Robert Williams Photography Blog

The Trials and Tribulations of Snowflake Photography

noreply@blogger.com (Rob Williams) — Mon, 07 Jan 2019 02:47:00 +0000

I have been using macro photography for years, mainly for wildflower photographs and some studio work. I use a 105mm f/2.8 Nikkor lens -- it is remarkably sharp, and can produce macro shots at 1:1. Seeing minute details on a flower petal or stem is quite thrilling.

Bloodroot flower using Nikkor 105mm f/2.8

After seeing great macro work from Don Komarechka and others, I wanted to learn more and push my macro work to another level. I wanted to see if I could photograph a snowflake without spending a mint for special equipment. Don has a lot of good information on his website (and newsletter, podcast, twitter, youtube).

To get even greater magnification, I bought an inexpensive Fotodiox 52mm reversing ring (about $20 CAD) to use with an old 50mm lens that I acquired many years ago. This allows me to mount the lens backwards on the camera, which turns it into a macro lens. I added some extension tubes that I had also acquired many years ago to give me 2:1 magnification.

This lens arrangement allowed me to photograph some of the dragonflies and creepy crawly creatures at the cottage. The lens has to be quite close to the subject to get this kind of magnification, which presents problems getting close enough to nervous creatures, and to get enough light on the subject. I added a flash to my camera with a hand-made modifier to reflect the flash 90 degrees down in front of the lens, and this worked well. I was able to capture excellent detail - you can see the individual elements of the dragonfly's compound eye in this image!

Dragon Fly using reversed 50mm lens with extension tubes, with natural light.

I knew this lens combination was not enough magnification for snowflake photos, so I looked for ways to get better magnification. After much deliberation, I bought a small but powerful macro lens, the Mitakon Zhongyi 20mm macro lens. This lens offers 4-4.5x magnification (4.5:1), and it cost only about $150 USD. The reviews that I read warned that the focusing distance was very short so that lighting would be a problem.

The reviews were correct on both counts. This lens focuses at about 1cm from the subject, which alone makes it difficult to use. However, I tried my first snowflake using this lens.

To photograph a snowflake, first you have to catch one intact. I used a black polar fleece glove, and with enough patience and the right kind of snowfall (large flakes, little wind, not too cold so to avoid frostbite on my hands), it can be done. Despite wearing gloves, my hands took a beating. They were quite painful as they warmed up afterwards.

After selecting a flake on the glove, I held it up to the lens until I got the snowflake in focus. I found I had to brace my left hand (holding the snowflake glove) against a wall, and move the camera (mounted on my tripod) slowly towards the snowflake. The light was very low not only because it was cloudy, but also due the subject being in the shadow of myself and the camera only a centimetre away. I had to increase my ISO rating to 6400 or higher (Hi 0.3, Hi 0.7 and Hi 1.0 on the Nikon D800) to obtain a shutter speed high enough to take a sharp image. Finally, since the depth-of-field is incredibly narrow, I took many photographs of the snowflake for a focus stack. Eventually I selected about 15 images and stacked them in Photoshop:

Snowflake using the Mitakon Zhongyi 20mm f/2 macro lens

I was quite pleased with the result although it isn't perfect, and I have some improvements to make in my technique, including post-processing technique. Getting sharp images ranging from one end of the snowflake to the other is important, and you should be prepared to take 50+ photographs to get every part of the snowflake sharp.

Lighting is a problem since the lens and snowflake have to be so close together. Using ISO 6400 or higher adds a lot of noise to the photograph, which is difficult to manage in the evenutal image. I would much prefer to use ISO 400 or less.

Also, I found that the snowflake can sometimes shift on the glove, move with a bit of wind, or my hand holding the snowflake glove can shift a bit. It's frustrating, but you may have to redo the whole image stack if something like this happens. Steady hands and freezing fingers are a bad combination!

However, there is a lot of potential here, and I have spent less than $200 in total for new equipment.

More on this topic to come.

. . . Rob Williams
http://www.robertwilliamsphotography.ca

Unique colours of spring

noreply@blogger.com (Rob Williams) — Sun, 04 Jun 2017 21:25:00 +0000

One of the things I love about spring is that the forest show all sorts of colours that you don't see at other times of the year.  The new leaves on trees have a different colour than mature leaves, sometimes lighter, or with other colours mixed in.  There are also spring wildflowers and tree flowers that add to the spectrum.

Urban forest

New Maple Leaves

Oak Leaves

Maple Leaves

Maple Leaves

Crab Apple Flowers

Hepaticas

. . . Rob Williams http://www.robertwilliamsphotography.ca

Beechwood Cemetary

noreply@blogger.com (Rob Williams) — Sat, 21 May 2016 20:55:00 +0000

Recently I attended the memorial service for my sister Donna held in Beechwood Cemetery in Ottawa's east end. It's a beautiful location with lots of large trees, many of which were in flower. A few days later, I returned to the cemetery (I forgot my coat...), and I took along my infrared-converted camera (a Nikon D40x). Here are my favourite photographs from that day:

A large family plot (the Slater family -- James Slater immigrated to Canada in 1830 and later became the Superintendent of the Rideau Canal).

Various headstones near the Slater's

Two crosses.

An angel.

. . . Rob Williams
http://www.robertwilliamsphotography.ca

A Study in Brown

noreply@blogger.com (Rob Williams) — Tue, 22 Dec 2015 01:29:00 +0000

November is usually a gray month, with the fall leaves gone, and the forests covered in brown. My motivation for photography usually drops with the leaves. As November stretched into December with no noticeable snow, brown has continued to be the dominant colour of the forests and meadows.

Here are a couple of photographs taken this weekend, on the theme of "brown".

A Wall of Reeds

Fallen Grass with SNOW!

Field grass

Burst Milkweed Pods

. . . Rob Williams
http://www.robertwilliamsphotography.ca

Puffins and FastRawViewer

noreply@blogger.com (Rob Williams) — Mon, 21 Sep 2015 19:03:00 +0000

In 2009, I went on an amazing trip from Grand Manan Island to Machias Seal Island in the Bay of Fundy to photograph Atlantic Puffins. I was prepared to take a lot of photos and I filled up my CF card with 370 photographs (you can get much larger storage cards these days, but that's what I could do in 2009!).

When I got back home, sorting through that many digital images was a huge task, especially considering that it represented just one day out of our stay on Grand Manan. I had over 2400 photographs from that trip. Opening up the RAW images took a lot of time, and I wished I had a quicker way to check the focus and composition of each image as I sorted the good from the bad and ugly.

Puffin portrait

Truth be told, I ended up cherry-picking a couple of puffin photos, and I never really went through the whole set to see what was there.

A couple of weeks ago, I came across a review of FastRawViewer on Photography Life's website. It sounded like a good solution to sorting through raw files, so I downloaded a trial version.

Like it's name says, FastRawViewer is really fast. On my system, it takes about two seconds to load a 41 megabyte RAW image from my D800. It's not just a preview, but the whole image. With one keypress (shift-left-click), I can see the image instantly at 100% zoom, to check for critical focus. In Lightroom, the same process takes 6-7 seconds after loading the image. That is a huge difference when you have to check hundreds of images.

Two puffins on Machias Seal Island

The interface isn't fancy, but isnt' bad when you learn a few shortcut keys. You can easily check for over or under exposure, or boost the shadows to check for shadow detail. A single keystroke will also pass the image directly to Lightroom or Photoshop, or any other image processor you want, as well as other features.

I used FastRawViewer to look through my Machias Seal Island photos, and I was surprised to find a number of good photographs. I've included a few here.

Razorbill Auks

At $US 20.00, it's an inexpensive tool that solves a real problem that I've been having for a long time.

Arctic Tern on Machias Seal Island

. . . Rob Williams http://www.robertwilliamsphotography.ca

Photographs from Port Union, Newfoundland

noreply@blogger.com (Rob Williams) — Sun, 05 Apr 2015 17:10:00 +0000

Port Union is a unique town in Newfoundland, Located near Trinity on the Bonavista Peninsula, this town was founded by William Coaker in 1917 and was the base for the Fishermen's Protective Union. The FPU was a union of fisherman, set up to break a system run by fish merchants that kept fishermen and their families in perpetual poverty, somewhat similar to peasants in a feudal system.

One interesting aspect of Port Union is that the union provided row housing for workers giving them decent accommodations. Houses for higher-ups were on the main street, and are in good condition today. Houses for workers were set up-hill and back from the main street and unfortunately have not been maintained.

Here's a good link describing the houses:
https://www.heritagecanada.org/en/issues-campaigns/top-ten-endangered/explore-past-listings/newfoundland-and-labrador/fishermans-row-h

Here are a few photographs of the worker's row houses taken in the summer of 2014.

. . .

Rob Williams http://www.robertwilliamsphotography.ca

Flowers at the War Memorial in Ottawa, Canada

noreply@blogger.com (Rob Williams) — Thu, 30 Oct 2014 23:43:00 +0000

At the Canadian National War Memorial in Ottawa, there has been a steady stream of people placing flowers in memory of Cpl. Nathan Cirillo and Warrant Officer Patrice Vincent, two soldiers who were killed last week simply for wearing a uniform.

The National War Memorial with the Chateau Laurier in the background.

. . . Rob Williams http://www.robertwilliamsphotography.ca

500px Prime and me

noreply@blogger.com (Rob Williams) — Wed, 22 Oct 2014 01:57:00 +0000

500px is a photo sharing site that has become quite popular with photographers throughout the world. The quality of photographs on the site is quite amazing -- take a look at the Editor's Choice page or the Popular images page, and see for yourself.

As a photographer, one of the nice features is that you can offer your photographs for licensing, with a great return from licensing revenue. Seventy percent of the license revenue goes to the photographer. Prices are standardized so there's no guess-work with pricing.

I have been offering a number of my photographs on 500px for a while now (https://prime.500px.com/rob017), and I have been quite fortunate to have made a few sales. The team there was great to work with -- they even posted an entry on their blog about my photographs.

They have a promotion running currently that gives buyers a 20% price reduction on licensing fees, and also gives a bonus to photographers. My promo code is rob017. It can be used at prime.500px.com to save 20% on licensing fees for my photographs, or any other photograph on the site. The offer is good until November 30th.

Use promo code rob017 to save 20% off premium stock photography at prime.500px.com

. . . Rob Williams
http://www.robertwilliamsphotography.ca

Keels, Newfoundland

noreply@blogger.com (Rob Williams) — Sun, 10 Aug 2014 20:39:00 +0000

One of the things I love about visiting Newfoundland is the sense of discovery when we visit one of the many outports. Each outport is unique, and you never know what the particular bay or cove will be like before you get there.

An outport called Keels was one of the best surprises that we had in our visit this year. Keels is a small outport about 20km south-west of Bonavista, about 30 kms by a twisty, uneven road that deteriorates the further you get from Bonavista. The land is stark and rocky, but that is what makes the area so striking.

Here are a couple of photographs of Keels.

Keels

Storage Building near the Wharf

Looking across the cove

Houses on the Rocks of Keels

. . . Rob Williams
http://www.robertwilliamsphotography.ca

Choosing a Website Platform: Joomla!, SmugMug and Zenfolio

noreply@blogger.com (Rob Williams) — Mon, 10 Feb 2014 00:49:00 +0000

I've operated a photography website for a many years now, and it has evolved over time from simple html to it's current form as a "responsive" website designed to display on a PC, tablet or smartphone. Along the way, I've implemented my website in two versions of Joomla! and more recently, with SmugMug and Zenfolio. I'd like to share some of my experiences. This isn't a comprehensive review -- I'm just writing about some experiences that helped me decide how to manage a modern website (at least this year's version of "modern").

A number of years ago, I implemented my website using Joomla! 1.5. It took a while to learn how to configure Joomla! to do what I wanted, but I found a good theme and I ended up with a good website.

Over the last few of years, my site was hacked twice, the latest being last summer. After the first hack, I was able to recover fairly easily. I removed the offending files and restore the site without too much difficulty. On a couple of occasions, I also had to handle errors from the database (which I learned how to fix) which led me to learn how to do MySQL backups. Occasionally I made backups of my site and even saved some of the backups on my home PC.

Houses in Trinity, Newfoundland

Last summer my site was hacked again while I was on vacation. A trojan horse was planted onto my website, and I had to quickly take the site down when I got back home. I guess I should have bought some virus protection from my web host!

I didn't have a recent backup available, so I decided to modernize my site and move up to Joomla! 3. I choose a "responsive" theme to handle smartphones, tablets and PCs, and I re-implemented most of my website. Finally, I decided to buy a virus scanning service from my website host which increased my web hosting cost by 50%. I wasn't too happy about having to invest a significant amount of time and money into this whole process.

It took a lot of time to get Joomla! 3 working especially with some installation glitches that were difficult to solve. I also ran into some flaws in the photo management component (RokGallery) as well. I liked the way RokGallery was set up, but it was difficult and slow to work with a large number of photographs. Overall though, I was satisfied even though I thought the website was a bit slow.

Later in the year there were some updates available for Joomla!, and I installed the update using Joomla!s handy update system. Unfortunately, the upgrade failed and left my site hobbled. The only option that I could see was to re-install Joomla!.

By this time, I was quite frustrated with the whole process, and I decided that I no longer wanted the hassle of dealing with Joomla!, doing database and website backups, and paying for virus checking. I started looking for a solution that let me create a photograph-centered website that provided all of those functions.

Holy Trinity Roman Catholic Church, Trinity Newfoundland

I looked at a variety of options, including Flickr, 500px, Pixpa, SmugMug and Zenfolio. I was looking for a reasonable cost, built-in e-commerce, lots of storage space and flexibility in the design of the website. I wanted a site that could adapt to different screen sizes, from smart phones to large PC screens and I wanted to keep my domain name for the new site.

I quickly narrowed the choice down to SmugMug and Zenfolio. I felt that Flickr and 500px didn't provide enough flexibility in the design of the website. Their formats were okay, but I wanted to have my own design. Pixpa seemed more expensive than the rest at $200 per year versus $150 for SmugMug and $120 for Zenfolio, so I didn't evaluate it. If SmugMug and Zenfolio had not worked out, then I would have looked at Pixpa in more depth.

I started with Zenfolio. I signed up for a trial and started to build a prototype website. Over the course of a weekend, I was able to create a working website starting with a template provided by Zenfolio. I set up a keyword-based slideshow on the front page, and a set of menus for articles and photograph gallery pages. I also set up e-commerce on the site without any difficulty. I spent a few more evenings adjusting the design and loading enough photographs to find out how much work was involved.

I found Zenfolio quite easy to use, and I really liked their e-commerce system with multiple price lists and their built-in print service. I was able to specify myself as a print service for the sizes of prints I create myself, and to use the built-in service for larger sizes. Zenfolio was quite a bit faster than my Joomla! site so I was convinced that this would be a better choice.

I liked the look of the site, but I wanted to try a different page style that Zenfolio does not offer. Zenfolio provides several layout options of basically the same page style -- a main photograph with small thumbnails on the side, top or bottom of the page. I was hoping to use a "collage" layout with various photographs mixed on the page.

Maberly, Newfoundland

Next, I signed up for a trial with SmugMug. It offers the collage style of page layout that I wanted, but is a bit higher in cost from Zenfolio. I set up the same kind of website as I did in Zenfolio -- a front-page slideshow with various menus to see photograph galleries and articles. The design system was definitely more complicated than Zenfolio, and it took me a while to understand how it worked. There is a hierarchical set of layouts, starting with content that will appear on all pages, followed by gallery-specific content, and lastly, page-specific content. Once I understood the system, it was quite easy to set up the pages the way that I wanted.

I uploaded a number of photographs which went well. Both Zenfolio and SmugMug handled a large number of photographs quite well.

I also set up e-commerce on SmugMug withoug much difficulty. There are lots of different print options -- the kind of paper, framing, gallery wrap, etc. However, there is one big drawback to their e-commerce print service: I could not find a way to include myself as a print provider. I would rather make my own prints for 12"x18" down to 6"x9". The only way I could find to do this was to add a note on each gallery page saying that I make prints up to 12"x18". I could not integrate this into the "Buy Now" system.

Both SmugMug and Zenfolio sites were fast, and could handle tablets and phones. I occasionally had some trouble with viewing my Zenfolio site on my iPhone though. However it was the performance on a tablet that made the difference between the two. When I compared both sites on a Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 (2014), there was a clear difference in image quality. The SmugMug site was noticably sharper -- I suspect it is due to some sharpening done to the image. You can control sharpening with SmugMug, and although I didn't apply any extra sharpening, photographs from SmugMug were sharper on my tablet.

Ultimately a photography website is all about images, and image quality on a tablet turned out to be the deciding factor. Feel free to browse my current website, hosted through SmugMug at:

http://www.robertwilliamsphotography.ca

. . . Rob Williams

Top 5 Favourite Landscape Photographs of 2013

noreply@blogger.com (Rob Williams) — Wed, 01 Jan 2014 01:46:00 +0000

Here are my favourite landscape photographs from 2013:

Late Winter Snow

Moon Rising over Trinity Bay, Newfoundland

Fi\shing Boats in Champney's West, Newfoundland

House in Champney's West, Newfoundland

Fall Leaves in Buck Lake, Ontario

. . . Rob Williams http://www.robertwilliamsphotography.ca

Top 5 Favourite Flower Photographs from 2013

noreply@blogger.com (Rob Williams) — Wed, 01 Jan 2014 01:31:00 +0000

'Tis the season for Top 5 and Top 10 lists! Here are my top 5 favourite flower photographs from 2013, in no particular order:

Orchid from the Ottawa Orchid Show

Dutchman's Britches

Wild Columbine

Herb Robert

Garden Geranium

Still Life Flower

Okay, so there are 6. It's hard to choose!

. . . Rob Williams http://www.robertwilliamsphotography.ca

Backyard Flowers

noreply@blogger.com (Rob Williams) — Sun, 30 Jun 2013 00:56:00 +0000

This spring has be cool and wet, and not that it's summer, it's still cool and wet -- soon to be hot and wet. Some fields in the area are under water still, and my photography efforts have been curtailed to a large extent. However, the flowers in my yard are doing very nicely, and so here are a couple of geranium photos that I took last week.

A Trio of Geraniums

. . . Rob Williams
http://www.robertwilliamsphotography.ca

Tall Ship Festival

noreply@blogger.com (Rob Williams) — Thu, 20 Jun 2013 01:55:00 +0000

Last weekend I went to Brockville, Ont. to see the Tall Ships Festival, with a tribute to the War of 1812. Brockville was named after Major-General Isaac Brock, a hero of the War of 1812. The town was invaded by US soldiers in February 1813, so the town has a strong connection to that war.

Here are some photos from the festival.

Liana's Ransom

Figurehead on La Revenante

Flag on La Revenante

Fair Jeanne, Pride of Baltimore II, and Sørlandet

Figurehead on Empire Sandy

Empire Sandy

Ladders and Masts

Sørlandet

Flags on Sørlandet

U.S Flag flying on Pride of Baltimore

. . . Rob Williams
http://www.robertwilliamsphotography.ca

Winter and Winterlude in Ottawa, Canada

noreply@blogger.com (Rob Williams) — Sat, 09 Feb 2013 23:23:00 +0000

Ottawa in winter can be cold, dull and miserable. The key to survival is to get outside and have fun by skating, skiing, snowshoeing, sliding and taking advantage of the cold and snow. Ottawa is a great place for this, surrounded with cross-country ski trails, downhill skiing, and skating on the Rideau Canal. In February, we have a winter festival called Winterlude. One of the centers for Winterlude is Confederation Park next to Ottawa City Hall and the Rideau Canal. Here are some photographs from the park:

Tunnel of Korean Lanterns

The Korean community has added an interesting flavour to the festival, setting up this tunnel of lanterns. I can't wait to return at night and see the lanterns lit up!

Looking Straight Down the Tunnel

Ice sculptures are a highlight of Confederation park. That, and Beavertails!

Fantastic Muskox Ice Sculpture

Bird Ice Sculpture

Ice Sculpture by Wanchalerm Sukseekao and Jiroj Chanwar of Dubai, United Arab Emirates

. . . Rob Williams
http://www.robertwilliamsphotography.ca

Freezing your fingers

noreply@blogger.com (Rob Williams) — Wed, 02 Jan 2013 00:29:00 +0000

Today, I was reminded how &*%#! cold it can be in Canada. Although the sun was shining brilliantly (I needed sunglasses!) and the temperature wasn't too low (-13C or about 8 F), the wind was blowing across the fields, and I just about froze my fingers. They're still hurting now, several hours later.

Farm Building on Corkstown Road

However, without the wind, it was quite nice -- providing you have a good coat, hat and mitts. There have been a lot of storms recently, and not much sun, so I really enjoyed the sun (you could almost feel the heat!)

Some Woods Along Moodie Drive

More Woods and Snow

. . . Rob Williams http://www.robertwilliamsphotography.ca

A Cold Day at Blakeney Rapids

noreply@blogger.com (Rob Williams) — Thu, 27 Dec 2012 03:19:00 +0000

This morning was a cold -15 C, so I decided to be a a bit crazy and take my camera out to Blakeney Rapids near Ottawa. Even though the sky was getting cloudy, the rapids were quite beautiful, with all of the trees covered with frost or snow from last week.

The Mississippi River above Blakeney Rapids

Frozen Mist on Tree Branches

Creek Flowing into the Rapids

Trees Beside the Creek

Island At The End Of The Rapids

Bush Overlooking the Rapids

The Woods Beside the Rapids

. . . Rob Williams http://www.robertwilliamsphotography.ca

A Few Fall Photographs

noreply@blogger.com (Rob Williams) — Sun, 07 Oct 2012 20:14:00 +0000

Fall is in full colour in this area, and I was able to get out and take some photographs the other day. Here are a few. Please enjoy.

The Rideau River South of Hunt Club


Bull Rushes (bulrush) at Mer Bleue Bog

Blueberry Bush leaves, Mer Bleue Bog

Blueberry bushes mixed with Labrador Tea, Mer Bleue Bog

Larch branches with Blueberry Leaves

Maple Tree along the Mer Bleue Trail

. . . Rob Williams http://www.robertwilliamsphotography.ca

Curzon Village, Gros Morne National Park

noreply@blogger.com (Rob Williams) — Sun, 26 Aug 2012 19:04:00 +0000

Curzon Village is immediately beside Woody Point in Gros Morne National Park. I didn't know it existed until this year, when I decided to drive further down the road that leads to Woody Point. Up until I saw the small sign at the side of the road, I thought "Curzon" was just the name of a Startrek character. But it turns out that this Curzon is a small village with a series of stages by the water.

Boat on Bonne Bay

The clouds were just starting to break up when I took this photograph. I really liked the sliver reflections in the water and the ropes connecting the buoy to the shore. Norris Point can be seen on the far shore of Bonne Bay.

. . . Rob Williams http://www.robertwilliamsphotography.ca

Bunchberries and a Fish Net in Bird Cove

noreply@blogger.com (Rob Williams) — Mon, 20 Aug 2012 00:06:00 +0000

While driving in Newfoundland from Deer Lake to St. Anthony, we stopped at a motel in a small village called Plum Point. We decided to take a walk along the water at Bird Cove, a couple of kilometers down a small road from Plum Point. There, we found a trail along the water into the woods that had masses of bunchberries, and a wharf with a few boats and some fishing equipment.

Bunchberries along the forest trail

This fish net was on the wharf. I love the patterns of the net, the rope and dark weight.

Fish Net

. . . Rob Williams http://www.robertwilliamsphotography.ca

Raleigh, Newfoundland

noreply@blogger.com (Rob Williams) — Sun, 12 Aug 2012 20:03:00 +0000

Sitting across the bay from Burnt Cape Ecological Reserve sits the community of Raleigh, originally named Ha Ha Bay, after the bay on which it resides.

Fishing Stage in Raleigh, Newfoundland

How and when the name was changed to Raleigh seems to be in question -- I've read two different explanations online, and I've hear a third. There doesn't seem to be any doubt that it was named after Sir Walter Raleigh, but whether it was from HMS Raleigh which ran aground nearby in Labrador, after Raleigh North Carolina or after Raleigh himself, I can't tell.

Raleigh fishing stages

Regardless, it's an attractive fishing village. We ate dinner at a cafe in the village, and I took some photographs after dinner.

Raleigh United Church

. . . Rob Williams http://www.robertwilliamsphotography.ca

Great Brehat, Newfoundland

noreply@blogger.com (Rob Williams) — Mon, 06 Aug 2012 17:29:00 +0000

While we were staying in St. Anthony, we visited a number of small coves nearby in a search for icebergs and walking trails. One of the most picturesque and rugged was Great Brehat, about 10km north-east of St. Anthony on the Northern Peninsula of Newfoundland.

Great Brehat

You can see that the village is very protected from the ocean. The wind was very strong when we were there, so it was quite clear that protection like this is necessary.

Boat under repair

My wife and I talked to a woman living in Great Brehat who was enjoying the warm weather (we were outfitted with warm jackets and windbreakers). She told us that the name of the village was pronounced "Great Brayh" -- the "t" was silent. I am wondering if it was named after Île-de-Bréhat, and island off the coast of Brittany. Many of the place names in this area of Newfoundland are French (sometimes Anglicized).

Fishing Stage

The landscape was beautiful and dramatic, and we both thought that this was one of the most picturesque places in this area of Newfoundland.

Rocky view of Great Brehat Bay

. . . Rob Williams http://www.robertwilliamsphotography.ca

Cape Onion

noreply@blogger.com (Rob Williams) — Thu, 02 Aug 2012 01:18:00 +0000

On one of our cloudy-but-not-rainy days, we decided to see Burnt Cape, a seemingly barren peninsula, but with arctic plants. We also wanted to see Cape Onion, beside Ship Cove, a community nearby. However, my car decided to go to Cape Onion first, by taking a wrong turn.

Ship Cove Cemetary at Cape Onion

Cape Onion was a magnificant sight, with a three-way ocean view, rocky outcrops, and several small and large islands in view. However, it was still mostly cloudy, but when the sun shone (however briefly), I took some photographs of the cemetary located on the cape. The one house in the cove, evidently the doctor's house, has a fantastic view of the water.

After visiting Burnt Cape Ecological Reserve, we decided to return to Cape Onion for the sunset.

Cape Onion at Sunset. Great Sacred Island is in the distance.

This time we were treated to a very windy but beautiful sunset. Cape Onion was one of the unexpected discoveries that we love to find when visiting a location.

One of the rocky outcrops, with a view of offshore islands


Cape Onion and Great Sacred Island

Onion Island catching the last rays of the sun.

. . . Rob Williams http://www.robertwilliamsphotography.ca

Newfoundland 2012: Fishing Point at St. Anthony

noreply@blogger.com (Rob Williams) — Mon, 30 Jul 2012 02:11:00 +0000

St. Anthony is a town on the northern peninsula of Newfoundland, known for Sir Wilfred Grenfell, a medical doctor from England who set up hospitals and medical centres in Labrador and Newfoundland.

View of St. Anthony harbour from Fishing Point

Fishing point is a point on a cliff overlooking the harbour at St. Anthony, near where Grenfell located his house and hospital. It is a typical Newfoundland landscape, with low bog-like plants growing over rocks. It's a popular place at sunset, where you can often see whales feeding off the point, and across the harbour.

Lighthouse at Fishing Point

On this evening, the sun broke through the clouds, and gave us some beautiful evening light. In the background of this photograph, you can see a large iceberg that was grounded off shore.

Whale watching at Fishing Point

As the sun went down behind us, we could see a whale (or possibly two) travelling from right to left in the photograph towards the opposite end of the harbour where there were a number of whales feeding.

More photographs to come.

. . . Rob Williams http://www.robertwilliamsphotography.ca

Fields and Flowers in Gros Morne National Park

noreply@blogger.com (Rob Williams) — Sun, 16 Oct 2011 15:20:00 +0000

During our visit to Gros Morne this past summer, we often remarked on the colourful wildflowers along the side of the road, and in fields wherever we went. These photographs were taken in Norris Point, and in Cow Head at the north end of the park.

House in Norris Point

Field overlooking Gulf of St. Lawrence in Cow Head

Another field in Cow Head

. . . Rob Williams http://www.robertwilliamsphotography.ca