Trip to the Eastern Shore - 16 and 17 April 2011

Needed to get out of the “big city” this weekend.  We toured Nova Scotia in 2008 but we missed the East Coast due to a hurricane.  We decided to remedy this with a trip to Sherbrook Village and possibly Canso.  I  decided to take a couple of photographs at Lawrencetown beach before heading down the coast.

Started rather late Saturday morning I like being at a site before sun-up but when traveling with others you need to make allowances.  Lawrencetown beach is well known to local surfers, it has a nice shore break, complimented by a stunning rock beach.  Saturday morning was cold minus 6 when we headed out, not a typical spring day, there was some good cloud colour which helps saturate the colour of the rocks.  First time at this spot but I will definitely be back in the near future.

Lawrencetown Beach

Ended up in Sherbrook at midday.  We were the only residents at the Motel which suited us fine.  We explored the area including the “old village” which includes period piece actors/villagers in the summer season.   

Sawmill - Sherbrook Village

 We eventually wandered down a little lane leading to Walters Cove an area which really typifies the glaciated heritage of the area.  I decided to visit again the next morning, I am pretty happy with the results it was worth standing in the ocean and freezing my ass off.  All in all a nice trip.

Walters Cove, Nova Scotia

Star Trails and Basilica of St. Michael the Archangel

Claudina and I headed up to the Miramichi on Thursday the 31st March.  She was the keynote speaker for that regions International Woman’s Day, I was the dog minder, driver and enthusiastic supporter.  While in the Miramichi I had wanted to try a couple of night shots more specifically star trails.

There are plenty of resources on the web on how to approach your star trails, the best I have seen coming from my old home base in Southern Africa – have a look at this (star trail). Basically there are two methods of taking star trails that I know of.
1.    Long exposure (30 minutes and more, 11 hours if you want a full circle) and
2.   A series of shots of approximately 4 minutes each.

For me the second option is the best especially in cold weather where the temperature shortens battery life significantly (even on a good day my battery will not last longer than 2 hours).   So unless you are hooked up to the mains you don’t want to risk your battery dying halfway through the shot.

Important aspects to take into account when shooting star trails are as follows: you need to know where north and south is why? You need to face either of these directions if you want a typical circle of stars – face west or east and the star trails will be straight.

It needs to be dark – ambient light will drown out the stars.  That means the moon which is the major source of light in the night sky (thanks to it acting as a giant reflector for the sun) is a no-no and you need to shoot under a new moon.

• You need a very stable base – tripod.
• Bulb exposure – or cable release.
• Charged batteries.

Well despite knowing this I didn’t get to take a shot, I wanted a shot of the Basilica of St. Michael the Archangel which is a fantastic neo-gothic structure in Miramichi but when I got there in the evening the basilica was lit up by a number of flood lights – not good for seeing the stars, as flexible as ever I took the following shots of the basilica the star tails need to wait for another day.

Basilica of St. Michael the Archangel

Basilica of St. Michael the Archangel

Basilica of St. Michael the Archangel

Basilica of St. Michael the Archangel