Posts Tagged 'winter'

The Morning After the Deluge

Published February 9, 2013 Photography 1 Comment
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Tito and I are taking off to Montreal today :) I promised I wouldn’t take my camera or computer (knitting, of course, is still coming. To do otherwise would be madness). To get my shutterbug out of my system I went out an hour before dawn this morning to snap some shots of the beautiful snow we got yesterday.

Who says we don’t have white beaches in Canada?

PS – For those interested – here is my set up this morning. I shot everything RAW, at f.10 for sharpness, and processed the details in Lightroom.

Canon 7D, Lee Filter, Sigma 10-20

  • Canon 7D
  • Tripod
  • Remote Release
  • Lee Filter System with .6 Graduated Neutral Density Filter
  • Sigma 10-20mm, f4.5 Lens

Snow, Toronto, Canada, Winter, HTO Park

Snow, Toronto, Canada, Winter, HTO Park

Snow, Toronto, Canada, Winter, HTO Park

Snow, Toronto, Canada, Winter, HTO Park

Snow, Toronto, Canada, Winter, HTO Park

Snow, Toronto, Canada, Winter, HTO Park

Snow, Toronto, Canada, Winter, HTO Park

 

Lee Filter System + Snowy Saturday = Love

Published January 30, 2013 Photography 1 Comment
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Lee Filter Systen ©Shireen Nadir 2013

Recently I purchased a Lee Filter system for my camera. I was dubious as to the worth of an on-camera filter system – after all, Lightroom has a graduated filter built in where I can adjust exposure, white balance etc. However, having taken it for a walk I can honestly say that being able to make adjustments while shooting is amazing. The filter can rotate, and slide in it’s holder to achieve a variety of effects, and the creative possibilities are endless. I foresee a new place to dump my camera funds – for sure the big stopper is coming on my next trip!

Here’s an image-heavy post of the beautiful Leslie Street Spit here in Toronto – almost every shot here is taken with the filter on. I’m using the 4×6 holder, on a 10-20 mm sigma wide angle lens, my trusty Canon 7D and a 0.6 graduated neutral density filter.

Leslie Street Spit, Toronto, Canon 7D

Leslie Street Spit, Toronto, Canon 7D

Leslie Street Spit, Toronto, Canon 7D

Leslie Street Spit, Toronto, Canon 7D

Leslie Street Spit, Toronto, Canon 7D

Leslie Street Spit, Toronto, Canon 7D

Leslie Street Spit, Toronto, Canon 7D

Leslie Street Spit, Toronto, Canon 7D

Leslie Street Spit, Toronto, Canon 7D

Leslie Street Spit, Toronto, Canon 7D

Leslie Street Spit, Toronto, Canon 7D

Leslie Street Spit, Toronto, Canon 7D

Leslie Street Spit, Toronto, Canon 7D

Leslie Street Spit, Toronto, Canon 7D

A beautiful weekend with wonderful people

Published April 3, 2012 Photography , Travels 8 Comments
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This weekend Tito and I drove up to Coboconk Ontario to see a friend. We were looking forward to seeing him but didn’t expect the incredible weekend that was in store for us!

Heaven

It turns out that his family lives in a winterized cottage, right on the lake. Their home is filled with art, pianos and pottery. They are also the most loving people imaginable, fascinating to talk to and, to boot, great cooks. We celebrated Earth hour with a feast by candlelight in a glassed-in patio facing the lake. They’ve got a dog – and everyone knows nothing was ever so perfect that it wasn’t made ten times better by the presence of a dog! Absolute heaven.

In the morning we discovered that something very special had happened.

 

So after an entire snow-free winter I got to take some of the pics I had been waiting for – serene mornings with a white coating on every single tree branch.

Thank you Annie, Jane and Ben for a wonderful weekend!

To the snow, and beautiful Manitoba

Published March 7, 2012 Photography , Travels 2 Comments
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Selkirk Manitoba

Because, though my heart is in eastern Canada, the prairie provinces are gorgeous in their own austere way :) These were all taken in Selkirk, Manitoba.

Selkirk Manitoba

Winter by Walter de la Mare

Clouded with snow
The cold winds blow,
And shrill on leafless bough
The robin with its burning breast
Alone sings now.

Selkirk Manitoba

The rayless sun,
Day’s journey done,
Sheds its last ebbing light
On fields in leagues of beauty spread
Unearthly white.

Selkirk Manitoba

Thick draws the dark,
And spark by spark,
The frost-fires kindle, and soon
Over that sea of frozen foam
Floats the white moon.

Selkirk Manitoba

Frosted Beaches

Published February 29, 2012 Photography 6 Comments
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Today it’s snowing outside. It’s practically March, but it’s as good a day as any for snow to finally show up. With any luck it will cool down and become proper snow – currently it would be more accurate if I said it was slushing from the sky ;)

Leslie Street Spit

Winter loveliness brings to mind a trip Tito and I took to the Leslie street spit 2 years ago – before the birth of this blog. Because the spit acts as a breaker on the east side, and because that winter was very cold, the entire beach was frosted in ice.

Leslie Street Spit

The Leslie Street Spit (technically Tommy Thompson Park) is a long spit made from construction refuse that extends out into Lake Ontario. It began as the place where material was dumped during the excavation of the Yonge Street subway line.

Leslie Street Spit

The beautiful thing is that nature reclaimed the park. It’s an interesting contrast – there are now parts that are still used for dumping and parts that are protected as an important stopover for migratory birds.

Leslie Street Spit

Because it began as a construction dumping ground, the personality of the spit is varied and ever changing. One beach is a graveyard for telephone poles. One is the final resting place for innumerable bank safes. One entire beach contains the remains of a building that had fluted and carved columns, you could almost pretend you were at the ruins of some ancient site.

Leslie Street Spit

There are gardens of rebar, a bird banding station, a lighthouse and a shipwreck. In the summer it teems with a wide variety of wildlife, and it’s a macro photographers dream.

Leslie Street Spit

There’s an entire part of the forest that’s been taken over by cormorants.

Leslie Street Spit

It’s the site of our annual first bike ride of the season. We’re always freezing by the time we get home :) Tito and I have shot it year-round, but days like this can still leave us in awe of what a beautiful spot the Leslie Street Spit is.

Leslie Street Spit

 

Ice and Stars on the Bruce Peninsula

Published February 25, 2011 Photography , Pottery 2 Comments
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This past weekend Tito and I drove up to the Bruce for a quick city getaway. We stayed at the Round House – an absolutely beautiful B&B in Tobermory. The lady was really sweet, the living room was huge and had beautiful picture windows that faced the lake – we couldn’t have asked for better! We loved it so much we booked another weekend right away – we’re going back for Tito’s birthday.

Tobermory and the surrounding area are beautiful in winter – the trails are pretty much empty, everything is frozen over and there are some spectacular photos to be taken – Here are a few of my favourites!

On the Cyprus Lake hiking trail.

Cyprus Lake

This is the area known as the Grotto. It’s a popular spot in the summer time, and starkly beautiful in the winter. Pictures don’t convey this, but the water was icy and the waves were huge. The result of all that spray hitting the area had created a beautiful coat of ice on every surface.

Tito in front of some trees that show the effect of the surf. One side is totally covered in ice, the other side is normal.

The Grotto itself

I couldn’t get enough of these ice formations…

Georgian Bay

Of course, long drives are also solid knitting time; I made excellent progress on my first sweater…

And I just had to include two more – Tobermory is a dark sky reserve. We took many stunning star shots, but these are my favourites;

In this shot you can almost really see the Milky Way…

But this shot was my favourite. Taken in complete darkness, out the B&B window, with a 45 minute long shutter. It looks like an evening shot filled with shooting stars.

Snow… in Toronto!

Published February 2, 2011 Photography 2 Comments
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Newsflash, folks – It does snow in Toronto.

It snows frequently in fact, despite what other Canadian cities, the news, our previous mayor, these guys, and even some Torontonians, seem to think. The past two days we’ve been warned of this impending doom, only to wake up to a very pretty morning with some lovely white stuff on the ground. My parents, who’ve been in Canada virtually all of their adult lives, were nonplussed and drove to work as usual. Tito unconcernedly drove to Ajax this morning. It’s a regular day here in the T-dot, except that half the city stayed home, which I just do not get.

Here are few snow stats to back me up ;o)

  • Winter 07-08 – total snowfall in downtown Toronto – 194.0 cm
  • Winter 08-09 – total snowfall in downtown Toronto – 119.1 cm
  • Winter 09-10 – La Niña year – ok, so there wasn’t much snow, but that’s rare
  • This winter so far  – 120 cm, and it’s only February.
  • Average annual snowfall, according to wikipedia – 133 cm

For comparison sake:

  • The average annual snowfall in Winnipeg, MB is 110.6
  • The average annual snowfall in Calgary, AB is 126.7
  • The average annual snowfall in Edmonton, AB is 123.7
  • The average annual snowfall in Vancouver, BC is 46.5

Ok, so Montreal royally trumps us in snow with an average of 226.2, but still, we’re up there. So take that, Western Canada!

(source)

To celebrate our proven snowiness I’m posting some of my favourite winter photography from the past few years, enjoy!

Winter 08 – I took this photo at Harbourfront at 5 am, just before the sun came up after after a lovely storm.

Did I mention that it also gets quite cold here? This is Lake Ontario – responsible for moderating much of Toronto’s weather trends, on a frozen morning.

Earlier this same winter =o) Doggies love the snow!

Winter 07 – in the Toronto Music Gardens

Winter ’10 – This is the Leslie Street Spit – the breakers were totally coated in ice.

Another shot from that same day – just gorgeous!

Another lovely dawn shot.

From the Toronto Music Gardens.

We had a good 30 or so cm today, so I’ll be going out tonight, yes, you guessed it, shooting. I can’t wait – winter is just another opportunity to wear all kinds of knitted goodies and drink lots of hot chocolate – what’s not to love?

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