Rick’s Rants and Raves

This year, friends of ours invited us to join them on their vacation to Parry Sound, Ontario. Their family has a cottage on a beautiful lake very close to Parry Sound. Given the combination of kids, water, and wildlife, I was sure there would be some great photographic opportunities.

The first opportunity came almost immediately. Our friends’ family cottage had three very tame chipmunks, and it took all of about 30 seconds for Emily to start feeding them.

I too found them irresistible, and set about trying to capture them in a somewhat more natural pose. Fortunately, they were happy to oblige in return for a few well placed peanuts.

Even Anne got in the act later in the week.

One of the other favorite activities of the week was swimming off the cottage’s dock. The water was clear and cool, and quite deep, so there was no risk of getting covered in goo. The kids had a blast goofing off in the water all week.

Every Tuesday night during the summer, the Parry Sound Cruzers Car Club has a drive-in car show at the town dock. We decided to visit while we were in town. I knew this would be a “target rich environment” but I also knew I didn’t want to take the typical pictures of the cars. As I tried to find some interesting details, I decided to focus on the hood ornaments/emblems.

I’m particularly fond of one other detail that I shot. This door-lock pull:

One of the photographic themes for the week seemed to be sunsets. Every time I want to take a picture of a sunset, I’m reminded of the phrase that they are “trite, overworked thematic expressions”. This was a judge’s comment on a sunset picture that my in-laws had submitted to a competition decades ago. So, as such, I try to break a few rules or find interesting aspects. My first is a somewhat typical sunset over the lake where we were staying. In fact, this shot was taken from their dock. I like the colors and the reflection.

The second sunset was a challenging moment after our stop at the Cruzers car show. We had walked to a nearby marina, and I set up the tripod waiting for some nice sunset shots. We were actually about 45 minutes from sunset, but that didn’t keep me from hoping. The kids started to get restless, and I could tell that my patience was not the one being tested. So I packed up the gear and started to head out. Then my wife said, “Honey, this would be a great shot!” from down on a little beach just a few feet from where I’d been. I like this one because of the sun on the water, the portrait orientation, and the clouds above. Yep, honey, it was. Thanks!

Just a little while later that same evening, when we were back at the cottage, I really liked the look of the clouds on the water. So I set up my tripod again.

On Thursday, we took a 3-hour sight-seeing cruise on the Island Queen. It was not cheap ($96 for our family of 4), but I found it very enjoyable. It took us on a tour of some of the islands and narrow passes near Parry Sound. The most disappointing part of the trip is that of the 96 pictures I took, I only feel like posting 5 of them, lest my blog post turn into an Island Queen photomentary (yes, I just made that up). Before the ship left port, I went exploring, looking for interesting detail shots. Here is a self-portrait.

Click the picture to see me a bit more clearly taking the picture from the middle deck. I also went looking for good family shots, but since one of our party wasn’t with us (he chose golfing over the boat ride), I decided to settle for a nearly candid shot of the group.

The views of the islands were spectacular. As just one example, here are a bunch of tiny islands called the “chain of tiny islands” or similarly pithy title.

The other theme for the week was wildlife. I’ve already mentioned the “tamelife” of the chipmunks. I also got a decent picture of a cormorant, a mediocre picture of some osprey, and this gorgeous shot of a sea gull. He had been following the Island Queen hoping to entice the tourists into feeding him. For the most part, he was able to glide along matching the speed of the ship as we motored along.

Finally, I was also able to capture a hummingbird. Not once, not twice, but about 10 times. Yes, there was a feeder, and the hummingbirds were accustomed to people in the area. I’m still very proud of this set of pictures: they were taken on a tripod, with the camera and flash set in full manual mode. I focused on the feeder, got the exposure settings, set the flash and took a few test shots to tweak the settings. I then stood near by with my recently acquired remote and waited. The flash took several seconds to recycle, so I got 2 to 3 shots each time the hummingbird came to feed. The flash seemed to startle the bird a bit since it backed away from the feeder a foot with each shot, but quickly came back. Below are the four best shots.

ISO 800, f/8, 1/250s, 170mm

Other random thoughts

I tried very hard to take the camera gear and tripod with me everywhere we went, even if I didn’t feel like taking pictures. The car show and sunset pictures afterwords are some examples–I wasn’t feeling much like taking pictures that evening, but I took the stuff with me anyway. I had the camera when we left the car show, but ran (literally) back to our vehicle get the tripod when I noticed the opportunity for sunset pictures approaching.

One of the sunset shots I desperately tried to make was a portrait orientation with an interesting rock in the foreground. So I had the aperture set to its smallest setting, camera on a tripod, and varying lengths of exposure, some using flash, but I just could not get the rock illuminated enough to provide foreground interest. I think this would be solved with a Cactus wireless transmitter to get the flash off the camera body.

I demonstrated better patience this week than in previous weeks. When Anne informed me that the rest of the crew was leaving the car show, I lingered to get a few remaining details. When shooting the hummingbirds, I kept at it until I was satisfied that I had a good bunch. However, I nearly missed the first sunset mentioned above because I ran out of patience waiting for a good shot–I packed up the gear, went up to the cottage, sat down with a beer, only to hear the host say “Wow, that one is really pretty. Rick, you should get a shot of that!” I heeded the advice and got better shots than in the previous 30 minutes of watching the dimishing light.

Finally, on our last day, we went to the beach, and I was very conscious that I had yet to take a family shot. I liked a beach that was rugged, and a bit removed from the public beach at which we’d been swimming.  The original shot was underexposed for our semi-shadowed faces. Fortunately I was able to adjust it enough to salvage a decent shot.