Every year it is the same, all festivities are done and the year starts over. Now it’s the time for the “longest” month of the year. The darkest days (apart from the few days before Christmas that are actually the darkest days of the year) are in front of us. As well as the coldest days.
One week in and we already have had enough of winter and are already dreaming of spring or summer. Mother Nature will have a small-print clause like “More to come…” somewhere, though.
We’ve all been there. Gone for the day in search of that picture we never had the chance to shoot. The intention is nice, but nothing is cooperating. The weather turned to mush.
The wildlife decided to take a day off from modelling for you. After a few hours of this heart-wrenching torment, you are finally ready to give up and sell your gear.
Over the years of shooting everything and its ancestors, I have found myself in situations where using flash was not an option and shooting with “normal” ISO values yielded nothing. Low-light situations were upon me.
So then it was necessary to go into the dreaded “high ISO” ranges of the camera and hope for the best.
A while ago, a good friend of mine called me and asked: “How would you like to go on a wild woolly weekend?”. Naturally, I asked what he had in mind. The request came at the beginning of December, so I had no idea what he was thinking of.
He had in mind to go on a long weekend trip to the north of Manitoba in search of Great Grey Owls and anything else we could shoot.
One of the rivers close to my place is the Medway River. The part I can easily visit and follow is largely untamed. White water in some places, quiet a few hundred meters away.
It also has a lot of little side streams, parts that split off from the main river and later recombine. It makes for a very interesting place to photograph.