Ottawa River Sunset

Eleven years here, and we hadn't yet really been to Arnprior. In a sense, I still haven't really been to Arnprior, but I have now visited the town's Robert Simpson Park on the Ottawa River. I could seen the park on Google Maps and speculated that it might have a good sunset view. As it turns out, it was okay but not the best.

We arrived well before sunset, but I could see that the angle wasn't the best as the sun was going to pretty much set behind the trees to the left in the photo below.

While we were up there, however, the universe beamed down on Sue.

But you can also see a little spit protruding into the river way down there (in the first photo that I showed), so that's where we eventually headed.

But the spit wasn't very big, and the sightlines weren't great. What I mean by that is that it was difficult to find decent foreground elements. Although there were some boulders, they were low, and there wasn't much of an angle once I got the camera down there although I tried (below).

I ended up taking most of my shots from a small beach area adjacent to the spit. It wasn't perfect, but it gave me a little more to work with. ↓

Well, after all of that preamble, let's look at some pics.

This ↓ was an early one, taken at 8:11. I like the contrast between the blue and yellow/orange. However, on this occasion, I wanted to try long exposures to smooth out the water.

So, I put on my neutral density filter and went to long exposures. The next one below was taken 11 minutes later. The light was already very different; the blue is gone although that may also be due partly to the filter and the processing as well as the time. It was taken at 5 seconds.

But at 5 seconds, there are still ripples in the water that I wanted to smooth out, so I dialled in for a 10 second exposure, and the water went smooth. This ↓ was shot at 8:45, 23 minutes after the previous photo and 34 minutes after the first.

I like something about each photo: the blue in the first (I don't mind the ripples); the slight ripples of the second; and, the glassiness of the third, which I also think has the best composition. However, I don't think any of them truly nailed it from that position.

Here are a few more before I go. They are more zoomed it and ignoring the effort for close foreground elements.

Arnprior is only a half hour from us, so I think it was worth making the effort although I don't think it was good enough for a return trip — not for that specific reason anyway.