Fall Challenge

Each year, the Nature Group of the RA Photo Club organizes an outing called the Fall Challenge. This is a friendly competition where participants photograph at the same location for the day, for as long as they want, and afterwards submit their eight best photos that club members score. This year two locations near to each other were offered: Blakeney Rapids and the Mill of Kintail Conservation Area. I arrived just before dawn at Blakeney Rapids, hoping to photograph a nice sunrise. Unfortunately, it was cloudy with scattered rain, and there was only a brief period where there was enough of a break in the clouds to get a hint of sunrise colours. I took what advantage I could of this opportunity while it lasted. I then spent the rest of the morning photographing the forest and river at Blakeney. With nature photography, I invariably use a tripod, and you certainly needed one that day because the light was dim throughout the morning, and especially in the forest. On the other hand, the rain earlier in the day saturated all of the colours, so you were well rewarded for bringing your tripod along. After lunch in nearby Almonte ON, I headed to the Mill of Kintail and continued to photograph there. By this point, the day turned quite warm and humid, and my early morning, and vigorous efforts at Blakeney, combined to exhaust my energy, so I only stayed a couple of hours. Nevertheless, I came away with several shots from this second location that I was also happy with. In total, about 26 people participated in this outing, of which 22 submitted images to the competition.

It was cloudy and rainy without much colour in the sky, but we did get a brief opening in the clouds that I was able to take advantage of.

This colourful arrangement of (mostly) maple leaves, with one dominant leaf, caught my eye.

I took several shots of this red/green scene, but this shot most clearly emphasizes the main subject

Simplicity of composition with a limited depth of field was the main consideration with this shot.

It took some effort to get into position to take this shot, but I wanted this composition.

Forests are inherently quite visually cluttered, so I sought a position where the diagonal tree would be dominant against the vertical trees in the background.

Tree roots are fascinating subjects, especially when they are old and gnarly like this. I can imagine seeing different things in these roots.

This shot is all about circles - the rock, the arc of its surrounding leaves, and then the arc of the river.

Seven shots needed to be focus merged to create this final result. There are many repeating patterns here.

This little detail is easy to miss. I first saw the interesting horizontal lines, and then saw this composition with the curl of bark and the strong vertical line.

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