Myrtle Beach - December 26 - January 1, 2022

We are about to embark on our winter stay in Myrtle Beach.  I've decided to update my blog weekly so as not to fill up peoples "mail boxes".  Each week will reflect the fun that we've had while enjoying our time away.

December 26 - today is Ralph's 63rd birthday.  We celebrated it by being up early and watching a beautiful sunrise this morning.  Afterwards we had a nice walk before sitting down to watch church.  It was a nice relaxing day.

During our walk we found a few sharks teeth. These are actually a pretty good size and we were excited to show them to Brody.

December 27 - Today was another beautiful day.  Ralph and I were out walking early in the morning and wearing shorts and t-shirts.  It's pretty amazing how warm it's been.  I was planning another walk later in the afternoon and had told Ralph that I wasn't going to bring my camera as I didn't expect much of a sunset.  I hadn't gone very far before I realized how wrong I was.  I quickly went back to our room and grabbed my camera.  Here are two of the shots that I took. I really wanted to capture the reflection in the sand as the sky was changing colour.  It didn't last long, but while it was here it was very pretty.

December 29 - I saw my first Eagle today.  That was really exciting to see.  I saw it when we went out grocery shopping.  We are now moved into our Condo for the rest of our stay.  It's nice and comfortable with a great view of the ocean.  This mornings sunrise was nice.  I didn't go down to the beach this time but rather set up my tripod on the balcony.  I prefer the pictures done at the beach level, but I was making coffee at the time and some days the colour changes so quickly

I went for a nice walk in the afternoon.  It was quieter on the beach by the time I went out.  I was amazed at the number of gulls and terns that were making their way to the beach.  There was thousands of them in the water and on the beach.  It was pretty interesting to see but a little intimidating when they all take to the sky and "woosh" directly overhead.  

December 31 - I find it hard to believe that it's the last day of the year.  We left for Myrtle Beach a week ago and the time has flown by.  We're being careful and sticking close to our condo and the beach.  It's busy here right now and I think it's actually busier because of the amazing weather that we have had.  Yesterday was a rainy day and we enjoyed it by reading a couple of books.  Once finished we are placing them outside of our room on a side table for others to enjoy.  We've noticed that people are taking some of them back to their rooms which is nice to see.  

This morning, it looked pretty stormy first thing, but then the sky exploded into colour.  It made me think of fireworks.  What a beautiful start to the last day of the year.

During the evening a really heavy fog rolled in off the ocean.  It was a little disappointing as I had hoped to practice photographing some fireworks.  There were still plenty that were set off, but the fog made it impossible to obtain any form of focus and I wasn't able to capture the beautiful display.

January 1 - Happy New Year!  The fog from last night stayed until a little after noon today.  Everything was damp outside.  The temperature was nice though and made it nice later in the day for Ralph to do his Polar Bear dip.  He wanted to do this to support his brother and nephews - who went into Lake Ontario yesterday.  The water was pretty rough and the waves were quite high.  I was glad that the sun was shining brightly when he went in so that he didn't get too cold.  

It's been a good week.  Next week we plan to get out and golf and visit Huntington Beach Reserve.  

Gone fishing

Today is Christmas Day.  We listened to a nice Christmas sermon and enjoyed the singing of the ladies choir.  It was really beautiful.  Ralph and I decided that we would spend most of our next two weeks staying "close to home".  Today was a quiet with the afternoon spent watching the antics of many pelicans in the ocean.  They were fishing in large groups.  In many cases they were surrounded by lots of gulls and terns. It was challenging to get some good shots as they were quite far out in the ocean.  With the sun on the water, it reflected many beautiful colours.  I am pretty happy with how some of them turned out.

And we're off

Ralph and I are planning on spending the winter in Myrtle Beach.  We left on Thursday, December 23 and arrived on the 24th.  We stopped over in Asheboro,  North Carolina for the evening on the way down and left today around 8:00.  We arrived in Myrtle Beach by 11:30.  The ride down went very well. The roads were quiet and the weather was beautiful and sunny all the way.

Our day was spent checking in and settling into the room.  We did a few groceries (to last the weekend) and then went for a nice walk along the beach.  It's a little busier at the beach because it's the Christmas weekend but we expect things to quiet down again on Monday.  We're in a temporary room right now and will move into our condo on Monday.  

There are plenty of gulls/terns on the beach again this year.  I had some fun photographing them.  We were also blessed with an amazing sunset.  I never get tired of the beautiful colours.  

Mushroom Foraging

 It's been a long time since I updated my blog.  It's not that I haven't had things going on, but somehow got bogged down in everything going on.  It's time to start updating again.

Today Ralph and I went mushroom hunting.  I had seen a few video's on photographing mushrooms and it looked so interesting.  I decided to go looking this morning at the Arboretum and took a few pictures but really wanted to look into some deep forests to see more.

These mushroom's were so tiny, growing on a rotting log.

Fungus makes an interesting picture.

This afternoon we drove to Palgrave and found a nice forested area to explore.  A few things to keep in mind when shooting.... bring a small brush (wipe away debris), bring a flashlight (brighten up the mushroom), shoot wide open (F2.8 or smaller and then F16.0 as the final shot).  This will help when developing and stacking.

To get a really good shot, you have to get low to the ground.  I will say that my back started to ache and it's really difficult/challenging to focus without bringing yourself really low. Ideally it would be best to lay on your stomach.  Auto focus doesn't always work and you find yourself manually focusing to get everything sharp.  Perservence ensures that you are happy with the end result.

Overall I am happy with the end results.  I still have a long way to go and practice makes perfect as they say. Ralph and I really enjoyed ourselves and look forward to doing this again soon.

The stars were brightly shining

I have been dreaming of doing some Milky Way photography for months. Since we live in an area where you really can’t enjoy the dark skies it is with great anticipation and excitement that I look forward to heading up North. We are currently in the Sauble Beach area and the skies are nice and dark. We set our alarm for 1:30 this morning and headed to a predetermined area not that far away from the cottage. Boy was it dark. Scary dark lol but the sky was indescribable!  The heavens were declaring the glory of the Lord. It took our breath away.  This photo is a panorama shot created vertically from 5 different photographs .  It’s my first attempt at trying this technique and I’m pretty happy with it.  We didn’t stay out long but it sure was worth the wait!!

Gone fishin

Last week Teresa shared with me that the Rainbow trout were running upstream to lay their eggs. That sounded like a good photo opportunity, so on Sunday between services Ralph and I headed to the Old Mill to check it out. The pathway was super busy with plenty of people out taking a walk. We bumped into Liz and Ed (Lawrence's sister).  What a small world...

We didn’t see any fish jumping so we just enjoyed a nice walk along the Humber River. Teresa and I tried again on Monday and saw a few jump but weren’t able to capture any on film. They were too fast and very few were jumping.  Instead we enjoyed watching the ducks and geese in the water. It was a nice relaxing couple of hours away from the news of Covid and constant reminders to stay masked and stay home.

On Wednesday and Thursday Ralph and I went back with coffees in hand to watch and just relax. On Wednesday the trout were very active giving us a nice display of how high and far they could jump.  It was amazing to watch.  We brought our cameras along with us and enjoyed photographing them.  We did the same on Thursday.  What a nice break and so relaxing.  We really enjoyed ourselves.  We had thought about driving to Thornbury to photograph the fish ladder but the temperatures are changing again and it's getting colder out.  Driving to the Old Mill has been just as much fun and it's nice and close by.

I found it interesting to observe the different colours in the trout.  I read that the longer they are in the river the more colour they get on their heads.  The one above obviously has been around for quite some time as it displayed some beautiful red cheeks.

The males can often grow large teeth (keep your toes out of the water).  Typically the Rainbow trout run in the fall but are known to run (at a less rate) in the spring time as well, starting as early as February depending on when the rivers start to thaw.  

I find it so amazing that God has instilled in these fish the desire and need to swim so far upstream  to spawn and breed.  It's absolutely incredible.  

And God said, "Let the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the heavens."  So God created the great sea creatures and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarm, according to their kinds, and every winged bird  according to its kind.  And God saw that it was good. And God blessed them, saying, "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth." And there was evening and there was morning, the fifth day.  Genesis 1: 20-23

Bubbles part 2 and Milky Way

This past weekend we were once again blessed with some cold mornings. The key thing I am discovering is to ensure that there is no wind.  Early morning (between 6:00-8:00) it is often quiet with just a little breeze blowing. I am able to block the breeze with some poster board which helps to keep the bubble stable.  On Saturday morning I could see the sun rising through the tree's in our backyard which gave the perfect background for the bubbles. It was cold again, to the point where every 15 minutes or so I had to come inside and warm up (and I had my coat and gloves on).  With the sun in the background it gave a nice glow through the bubble displaying the freezing process.  If we get another cold day I will take a video to show the freezing as it's pretty amazing to watch.  The green that you see below the bubble is an accumulation of the soap mixture as the bubble burst.  It then freezes into the snow and with the sun shining through gives this beautiful green colour. As you probably can tell, there were many bubbles blown to achieve a few successful photos.

I just finished a course that was discussing the art of developing MilkyWay shots.  It was a 3 day course (6 hours total) that covered at a highlevel the various steps needed to pull out colour, depth and interest in the MilkyWay. It was a "teaser" type training to encourage the listener to signup for the full session.  If we lived in the country (for example where John and Grace live) where the MilkyWay is visible, I would sign up right away and make the investment in the actual training ($500).  Since we only get to see it once or twice a year, I didn't think the investment was worth it and with Covid, who knows when we'll be able to get away and actually spend time up north to try to capture these shots. So armed with some new found information and "youtube" to fill in some of the gaps, I went back into my files and tried some of the new techniques. In the image below, there is someone standing in the schoolhouse which was turned on for about 3-4 seconds while the camera lens was left open for 30 seconds.  I'm amazed at how much light was still reflected in the image. This photo was taken in Utah a couple of years ago when Ralph and I signed up for a night photography session.  The stars were amazing.

This 2nd shot was taken near Lora Bay approximagely 2 years ago.  I almost deleted it when cleaning up pictures but now I'm glad I kept it.  It still needs some work but it gives an appreciation of the amount of "light polution" that is in the area. In this particular shot, the added colour adds some interest to the sky.  I'm using a very "wide" angle lens that Joel Sjaarda helped me purchase, which does cause some distortion in the tree's but it's ability to capture the stars is incredible.

There is another course coming up in March that I plan to attend that gets into the art of Composition for MilkyWay shots.  I'm really intrigued and plan to attend that one.  It's another precursor to the full course, but I find I can still pick up things to apply.  It gives me something to look forward to.  The MilkyWay season starts in April and I'm hoping that one evening Ralph and I can take a night drive up north and take a few photo's. Hopefully we will have an early spring.