Sunrise boat trip to Flowerpot Island

Many great photo locations are most accessible by water. Though I have been paddling canoes and kayaks since I was a kid, it can be a heck lot of work - and logistically challenging - to get to places when the light is best. I finally broke down and bought a small boat last week (16' aluminum with a 50HP engine) to open up a new world of photo possibilities. My first photo shoot with the boat was out to nearby Flowerpot Island:

 

Photo 1 (above): Self-portrait at sunrise, Flowerpot Island, Fathom Five National Marine Park, Tobermory, Ontario. Canon EOS 5d mark II, EF 17-40mm lens, Singh-Ray LB warming polarizer & 3 stop soft edge ND grad, ISO 200, 1/6s @ f/14

Photo 2 (above): Getting air next to the flowerpot, Flowerpot Island, Fathom Five National Marine Park, Tobermory, Ontario. Canon EOS 1Ds mark III, 24mm TSE II tilt shift lens, ISO 800, 1/500s @ f/4.5.

The great sunrise was short-lived because of overcast skies, so I decided to mess around with my tilt-shift lens. One of the great benefits of the lens is the ability to achieve depth of field at fairly wide-open apertures. By tilting the lens I was able to shoot this at f/4.5 yet have plenty of depth-of-field and a fast enough shutter speed to stop motion in air. That's me jumping... my friend Cainan machine-gunned the the shutter release for me.