Holiday Greetings with photos from Muskoka
Outdoor Ontario

Holiday Greetings with photos from Muskoka

Charline

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First let me wish everyone a great holiday season!





Charline

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I took these photos one week before in Muskoka.



Shortsighted

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Happy Holidays as well.

Good subject for slow shutter, vignette and monochromatic approach and you didn't waste it. Wonderful result. There's really nothing in a winter scene as selected that benefits from colour, so let the drama of chiaroscuro rule. I was just thinking of that photographic approach yesterday while sipping a sangiovese wine and wondering where a suitable subject might be found within a few minutes drive. I came up empty and so did my glass. It's sobering to know that you are creating content while I'm only thinking about it. I'm thinking of Yoda now ... "don't think, ... do!"


Charline

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LOL, thanks and wish you a full glass and full memory card very soon!


I don't feel it was a good idea to put the boring text on my first photo. I don't have any editing apps except the pre-installed one.


I am going to share a more panoramic image of the waterfall and the frosty image without the text.
« Last Edit: December 26, 2023, 12:22:44 PM by Charline »


Charline

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Not sure which one is better.


Shortsighted

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I don't know much about adding text to a photo beyond what is possible with the "text" icon in PS. There are some basic parameters that I can easily apply but more complex print is not something that I've investigated. Perhaps some day I will. A a general rule, keeping the text clearly visible but not in competition with the image might be a good approach.


The more distance framing of the rapids provides context but I don't believe that context is imperative in this case. The cropped shot with additional vignette is the most dramatic; almost prehistoric, in that there is no intrusion by more pedestrian context like a managed forest, trail, made-made structure or anything more ordinary to mitigate the tension. Once you eliminate more familiar data in the periphery of the photo you are left with the full-frontal impact of the rushing torrent and that borders on the sublime. The sublime is often frightening, chilling and foreboding. There certainly is an artist within you just waiting to explode, but that would be abstract art.


The shot with the boosted colour, where there is colour, makes the image warmer and friendlier. Warm yellow and ruddy colours within a bleak snow scape suggests human presence; ostensibly a lit cabin window, or warm-yellow porch light, but this can be extended to include these same warm colours where they exist naturally, such as the red of dogwood. Even chimney smoke warms the image even though no warm colours are implicated in that kind of photo magic. It merely remains propitious by the power of suggestion. A painter might try all of these things as well as putting a person on the porch looking out onto the frozen expanse.


Shortsighted

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While watching a video related to Suzanne Simard's book outlining her research that led to the theory of the Wood Wide Web there were short clips of logging practices in BC during the last century and one clip in particular featured a fire, ostensible set to burn underbrush in the middle of winter. So, here is a bleak scene of snow on the ground and dark conifers all around and the only warm colour came from the flames of the fire. That got me thinking of your photo of the dock and frozen lake and how the boosted colours of the reflection alongside the dock and the redness of the dogwood made a better scene because of this added warmth. Now imagine a late-afternoon campfire scene by a frozen lake on an overcast bleak day, surrounded by snow, while the flames of the campfire provided the core warmth to soften the icy edges of everything else. That would leverage the emotional power of impressionism. I'm not suggesting that you run out with incendiary intentions or injure the carbon budget but keep it in mind should you be overcome by a sudden pyromania, or feel the need to direct a Viking funeral on the ice at a safe distance from the dock. I also recommend that you read Suzanne Simard's book 'Finding the Mother Tree". I remember one particular massive White Pine at Thickson Woods and thinking "boy, that's a big mother!"


Charline

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Happy New Year!!


SS, you have further convinced me that you are truly partial to red hues.


Hope you will lead by example. Since you come up with these ideas, why don't you do it yourself?


You are a lot closer to Thickson's Woods than I am.


Personally I like blue and cool hues more.
« Last Edit: January 01, 2024, 01:29:07 PM by Charline »


Charline

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SS, thinking about a mother tree. There used to be a lone tree on the beach in Pickering, which I always hope to photograph. Unfortunately whenever I went, there were always tones of kids around.


If I were you, I would go and try to capture it. There must be a lot less people in the winter.


Shortsighted

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The concept of a Mother Tree as coined by Suzanne Simard was directed at very old Douglas Fir trees in the temperate rain forest of British Columbia and it did not represent a single giant tree in isolation, but how the mycorhysomal network under the soil connected the giant tree with other trees, both offspring trees and trees of other species. These networks exchanged carbon and sugar between trees and even sent warning signals using amino acids much like neurotransmitters in a nervous system. When a threat arrived like a destructive beetle species the infected tree warned the neighbouring trees to start producing defence mechanisms. The lone tree in Pickering, and Pickering is a big place, is not likely a mother tree, but an old willow might be old enough to fill the bill.




Charline

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SS, you are right. What I was thinking about was not a mother tree.


But I always wanted to photograph that lone willow tree. Not sure if it's still there.





Shortsighted

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While perhaps not the mother-like willow tree that you remember seeing in Pickering, this one (depicted) near a local pond struck me as a rather impressively big mother. A large willow in Petticoat Creek Park was heavily pruned this last spring to control its canopy density.




Charline

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Very nice tree! I have been to a portion of this park but didn't see that tree.