I didn’t get out for my walk today but that doesn’t mean that there isn’t anything to photograph. This grackle has a family it’s feeding hidden away in the branches in my neighbour’s evergreen.
Grackle
Our backyards are full of interesting critters if we pay attention.
Another fresh snowfall has hit the city and I snuck out for a quick shoot down in the creek by my home.
Winter Streets
The city always looks so pretty when fresh snow falls, at least until the dirty streets encroach on the beautiful white.
Freshly fallen snow
When I get to the creek it feels ethereal. As though at any moment a fairy or possibly a white rabbit will come and take you through a portal to wonderland.
Follow the footprints home
The path home
This is the best part of winter.
As the second day dawned we left behind our posh hotel room and headed for the border. It’s just a quick drive over the river into Gatineau, Quebec and then on towards our first waterfall of the day – Chutes de Plaisance.
Chutes de plaisance
A short hike takes us to a lookout halfway down the falls. I found the view to be pretty good but couldn’t quite get a shot I liked. Further down the slope I took the photo above which shows most of the upper portion of the falls. Continuing down to the the river below the bottom of the falls was mostly obscured with only the a small portion visible. Downriver small islands of ice were caught in the dark waters.
From here we drove back to Ottawa to photograph a couple more waterfalls – Rideau Falls and Hogs Back Falls. Rideau was a bit of a bust for me. There was construction around the area so there were only a couple of viewpoints both of which didn’t give me anything worthwhile. I had more luck at Hogs Back Falls.
Hogs Back Falls
It was still a little restrictive but I worked on getting some close ups along with a couple wide angle views. Rain started to fall not long after we set up our tripods and soon we were all out of inspiration so we piled back into the car and headed to one last spot before packing it in for the day.
Watson’s Mill
Watson’s mill, located in Manotick, was still dressed up in its Christmas attire but by the river side it was all business. I found a spot close to the water’s edge and specifically put these reeds in the foreground to give some depth to the photo. The sky wasn’t very interesting so I left as much of it out as possible concentrating on the rapids in the river with the mill in the background.