Just a quick post to wish everyone a wonderful thanksgiving and give an update on my classes!

Macro Photography went extremely well – everyone enjoyed the course and our outing went perfectly. I typically do not shoot when I’m teaching, however I made one image at the end of the day:

Nature & Landscape Photography is coming up, starting October 24th. I have six students signed up so far, and I need a few more before the course will run. Check it out if you are interested!

Also, I’ll be speaking at the Orangeville Camera Club on Tuesday October 18th. The topic will be macro photography, centered around snowflakes.

One summer evening, a friend of mine, Brent, suggested that I head to a place called The Grotto. I made a note of it and completely forgot about it until a few weeks ago. On a whim, I decided to head out and make a day trip up to the Tobermory area.

The Grotto is effectively a small cave with two entrances – one large opening accessible to hikers, as well as an underwater tunnel. As a hiker, you’ll need to scale a rather steep rock face to get down to the cave:

When I got down to the cave, a film crew was setting up to shoot a music video. They didn’t mind me shooting while they set of their lights, and I thought this behind-the-scenes shot turned out well:

I waited for the film crew to leave before I was able to have full access to the cave without any obstructions, and it took a while to find a great composition. A couple had come to visit, and I asked them if they wouldn’t mind posing on the edge to show a sense of scale. They agreed, and I was able to make this image:

The scale isn’t accurate, however. The above photos were all taken with my Fisheye lens which does a great job of showing more space than there actually is. The Grotto is a great place, and a fisheye lens gives a much more expansive view of it.

It was early evening and I noticed the sun starting to set. Deciding to play with silhouettes a little more, I made a silhouette panorama on the cave opening:

At this point, I began to worry a little bit. You see, it’s about a 40-minute hike to this location from the head of trails where I parked. The sun is setting at this point, and I don’t have 40 minutes of sunlight left. Scurrying back up to safety, I start heading my way back…. the shoreline was rocky and hard to navigate, but I couldn’t help but stop to make one more image, probably my favourite from the day:

That Inuksuk was taller than me, sitting right on the water’s edge. Careful of my angle to get water between the rocks forming the legs, the distant shoreline not coming in contact with the inuksuk, etc… it required a bit of playing around – with time I didn’t have but gave it to the photo anyhow.

Then, I sprinted. Nothing but twilight was left as I entered the forest trails back to my car. 20 minutes later, I arrive exhausted and happy that I can still – just barely – see my car in front of me. Next time, maybe a good idea to bring a flashlight! After I hit the road, I headed down to spend the night in Toronto with my lovely fiancée

This is a question that I’ve been forming a more detailed answer to than simply “yes!”. I plan on covering the details in my talk at the Barrie Photo Club next week, but here is a sneak peek.

I took the above image of the Northlander passenger train near Uno Park, Ontario… a few kilometers Northwest of New Liskeard. Setting up to take the image was tricky, involving scouting out the location, researching when the train would go by, etc… and I was happy with the result. However, as a piece of artwork, I wanted the image to be perfect. Like so:

Some people may say I crossed the line in this edit. As a piece of artwork, however, I personally don’t believe there is a line to cross. I specifically sought out the image of the sky, and the image of the bale of hay, with the intent of creating what you see. I’m a huge proponent of getting things right in camera, but that’s not to say your imagination stops with the click of the shutter.

This month, on September 29th, I will be making a presentation to the Barrie Photo Club titled “Vision Beyond Seeing.”

The talk will be a somewhat philosophical and scientific approach to photography and the way we view the world. Including:

- Difference between Eye and Sensor (more than you think!)

- Reading a Photograph

- Seeing things you ignore

and more…. but I’ll leave it at that for now.

If you have any interest in photography, it’ll be worth attending. Here’s the details:

Where? Barrie Southshore Centre

When? Sept 29 2011, 7:00PM

How long? 1 hour (roughly)

Cost? Free for club members, $5 for guests

I don’t usually make a post without a new image, so here is one that I took on a recent trip to the New Liskeard area. The location is called Devil’s Rock, and requires about a 45min hike to arrive at. Glad I was there in the early morning:

A huge brings wildlife photography to new levels – As long as I had a clear line of sight to my subject, I was able to make a great image using Canon’s 800mm F/5.6L IS lens. Some of the birds were at quite a distance, such as this Belted Kingfisher:

This Kingfisher was in a far-off corner of the wetland, carefully watching the waters below it. I snapped the photo when it looked up for a moment. I decided on my evening trip, to wait until sunset when the Cedar Waxwings appeared:

Such beautiful birds to capture full-frame in my viewfinder. The above photo was taken with 800mm + 1.4x extender, manual focus, hand-held. Technically a difficult shot to get, and I was astounded by the quality. Check out the other images below!