It's All About the Light

For the previous two years, Sue's photo group has called for her to photograph the same location in each of the four seasons. This year, they ask her to return to the location of her choice on the 5th of each month. It can be tricky here where we have such a real winter because we can't get to some locations in winter — or at least in a normal winter. Due to accessibility, we have to choose carefully.

This year, we chose the entrance to the park nearest to us. This meant that we wouldn't have to struggle to get into the park in order to get to the chosen spot, but the view would still be acceptable. A photo of a beautiful cover of snow could be pretty nice too.

The trouble is that there haven't been many great winter photos this year. While there was snow in February is was not one of those dreamy winter photos. 

We checked it out around noon on the 4th, and the scene was uninspiringly drab without snow and also with no rising of spring colour. I suggested that we should return when the sun was low behind us, to see if and how it would light up the park. Well, it certainly did.

We are reminded that photography is about the light.

This ↓ is approximately where Sue will take her photo on every 5th of the month. At about 5:30, you can see the long shadows, mine included. The light is warm in the low sunlight whereas it had been somewhat stark when we had checked closer to noon. 

There were geese on the pond, and the two by the little peninsula caught my eye. I like their reflections as well as the tree reflections. We came at a good time, both in terms of the time of day and for the calmness which gave us the reflections.

I tried to situate the geese well in the frame.

Speaking of frames, I decided to try a shot through the branches, and I like the result well enough. In a photo like this, something pretty well has to be a bit unsharp, but I can accept the somewhat blurry branches for the sake of the composition.

I seldom think to capture video, but here is a very short clip of the geese and their honking.

Here is Sue's composite of the scene. She returned the next day, which was the proper day for the photo, and put it in a composite. She also got clouds in the sky, which doesn't always happen.