Category: Canada

Niagara Parkway at Night

Dmitrii26 Comments

Taking Traffic Lights Photos

When opportunities arise I always try to get photos with long traffic lights and I find that it is not easy to do if you shoot a set of brackets. I usually shoot with ISO 200, so when shooting brackets camera is set to aperture priority and the primary way to control timing of each exposure is via  changing aperture, the lower the aperture (higher F number) the longer each exposure takes. But you don’t really know how long it will take for each exposure, while interesting traffic is going by and might not show up again for some time. I usually do not like to bring F too high because it decreases the quality of the image, so it is hard to time it right and get enough timing to get the good continuous line of lights at least on one of the brackets.

Christmas Time at the Falls

So on this occasion I was walking along the Niagara parkway on the river side and decided to take a few traffic lights with some glimpse of the Niagara Falls, the fog and some Christmas decorations, so I jumped over to the medium and took probably at least ten shots of the same scene, trying to time it right. I was happy with this one.

BTW, if you are a recent visitor – a little tip – if you want to see much higher resolution image all you have to do is to click on the image below. And as always – Thanks for stopping by!

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Simple Rainbow

Dmitrii17 Comments

After making through the border control and doing a bit of hiking on the Niagara River I finally arrived at the Niagara Falls. As I was passing it on my way to the parking lot I saw this rainbow illuminated by the low setting sun. After parking I grabbed my camera and started walking to it and taking pictures. I had some with the buses, and cars and people, getting all in the foreground, still I was taking them as I was afraid that it will disappear. Finally I was able to cross the road and get this one. The mist you see is the mist from the Niagara Horse Shoe Falls.

Btw, I took Step Back photo probably about two hours later, it is still one of my personal favorites.

NiagraRainbow1-small

Rainbow Colors of Niagara Falls

Dmitrii30 Comments

I took this photo on the same night as Step Back photo. You can probably figure out which side of the Niagara Falls is shown in the Step Back.

All this illumination is coming from the Canadian side, they have huge projectors on the hill, pointing both at the Horse Shoe and at the American side Falls. Colors are not static and based on my observation they were changing them every five minutes, first all white, then all red, all blue, all yellow, and then finally they had it all mixed up.

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Step Back

Dmitrii52 Comments

Not because you are going to fall into the Niagara Falls, but because I think this one is best appreciated from a bit of a distance, just like a painting. For even better effect click on it to open the higher resolution for the entire screen and then take one step back.  Thanks for stopping by!!!

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Niagara Falls Fireworks

Dmitrii13 Comments

Couple weeks ago we went to see relatives in Erie PA. Since it was so close to Niagara Falls (100 miles or so), I decided to make a half day trip to it and take a few photos. I was there a few years ago during summer and they had some spectacular fireworks, so naturally I wanted to see if I can see it this time as well. The fireworks are done on the Canadian side and most of the Falls activities are on the Canadian side as well. During winter they only do them once a week on Fridays. This year it was one day before Christmas, so I thought they will have a spectacular show. I made sure I have my passport, put camera in the back seat, and took a short trip to the border.

Usually it takes no more than 2-3 minutes to pass through the passport control. I’ve been to Canada at least dozen times, spent a lot of money there at Whistler/Blackcomb, Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver and Niagara Falls. Not so fast this time. I guess a single driver who lives in NC and happens to be in the area and wants to see Niagara Falls triggers all kind of alarms by the Canadian border control agents. Especially if driver happens to work in software consulting industry. No matter that he works for one of the largest software companies in the world, meaning he is not an independent consultant and don’t do odd jobs. But, according to Canadian border control he must be trying to sneak into the country and steal high paying jobs from true Canadians. So it took about 45 minutes, conversation with three different agents, search of my empty car to convince them that going to Canada to see Niagara Falls and Friday night Fireworks is not such a crazy or uncommon idea and that I have no intentions to stay in Canada.

And you know what? Fireworks lasted about 3 minutes, just about three times short of my expectations, and was nothing what I expected them to be. Maybe those agents knew it and were wondering why would someone come all the way to see 3 minutes of not so spectacular fireworks. Regardless, even though it was short, I managed to hike around Niagara River before sunset, take a few shots of sunset over the Falls and saw fireworks. The trip was totally worth it and I’ll do it again if ever going to be in the area.

If you never been there, to the left is Canada, to the right is USA. The pink on the right is USA side Niagara Falls. The horse shoe Falls is right behind me, just imagine it for now till I process what I have and share it here.

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