Winter's Arrival
I'm blessed with good friends. Our normal fall ritual is to spend a long weekend hiking and camping in Spruce Woods Provincial Park, but this year it didn't pan out, so a friend generously offered his cabin up near Victoria Beach. Five guys, cold weather, and booze: a recipe for fun and silliness.
We arrived after dark, and after turning on the heat and loading up the cabin with a ridiculous amount of snacks and other non-essentials, we made our way down to the lake. This might be Canada, but even so, -15C at this time of year in the south was a bit unexpected. I took one picture, my first night shot. I had no idea what I was getting, but it has made me want to do more:
I had no idea I was going to get stars. There is also a greenish haze on the left, I'm not sure if that's a very faint aurora. We never saw it, but the exposure was 30 seconds, so it's possible it was there. I will have to read up on doing this properly!
The ridges are ice, pushed toward the shore by prevailing winds. The lake was still open water about 100 metres out.
The next morning I woke at 7am to see the sky turning glorious red. I dressed quickly and stumbled out to be greeted by a nippy -20C. I've been wanting to test my camera at these temperatures, and also test my clothing and other gear. The biggest challenge is keeping your fingertips warm, and trying not to breathe on the viewfinder. For the former I had liner gloves, made of some kind of soft shell with a rubberized grip pattern, and a pair of oversized mitts.
Enough about gear:
While the sky was glowing to the southeast, looking northwest revealed high clouds with purple highlights:
But I couldn't stay away from the sunrise itself, and the post-sunrise highlights:
I ended the morning with a silly shot, but I liked the symbolism. Read into it what you will:
After spending about 45 minutes out, my fingers were nippy and the camera's battery was reading empty. I will need a few more items to make -20C work better. These include a neck pouch for holding batteries and phone under my layers (instead of just in a pocket); and possibly even thicker mitts. But still, it all worked pretty well, and the even the camera's battery recovered after returning to the cabin. It was very encouraging for my future plans.
I got up early again the next morning. It was much warmer, about -7C, and I spent a couple hours exploring the lakeshore. It was a cloudier morning without a glorious red sky, but it gave an extended blue hour and the threat of more snow:
The next couple of hours were a treat of changing clouds and lighting:
Eventually the sun threatened to come out, but took its sweet time:
Further down the lakeshore was a jumble of logs. With all the recent snow and freeze-thaw, the icicles showed off their shapeful creativity:
Finally the sun arrived, the dark clouds to the north suggesting it wouldn't last long:
Side note: you can see the tracks of a fox at the lower edge above. I found it interesting as I made my way down the lakeshore that the fox seemed to follow a regular sine wave as it alternated between the forest and the lake. Possibly an evolutionary pattern to maximize a random search for prey?
Anyway, after a couple of hours it was time to head back. Finally, I had fun post-processing the heck out of this next one, changing it to B&W and really messing with the filters, saturation, and contrast to bring out the clouds. I even gave it a vignette, which I rarely do. In some ways it captures the feeling of the morning as well as the colour pictures.
Every outing is a learning experience, and the full winter promises to have more opportunities and challenges. Until then...cheers!
