Project 365 - Day 64 - Oakville at night

I had the photographer's version of writer's block today.  Nothing was working out, nothing inspired me.  So I took a drive to one of my recent locations, down at Oakville harbour.  It totally paid off.

The sky over the lake and over the northern part of Oakville was very cool.  As soon as I got out of the van I could hear my friends the geese calling to me.  When I walked around the corner, I saw them - and let me tell you I have never seen that many geese in one spot at one time.  But I told them "I'm not here to shoot you guys today".  They seemed relieved ... I wonder why.

It was incredibly windy and cold.  I had to use a very slow shutter to allow enough light in.  Because of the wind, there was considerable camera shake even with the tripod.  So I braced myself against the tripod and tried not to move for the shutter duration.  That was tough.  But it worked out.

You'll notice the geese in the foreground are blurry.  This is because they don't follow orders - I asked them to stay still.  :-)  The water was very wavy as well - you can see ripples on one part of the open water where there are no geese.

Enough about that, here's the shot:

This is my Sigma 11-16 lens at 16mm.  f/22, ISO800 and 20 second shutter.  I love the way the clear night sky is actually blue...I reduced the saturation a bit (yes, reduced) as the sky was too blue and detracted from the shot.

I will definitely keep coming back here - especially when it is warmer ... ;-)