Light and Shadow
Here we are, March 2020. Politics is as weird as usual, and coronavirus/COVID-19 is scaring the crap out of everybody.
Ain’t no politics here, and the only corona might be a frosty halo around the sun. It’s still winter, so the landscape is still a study in black and white, with the occasional colour burst when I can drag myself out of bed in time.
Speaking of which, I finally did get up early one morning, around 4:45 AM, and drove about an hour and a half north of Winnipeg. I have no idea what possessed me, I just knew from the forecast it would be a bitter cold morning and mostly clear skies. In an earlier blog I’ve presented pictures of this old homestead I stumbled across sinking into the marshes of the Shoal Lakes. I thought maybe the scene would be dramatically different in winter, and first light might bring rewards.
I arrived about an hour before dawn. The sky was full of stars, but old moon was up, and the horizon had already started turning red and purple. I pulled my car over to the side of the road where I thought the trail to the homestead was. I’d only been there once before, in full summer, but I still thought I had an idea where the trail began. How wrong I was. It was -30C (much colder than the city), there was a lot more snow than I expected, and I hadn’t brought snowshoes. I thought my target was this small clump of bushes and trees (this shot was taken later, when I starting hiking it was just a silhouette against an indigo sky):
But I quickly realized that island couldn’t be my destination. Dawn was quickly approaching, all that “getting up early” crap was about to be for naught! I started zig-zagging, like a fly lost in a shaded room, floundering around and face planting in snow that would briefly hold my weight before collapsing completely. I actually ended up crawling for about 10 minutes through a large patch of bottomless powder. Finally I saw a small lump on the horizon…there it was! Now I just had to get there. I floundered and swam my way to the ruin, and arrived just as the sun rose, hot and sweaty. I snapped a couple of quick shots with my iPhone before getting down to work with the “real” camera:
The Pentax has a greater dynamic range, and provides much better colours I think:
From a different angle, with the sun starting to light things up directly, I was able to create this panorama from 3 photos:
It’s a simple shot, and most of the intense early colour is gone, but I’m really pleased with it, for several compositional reasons, never mind just the scene itself. It would be interesting to know what (if anything) the pano evokes in other people. To me there is an interplay of serenity and severity that I love about this land…but maybe that’s coloured by my experience. It was very quiet with barely any wind, but I was also struggling to get the shots without losing fingers. Even though I started out overheated, things cool down pretty quickly at -30C. At every step my inner commentary was something like:
Me: “Just one more, from that angle.”
Fingers: “Screw you! I can’t feel nothin’ no more!”
Me: “They say if you love something, let it go…”
Fingers: “That’s not about fingers!”
So I’d strap the pack back on and wade around in the snow until I was hot again, and then the gloves would have to come off. I spent another 30 minutes exploring every side of the structure, but in the end I’m not as pleased with the later shots.
Once I was done (and 2 of my 3 camera batteries had drained to nothing), it was about a kilometre back to the car (I’d made a bit of a loop while trudging through the snow earlier). By this time sun had risen quite high, and the light became rather harsh. The cluster of bushes and trees I had originally thought was my destination was now an island in the haze:
I like the minimalism.
I’d like to mention that the rural ethic was on full display. Several cars slowed to a crawl at my parked car, only moving on with a wave when they saw me in the field. On my way back a fellow in a pickup stopped, made sure I was okay, and my car wasn’t dead. Very friendly and helpful, though they probably thought I was nuts.
The next couple of weeks I wasn’t able to go as far afield, mostly just to Bird’s Hill. This was fine though, as I’ve decided to dive fully into the Olympus camera system and am still figuring it out. I picked up a new EM1-mark3, the latest in the EM1 line, which will now replace my earlier EM1-mark1 (which is at least 6 years old…an eternity in camera years). I won't get too technical, but I’m really impressed with the mark3, it has some unbelievable features. The three that have me jazzed are:
Optical image stabilization. So far I’ve taken shots as slow a 1/5th of a second without even thinking about it or having to brace myself.
Better auto-focus. The Pentax system is just terrible except for static scenes.
Longer telephotos. This will hopefully make bird photography worthwhile, and combined with the auto-focus I might get more keepers.
Not sure what to do with the Pentax system now. All the lenses are pretty new, so I can probably recoup some of my investment. I have to admit I am curious if Pentax will release an upgrade to their current system, and what I might have to offer, but the more I use the Olympus, the less curious I become.
Anyway, back to Bird’s Hill. The title of this blog was Light and Shadow. I have been lucky to have some interesting light these past few weekends. I am 99% sure this next shot is NOT everyone’s cup of tea, but this is probably one of my favourite shots in months:
Obviously it’s back-lit from the late afternoon sun, and to me the shadows look like reflections in a pool. It’s chaotic, but I think I managed to find an order and balance.
On the other hand, this one doesn’t work nearly as well:
I definitely like the idea of the shot better than the execution. One point of failure is the deer trail in the snow, it’s supposed to be a leading line. However, I cropped it too tightly so it’s cut off on the left, and when it returns into the frame, the trail overlaps a tree shadow too much, so it gets lost and doesn’t do its job as a leading line. The initial attraction was the strong diagonals contrasting with strong verticals, but it didn’t quite work out.
My first outing with the EM1-mark3 netted these couple of shots. Late afternoon along a frozen ditch, I like the S-curve of the trail, and the gloomy sky above:
And even later in the afternoon, as the clouds were rolling in, the sun peeked out briefly to provide some nice side-lighting:
Finally, today I was out again, mostly walking a dog (which makes getting any photography done a bit of a challenge, because she whines if we aren’t moving forward, and sheds right into my camera bag 😫 ), but managed this simple shot:
I’ll end again with a doggy shot. The nice thing about dog+photography is she lets me practice my technique for getting moving subjects. This really tests the camera’s auto-focus, and I have to say I’m really happy with the EM1-mark3 in that regard:
Somehow the EM1 figured out I wanted the dog, not the grass blades in between. The Pentax would have been confused and done a lot of “hunting”.
That ends it for this month. The weather is warm, definitely too warm. This winter felt too short, I only got out a couple of times with my heavy winter gear. But March is unpredictable, perhaps there will be some surprises.
Cheers!