In January 2025, my good friend and fellow photographer Wendy invited me to join her in the gorgeous St-Adolphe-d 'Howard region for a couple of days to perform winter photography. This region is an hour and a half North of Montreal.

Before departure with the destination address, I checked the country house location on the map. Using my favourite apps, Google Maps and Photographer's Ephemeris, I knew before my arrival that the gorgeous country house was close to a shoreline and it would be a prime spot to capture sunsets, sunrises and the lovely moon.

On January 15th, 45 minutes before sunset, I reached the lake shoreline. Again, I planned to use my magic Leica DG lens, which produces beautiful star effects when set at a very small aperture.

You can see this beauty here.

4 hours later, in the opposite direction, the moon was expected to be part of the show. You can see this beauty here.

According to my planning, I had in mind to catch a sunrise. So, one morning, the sunrise was expected at 7:32, and I reached the lake shoreline 10 minutes before sunrise.

I set up my tripod, camera, magic lens, and cable release. When I saw the sun through the trees, I was amazed by the layers of snow, trees,s and coloured clouds. I composed and framed the image using a 28 mm focal length and an F/22 aperture. To achieve a perfect exposure (ETTR), I overexposed by 1.7 stops.

Back home, I was very happy to examine these beauties resulting from my planning and gear familiarity.