Granite bedrock patterns - Eastern Georgian Bay

I spent a few days last week shooting on eastern Georgian Bay at a remote location with some of the most exquisite granite rock patterning I know of on the Great Lakes. My friend, Halifax area photographer Dale Wilson, joined me for the trip and was blown away by the scenic Canadian Shield islands. Our excursion was an adventure. The good ship "ViewFinder" was fully loaded with camping and camera gear. Navigating the gauntlet of shoals to reach the best islands was stressful; thankfully Dale contributed better chart reading skills than I have. At one point while en route to an evening shoot location, I looked back only to notice the stern of the boat filling with water and my camera pack partly submerged. The plug had fallen out! After rescuing the gear and beaching the boat on a nearby island, I jumped in the water with all of my clothes on and put in a spare plug before activating the bilge pump. We were dry and back shooting in 15 minutes, just in time for a great sunset!

Now safely back on land, I'm editing through the hundreds of photos from the trip. Below are a few of my favorites. These were photographed with a Canon 5D mark II body, either Canon EF 17-40 lens or Sigma 24-70mm lenses, and Singh-Ray filters. I'm already planning the next trip out there and will certainly be packing another spare boat plug!

Adventures on eastern Georgian Bay

Photo 1 (above): Grantic rock patterns in eastern Georgian Bay at sunset. EOS 5D mark II; 17-40mm lens; Singh-Ray LB ColorCombo polarizer & 3 stop reverse ND grad; ISO 200; 3.2s @ f/20

This was an adventurous week! I spent a few days photographing and exploring remote islands in eastern Georgian Bay with my friend Ian "nikonIAN" Brooks (http://www.ianbrooks.net/). We loaded my boat with gear and set out to camp on a remote chain of small islands sporting amazing granite folds that form elaborate patterns. I'd first spied these geologic formations in a tv documentary and they have been on my mind ever since!

The great challenge/stress of our trip was navigating the boat through a rocky labyrinth of shoals. The combonation of Ian's advanced GPS navigating skills and my inability to follow instructions, landed us on our first shoal within hours. I hit it hard enough to break the skeg of the bottom of the boat motor, but thankfully there was minimal damage to the prop. Onward we cruised (although much slower).

We managed to make a couple trips to the best islands for magic hour light, but couldn't stay as long as we wanted because of the danger in boating back in forth in low light (you can't see the shoals). Next trip I'm going to drag a kayak out with me.

The most expensive part of the weekend was when I dropped my almost brand new 70-200mm f/4 IS lens on the bedrock and literally snapped the lens body in half. I took it into Canon yesterday and they tell me it will be fixed in 4 days (and a reasonable price). This will be my first test of the new CPS program!

Here are a few shots from the trip. More to follow as I catch up on processing the raw files. 


Photo 2 (above): Grantic rock patterns in eastern Georgian Bay. EOS 5D mark II; 24mmTSE II tilt shift lens; Singh-Ray LB Warming polarizer & 2 hard edge ND grad; ISO 200; 1/13s @ f/20


Photo 3 (above): Grantic rock patterns in eastern Georgian Bay. EOS 5D mark II; 17-40mm lens; Singh-Ray LB Warming polarizer & 2 stop hard edge ND grad; ISO 200; 0.4s @ f/18



Photo 4 (above): Grantic rock patterns in eastern Georgian Bay at sunset. EOS 5D mark II; 17-40mm lens; Singh-Ray LB ColorCombo polarizer & 3 stop reverse ND grad; ISO 200; 6s @ f/20


Photo 5 (above): Grantic rock patterns in eastern Georgian Bay. EOS 5D mark II; 17-40mm lens; Singh-Ray LB polarizer; ISO 100; 1/30s @ f/18


Photo 6 (above): Northern Watersnake eating fish (Round Goby?); Canon G11 point & shoot
It pays to have a point & shoot camera handy for unexpected moments like when this watersnake came up with dinner! I didn't have time to grab my SLR system.

Vote for the boat name...

Thanks to everyone for the many great suggestions for a boat name! I've picked my 6 favorites and put a poll here on the blog to decide the final choice (it's on the top right of the page). Please vote for the one you like the best. Whichever name gets the most votes is what I'll go with!

I'm making good use of the boat and spent all of today out on eastern Georgian Bay touring with geologist  Nick Culshaw. He showed me locations (and provided geologic explanations) for some of the most remarkable rock formations and patterns I've ever seen. For the next few days, I'll be camping out on remote islands to shoot the formations in dawn/dusk light.  

Here's the boat out today (dreary light) on Georgian Bay. My friends came along, hence all of the clothing and gear.