Excellent Adventure 2015 - Newfoundland - Part 1

The annual Excellent Adventure has come to a close for 2015 and this year, the four of us (myself, my friends Tom Green and Doug Winnie and my son Joseph Hutt) went where none of us had gone before; the Rock. It was a great week. We saw many amazing things in Gros Morne National Park and Woody Point where we stayed, and got a good dose of culture and history in St John's (All four of us became Honorary Newfoundlanders at a Screech-In on George Street in St. John's). Part 1 is the beginning of the adventure, so you will see photos from Pouch Cove.

The annual Excellent Adventure has come to a close for 2015 and this year, the four of us (myself, my friends Tom Green and Doug Winnie and my son Joseph Hutt) went where none of us had gone before; the Rock. It was a great week. We saw many amazing things in Gros Morne National Park and Woody Point where we stayed, and got a good dose of culture and history in St. John's (all four of us became Honorary Newfoundlanders at a Screech-In on George Street in St. John's).

I have culled nearly 560 photos down to about 160. That series went on Flickr last night. This series is culled further, but it's still large enough that I've decided to break it up into parts (a technique I'm stealing from fellow Behancer - David Martin.

Part 1 is the beginning of the adventure, so you will see photos from Pouch Cove.

Part 2 includes photos from Witless Bay, Colony of Avalon.

Part 3 covers St John's, Cape Spear and Signal Hill.

Part 4 is the first two full days at Woody Point (Sunday night to Monday night).

Part 5 encompasses the Hike from Hell.

Part 6 focuses on a much nicer hike to West Brook Pond.

Pouch Cove

Our first visit to the Atlantic was to Pouch Cove. It was relatively nearby, and didn't put us far from the aiport (we still had my son to pick up who was arriving just after lunch). It was a great spot, as I hope you can see. And also a trailhead for the East Coast Trail (something I think we should consider trying if we return to Newfoundland).

TechNotes: I used my polarizing filter on a lot of these shots; I had forgotten how much it affected sky and water. And because it darkened the ocean so much, i had a siginificant effect on my exposure meter. Lots of compensation had to be made.

This is my FAVORITE ahot from Pouch Cove! Watching Tom and timing the peak of the wave was a little challenging, but worked! The original capture was completely washed out in the highlights, but Lightroom helped me pull the detail back in. And yes, Tom got very wet.

I shifted my ISO down to 50, stopped down as far as I could go, kept the polarizer on and risked blowing out the highlights so I could capture some of the action of the waves.

This image is one where I lost out on the highlights. I've got a specular white highlight running trough the wave in the background and I simply could not pull any detail back into it. I might consider luminosity masking on this image, but I don't hold out a lot of hope.

I didn't shoot a lot of iPhone images this time, but I did try to get a east one shot at each location. The group had a running Twitter hashtag for the trip (#EAV9), so I would try to post something to keep followers up to date on the trip - and to dis Tom whenever the opportunity made itself available. If you are interested in seeing my Instagram images, drop by https://instagram.com/jimbabbage/ or simply follow jimbabbage in your Instagram app.

Thanks for viewing Part 1 of the Excellent Adventure. I'll be releasing more parts throughout the week, but please let me know if you like this format of breaking down the trip (or concept) into multiple segments.

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