Supermoon Over New London
Due to the moons orbit, it’s distance from earth varies by approximately 50,000 kilometres over the course of a year. Comparing the two extremes, this difference makes the moon look 14% bigger and 30% brighter and earns the name supermoon. With super in the name, it must be fantastic! But for the most part, it is visibly not that much different than any other full moon. Especially the night before and night after. The idea of a closer moon is very cool but the media hypes it up a bit with camera trickery. Using long lenses, shooting a city a mile away to make it look smaller in relation to the moon is what we see. We are made to believe we missed this enormous moon that filled the sky. I would like to see those same shots on a regular full moon night for comparison.
Today’s Image – New London Lighthouse in French River
For much of the weekend, we had a heavy overcast on Prince Edward Island. The only view of the moon this year for me was the night before as the moon started to rise about 1 hour before sunset.
Piping Plover
The day before setting day, I had an idea on where I wanted to be for the boat departures at 6am but it required hiking the 11km round trip length of the Cavendish Dunes. Along the way on this scouting adventure, one Piping Plover was spotted.
Today’s Image – Piping Plover
The little endangered bird that Parks Canada and the Island Nature Trust are trying so hard to protect. While skittish, this guy was fully focused on lunch.
Lobster Trap Setting Day
Each spring on the last day of April, all of the fishing boats from the many harbours around the coastline parade out to sea to set their traps. Here on Prince Edward Island, we were a day late due to weather but starting at 5:30am on May 1st, hundreds of boats made their way out the mouth of their harbours and awaited sunrise. At first sight of the sun at 5:58am, the boats race off to their respective territories to begin fishing season.
Today’s Image – North Rustico Harbour
I had spent some time over the past few weeks visiting and trying to decide which harbour I would go to this year. With all the news about Lighthouse surplus, North Rustico was looking to be a good option to get a full boat of traps in front of a Lighthouse.
The following are a small selection from the morning.
Significant Changes
I routinely visit Covehead in PEI National Park and I still can’t believe how much can and has changed from year to year. What once was a sand dune, is now a clear view out to sea.
Today’s Image – New Stream at Covehead
A year ago and this stream did not exist. The lake (pond?) in the distance was not accessible and separated by a sand dune but today is part of the beach and connected to the Gulf of St. Lawrence. I do not have a great before image but if we compare it to this image of the Northern Lights looking in the opposite direction, you can get a sense of the separation. Using Google maps, we can still see at N 46 25.746 W 63 09.117 how isolated it was just last summer.
Leading and Intersecting Lines
I am no expert at composing a perfectly framed image but I do know what I like and I think I know what works for me. This typically means identifying a subject and finding at least a few lines that will draw the attention into the frame and hold it there.
Here I am in Rustico (N 46 27.419 W 63 17.389) for what turned out to be a very brief morning. But I can’t complain. It’s always fantastic when the clouds are heavy and the sun has a clear opening to light them up from below. It may be just another boring sunrise to many but this image is full of leading lines that intersect with even more leading lines.
(This is the same image previously shared on Facebook (here and here) a couple weeks ago on the same morning it was taken.)
Today’s Image – Rustico Beach
It doesn’t matter how much I plan, how perfectly I set everything up, or how ready “I think” I am because once that sun starts to rise, everything I had prepared for goes out the window and I frantically adjust to the sky, reflections and shadows. This was one of those mornings where I was all ready to shoot in the other direction with my back to the sun.
Painting With Light
It has been many years since I last finished a painting using traditional mediums and I have a desk full of paints, inks, pens and brushes that now only collect dust. I’ve completely surrendered to the digital world but although I’ve stopped mixing paints, I still feel like I create images with a similar purpose routinely reminding myself artist first, photographer second.
Comparing the two can be interesting. If I was to frame the same scene and take the necessary time to paint only what was in front of me – what would I include and what would I not include? That mental reminder will keep you monitoring the frames edges before clicking away.
The majority of my work is not shot for clients. It’s not created for stock. And I am never thinking about sales. My goal is to create something visually attractive that might possibly look good as a print on my wall. How would this look as a 40 inch fine art piece on canvas?
If others enjoy it too, that’s all the more rewarding.
Today’s Image – The End of the Rainbow
Tonight had a little bit of everything in the National Park near Covehead (N 46 25.797 W 63 08.490). A mix of good light, heavy storm clouds, a light rain followed up by a rainbow. I spend over an hour photographing this rock and with almost 100 frames to show for it, this was my selected keeper for angle and wave movement. I’ll keep the rest and revisit them some day.
Confederation Bridge
After all these years, the Confederation Bridge is something I’ve never photographed seriously. A few compact camera shots with each trip over but never at the right times of day. This past Friday had a low tide scheduled about the same time as sunset and with some careful tide watching, I was able to stay out long enough without being trapped ankle deep in water. Which reminds me, I really need to add rubber boots to my gear wish list.
Earlier in the week when this was being planned, I was hoping for one of those nights with storm clouds to the east and a wide open sky for the setting sun to the west. Although the sun only broke through for less than 15 minutes, I suppose wishes do come true. Too bad I failed to also include a vehicle starting the drive across with these long exposures.
Today’s Image – Confederation Bridge
Opened in 1997 to replace the ferry, this almost 13 kilometre bridge connects Prince Edward Island to New Brunswick. Everything you would ever want to know about the bridge is on the wikipedia.
Under the Heat (with Honest Image Critiques)
We live in a world that’s politically incorrect to be negative. In this world where we can do no wrong, you’ll often see complaints among photographers about how Facebook and Flickr, etc are a celebration of everyones work. It has the maximum encouragement because every single photo is the best and those that break that trend are looked down on. Which is totally fair because it’s all personal preferences. There is a reason there is no dislike button. It’s how these sites were designed to work. Negative commenting just looks bad.
So I’m not suggesting this type of commenting is wrong and the support is needed but if it were all true, we’d all be fantastic and if we were all fantastic, how does one feel the need to improve? Finding critiques is hard and receiving qualified critiques is even harder. The two local competitions that I know of are held by the PPOC and PEI Photo Club. While at different levels, the live judging is a great experience to watch. You can learn so much even on the prints that are not your own. And whether I agree with the comments or not, I want to hear the negatives just as much, if not more than the positive ones. After all, I already liked the photo enough to share it.
For the past two years, I have volunteered my time to help organize the photo print show for the PEI Photo Club and part of the exhibit involves hiring judges to provide constructive reviews for each and every print. Judges range from photographers, painters, instructors, designers and gallery owners. I don’t remember all of the positive comments but I do remember all of the negative ones still 3 years later. They have forever greatly impacted my opinions on the specific elements the comments were referring to.
If you’re local to PEI and that alone is not enough incentive to participate, we have put together a nice little bundle of prizes this year that might possibly rival the generous sponsorship from Think Tank Photo last year. This year I approached all the self publishing educators that I’ve personally bought from and asked for help. I was hoping at least 1 would reply but I’m happy to say all but 2 responded and I feel we have a real winning team of support this year from: Craft & Vision, Kelby Training, The Luminous Landscape, Guy Tal, Bruce Percy, oopoomoo, Jay & Varina Patel, OPC Magazine, Stuck in Customs, flatbooks and Atlantic Photo Supply.
This years show will be opened to the public in downtown Charlottetown from July 9th – 30th at The Guild Gallery. Full details can be found at www.peiphotoclub.com.
Today’s Image – Breathing Warm Light
Made during a Cirque du Soleil parade down Great George Street in Charlottetown, this free to attend parade at dusk was the march to the waterfront for their stage performance during the Summerfest Festival in 2010. This was my most successful image from last years show.
and here are some more of my other entries over the past years.
Earth Hour
Show your support by turning off your lights tonight March 31st from 8:30 to 9:30. The Big Picture always has a great series of images of big city support but it begs the question – Why do we need to light up the outside of buildings at night or keep office lights on all night long? Images from 2011, 2010 and 2009 (click on photos for before and after)