Last night’s lightning storm over Barrie was the most active one I can remember. I spent a good hour and a half photographing a countless number of lightning strikes and flashes.
Of all the photos I took, this is my favorite. It was not created by AI. It is not a composite of several photos put together. It is a single shot.
It is my favorite for several reasons. There are the web-like branches of lightning bolting across the sky. There are the two strikes, the left one hitting the lake and reflecting in the water. The foreground is interesting, but simple and not a distraction.
The various shades of blue in the sky and in the water provide a commonality separated by a darker shoreline that appears to fade to the left providing scale and context.
I am often asked how I get images like this one. The answer is not that I was lucky, although luck played some part, but that several things came together to make the shot possible.
I use a technique that helps with the odds. In addition, hitting the correct exposure and a great composition can make a good lightning photo into a great one.
Ice Reflection
I captured this panoramic image of downtown Barrie late last night from the south shore looking over a reflective layer of ice covering Kempenfelt Bay.
Super Blue Moon
Wednesday’s "Blue Moon" did not disappoint.
It was still cloudy during the early evening, but the clouds began to break resulting in a beautiful sunset quickly followed by the moonrise across Kempenfelt Bay.
I have photographed the moon many times, and I do not remember it being as large or as bright as last night.
This is the first of several photos I took. There were still a few clouds remaining low in the sky and were positioned perfectly to be lit by the rising moon.
I will post more photos, including ones of the the sunset.
Moon Over Barrie
I checked my astrophotography app and saw that the moon would disappear over Barrie, my hometown.
So I stayed up until around 1:30 and captured this image of the moon setting behind two of the condominiums along Lakeshore Drive at the west end of Kempenfelt Bay.
The moon changed colour from a bright white to a subdued orange as it sank slowly towards the horizon and disappeared.
It was well worth the wait.
Setting Moon
I captured the moon setting over the city of Barrie a a couple if weekends ago.
I have an app that shows exactly where and when the moon rises and sets based on your location. Makes composing a photograph much easier.
It's easy to take the Moon for granted, even on a clear night when it can light up the sky. It really feels as if it has always been there just as it is now, throughout history. But that's not strictly true.
It is thought that the Moon was formed when a proto-planet about the size of Mars collided with the early Earth around 4.5b years ago. The debris left over from impact coalesced to form the Moon.
The Moon does more than light up the night sky. It makes Earth a more livable planet by moderating our home planet's wobble on its axis, leading to a relatively stable climate.
So the next time you see the Moon, remember that without it, the Earth's tilt could vary wildly which could mean no seasons or extreme weather, even ice ages.
Rainbow Over Barrie
A week ago, I woke up to a full rainbow over the city of Barrie.
A rainbow is not located at a specific distance from the observer, but comes from an optical illusion caused by any water droplets viewed from a certain angle.
Rainbows are part of the myths of many cultures around the world, and has been for thousands of years. For me, it one of Mother Nature’s greatest gifts.
Lightning Over Kempenfelt Bay
Last night was the second night in a row of thunderstorms. So I headed out and this is one of the images I captured.
This magnificent bolt of lightening occurred above Kempenfelt Bay. It lit the sky and the water below. A very cool photograph.
#barrie #lightning #lightningstrike #lightningbolt #nikoncananda #d850nikon
Barrie Airshow
Shooting airshows is not a regular occurrence. However, I welcome the challenge and the results can be very rewarding.
This image was captured at the Barrie Airshow from the terrace of a 14th storey penthouse on the edge of the downtown. Shooting from this vantage point results in images that appear to have been taken from a plane.
Smokey Sun
With all the wild fire smoke in the air, I thought that the sunset might be interesting so I went to Minets Point Park in Barrie.
I saw the sailboat slowly making its way towards the reflection in the water hoping that it would arrive in time. It did and I captured this image.
A portion of the sail was translucent allowing the sunlight to shine through. It was windy enough to create a chop on the water making the reflection appear spackled.
Proving that patience and being at the right place at the right can pay off.
Trip to the Moon
A couple of nights ago, I took a trip to the moon and captured this image.
Unlike the Apollo astronauts who took almost 4 days to travel to the moon, I traveled at the speed of light and arrived in about 1.3 seconds.
This is the closest I have gotten to the moon and it’s about as close as I'm going to get without upgrading my mode of travel.
I vaguely remember when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the moon. I will probably never walk on the moon, but I feel like I’ve gotten very close.
Cold Winter Morning
I weathered the -23C temperature early Saturday morning and captured the sunrise over a snow covered Kempenfelt Bay in Barrie.
Waterfront Park
Over 6 km of Barrie’s waterfront is parkland including a pedestrian and cycling trail.
One of my favorite spots is on the south shore of Kempenfelt Bay, an area that is quite private and secluded. It’s also a great place to photograph the city and I have taken many from this location.
This image was captured during the blue hour after the sun had set and the partially lit moon was visible.
Ice On Bay
This photo of Downtown Barrie was taken from Minets Point Park looking across the recently frozen Kempenfelt Bay. I love the subtle faint of the buildings in the ice.
Barrie began as a resting place for the First Nations People before travelling the portage between Lake Simcoe and Nottawasaga River and Lake Huron.
The portage served as an important military route during the War of 1812 when the Americans blocked passage at Detroit.
Barrie was established following the war and many of its streets are named after British military officers. The city was named in honour of British Admiral Sir Robert Barrie.
Pick-up Hockey In Toronto
While driving by an ice rink in Riverdale Park in Toronto, I noticed kids in a pick-up game of hockey.
There were no referees, no official scorekeeper, not even an organist. Just a bunch of people playing one of the greatest games in the world on a cold winter evening.
I noticed the Toronto skyline in the distance and had an idea for a photo. I wanted the photo to tell a story.
Hockey not only helps to define our country and who we are as Canadians, we invented the game and have pretty much dominated it ever since.
I like that in a big metropolitan city like Toronto with its large buildings and busy streets, there remain places where you can just show up, strap on a pair of skates and enjoy a pick-up game of hockey, often with people you’re meeting for the first time.
I think this image tells that story and hopefully leaves you with a good feeling of what it means to be Canadian.
Niagara Falls
What makes Niagara Falls so impressive is the amount of water flowing over the falls (about a million bathtubs full of water a minute). Most of the tallest falls in the world have very little water flowing over them. It's the combination of height and volume that makes Niagara Falls so breathtaking.
The rapids above the falls reach a maximum speed of 40 kph or 25 mph, with the fastest speeds occurring at the falls themselves at 68 mph. I wanted to capture an interesting image of the Horseshoe Falls that gives a sense of the speed and volume of water.
Firstly, I needed to stand as close as possible to the edge of the falls. For those of you have visited the Falls, you probably know where that is.
Next, I needed to determine the right shutter speed. A very fast shutter speed would simply “freeze” the motion of the water, while a very slow shutter speed would cause the water to appear too blurred, completely dulling the movement of the water. After taking a few test shots, I settled on a shutter speed of 1.5 seconds.
Lastly, I needed to get the right exposure using a shutter speed of 1.5 seconds. A dark exposure would hide many of the features while a bright exposure would make the image appear unrealistic and take from that sense of mystery and danger.
If I used too large an aperture, objects in the far distance would appear out of focus and a very small aperture would significantly reduce the mount of light captured by the camera. I used a mid aperture setting of f/8 at ISO 400.
The result of the effort is this image, taken at 11:00 at night.
Breaking Ice Kempenfelt Bay
The ice on Kempenfelt Bay is breaking up and spring is on the way. This was taken this evening from Johnson Beach in Barrie on the north side of the bay.
It was shot using a 24-70mm lens at 24 mm, f/11 ISO64, 1/30th of a second.
If you look closely, the entire image is in focus. This is achieved through a technique called focus stacking which combines multiple images taken at different focus distances to give a resulting image with a greater depth of field than any of the individual source images.
October Sunset Over Kempenfelt Bay
It didn't look like tonight's sunset would be much, but I decided to go out with my camera anyways. I've learned that sometimes the sky can change very quickly and within about 15 minutes, the sky looked like this. This image was taken from Johnsons Beach in Barrie.
Harvest Moon Over Toronto
I did some research Friday to determine where I should be to photograph the moon and the CN Tower together. This image was taken from the roof of a parking garage in Kensington Market Friday evening.
The “Harvest Moon” appears yellow, because it is low in the sky and is being seen through more layers of atmosphere.
Milky Way - Algonquin Park
Last evening I drove 2 hours north to Lake of Two Rivers in Algonquin Park to photograph the night skies - one of my favorite things to do.
The skies in Algonquin Park are very dark making them ideal for viewing and photographing the stars. I only had until about midnight before the moon appeared and washed out the dark skies.
The Milky Way reveals itself just above the tree line. The reddish North America Nebula is visible in the left portion of the image. Vega, the second-brightest star in the northern hemisphere, is visible in the upper centre. This is a 5-minute-long exposure and I used an equatorial mount to counter the earth’s rotation.
Driftwood In Kempenfelt Bay
This photo was taken on the south shore of Kempenfelt Bay looking northwest towards Barrie’s skyline.
I stayed at this location for a good hour working to get this image. It was a very tricky photo. It was 8:30 in the evening and the scene included both very bright and very dark areas. I ended up using a 20mm wide-angle lens and the camera set to take a 20-second-long exposure at f/10, ISO 64.
I like this image a lot. It has a mysterious mood created by the monochromatic blue shades interrupted by a narrow line of orange and yellow lights that crosses the photo.
The foreground is illuminated by a patch of open sky above and highlights the gnarly piece of driftwood and the pebbles below the surface of the water. The long exposure smooths the surface of the water and blurs the clouds slightly, adding to the mood.
I often receive the comment that I was lucky to be in the right place at the right time. I won’t deny that luck plays a part, but it really comes down to seeing the potential and then exercising a lot of patience and perseverance. Sometimes you are really lucky and get the image the first time. Most times it means going back to the same location many times waiting for the light and the conditions to be just right.
