When the world gives you lemons, make lemonade. Well, the day wasn’t a lemon. 20 degrees Celsius at the start of November in Central Ontario is not a lemon. It’s a miracle. Having time with family to picnic at the side of a river in November in Central Ontario is as good as it gets.
The lemons came out when the camera did. Let’s face it, no matter how warm it is, when the trees have dropped all their leaves and the snow has yet to fly, it’s tough to capture a whole lot of beauty through the lens.
However, I was pretty happy with what I got using a Polaroid Variable ND Filter to capture some daytime long exposure shots of the Credit River. The river depicted in these five images is actually quite raging. Sure, it’s not class V or anything, but the water is moving fast and the surface of the river reflects that water speed.
Going long exposure settles that water right down into a smooth, glassy surface. This allows the water to take on some pretty nice reflections and colour. This allows some acceptable shots to be created out of next to nothing.
The location is along the Caledon Trailway, just west of the highway 10 pedestrian bridge. Parking at the CVC lot, adjacent to the Ken Whillans Conservation Area lot is free and provides easy and safe access to the former rail bed.
At this spot, the bridge over the Credit River is an old rail trestle. The water is fast all year round as it does a pretty sharp ‘S’ curve as it passes beneath the bridge.
The rail trail will take you west from this point to Terra Cotta Conservation Area. To the east, it will take you through Caledon East and Palgrave before curving northward to Tottenham. This is part of a great trail network that joins up with the Trans Canada Trail, Bruce Trail and the Humber Valley Heritage Trail.
The exposures here are in the 10-15 second range. The one directly above was shot into the sun but I wanted it to show the rail bridge looking west.
The image below is probably my favourite. I was on the western bank of the river, just upstream from the bridge. I was trying to capture the colourful reflections on the water but using the eastern shore as a solid point within the water blur kept coming out too over exposed.
This dogwood branch jumped into one of the shots and really seemed to work. It was a breezy day but for that ten second period, the branch didn’t seem to move at all.
