watchThisspace

Photographically speaking, last evening turned out to be a pleasant surprise. After dinner the fair weather clouds quickly changed to dark gray thunder clouds and heavy rain started to fall complete with high winds. Once the rain stopped I gathered up the camera and tripod and was just about to head out when it started up again - oh well, there will be another day. Then within 15 minutes it stopped as suddenly as it started and the sun started to poke through. I jumped in the car and headed down to Cootes Paradise, a mere couple a minutes away to see what would become of it.

When I arrived, the scene was quite ordinary and the location I first chose to explore was equally uninspiring. Thinking the evening was going to be a bust, I was going to head back when I figured I'd continue exploring the shore for interesting features for a future shooting opportunity. After a short walk I happened upon a somewhat secluded spot that had some interesting water features and decided to stick around till the sun went down. To my amazement the scene started to transform; the wind died down, the water turned glassy with a slight mist rising in the distance and the clouds began to burn with light of the setting sun. The camera was all prepared and ready to go - tripod, cable release, 10mm wide angle lens and a 2 stop ND grad filter for the clouds.

Note to self - when I look back on some of my favorite shots there are a number of commonalities - 1. almost none were planned, 2. I had the right equipment with me and it was set up ready to go, 3. there were no pressing time constraints so I could afford to be patient, and 4. I shot multiple points of view of the same scene. I hope you don't mind the long winded text on this one ;)

43 16' 24.94" N, 79 53' 59.47" W View NW