Photo of the Day - Newfoundland Icebergs

Locked in the heart of the longest, coldest winter I can remember in the twenty years I've lived in the Canadian Rockies, my thoughts naturally turned to snow this morning when I saw yet another fresh skiff on the front steps.  So when I started thinking of what today's Photo of the Day should be, my thoughts first turned to snow again...but I figured that was too easy.  Snowy, wintery shot, blah, blah, blah, boring!  So to spice it up today I have turned to snow's close cousin, ice, and to really step outside of the box, I've posted a couple that I thought told an interesting story from my trip in 2009 to Newfoundland to photograph icebergs (yet again, this is what happens when you're two years behind in editing, you start to think that shots from 2009 are 'current' and 'Photos of the Day' because, well, they are photos that I'm working on today!

The reason I thought these two photos were interesting is because they were taken mere minutes apart with one small difference.

Twin icebergs along the northeast coast of Newfoundland

The first shot is a 30 second exposure at f22 at ISO 50 with my 17-40 mm lens set at 21 mm.  I have it at 21 mm to avoid vignetting because I've got a polarizing filter and a 5-stop neutral density filter on (these filters show vignetting on the 17-40 at 17-19 mm) to maximize the length of the exposure and bring out the subtle late afternoon colours on an otherwise cloudy, colourless day.  I was also hoping to smooth out the wave action of the surf hitting the shoreline, which this long exposure really did well.

Then I began wondering what my long-lost blue-gold polarizer would look like in this situation.  I used to use the blue-gold quite a bit back in the Velvia film days to add colour to scenes and to help me feel more like I was creating art rather than just capturing exactly what I saw in a scene.  Unfortunately, digital cameras don't quite see and interpret the blue-gold filter the same way as film did, so the filter has been relegated to the back shelves of my filter bag over the past six years, rarely used and rarely needed.

Icebergs on the north coast of Newfoundland photographed with a blue-gold polarizing filter

I put the filter on and to my surprise, it rendered what looked like a rich, reddish image (30 second exposure at f13) on my camera's LCD.  Sure enough, when I was going through my edits yesterday, this image stood out in the batch of otherwise drab images from that sunless day.  And while I still really like the original without the creative red colouring, this is easily one of my favourites of the trip.  It certainly uses a bit of creative licensing, but then again, that's what landscape photography is often all about!

Your thoughts?

Happy shooting,

John

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