard GND, Singh-Ray 4-stop ND and B+W polarizer mounted on a Lee Filter System
- Gitzo GT3541LS tripod with RRS BH-55 ballhead, mirror lockup, cable release
- Processed with Adobe Camera Raw 5.x
Please leave a comment, either positive or negative – it’s always appreciated. If you’re interested in purchasing a print of this image, please let me know.
See you in the field,
Rob
Posted by Rob under Filters,Hot Shots,L'Ile Bizard (Quebec),Quebec | Comments (5)
November 27, 2009
The grey, drizzly November weather we’re having is making think back and look at images taken in different seasons. I fell upon this one taken in May 2009, following record-high spring water levels. After many weeks of frustration caused by extremely high water, which robbed me of my usual shoreline compositions, the water finally receded dropping by about 6 feet in 1 month.
Still, the water line was still many feet above normal levels – the “seaweed” see in the foreground is actually grass, and the “aquatic plant” in the middle of the image is a dry-land bush…
In order to tame the very bright sky and properly expose the dark foreground, I used two GND filters, a 2-stop one just below the bush, and a 3-stop one at the horizon line.
Image specs:
- Canon EOS 5D Mark II
- Canon EF 17-40mm f/4 L USM at 31mm
- f/22, 4 seconds, ISO 50
- Singh-Ray 3-stop hard GND, Lee 2-stop hard GND, B+W polarizer
- Gitzo GT3541LS tripod with RRS BH-55 ballhead, cable release
Please leave a comment, either positive or negative – it’s always appreciated. If you’re interested in purchasing a print of this image, please let me know.
See you in the field,
Rob
Posted by Rob under Filters,Hot Shots,L'Ile Bizard (Quebec),Landscapes,Quebec,Spring | Comments (1)
November 8, 2009
“The Basin” area of Fraconia Notch State Park in New Hampshire is truly a beautiful place. The Pemigewasset River snakes through the park, creating many small waterfalls, rushing water… and endless compositions. This image was not particularly difficult to capture, the only tricky part was to get the full image (near to far) in good focus at 80mm. Oh, that and also having to wait a while until there was nobody on the bridge…
For me, there something peaceful, quiet and comforting about this image – the vibrant fall colors, the cold water, the little bridge that just invites people to cross it… I can still imagine the smell of pine trees in the air. I’ll need to go back there sometime soon, and this time, I want to spend a full day there, not just a few hours.
Image specs:
- Canon EOS 5D Mark II
- Canon EF 24-105mm f/4 L USM lens at 80mm
- f/16, 3.2 seconds, ISO 100
- Hoya Moose Polarizer filter
- Gitzo GT3541LS tripod with RRS BH-55 ballhead, cable release
Please leave a comment, either positive or negative – it’s always a good thing to get feedback on my work and my blog posts. If you’re interested in purchasing a print of this image, please let me know.
See you in the field,
Rob
Posted by Rob under Fall,Fall Foliage,Hot Shots,Landscapes,New Hampshire | Comments (6)
November 1, 2009
The Basin at Franconia Notch State Park in New Hampshire is a beautiful place. So many subjects to shoot, so many different compositions for each subject. I could spend days and days in this one small area.
It was drizzly, cloudy and cold when I took this shot. It was worth the effort, but I certainly appreciated wearing my light gloves and hat…
A strong S-curve. An anchor at the top and another at the bottom. A few strong colors. A simple but elegant composition. Motion and stillness.
For those of you who are artists or have studied the art of compostion, you understand why the above image works. For those of you who like the image, but you don’t quite understand why, you’re on your way to understanding. For those of you who don’t get it… well, I can only hope you will understand one day.
There is beauty in simplicity. There is beauty in elegance. There is beauty in nature. I hope you see the beauty in this image.
Image specs:
- Canon EOS 5D Mark II
- Canon EF 24-105mm f/4 L USM lens at 35mm
- f/16, 0.6 seconds, ISO 100
- Hoya Moose Polarizer filter
- Gitzo GT3541LS tripod with RRS BH-55 ballhead, cable release
Rob
Posted by Rob under Fall,Hot Shots,Landscapes,New Hampshire | Comments (4)
October 22, 2009
There are times when I go out for a shoot with specific expectations, and don’t get the shot I wanted because there’s bad light, wrong weather conditions or something messing up the composition. There are times when I pre-visualize a shot, things line up perfectly and I get exactly the shot I wanted. And then, there are times when I go out, not expecting to get a single good shot, and end up getting a killer image.
This was such a time. And these images are the most surprising and satisfying.
Read more…
Posted by Rob under Filters,Fine Art Prints,Hot Shots,Landscapes,Quebec | Comments (8)
October 18, 2009
Liquid Gold Sunset Over Lake of Two Mountains
Canon EOS 5D MkII
Canon EF 17-40mm f/4 L USM lens at 20mm
f/22, 2s, ISO 100
Filters: Singh-Ray 3-stop hard GND, Lee 2-Stop hard GND, B+W 105mm polarizer
Gitzo GT3541LS tripod with RRS BH-55 ballhead, cable release
Hey all,
Rob here. I kind of missed the spontaneity of writing small, quick blog posts… You know, something that highlights a mood, a thought, an event, or a specific image. Gustav and I will keep on writing the longer monthly blog posts, but I also want to write more often to stay in touch. So this is the first post of a new series of “My Hot Shot”. There may a few per week, or only one per month – it’ll depend on my work schedule.
This shot was taken on Labour Day 2009. The beautiful clouds that were hanging around at 17:00 sadly disappeared by 18:15 as I was preparing to head out for this shot.
The bright, cloudless sky made the exposure rather difficult. I ended up using two graduate neutal density filters to hold back the very bright sky. I placed a 2-stop GND just above the rocks (about 2/3rds of the way up), along with a 3-stop GND at the horizon. I also used a polarizer to remove the harsh reflections from the wet rocks in the foreground.
I absolutely love the golded layer of water – this is really what makes this image special. The composotion also works well because of the placement of the horizon, the sun, the tuft of grass in the foreground, and the way the rocks leads your eyes into the sun.
Hope you enjoy it! All the best,
Rob
Posted by Rob under Filters,Hot Shots,L'Ile Bizard (Quebec),Landscapes | Comments (0)
