Tlhe season of hard water has started...

pgriz · Jan 11, 2014

And for some, that means getting out there and waiting patiently for a nibble.

With the deep freeze we all experienced recently, the ice is nice and thick, so the fishing shacks are out in the various bays and lakes. I took a series of images (wide, close up, etc.) and this minimalist version appealed to me. What do you think?

(you'll need to click on it to get it to pop a little - otherwise you might be wiping imaginary dirt off your monitor

)

Rick58 · Jan 11, 2014

Hey, a new shanty town has sprung up over night

jenko · Jan 11, 2014

I think it would look cool blown up really large, as long as there were still details in the structures.

The concept has great narrative potential. I'd like to see closer shots of the structures, documentary style portraits, details (like bait and gear), and maybe a few candids.

But yeah, the minimalism works for me.

amolitor · Jan 11, 2014

I think it's extremely good.

pgriz · Jan 11, 2014

Rick58 said:
Hey, a new shanty town has sprung up over night

Yeah, it certainly looks like that. However, that's just the start. There are at least thirty more shacks waiting to go onto the ice. Some bays have as many as several hundred of these - have to wonder if there are really that many fish?

jenko said:
I think it would look cool blown up really large, as long as there were still details in the structures.

The concept has great narrative potential. I'd like to see closer shots of the structures, documentary style portraits, details (like bait and gear), and maybe a few candids.

But yeah, the minimalism works for me.

Thanks, Jenko. There is a ridiculous amount of detail in the full-rez image. I had exactly that thought (printing big) when I was looking at this shot. I'm now experimenting with various ways of post-processing to see how much I can get out without losing the "feel" for the image. As for a series... that's actually a very good idea. I'll keep that in mind as the winter progresses, to see if the opportunity to be a little bit closer presents itself.

amolitor said:
I think it's extremely good.

Thank you , Andrew. The original scene definitely caught my attention, which is why I photographed it, but I am never sure if my esthetic sense is shared by others - hence the post.

tirediron · Jan 11, 2014

I like the image a lot, but... don't you have grocery stores in your area????

RichieT · Jan 11, 2014

Nice shot. Great detail when you blow it up. I like the different colors on the shacks. Maybe you could post some close-ups of them. I tried this once, but my wife found me anyway.

pgriz · Jan 11, 2014

tirediron said:
I like the image a lot, but... don't you have grocery stores in your area????

Sure we do - but some people like their fish fresh. Very fresh.

RichieT said:
Nice shot. Great detail when you blow it up. I like the different colors on the shacks. Maybe you could post some close-ups of them. I tried this once, but my wife found me anyway.

That reminds me. My father-in-law used to have a hut on Lake Simcoe. It was about 18 feet long, 8 ft. wide, fully insulated, had a satellite dish, wood stove, three sofas, and three telescoping steel tubes about 18 inches wide which would go down to the ice and keep the wind from blowing in while we fished through the ice. I think he had a generator in the back section of the "hut" powering dish, the receiver and the LCD screen (42" if I recall). There was also a bar and grill for cooking. Somehow, the "fishing" was kinda hard to focus on... To remind ourselves where we had to go at the end of the day, he rigged up his truck to flash the lights at us from the parking area near the lake - then we knew which way to point ourselves. And yes, there was always a designated driver (winner of the short straw).

As for close-ups, I got one - see below.

Of course, you wouldn't know from the pictures posted that you are, in fact, close to civilization. The image below was taken a day earlier, when it was both cold and clear.

You can see Mount Royal in the background, with the downtown visible on the right, the St-Joseph Oratory in the middle, and the Université de Montréal campus on the left side of the mountain.