On Saturday afternoon we made “The Loop”:  Parry Sound, Orange Valley Road, Old Nippissing Road, South of Ahmic Lake, home via Hwy 124 and Hwy 529.

McDougall Rd, North end of Haines Lake:

McDougall Rd over one of the feeders to the Seguin River.

Broadbent/Orange Valley Rd:

Orange Valley Rd …

Old Nippissing Rd:

Ahmic Lake Rd … short cut from Old Nippissing to Hwy 124.   I broke all of the rules with this one: A serious backlighting attempt.  One huge lens flare which I tried to minimize in Lightroom 5.6.

Large farms and beautiful sugar maple forests south of Ahmic Lake.

This is worth clicking on to enlarge.  A little bay off of Ahmic Lake, just south of Ahmic Harbour.

Yet another version of Twin Rivers, this time 4 minutes after sunset:

The winds are up to 20 km/h so I think the peak is passing now.

Just after daybreak we drove north and tread carefully on frost grass to get some nice shots …

Both of the above are at Straight Lake between Still River and Key River.

The next two were taken at Clear Lake, the part of Grundy Lake visible from Hwy 69:

Looking south from the Hwy 607 bridge abutment over the Murdock River:

Meshaw Falls of the French River.

Looking south from the entrance to the Pickerel River Reserve.

I then discharged some pleasant social obligations and went out later in the afternoon… this time to drive in a southerly direction.

Folks have been asking me about equipment and technique .   I will write something about that later.  Two thoughts seem valid (to me at least):

Equipment is dependent on user needs and capabilities.  I have seen photos from Point and Shoot cameras and camera phones that are far more interesting than photos from fancy Canikon DSLRs.  But I have also seen some photographs from DSLRs that could never be made with a simpler camera.  Best thing is to use whatever you have to its limits.

Technique:  There are quite a few technical things to keep in mind when shooting “at the edge”… like the first two above.  But even in those two, ENGAGEMENT is key.  In other words MY best stuff happens when I am totally engaged with what I see, what I feel and what I want to communicate.  I look into the scene instead of looking at the scene.  I try to “grok” it, as Michael Valentine Smith would say. 

I don’t use the word “compose” the way photography texts do, (with all of those “rules”!).   Rather I tend to build the picture.  I usually find lots of mini-images in a scene that I want to somehow put together.  (The result of a diagnosed “over complex mind”?)  In the top image I stopped to ask myself what were the excitements in the scene.  The first thing was the  pink mist curving down to that far point where the skyline dips down to almost kiss the reflection of the sky.  Then as the sun rose, the dramatic colouration of the left horizon began to become dominant.  So I moved around a bit so that I could “compose” the image with at least those two elements.  Expert commercial photographers would probably have posted the image that I took about 3 minutes before this one.   But I prefer the above ;… maybe because I enjoy the dynamic of moving my eyes from the left horizon to the osculation of horizon line and sky reflection.  The three spruce trees are a bonus!  Especially when I pull back a bit.

Enough?