Snowstorm

Just a quick post on the snowstorm that's been throwing things out of gear here in Montreal and the surrounding areas over the last couple of days.  I decided to work from home because I had a really hard time driving back in the snow last evening.  The car skidded a number of times and once I got home, I had an even harder time trying to get the car into the parking spot.  There was way too much snow and it felt like I was driving into a snow bank.  I was nervous as hell, this being the first major snowstorm I've driven in, and I just didn't want to risk driving back and forth today, especially after a freezing rain warning.

 

I had wanted to get to the last row of trees you see in the background.  The white field of snow beyond that row of trees is actually the frozen river :)

My bedroom blinds were pulled down, so I hadn't a clue what was happening outside since the morning, till I got up to go to the kitchen to grab something for lunch.  Lunch was forgotten when I saw that the snow was coming down in humungous flakes.  I donned my protective clothing, packed up my camera, picked up my tripod and headed out into the snow.  

I was optimistic about being able to get close to the river, because I wanted a shot of the Champlain bridge across the river in the snowy haze.  But no such luck!  The snow was at least 6 - 8 inches deep, and there was no way I could go in there.  I didn't have a lot of time, since I had to get back to my work, so I just put down my tripod any where I could and shot off a few frames.

I'm not totally satisfied with the compositions for a couple of reasons - I had to hurry back, and you cannot really do a lot when you are strapped for time.  I was using my 17 - 50 mm lens, but the snow prevented me from going further back to be able to get more of the scene.  So, I just mostly stayed in one place and did what I could.  Additionally, the snow was getting on my lens and it just didn't feel safe.  So, I packed up after about 10 shots or fewer, and headed back home.  I got some curious looks from the occasional drivers who were brave enough to be on the road - I just smiled back at them, knowing what they might be thinking - what a crazy woman she must be! ;-)

The white blotches in this image is snow on my lens :)

A Cold and Misty Morning

I remember the first time I had seen the mist over the river one chilly winter morning last year.  I had been on my way to work and when I'd looked out of the window, I'd seen mist curling up from the water's surface.  I hadn't seen anything like that before, and I remember being intrigued by it.  I was on the bus, no camera handy, so all I could do was whip out my cellphone and click a couple of snaps before the road curved and the river was out of sight. I mentioned it to a colleague and he told me that he had seen it before and that it happened on a chilly and bright morning right after a mild day during the winter.  It made sense that the cold air would mist up when it came in contact with the relatively warmer waters.  And since that first time, I'd seen this once more after that.

Since I'm on vacation, and I thought it might be nice to do some photography at sunrise, I decided to wait for a mild day followed by a really bright and chilly one.  I checked the weather, checked the cloud cover, and then checked the temperatures.  Seemed perfectly what I was looking for!  So, I set the alarm for 6:30 am.  

I would need about 15 to 20 mins to reach the spot I had in mind, and then another 5 mins. or so to set up.  I would have at least 20 mins, before the actual sunrise at 7:33 am.  Except when I reached the spot, I realized that the sun had moved during its annual journey and the sunrise wouldn't be visible from that spot any longer.  I was frantic.  I walked down another 500m or so and found the spot where it looked like the sun might be hiding just below the horizon.  Praying that was it, I set up.  

The temperature was minus 19 deg C and with the windchill it was around minus 23.  I was dressed quite warmly and I hadn't planned on staying out for long anyway.  But the wind, especially because I was right next to the river, was bone chilling.  My ears and nose started to freeze first, and then my fingertips.   

And then the magic happened!  The sun started to peep out just above the horizon and as it got a little bit brighter, I saw the mist curling upwards - slow, small curls to begin with, and then it suddenly seemed like the river water was boiling and steam started pouring forth. The wind blew the mist right up to the shore, and it was absolutely breathtaking! 

I forgot my fingers, and my toes.  I just kept my eyes on the river.  And all of a sudden, a flock of ducks landed on the water.  That was a once-in-a-lifetime sight that I wasn't prepared with my camera for.  I had no idea that there would still be ducks in this kind of weather, but the winter had been really mild up to that point, and I have a feeling the birds, and the trees are thoroughly confused by it.  

I wasn't carrying my long lens, so I took a couple of shots and zoomed in on my LCD to see what species of ducks they were.  Although they were back-lighted by the sun, the shapes of their heads and bills told me they were Goldeneyes and Mergansers.  It set me wondering if these ducks remained in this region all year round, but that would be difficult because when the river finally freezes over, they would find no food!  

Anyway, I am planning to make another trip down to the river in the next few days to see if I can find them again. I also saw a Mallard family swimming closer to the shore than the other ducks and it would be interesting to see if they hang around during the winter as well.  I do remember seeing a pair of them early this year, when there was still a lot of snow on the ground and the little lake in the forest was still frozen.

Since I'd missed the photo op of the ducks landing on water, I thought I might be able to see them leave.  But no luck - I waited for over 2 hours, but they stuck around happily swimming in the golden mist!  They looked beautiful like that, but I know they would look beautiful at take-off.  And my half-hour outing had turned into 3.5 hrs, and I couldn't feel my toes and fingertips any more.  I was scared I'd get frostbite, and therefore turned to head home.  And would you believe that I had hardly left the scene, when I heard the ducks take flight?  I looked out over the river again.  There indeed they were, flying off into the distance, and being behind a cluster or really tall trees, it made no sense to even attempt a shot.  

Well, damn the ducks, at least I had the opportunity of seeing the mist over the river that morning!  

Day 290 - One Icy Day!

We had so much rain yesterday, that it was bound to freeze!  And then we had quite a big dump of snow as well.  It looked so pristine and beautiful when I looked out the window of the bus on my way home after a great lunch.  I knew I would find icicles; so, although I would rather have returned home and curled up with a nice warm blanket, a steaming cup of tea and a great book, I thought I should make use of the opportunity to take some shots of branches and leaves frozen over.

I mainly used my macro lens today, although I didn't really get too many macro shots.  I couldn't get close enough to the subjects through the piles of snow, and thus I had to settle for close-ups instead of macro.

Some of the images turned out a little grainy as I had to hand-hold my shots for the want of a tripod (I wanted to keep things light and thus didn't bring it with me) and used an ISO of 800 in most shots, as I needed to keep a high shutter speed to avoid getting camera shake - a sure recipe for disaster, but I had to do it.

Day 287 - Getting Sporty

Umm.. not me.. as an athlete, but officiating as photographer for a badminton game.  I got called upon to shoot a game yesterday, and although these images were shot yesterday, I am going to post them today as I'd already done my shot for the day before the evening.

I hadn't had the chance to do any sports photography before this, although I did mention that I shot some pictures of a couple of little girls sledding, but I'll talk about that in a bit.  So, when I got called to do this, my first thought was that I would have to battle with artificial light, which means the flash.  I had planned on going for a preliminary round of test shots before doing the actual game.  But I had too many things that kept me from doing that.  Therefore, I had to wing it!  I had just one chance of getting this right.

I had already enquired about the available lighting and I'd especially asked about the colour scheme of the gym.  To my dismay it turned out to be the almost-fluorescent green gym that my son played soccer in last summer.  I knew I had to bring my grey card with me to do a custom white balance.  Although, in the end the grey card did come to my rescue, I can't say it did a fabulous job, maybe because this grey card was a cheap one that came with my PSE8 book, and therefore not that accurate.  I still saw some tinges of green (no, not from envy) in the images.

I shot in JPEG as I had to shoot really fast to keep up with the action.  Shooting in RAW could potentially slow me down as it would stop from time to time to write the images to the memory.  However, this fear didn't hold good when I realized that my recycle time on the flash was slowing me down anyway.

However, I kept shooting, on continuous mode in JPEG, in the hopes that any action I didn't catch with the flash, I might be able to fix in LR3 later on.  And I was right.  A couple of shots needed to be fixed, but I got away with turning them to B&W, so the light wouldn't look quite that ugly.  And as for the green colour cast, most of it was fortunately taken care of by the CWB, and I could fix a little bit more in LR.  I'm glad I chose to carry it with me.

I had initially started to shoot on Shutter Priority while the players were warming up, but when I couldn't help but use the flash, I pretty much had to dial down the shutter from 1/500s to 1/250s to match the sync speed.

The next three shots are from last Sunday.  Since I couldn't shoot anything with snow today, I thought I would post these shots instead.  This little girl and her sister were playing in the snow, and I went up to the dad and begged permission to snap them.  He was really kind and let me take as many shots as I pleased, and I later emailed them to him of course.  Such beautiful little girls!

Day 282 - Frozen to the Bones

I went out with a friend to do some outdoor portraits as he's a very athletic guy who loves winter sports.  We wanted to capture his outdoorsy nature, but how much can you smile or click in frigid temperatures and knee-deep snow?  Going out in the middle of the afternoon with the sun right overhead didn't help matters one bit.  But we still got a few fun shots.

And this last shot is to only demonstrate how much snow we battled on location.  I wish I could also convey the extreme cold in some way, but alas, you might as well just take my word for it!