Lake Placid, NY

To our slightly disappointment, we decided to head up north east to seek better foilage. When I was staying the most luxious hotel at Ithaca (BTW, it was a 3 star Holiday Inn...) I checked the NY fall color report. The Adirondacks was in the peak. After 4 hours of outlet shopping, we headed to Lake Placid, NY. It took us about 5 hours including most of night time driving.

It was a wise decision. Lake Placid welcomed us with full spectrum of fall colors, green, yellow, orange, red and burgundy. Especially, when the morning sun shining through light fog, it was very dreamy.

We visited Whiteface Mountain, picnic at Mirror lake and hiked at Cascade Lake. It was a short but easy vacation.

 

We came back to Ottawa after the 3 day trip. Gatineau park is also a great place to visit in the fall in spite of all the traffic in the park, there were many good places to go. Obrian beach and Wilson Ruins are among our favourite places.

Thanks for reading.

The end.

Finger Lakes, NY

It's that time of the year again. When the spectacular fall arrives, people are rushing into northern states or Canada to enjoy the season. This year Bo decided to visit Finger Lakes, NY... where accidentally closes to Waterloo premium outlet. 

4 hours driving wasn't too bad to us since we had been renovating our house for the whole summer. The weather was pleasantly beautiful, sunny, 22 degree (C). Everything is crispy and fresh.


We headed straight to Watkins Glen State Park. Some says this is the 8th wonder of the world. I have been to only one of the wonders, the Great Wall in China. Comparing to it, WG has much less tourists and was much well maintained. I have an article about this park last year at here. It was one of the most amazing places I have been to in North America. Since the whole Finger Lake area was summer like, with all the lavish greens, very few trees turned into yellowish. It was not too much fun for my wide angle lens anymore. I decided to take some portraits for Bo.


Watkins Glen is a small canyon with many unbelievable waterfalls. There are trees on both sides of the cliff. Sun can barely shoot down to the stream. However, because of this, it creates interesting lighting condition. The sun shined through leaves, it produced a natural studio lights. I was leveraging this advantage for most of the pictures such as the following:

 

 

To be continued...

Call of duty - Real Estate Shot

I was called to take on a real estate shot recently. Obviously, my name was referred by one of my previous "customers" (I don't run this as a business, still just a hobby).  The owner was trying to sell his home, and I was told he tried photographing service from GrapevXXXX and was very disappointing.

The house is located in Kanata area, walk-out basement backing on beautiful ravines. Good pictures become critical when you desire to get the price right. Getting enough attention is the first step... There I was.

 

After almost 2 hours of the shooting and 3 hours of post processing, the owner was very happy about the outcome. To quote his word "thanks again for the great job you've done".  I could see he was a bit of skeptical when we met, but finally it paid off. Of course I was compensated for my service. However, comparing the time I spent on it, it was cheaper than working at McDonald's... I don't mind because that's my hobby.

Thanks for reading. The end.