Tag: sun pillar

Categories
Lens-Artists Photo Challenge

Lens-Artists Photo Challenge: Pastimes

This is my contribution to the Lens-Artists Photo Challenge: Pastimes.

Once again I am cheating a little with my response to the prompt. Over Christmas I started the fairy major project of digitising my colour slide and black and white negative archives.

When Ontario went into lockdown it gave me lots of time to continue the project. I currently have 8,000 slides digitised plus dozens of key black and white negatives.

This has allowed me to rediscover some personal favourites and discover some overlooked photos that have become favourites.

 

Friendly Friday Photo Challenge: Sea Creatures

A section of the winter gull roost on Hurleston Reservoir near Nantwich in southern Cheshire in the 1990s. An overlooked photo that has since become a favourite.

 

Cee's Black and White Photo Challenge: Decayed or Rusty

An abandoned crofters cottage on the Isle of Skye, Scotland with the mist shrouded Cuillin mountains across the bay behind. A favourite that I didn’t have a good digital copy of until a couple of weeks ago.

 

One Word Sunday: Ice

A frozen and partially snow covered slough at sunrise with weak sun pillar. I discovered a set of sunrise photos from Punnichy, Saskatchewan with a weak sun pillar in the sky.

 

Monochrome Monday: 4th May 2020

Hoarfrost on Privet leaves in a Hatherton, Cheshire garden. The vertical version of this photo has long been a favourite but I didn’t remember taking a horizontal version until I started digitising some of my black and white negatives.

 

Categories
2020 Archives

Fan Of… OM Zuiko 350mm lens, part 2

This is a contribution to Jez Braithwaite’s Fan Of… #56 photo challenge and part two of my ramble about the Olympus OM Zuiko 350mm lens I have been using since 1996. If you missed part one it’s here.

Part 2 is about some of the unexpected photos taken with the lens.

 

Fan Of... OM Zuiko 350mm lens part 2

The 350mm lens set up in the snow on the South Bruce Peninsula in 2009.

 

Fan Of... Olympus OM Zuiko 350mm lens

A rain drop in the rain. Taken while waiting for some birds to visit the yard in 2018.

 

Tuesday Photo Challenge - Trees

Hoarfrost covered trees on snow covered farmland at sunrise near Punnichy, Saskatchewan in 1998. I was scouting a location to photograph a moonrise.

 

Fan Of... OM Zuiko 350mm lens

While waiting for the moon to rise over the snow covered farmland in the above photo I photographed a group of White-tailed Deer across a small valley at dusk.

 

Fan Of... OM Zuiko 350mm lens, part 2

A Prairie Lily, the provincial flower of Saskatchewan photographed near Punnichy, Saskatchewan in 1998.

 

A giant sun pillar.

A sun pillar behind Chantry Island, Lake Huron, Ontario in 2005. The biggest and brightest sun pillar I have ever seen made even bigger by using the 350mm.

 

Banded Demoselles.

A female Banded Demoselle egg laying while being watched by a male. Photographed in southern Cheshire in 1997. The insects were in the middle of a water inlet to a reservoir several metres from solid ground. So I used a long forgotten mix of extension tubes and teleconverters behind the lens to get the magnification and close focusing I needed.

 

Categories
One Word Sunday

Ice

A frozen and partially snow covered slough at sunrise for Debbie’s One Word Sunday prompt Ice. There’s also a weak sun pillar just visible in the sky.

One Word Sunday: Ice

 

Categories
Monthly Squares

January Squares: Pillar of Sunlight

Technically it’s correctly known as a sun pillar but pillar of sunlight was to good an opportunity to miss for day 21 of Becky’s January Squares: Light photo challenge.

Sun pillars form when there are suitably aligned ice crystals suspended in the air at sunrise or sunset. This rather large sun pillar formed behind Chantry Island on Lake Huron, Ontario shortly after sunset. I had been photographing the interesting layers of  cloud with a telephoto lens when the sun pillar formed so was ready for it.

January Squares: Pillar of Sunlight

Categories
Throwback Thursday

Frozen Slough at Sunrise

Throwback Thursday travels back to Saskatchewan in the late 1990s.

It was the pattern of snow on the ice of the frozen slough that caught my eye and the way it was reflecting the clouds in the frozen surface. I didn’t notice the weak sun pillar until I was editing a scan of the shot years later.

A frozen slough near Punnichy, Saskatchewan, Canada at sunrise.

Throwback Thursday: 2nd January 2020

Categories
Cosmic Photo Challenge

Cosmic Photo Challenge: Playing with Light

This is my contribution to the Cosmic Photo Challenge: Playing with Light.

The photo was taken in the winter, that’s frazil ice on Lake Huron in the foreground. Which means it also works with the Winter’s Breath challenge.

Mother nature is playing with light supported in a very minor way by me. This is Chantry Island and its lighthouse with a giant sun pillar behind the island. Chantry Island is just off the Lake Huron shoreline in Southampton, Ontario, Canada.

Sun pillars form when the sun is on or below the horizon at sunrise or sunset. The pillar is the reflection of the sun in ice crystals suspended in the air.

My contribution to the playing with light is timing the exposure to coincide with the flashing of the light in the lighthouse. I would count seconds after a flash and release the shutter at five seconds just before the light flashed again.

Cosmic Photo Challenge: Playing with Light

Categories
52 week photo project

Week 49. A weak sun pillar.

Wednesday morning of week 49 saw me down at the Colpoy’s Bay shoreline before sunrise.

As the sun came up a weak sun pillar formed over the Niagara Escarpment. Sun pillars form when there are suitable ice crystals in the atmosphere. The pillar is the sunlight reflecting off the crystals.

The sun pillar is the perpendicular beam of light in the centre of the frame above the Niagara Escarpment.

Sun pillar over Colpoy's Bay.

Just to side track for a minute, my week 29 photo ‘A bird in the rain‘ is featured in a 2019 birds calender.