On October 13th, LPM published my feature, Mirror Surface, Montreal, Quebec, Canada. I was so happy that I had to return to this lovely area on the same day.

Sunset was at 6:12 PM. I arrived on the spot 30 minutes before sunset.

I parked the car on the side of the road and reached the river shoreline. I walked a few minutes to find the location where the curved shoreline headed to the sun.

I installed my tripod, camera, wide-angle lens and cable release. I also installed my 10-stop ND filter for long exposures.

I composed and framed the image using a 16mm focal length and an F16 aperture (35 mm equivalent).

I envisioned a long exposure to smooth any wind ripples on the water's surface, increase reflections, and augment the impact of the clouds. At 6:18 pm, I triggered the shutter. As always, I used the Live Time feature on my Olympus camera to achieve a perfect histogram (ETTR). It took 200 seconds. Contemplating the scene during the long exposure, once again, I was glad for all the efforts I had made to get familiar with my gear and the planning done on my computer to find good locations (Google Maps – Photographer’s Ephemeris) within a 20-minute drive from home!

Later, in post-production in Lightroom, I created a sky mask and performed a dehaze set at +15. I duplicated and inverted this mask and put the shadows to +100. Then, I pressed the AUTO button in LR to let the software perform all the other adjustments automatically. I did not manipulate the colors!

Did you find your local paradise in your close vicinity to play with your camera and Mother Nature?