hanging around…
I shot this fellow last Saturday, during a walk along the waterfront…I watched him for sometime and took many shots to get this one…
one of us has gone fishin!
I saw three female ducks sitting on the rocks last Saturday just like this…I had to take a photo of this lady as she actually looks angry! apparently ducks do this to keep warmer…
gone fishin…
this female didn’t mind her photo being taken!
A windy day at the beach!
these next photos were taken on the same day…it was very windy but the ducks seem to be enjoying the turbulent water…swimming about! the female below was rather nosy and came up very close…some are more skittish than others…
this next photos was take in the creek that flows into Lake Nipissing…I’ve watched this family on and off, for about a month now…babies are getting big!
a bit of B & W
I becoming a big fan of b & w…these are older shots I’ve converted as I’ve not been able to take many photos and the ones I’ve taken I’ve not done anything with yet. I’ll get to them soon I hope. The photo below is cropped as I liked the rather eery look of it this way…believe it or not there is a restaurant/bar behind me, I think I’ve shown photos of before…right on a canal that feeds into to Lake Harris, Leesburg Florida.
this is a shot I took from my vehicle window while driving through Kentucky on my way home last winter…if you are a visitor you will know I’m a huge fan of “naked” trees…
this is one side of Sunset Park point…before all the ice was gone…I thought the b & w made this shot look rather interesting…
sunset from the past…
I took some photos on Saturday that I deleted, they were awful due to user error… I was looking through my photos for something to post as I’ve not been able to get out and take any photos since Saturday…found this, it will work for now!
I hope to take more photos tomorrow, but for now these are a couple more from the other day…this one was taken looking in the opposite direction from the ducks. Off Silver Beach
I love flowers and always make sure I’ve them in the house…I usually choose purples and white, while not my usual choice, these caught my eye…
converted and not…
I’ve recently converted a number of color photos to black & white…when the shot works I find it very appealing.
my first photos…
Some of you will know I’ve not been happy with my 18mm-50mm lens that came with my camera, I felt limited with it…I’ve thought about this for a few months as I wasn’t sure what I wanted or even if I needed a new lens. This one was suggested as a starting point, something I could build from…it is a Nikon AF 50mm f/1.8D, it wasn’t expensive, but I’ve read many positive reviews, it also comes highly recommended by a blogging friend…it is supposed to be a great lens in spite of the cost. I’ve only taken a few shots with it so I’m not sure what I’m doing with it yet…time will tell!
I was about 10 feet away from this mom and her chicks, she didn’t seem to be afraid of me,but she didn’t want me too close…as I inched closer she kept walking away, with one eye on me at all times…
I like the texture on tree trunks, when I saw this one with the mushrooms growing I decided to see how much detail I could pick up…
more clouds and water…
these photos were taken on different days, but you will be able tell that from looking at the sky…
The Chief Commanda Restaurant
The Chief Commanda ll on its way back to the dock…this was de-colorized slightly
this next one I originally took because I wanted a shot of the duck, but I ended up liking the reflections and movement in the water…
a different perspective…
usually I go down to the waterfront to take photos, but today I was driving by from one street over and decided to walk to the top of a berm that is in front of this area to see if I could capture a different perspective of this particular spot…
angry clouds…
I have to admit I’ve a major weakness for dark, moody, angry looking clouds…I don’t want any storm to accompany them, I only want to watch the clouds. I stopped along the waterfront earlier today as we had such clouds rolling around in the sky, no storm, just fabulous clouds! It is amazing to watch them change before your very eyes…mesmerizing! I’ve not done anything to these photos…this is how the clouds looked…I may try HDR, on these photos another day… for for now this is it.
when I see the lake this calm with clouds like this I always think, “the calm before the storm” I’ll let you know…
water day…
I’ve not had a chance to get out and take new shots so for today, two of the photos will be ones I took two Saturdays ago, the other one is from Cocoa Beach that I took this winter…I love the water so never get tired of see or taking water photos! I wanted the whole pier so had to stand way back then crop the photo to bring it in…not thrilled with it though.
the pier at Cocoa Beach…only visited for a few days but enjoyed it…on the pier I think there are 4 restaurants…only visited one but enjoyed the food and music!
this is another part of the waterfront here, if you look closely you can see the Chief Commanda I, restaurant in the background.
and of course Chief Commanda II, from a different angle…
pretty pink tulips
on Saturday after the Market I took a few more photos besides the Chief Commanda II…some of them were of the lovely tulips along the water front. It was a warm sunny day on Saturday, since then the warmth and sun have been simply a memory…as we get further into summer here I’m hoping to be able to take more shots of flowers…I don’t have any in my yard right now as the landscaping is being done…I don’t have much of a green thumb so it will be simple, with flowers that grow like weeds!
her replacement!
yesterday after the Market I went down to the waterfront hoping to get a couple of shots of the Chief Commanda II. I got much more, but that is for another day…today here are shots of the grand old lady’s replacement. Info regarding the Chief Commanda II can be found here… http://georgianbaycruise.com/index.php?page=home
a grand old lady!
this grand old lady, the Chief Commanda, once took passengers on cruises of Lake Nipissing and the French River from 1947 to 1974. The original ship was named after Raymond Commanda, the local chief who drowned in the French River in 1944, three years before the Chief Commanda 1 was launched. This location is at the Government Dock, and is now a restaurant in the summers months. Once the Chief Commanda 11 is launched I will take a few photos to post…in order they are black & white, color and sepia all have adjustments to them…
black & white & color
I saw this old barn on the drive home from Florida this winter… in Kentucky I think. The photos was taken from the vehicle out of the passenger side window. The roof has seen better days…thought I’d try it in both color and black & white…do you have a preference?
these of course are more of the gnarly bent trees…
black & white
I’ve always liked black & white photos…it is amazing the change in a photo when it is converted from colour to B & W…if you’ve visited before you know I drawn to gnarly trees…soon they will be covered with leaves…
I’m sure most people would think this photo was taken in the country somewhere…but what is on the other side of the red roof buildings is Lakeshore Drive, a busy road in North Bay…there are many areas along Lake Nipissing that look like this…this was taken from Sunset Park looking east…while the bay is open there is a very thing layer of ice on the water…
I know this is a rather simple photo of pussy willows, but I have to say this was a huge surprise to me…the tree had to be 8 or 9 feet tall…very scraggly with only the buds you see in this photo…I didn’t know they grew that tall…
anyone who visited in the winter time saw my post regarding the snowmobile “drag races”, well this is what is left of the drag race track…you can still see the banks on either side, showing the location of the track…
experimenting…
I visit a number of photography blogs and every now and then I’m inspired to try something different with the processing of the photos. I’m limited to some extent with the programs I have, Photoscape, and Picasa…I also have gimp but I’ve not taken the time to get into it. recently I”ve seen a few blogs who are using some form of HDR effect, which I rather like so I checked Picasa and it has a setting called HDR-ish…so I gave it a try with a couple of my photos…if you’ve been visiting for awhile you will know I’ve a thing for gnarly, naked trees…the waterfront on Lake Nipissing offers a few great ones due to the very high winds blowing regularly in the area…below is the original photo.
below I’ve used the HDR-ish setting…
of course this one is a simple black and white…more dramatic…
this one is black & white with HDR-ish used…
reflection, Mallard, floating
I went back to Sunset Park yesterday…I wanted to see if there were any changes since Sunday…not much really, with the exception of more snow piled up on the small islands off the shores of Sunset Park. I rather liked this piece of ice floating along…
on my way home I stopped at the Eva Wardlaw Conservation area…the creek flows into Lake Nipissing…it was like glass yesterday…allowing for interesting reflections…
saw this Mallard Duck come out of the culvert and swim along towards Lake Nipissing…he didn’t appear to care that I was there, although he did make sure to stay close to the opposite bank…I saw a number of Mallards at Sunset Park but they didn’t like me around and quickly flew away…
spring is working on it!
here are a couple more of the ice breaking up…all were taken on Sunday. this is facing the area/bay where I grew up, if you look closely you will see a water tower above the tree line on the left just past the clump of trees in the foreground. my home as a child is to the left of that…I know you can’t see anything but this may help visitors understand why I love the water so much!
I like the dark and light of the pieces of ice…some pieces are more saturated with water than others…I heard on the news last evening there is a possibility of flooding on Lake Nipissing…they feel it could reach flood levels by the weekend…
some of you may remember I shot a photo from a similiar angle in the winter…looks different…I’ll take another when the grass is green…
Sunset Park…
Sunday afternoon I ventured over to Sunset Park…the last photos I showed from here were during the snowmobile drag races…well this day was all about the ice beginning to break up…this is facing the sw shore…I’ve more ice shots and will post them once I’ve had a chance to look through them all…I should make an effort to go back in the next day or so as the temperature has been around 58F yesterday and today which will to soften the ice.
more winter photos…
this was taken yesterday…the wind was bitterly cold, but when I first went out it was somewhat sunny..I’ve been meaning to take a photo of this tree since last fall and just got around to it yesterday…I took the shot at the wrong angle because it is difficult to tell that it is leaning right over the beach area…I should have taken it from the side…another day. this is looking west out over Lake Nipissing…still frozen solid, but it is starting to open up at the shore line and it is a good sign when we see dark areas in the ice…
below is some of the ice as it begins to move at the Waterfront, Lake Nipissing…I’ve got some really interesting shots from Sunset Park this afternoon of the ice movement…haven’t had time to process them yet, hopefully tomorrow
this is the nw side of Sunset Park…the water is down right now but not nearly as low as it usually is…the sand that is visible is usually covered with water in the summer time.
more of Lake Nipissing
I took these yesterday, the first two are looking in the opposite direction of yesterdays photos…it will most likely be another two weeks before the ice is completely off the lake. Of course that all depends on how much wind and rain we have as both of these contribute to the ice break up.
What I was trying to show in the photo below is there are buds on this tree…on a few trees I noticed…I couldn’t zoom in as the trees are very mature and much taller than I at 5ft 4in…but…if you squint, you can see the buds…:) Spring is officially here!
beautiful day…
today is gorgeous…a blue, blue sky, which I absolutely love, sunny, a bit windy, but 49F which is none to shabby at this point! I managed to snap a few shots on my walk at one of the public access for Lake Nipissing. The whole lake is still completely frozen, but it is beginning to open at the shore, at least it is a start…there is already a small amount of debris on the shoreline, always is in the spring. It is from the people who ice fish out on the lake in the winter, they are supposed to cart their garbage/debris home with them and most do…if you look closely at the second and third photo you will see the debris…it will eventually get washed up on shore and be cleaned up.
FYI…these photos were taken with my iPhone 5…
looking west…
I wanted to play a bit with this photo as I thought it had great potential…as you may have noticed I’m a huge fan of contrasts…so that is what you will see today…below is the original photo…this was taken last Saturday before I went the the Radar Runs…
this is threshold adjusted…
sepia of course…I’m becoming a fan of sepia, it adds interesting colour to the photo, giving an aged appearance to the photo…
up close and personal…
I hunted for these two photos last week and I couldn’t find them…I found one similiar but not the right one…then yesterday when I was looking for something completely different, of course I found these two…the one below is a terrible photo, I was inside the house and there is a very large over hang, like a huge wooden umbrella so it didn’t allow for a great shot, terribly dark and I tried many things to do something with it…but it shows how close the deer came to my house on the lake…
on his way home…as you can see the water is not up to full levels.
Sunset Park…
I took a few photos yesterday at Sunset Park, before venturing over to the Radar Runs…it was such a beautiful day yesterday…today is pretty good as well…sunny and relative warm for a winter day! -2C but 28F for those using Fahrenheit. the photo below is looking out onto Lake Nipissing…to the west. I rather like this one below, something about the trees that always appeals to me…think I’ll do a bit of experimenting with it in a few days…
the next two photos are looking north west along the Lake Nipissing shore line….
radar run…
today was a beautiful day…sunny, no wind to speak of and not terribly cold! I saw in the paper the snowmobile Radar Runs were taking place today at Sunset Park,Lake Nipissing, so I decided to take a few minutes and take a look…I used to love going to these events when I was younger…driving a snowmobile was very high on my list of a good time…I managed to get a few photos, but I have to say the lack of attendance surprised me…there were a large number of participants but very few spectators…years ago when I attended it was wall to wall people, it was difficult to get a good viewing spot for each event…
the photo below should be to the left of the photo above…didn’t know how to pan with the camera so did it in two shots…regardless of the lack of spectators the participants to enjoyed themselves…if you look very closely at the top photo you can see the track just left of centre in the photo…
just finished his races…
favourites…
I’d decided to show you a few of my favourite photos today…but…I’ve been having an issue with the photos showing up on the page properly…anyone else having a problem with this?
low visibility or bright & sunny…
yesterday was bitterly cold, more important the wind was very strong & raw, it was a north west wind so it came of the lake, whipping up the snow and blowing it around…I took two photos yesterday of ice huts on the lake to show you what kind of day it was…today I took photos of the same ice huts to compare…
above is yesterday…visibility was very low…below is today, still very cold but nice!
again above is yesterday and below is today…the wind is still cold today but nothing like yesterday…
there was a time when I enjoyed ice fishing, snowmobiling…I’m passed that now! 🙂
moody skies…
I love a moody sky…something about them that has so much character…now don’t get me wrong, I love the clear blue sky with soft, fluffy white clouds as well…each has their appeal to me…
this is of the same island I’ve been showing on and off…this view is south west of where I lived, I would be standing at the far end of the break wall to take this photo…this is of course before the water has been drawn down…some years it is later than others.
another almost naked tree…this tree still has leaves on it today…I can see it out my window…
what a differnce a season makes!
the photos below are of the same tree, take frnm slightly different angels & of course taken at different times of the year…I added the double photo below as it was something I was trying with PhotoScape…turned out alright but it cuts off the original photo…would have to take the time to crop the photos to fit…the individual photos are below this one…
this tree is in Champlain Park, in North Bay…we are very fortunate here to have such a beautiful lake…the sad thing is this park has very little use…when I was a teenager I used to visit this park all the time…it was crazy busy then.
now the park sees very few visitors, except a few people walking their dogs or people bringing children to play, or those who use the boat ramp off of Lavasse River…rather sad when you think of such a beautiful area not being used to its potential…
a mixture…
when I went for my walk yesterday I only managed to get one photo…didn’t see anything new and interesting, this is the only thing that caught my eye…happens that way sometimes…I’ve walked past this tree many times but always from the opposite direction so I’m assuming I didn’t notice the gnarly branches/trunk…I will have to walk that way again to see if I can get a better view of the one branch in particular…
I won’t tell you were I found this web… 😉 I will say spider webs are very interesting…the intricacy and designs always amaze me…
more warm weather shots…
Daytona Beach, 2008 or 09 not sure which…I used to enjoy visiting…was rather disappointed the last time I was there in 2011… 
Daytona Beach…found these two photos, figured they would make good warm weather shots 
PS…it is considerably warmer here today 9F, a balmy day… 🙂 so I’m going to walk today, will take photos but they will be snowy winter ones!
summer photos in honour of the snow!
I’m late again today…we had at least 10 inches of snow Friday over night and we are expected to have close to the same again tonight! Ok…I really think it is time for someone else to take a turn…seriously, I won’t mind… 😉
In honour of all that snow I’m posting summer photos…
above is a small view of a few of the great shops on 5th Ave., Naples, this was early in the morning when it wasn’t busy… 
this photo is of Callander Bay, east end of Lake Nipissing(approx. 3 kilometres in diameter) but something I’ve not shown before as I don’t have many photos of this area…I will have to take more as it really is very lovely, more so in the summer! 
above is on the drive to key west…coming up to a abridge, not sure if it is the long bridge or not…excuse the antenna…
this is one of the public accesses I like to stop at on my walks…this was taken November 13, 2012, on a blustery day…Lake Nipissing is famous for being calm one minute and gale force winds the next, which has led to some rather frightening times on the lake, when I was younger…not gale force this day but windy non the less…
this is the exact same location…a bit broader photo, you see more of the trees on the left. this exactly one month later…December 13, 2012…looks more calm and serene this day!
clear skies and ocean…except one!
I have many more snow photos but I thought maybe I should show you something else…we did get some snow last evening…not sure how much…enough to need to shovel!
this is in new town in Key West…it is not far from where you come on to the island…pretty but I prefer old town, it is much more quaint!
Key West marina…there is a nice boardwalk, with restaurants, in case you need to keep your strength up…
this is Lake Nipissing when the water has been drawn down, the left hand point is called Cheery Point…they draw down the water every fall to avoid flooding in the spring…I used to live to the right of the photo…we had a huge sand bar, often similiar to this, most falls…in the twenty years we lived there I remember a couple of times we had flooding in some areas along the shore line…we had damage done to our break wall and water came up very close to the house…I moved from this house in 2010…
signs of the times…
I’ve visited this public beach access often during my walks this fall, always finding it clean…but…the other day when I stopped by to take photos I found these two signs, along with the full garbage can? we have such a beautiful water front, we should respect its beauty…it is such a sad state of affairs when it is necessary to post signs to remind people to clean up after their dog!!! never mind the logic of people who feel it is acceptable to throw their garbage around the access…as I mentioned I’d always found this access clean but on that day someone had walked their dog and didn’t clean up after it…were they snubbing their nose at the sign? truly sad…
by the way…there is the blue snow again…
went for my walker later today just in time for the beginning of what ended up being a stunning sunset, saw part of the final performance but wasn’t able to photograph it as I had an appointment but this is one of the photos I managed to get…the sky and sunset colouring is relatively accurate but as you can see the snow is blue…I managed to get the snow close to white in my photo program but then the sunset was way off…so I chose to leave the snow blue…as I’m sure I’ve mentioned before I’m a complete beginner so I did a bit of research and as most of you will know it has to do with the “white balance”…my son lent me his Sony camera to experiment with, his camera has a setting with one for a “whitish scene with high brightness” which I think should help? I’ll give it a try and see what happens…
beautiful sky…
what a glorious day for a walk…it is warm today, sunny and smells like spring…what more could I want? I know the warm spring like weather is only just for a day or so but will enjoy it while I can…the sky was that strikingly beautiful blue with some fluffy, powder puff type clouds…I live in a small city so it was very difficult to get any photos of the sky with out trees…now don’t get me wrong, trees are one of my very favourite items in nature to photograph…but today was about the sky! I’m going to have to take some time and go for a drive outside the city…
I captured some descent tree shots, but was very disappointed with some of the lake nipissing shots, not sure what happened…when I took the photos into the sun the sky was close to natural but with the sun behind me the whole photo is terrible? Oh well…another day to try…
this is a shot of the partially frozen lavasse river, at the mouth of lake nipissing, which is in champlain park… I’ve visited here many times over the last twenty years as my home was a 5 minute walk from here…happy new year!
I wondered what I should post for my first in 2013…I decided on a photo of two of the views I love most…a sunset on lake nipissing. This was taken a few years ago…
off premier road, lake nipissing
this was taken a few years ago…when I lived on the shores of lake nipissing…funny how when something is there for 20 years it becomes common place, but when gone you feel the lose! This was part of my view for twenty years…I moved two and a half years and miss it more each day…
Happy New Year to you and yours…may 2013 bring you health, happiness & prosperity!
partially frozen…lake nipissing
this photo is from a few weeks ago…just before we had the 10 inches of snow, I haven’t been able to get any new shots at the access as the snow plows have pushed up mountains of snow, blocking my path..have to say I’m past climbing up mountains of snow!
second half…
I’ve begun using my son’s Sony camera and I don’t know if it has a panorama setting, so I took this photo in two sections, I can do a panorama shot with my iPhone but it was too cold for it that day…the sun was setting behind me giving the sky a beautiful look!
Heather Cote... 
