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In October 2024, my friends and fellow photographers invited me to discover The Refuge Faunique Marguerite d’Youville (wildlife sanctuary) located in the city of Chateauguay, a one-hour drive from Montreal; I planned to walk the sanctuary to discover its beauty.

Suddenly, I saw this beautiful plant stem facing a wall of colored foliage.

I remembered a similar situation that was published in my portfolio.

Being familiar with my gear, I know that by using a long focal lens, I can isolate my subject in the scene and create a gorgeous bokeh.

Handheld, I composed and framed the image using a 260 mm focal length with an F/8 aperture (35 mm equivalent). I focused on the plant stem. To achieve a perfect exposure (ETTR), I overexposed the scene by 0.7 stops. My screen indicated a speed of 1/400 sec. Consequently, I was not worried about wind blur issues.

The sun was lighting the scene directly, so I was very confident that I could obtain a gorgeous background wall of bokeh.

For me, this was a magical moment to capture. With the coming snow in a couple of weeks, all these beautiful elements will disappear.