So I called up my friend Nigel and asked him if he was interested in a road trip to Algonquin Park. Now, Algonquin is over 3 hours away from our homes and its usual for us to get ideas like this, We’ve gone up to Tobermory for the day (3.5 hours one way) for a day. We’ve gone for drives that take us out to Bon Echo only to find it closed (it’s about 3 hours away). We feel that it’s always worth a drive and plus there are lots of places to stop along the way so it’s never a wasted trip. And today was pretty epic because – Autumn.
Autumn Road
I mean, look at these gorgeous colours. How can you not take the opportunity to drive up? We had a pit stop in Huntsville were we got the idea to drive a little further north to Screaming Heads. Not sure what I’m talking about? Well, Screaming Heads is an art installation that is absolutely spectacular to see in person. Or course, we should have done some checking on whether it was open before we drove 30 minutes out of our way. Because of Covid-19 the place was closed to the public. Luckily we had our long lenses and caught a few photos from the road.
Screaming Heads
This photo doesn’t do the installation justice. It is a tiny portion of a massive area filled with all sorts of statues. I am putting this back on my bucket list for next year. Form here we headed back down towards Algonquin Park, We stopped for some lunch and decided that rather than going into the park we would head over to Oxtongue River.
Oxtongue River
It was definitely the better choice considering our limited time. I photographed these 3 paper birch trees across the rushing river.
Oxtongue River 2
But when I saw this twisted tree I knew I had to figure out a way to get a shot of it. I tried all sorts of angles. I ended up going back to the car to get my wide angle lens just so I could get enough of this twisted tree in with the river and the autumn colours. This photo is definitely one of my favourites from the trip.
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Want to learn more about Screaming Heads? Check out them out here.
I bought a new camera – the D810, while I was waiting to service my D800. My brother also ended up buying a camera not too long after. So, both of us decided to go out on a spring adventure with our new toys. The question was, where to? We decided to stay local so I brought him to Limehouse Conservation Area to play.
Limehouse Rapids
We tested out some long exposures at the rapids.
Dark Forest Path
Took some fun landscape shots as we walked the trails.
Hole in the Wall
And ended our journey at the Hole in the Wall. We tested out a good amount of the features and I’m happy to say I love my new camera. It now has a permanent home in my camera bag.
I decided recently that I need some more black and white in my life. So in that vain, I picked one of my photographs from this morning’s hike on the Bruce Trail to have some fun with.
Bruce Trail River
Initially I thought I would take the photo into Silver Effex 2 but I didn’t like how it was coming out so I tried out ON1’s new RAW program which I found it much easier to use for what I wanted to create. After saving in Photoshop I did some dodging to the rapids in the foreground and the trees in the back to get some depth.
My friend Nigel Banks and I headed to Spencer Gorge in Hamilton to get us a waterfall fix. Our destination – Webster Falls. The falls used to be easily accessed to from the Webster’s Falls parking lot but a few years ago they closed the stairwell that led down to the base of the waterfall. That left only one option to get to the base – hike the 2km from further downstream.
Spencer Creek
With Autumn still kicking around and most of the leaves hanging on for dear life to their branches it was well worth the hike upstream. There were many opportunities to stop and photograph our surroundings which made the walk take just a “squidge” longer than it should have (okay a lot longer – but who’s counting?).
Webster’s Falls
Webster’s Falls never disappoints, with its two level drop and good flow there is no bad time of year to come here. Which is why it was so popular before they closed the stairwell. Hopefully one day soon they will replace the stairs and reopen the area.
Looking Downstream from the Falls
But it is nice to have the time alone here without any crowds so we can just do our thing and take our time about it.
