Canoe Season is Almost Here

It was a productive fall and winter with several canoeing trips and backpacking trips. The last couple of months I've been in a holding pattern as I wait for the seasonable weather to settle down.

Looking forward to the new canoeing season for 2024. I've got several local adventures planned including an end to end multi-day trip on Barren River Lake, Exploring Nolin Lake among others, some underwater photography on Trammel Creek and Long Creek...plus other overnighter and single day trips.

Hope you join me as Beyond the Campfire sets off on another season...Here's a quick preview and look back...

Spring: The Hardest Season to Photograph

 Here in Kentucky we experience four distinct seasons. I'd venture to guess that Spring is likely the season most look forward to. As a photographer I tend to photograph all year round, however, over the years I've come to the conclusion that the Spring season is the most difficult to capture. 

For some reason I've never been able to capture the impact of the Spring season very well. I've tried, but seems like I am always disappointed with the results. Spring is the kind of season your eyes see all kinds and splashes of color scattered across the landscape, but somehow, all of that color simply does not translate well into photographs.

 I've come to the conclusion that in order to photograph Spring you have to get in close to the subject and use depth of field and a blue sky to frame your subject. Sometimes getting in close means to get down low. There are a myriad of small spring flowers that cover the lawn and they bloom pretty much all through the season and well into the summer. But you gotta get right down on the ground to capture them in a way they do not become a cliched image.

This is where depth of field comes into play. By using a long lense and a large aperture, then focusing on the main subject, the foreground and background blur, and the small blooms suddenly become isolated to stand out against all of the clutter surrounding them.

If I were to collect all of my photographs by season, Spring would contain the fewest images. Most of my Spring images pretty much look the same with very few appearing as a unique image moment. Even so, as mentioned above, the most effective Spring images I've made tend to be close in shots. One good thing about the Spring season is how volatile the sky can become. Thunder storms roll across the landscape, cloud formations vary from high wispy clouds, to strong fluffy rolls, to dark and foreboding, to brilliantly lit filled with color. I believe the trick to photographing the Spring season is to focus on the weather using the blooming landscape as the accent.

Many times dark clouds infiltrate across the sky after the sun has warmed the earth and created a caldron mix of humidity and heat that feeds the stormy conditions. This will often lead to an end of the day breaking up of those clouds where the sun suddenly breaks through and lights up the sky. 

Some of the best combinations of conditions and light will occur during this time and provide for some interesting if not downright unusual lighting. 

There is one location not far from home where the Spring bloom offers a wonderful backdrop. It's a campground, near the lake, that is covered in dozens of mature dogwood trees accented with redbuds. The dogwoods create a canopy of white blooms that are simply spectacular and I will often visit the location in mid-April for that reason alone.

Dogwoods I believe make the best subjects. They come in white and various shades of pink and when planted together make a lovely sight. Closeup, dogwood blooms offer a powerful yet delicate blend of aesthetic nature at her best. You can as a photographer do so much with them and they convert well into black and white. 

If I were to choose a single Spring photograph I've made, one I actually like, it is the one I made some years ago of dogwood blooms growing next to a split rail fence. I added a bit of blur to the image yet focused on the central blooms and converted it into a black and white image. Compositionally it is strong and aesthetically is offers a blend of softness and an enduring Spring-like moodiness.

Spring can be an amazing time of year for the photographer and at the same time a challenging time. Capturing it as a single context of photographs is not easy, but when taking the time to actually see what is there and focusing on the details, well, the hardest season to photograph can become one of the most productive.

 

The Canoe: A Sense of Unspoiled Freedom

 The sunrise lingered that morning yet presented itself as a token of light spreading across the sky. A few clouds hovering above the ridgetops caught some of the first light of the morning and began to softly glow casting their reflection across the almost still water. Just a gentle ripple rolled across the surface of the lake, and that motion was barely enough to distort and provide movement to those reflections. All I could hear were a few birds greeting the morning and the rhythmic soft splash of my paddle as I glided along in my Old Town Camper canoe. The once silent morning started to stir to life and I experienced a satisfying sense of unspoiled freedom as I became one with the first moments of the day.

Internet Photo

The canoe is perhaps the most versatile watercraft ever devised. Having its roots going way back to the Native American birchbark canoes, known from the history of the northern latitudes of United States and Canada, it is today mostly a recreational craft made from modern materials. Even so, the birchbark canoe, in areas where horses and wagons were virtually useless, was most responsible for opening up the interior of North America. Some of those early canoes ranged as large as over 30 to 35 feet in length and 4 to 5 feet in diameter to the smaller single man canoes of similar construction. 

Shooting the Rapids (Internet Photo)

Known as freighter canoes, the larger ones could carry several tons of cargo yet were fast, durable, easy to portage, and provided an effective means of carrying goods deep into and out of the wilderness of Canada and the northern United States. Hearty voyagers manned those freighter canoes and lived a rugged and dangerous life often covering over 50 miles per day for days on end. 

As a nature photographer, my canoe has provided me with a lightweight and capable craft I have used to place myself in locations that offer a higher potential for quality photographs. 

The only real limitation I have with it is the wind. You must avoid open water trips when it is windy. But over the years I have spent many hours paddling and canoe camping on rivers and lakes. In more recent times I have concentrated on paddling across lakes and have managed a good number of overnight and multi day trips.

My canoe is an Old Town brand Camper model. Sixteen feet in length it offers an almost perfect blend of versatility; large enough for two and small enough for a single paddler. 

It's hull design is better suited for flat water but is more than capable of handling moving water including light to moderate whitewater. More than anything else, it provides me a means to experience the outdoors, maybe not so much like the voyagers of old did, but in a way where I can imagine myself heading off into the wilds of Canada. In deed, someday I hope to travel to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area in Minnesota. But, until that time, I will explore the local bodies of water near my home here in Kentucky.

When I am out paddling, I become an unfettered spirit, one with nature and my craft. The hours seem to drift along with the clouds and my time on the water becomes a purposeful activity where I am physically and mentally exercising my desire to simply get away. Nothing can compare to, at day's end, pulling off onto a gravel beach and setting up a stealthy campsite, then gathering firewood and cooking a hot meal using a cast iron skillet. Once filled with good camp food, I can lean against an old piece of driftwood and watch the setting sun write across the sky, its epath for the day. 

Paddling into the sunset offers a surreal blend of moment, time, and place. When the air grows soft and the breeze slumbers, the warmth of an end of day paddle lifts one spirits far more than most moments and eventually, when stiff muscles are allowed to relax, the mind is allowed to refresh itself, and the heart is filled with memories I can recall any time. Then, when morning breaks the stillness of the night, a chill in the air can often generate a fog that drifts across the waters. Paddling during such moments is certainly one of the great pleasures of being there.

Being retired has its rewards and each time I witness a blue sky filled with summer clouds reflecting off the water, I am grateful for the moment and the physical ability to be there, and as long as I am still able to do so, I will continue loading my canoe and spending time on the water with the breeze at my back, the warm sun in my face, and a sense of unspoiled freedom lingering within my heart. 

Although long since separated by time, I feel as one with those voyagers of old, a kindred spirit of sorts, where in my imagination I sing the old songs they used to sing as they journeyed into the wilderness...

Ho! for the tumbling rapids' roar!

Ho! for the rest on lone lake shore!

We live beneath the old canoe,

and sleep beside as the rivers roar...