My brother and fellow hiker and I were exploring areas just South of the Short Hills Provincial Park near Effingham, Ontario (and thus South-West of St Catharines, Ontario) looking for good Fall colour locations when we found a small rapids in Sulphur Springs Creek. The light coming through the leaf canopy was tinged with yellow from the leaves that had taken on that colour as they wrapped up their season. The area is riddled with ravines that cut into the Niagara Escarpment and fortunately, large areas of forest cover. Access is limited by a combination of ‘No Trespassing’ signs and very few and very narrow, winding roads. Makes for a pleasant area to explore at this time of year. – JW
Date Taken: 2015-10-20
Tech Details:
Taken using a tripod-mounted Nikon D7100 fitted with a Nikkor 18-105mm VR lense set to 42mm, ISO100, Auto WB, Manual mode, f/11.0, 246 sec. PP in free open Source RAWTherapee from Nikon RAW/NEF source file: resize image to 9000×6000, slightly darken (decrease exposure), enable shadows/highlights and bring up shadow detail in the roots, boost black level slightly, increase vibrance, enable noise reduction, save. PP in free Open Source GIMP: modify tone curve to slightly brighten the darkest 20% of the curve, use the dodge-burn tool to slightly brighten the highlights in the ‘rapids’ and also brighten mid-tones in the tree roots, slightly boost green-channel-only to bring out mosses, save, scale image to 6000×4000 (my preferred working size for prepping images to be posted online), add fine black and white frame, add bar and text on left, save, scale image to 1800 wide for posting.
