Primordial Dawn

[Kerry Gordon]

This image was taken on a month long canoe trip along the Bloodvein River with my wife this past August. The Bloodvein is a remote river which runs from Northwestern Ontario into Lake Winnipeg in Manitoba. We passed this spot late in the day on our way to finding a campsite for the night. But I knew I wanted to come back the following morning and get some shots. The next morning I was delighted to find that my wife wanted to come with me and lucky she did. We pushed off around 5 am in pea soup fog so thick we could barely see beyond the canoe’s bow. We were only paddling for about 20 minutes but in that kind of all encompassing fog, it seemed like forever. We arrived at the site and I got set up as best I could – only a small spit of land so not much room to manoeuver the camera. As the sun came up the light truly was primordial. Later we brewed up some coffee and just sat back and were amazed.
I blended three images in post and slightly replaced the sky. By that I mean I lightly feathered in a bit of the blue and cloud you see in the upper left.
EXIF: Fujifilm X-T1, Fujinon 18-135mm. ISO 200, 32.6mm, f/22 and 1/5, .5 and .4 sec. I should have used an ND filter instead of f/22 but I was rushing to catch the light and got slightly confused.
Critique and comment would be most appreciated.

[Don Railton]

Hi Kerry.. the light on the water is exquisite..! love that. The sunlight filtering through the trees/mist is also very very nice.. Suggestions from me are to remove some of the shadow lower LH side corner and spend a little more time on the sky blending.. still looks a little patchy in the blue I feel, need nice smooth gradients.. overall, its brilliant..

Don

[John Whaley]

It really is a beautiful image Kerry. The water looks perfect to me - smooth but alive. The mist rising from the water adds and the sunlight bursting through the limbs draws me in. I don't know how to blend and I would probably trip over a " nice smooth gradient " but this has all the elements working together.

[Don Lacy]

Lovely image Kerry, The mist and light are beautiful I would work on the blend a bit more the trees in the upper right corner are the only ones still in shadows and look out of place.

[Krishna Prasad kotti]

Beautiful Feel to the image. I love the Light and how it peak between the Trees.

Thanks for sharing.

[Andrew McLachlan]

Very beautiful scene composed and captured very well!

[Nikhil Patwardhan]

Lovely image, I like the subtle fog tones all over especially in the middle. I wish there was some more of the sky / tree tops though, the image looks tightly cropped to me at the top. Nice work getting the sun rays come through the trees.