Gregory's Blog

Walking Fern Side Trail, originally uploaded by Gregory Pleau.

Went for a trail run in Terra Cotta yesterday. Almost didn’t. Before I got here, we had some pretty heavy rains but fortunately it all cleared up so I could have my run.

What was left over though, was a wet, foggy spring evening and that makes a forest look fantastic.

The image here is of the Bruce Trail “Walking Fern” Side Trail near my run start. The photo was taken with my iPhone 4 and ProHDR software.

This is one of those classic the best camera is the one you have on you moments. While my iPhone was mainly being used for RunKeeper to track my run it’s also a handy camera that fits in my pocket.

Birch Trees on the Bruce, at Nottawasaga Bluffs, originally uploaded by Gregory Pleau.

This is a photo taken at Nottawasaga Bluffs Conservation Area in Grey County. It is (very) early spring, so the foliage is not quite out yet.

I was here with a group of geocachers for a 36km hike from Lavender Village to Clearwater Twp Road 91, along the Bruce Trail.

This is very close to one of my favourite geocaches that I’ve visited – it’s called Ragnarok. This is heading away from that geocache on the Bruce Trail, heading east.

One of my favourite photographs of all time is one I have framed in my living room here, by Ansel Adams. It features tall birch trees lit from the side in an otherwise dark forest. I am always keeping my eye out for birch stands thanks to that photograph, and one thing I learned on this hike is that Grey County is blessed with many birch trees along the escarpment here. I will likely be back with my Nikon on a day where the lighting is favourable.

This photo was taken with my iPhone 4, and converted to Black and White in Photoshop with a (simulated) Red filter. I cropped it to 8×10 as well in Lightroom before uploading it to Flickr.

BFL Crew Borrows a T.A.R.D.I.S., originally uploaded by Gregory Pleau.

This is a bit of photoshop fun from Friday night’s geocaching activity. We were visiting a geocache that required us to wait until a certain time on a certain day.

As we found out our iPhones would allow us to override the system time, thus bypassing the time/date restriction it was decided that we should say we used Doctor Who’s T.A.R.D.I.S. device to travel into the future to find the cache.

We found an object about the size of a T.A.R.D.I.S. and posed around it – in this case it was a large trailhead sign at the parking area.

I setup two flashes, one on each side and set them to 1/16 power. This dropped the background light and highlighted our group in a way that would allow easy manipulation. The flashes were supported by a tripod on the right, and a Jeep Wrangler on the left (hey, it works even if it costs several thousand times what the tripod cost). The speedlights were triggered with Nikon CLS.

The image of the T.A.R.D.I.S. came from a Creative Commons licenced image I found on Photobucket. It was added in as a layer, then I used two layer masks to darken the image toward the bottom, and another one to show the group through to the foreground. All in all, about 10 minutes post-processing time.

Hamilton Beach View, originally uploaded by Gregory Pleau.

This is the view today, from a quiet spot on Hamilton Beach. It’s hard to imagine, but this is what the view looks like in one of Canada’s most densely populated urban areas. Even in the metropolis, there is the occasional oasis. We are sitting just a few hundred metres from the Burlington Skyway bridge, the Port of Burlington, and a major hydro transmission corridor. Yet still, there is a tranquility to be found in the gentle waves lapping the shore of the beach, and the row of cottage like homes that line Beach Blvd.

Team 781 – Action Shot, originally uploaded by Gregory Pleau.

This weekend, I attended the FIRST Robotics competition, to cheer on family. Alden, Michelle and Pat participated with team 781, Kincardine’s Kinetic Knights and won the GTA-West Regional competition.

This photo is of the team’s robot racing to deploy an inflated triangle shape (to assemble a FIRST logo) moments after they deployed their “Mini-Bot” in the final seconds of a semi-final match.

Light Painting in Halton Hills, originally uploaded by Gregory Pleau.

Same story as the last photo, here for night photos, but I also happened to have a brand new 820 lumen flashlight with me. Since it has a 325 metre beam, I thought I’d try it out for a bit of light painting in a landscape photo. This is the result. The trees have been lit with the flashlight during the 30 second exposure.

Night Sky in Halton Hills, originally uploaded by Gregory Pleau.

Headed out to the Scotsdale Farm with Paul, hoping to catch a view of the aurora activity. Sadly, lack of aurora strength and clouds in the north sky dashed that opportunity. Still, spent some time here with the starscape.

This is looking south over Georgetown from the parking area at the Farm.

STS-133 Closeup, originally uploaded by Gregory Pleau.

This was one of my vacation goals, to see the Kennedy Space Centre and hopefully a Space Shuttle. Fortunately for me, they were getting ready to launch Discovery on it’s last mission (STS-133). I got to see the shuttle (and point my camera at it). The Shuttle is scheduled to blast into space tomorrow evening if everything goes according to NASA’s plans.

Bok Stepping, originally uploaded by Gregory Pleau.

For some reason, every time I visit an old estate, or castle I find it’s the small, unnoticable details that draw my lens. This is a staircase inside the Pinewood Estate at Bok Tower Gardens in Lake Wales, Florida.

Candy Flamingo, originally uploaded by Gregory Pleau.

Last week, I spent the week in Orlando, Florida. Naturally I visited the theme parks – Disney and Universal, and NASA. I brought my camera, but not the tripod.

This photo was taken at Epcot Centre:

“This woman had an exhibit at the Japan Pavilion in Disney/Epcot’s World Showcase. She fashioned miniature animal sculptures from candy, on request. Here she has created a pink flamingo.”