Sail GP 2026

I'm still processing all my images from Sail GP over the weekend of June 19 to 21, but for a taste check out the gallery on my Smugmug site - it includes photos from both the 2024 and 2026 iterations currently.

F50s from Germany, USA, Sweden, and Italy off George's Island in Halifax Harbour.

Birds Eye View

After long consideration I finally succumbed to a sale price over the summer and purchased a drone. Though my flying time has been limited by weather (both wind and rain), and a busy schedule, I been able to have some fun with it. Seeing things from the air brings a whole new perspective to my photography.

While I primarily wanted to be able to capture some of the interesting water drainage patterns that I could see on Google Maps from the air, it has also provided new angles for landscape photography as well as interesting views of some of the many little fishing harbours around the region. 

For instance, I don't think it is possible to get the Lunenburg Academy, the town, and the harbour in the same frame without seeing it from the air.

The old Lunenburg Academy in the foreground of the old town at the harbour in the background.

In the case of this image taken at Blue Rocks, the camera needed to be positioned directly over the water and to be slightly raised to capture clouds reflecting on the calm harbour water with the setting sun on the horizon.

The fishing harbour at Blue Rocks on Nova Scotia's South Shore.

Crescent Beach, which connects the LaHave Islands to the mainland, is a narrow and flat sand dune which doesn't have a lot of relief - there are only so many photos to take from ground level. Seeing it from the air allows the camera to see both the front and back sides of the beach, and better shows the islands in the background.

Crescent Beach from the mainland end looking out towards the LaHave Islands on a foggy day.

Nova Scotia has many small fishing harbours along its coast, and for years I have visited them (and in some cases revisited many times) for the interesting photos they provide. Seeing them from the air is providing me with all sorts of new imagery.

Fishing Wharf on Bush Island in the LaHave Islands. 

Government Wharf on Bush Island in the LaHave Islands.

For this image of Fisherman's Reserve, it certainly wouldn't otherwise be possible to capture all the various wharves and fishing boats and still get the setting sun in the same frame.

Sunset at Fisherman's Reserve on the eastern side of Three Fathom Harbour on the Eastern Shore of Nova Scotia. 

Coastal features as well come alive when seen from the air. I especially love the contrast between the yellow seaweed and the green grass on this rocky point in the LaHave Islands, especially when surrounded by the dark calm water reflecting the cloudy sky.

Rocky shore in the LaHave Islands on the South Shore of Nova Scotia. 

Hemeon Brook flowing through a beach at Western Head near Liverpool, Nova Scotia.

I'm always fascinated by waves and surf at the beach, and seeing them from the air provides a new way to capture a full set of waves and their interactions.

Incoming surf at White Point Beach.

Intricate drainage patterns are fascinating when seen from the air, and these were one of my primary targets when thinking about buying a drone in the first place. I have therefore spent much time scouting out potential locations through the satellite imagery available on Google Maps, and have visited several promising locations through the summer and fall of 2025. The Bay of Fundy shoreline is one of the better places to find this sort of scenery.

Mud flats near Windsor, Nova Scotia.

Mud flats west of Truro on the shore of the Bay of Fundy.

Mud flats near Debert, Nova Scotia.

The Eastern Shore also has several promising locations, like this salt marsh in Lower East Chezzetcook.

Salt marsh in Lower East Chezzetcook on Nova Scotia's Eastern Shore.

These images and more can be found on my Smugmug website. I look forward to being able to continue investigating Nova Scotia from the air over the coming year!

Aurora Borealis over Grand Lake

It's not often that conditions are right for viewing the Aurora Borealis from downtown Halifax, but anyone outside on the evening of October 10 won the lottery and got to see an active light show right overhead. 

View of the Aurora Borealis from the Brightwood neighbourhood.

I unfortunately only made it out to Grand Lake a bit after the height of the activity ended, but still managed to get some nice images looking out over the lake.

Aurora Borealis over Shubenacadie Grand Lake near Wellington, NS.

The red colour from earlier in the evening (and which returned after I made it back home) was mostly (but not entirely) gone, but there was still a lot of green present, and made the trip worthwhile. 

Capturing the Solar Eclipse

A friend of mine (with family in the Miramichi) and I elected to head there for the solar eclipse on April 8, 2024, in the hope of capturing totality (where Halifax was only expected to see about 95% coverage). We did some scouting the day we arrived, and decided that the retired CF-101 Voodoo gate guarding at the former CFB Chatham was a good piece of foreground to include in our images.

An image of the CF-101 Voodoo under the eclipse at totality with the phases of the eclipse composited in.

Each of us had multiple cameras set up to capture the event - to create this image I had one camera with a 16-35mm lens mounts on a tripod as low to the ground as possible (which captured the overall image of the plane at totality), plus a second camera on a tripod with the equivalent of 420mm of telephoto lens to capture the sun itself during the eclipse. 

The original image, before the eclipse phases were added, looks like this:

The original image showing only totality of the eclipse. As you can see, the streetlights came on.

I used the smallest aperture possible on that lens (f/4) to get the starburst effect from the sun and lights, but this meant that I had a considerable amount of dust spots to remove from the image - despite having cleaned my camera sensor prior to making the image.

The second camera was a 16-year old DSLR as don't have the adapter for the older lenses, and I wanted the longest reach possible. I didn't have welder's glass or the appropriate filters available, so I had to improvise - I put what ND filters I had on the lens, and to avoid damaging the camera sensor I only pointed the camera at the sun long enough to take each image. To protect my eyes from the sun - I would surely have done damage looking directly at the sun through the camera's optical viewfinder - I held the back of my hand in front of the viewfinder and knew I had the sun within the frame when the sun shone through the viewfinder onto my hand, and I would capture several frames. I had to focus manually using the scale on the lens, based on some homework I had done in advance.

Telephoto image of the sun at a focal length of 420mm during the eclipse.

I captured images of the eclipse on both cameras throughout the eclipse - both to get the multiple phases of the moon's passage across the sun, as well as to record the sun's path over the top of the jetfighter. I used the latter images to draw lines on the overall image so that I could somewhat accurately paste in the phases of the eclipse to the overall image. 

Overall image showing the lines I used to guide where the eclipse phase images were pasted in.

I then chose representative images of the various eclipse phases, reduced them in size to reflect the size of the sun in the base image, and pasted them in on either side of the sun in totality within the two lines. Unfortunately, I stupidly forgot to change my exposure on the camera with the telephoto lens and didn't capture a closeup of totality, so I have to use the one from the base wide-angle image - which seems to actually work. Overall, I'm fairly pleased with the "final" product - thought I suspect I will continue to play with it in the coming weeks to see if I can improve it.

I also had a third camera that I used hand-held as a backup to the other two - it provides a slightly different vantagepoint on the Voodoo. 

Hand-held image of the Voodoo with a 28-75mm zoom lens.

These may have to do, as I don't know that I will ever again have the opportunity to capture a solar eclipse. 

Recent ship photos

 I usually only manage to catch ship traffic in the harbour during my morning and evening commute on the ferry, but occasionally catch ships at other times as well. I have managed to catch a bit of traffic over the last few weeks.

British Engineer at anchor in the fog on March 18.

A backlit British Engineer at anchor while discharging water overboard.

NYK Romulus inbound on March 17.

NYK Romulus inbound.

MSC Cornelia coming in alongside at the south-end container terminal.

Vivienne Sheri D.

Vivienne Sheri D.

MSC Brianna.

Atlantic Sun departing from Halifax.

Atlantic Willow heads north as Atlantic Sun (no relation) departs.

Oceanex Sanderling.

Reflection of Oceanex Sanderling 

Onego Bayou in the snow.

Atlantic Sky arriving in Halifax.

Atlantic Sky arriving.

NYK Virgo arriving at dawn.

NYK Virgo arriving at dawn.

The rest of these photos can be seen in my Ships gallery on Smugmug.

Halifax Waterfront at Night - Queens Marque

 I had the change to wander the waterfront around Queens Marque last night and take a few photos. It was a bit windy and I was using long exposures to smooth out the surface of the water. 

Looking south from the foot of the tide clock.

The tide clock tower at Queens Marque. The lights of Dartmouth reflect off the glass at wharf level and seem continuous as a result.

Looking down from the tide clock tower towards the Queens Marque complex itself.

The roofline of one wing of the Queens Marque complex reflecting in the glass of another.

I was playing with both colour and black & white processing of my images, and for this one at least, I couldn't decide on which I preferred. I like both for different reasons.

Long exposure of the water at the foot of the steps into the harbour.

The tide clock tower is surrounded by metal bars with transparent plastic strips attached that spin in the wind. Hard to see in a smaller image, but there is some ghosting where they spun during this exposure.

It was a bit chilly last night, but at least there weren't too many people getting in the way of my camera!

Photography in the Snow

 As a Trustee, I went to lunch in HMCS Sackville within the Dockyard on Friday during the first snowstorm of the year, and then decided to walk home after lunch via the bridge before going back to work from home. This provided some interesting photographic opportunities, all of which I decided to convert to high contrast black and white.

Sackville herself looked pretty in the snow.

HMCS Charlottetown alongside MV Asterix for refuelling.

Charlottetown and another frigate alongside in Dockyard during the snow.

The bridge itself similarly caught my eye.

The view from mid-span looking back towards Halifax.

Looking back towards Halifax from the Dartmouth bridge tower.

The views on the Dartmouth side of the bridge were also nice.

Windmill Road.

Shore Drive and the Harbour Pilot base on the Dartmouth shore.

Houses on Windmill Road.

Landscape view of Windmill Road.

It was a long slog across the bridge in the snow, but ultimately worth it for the photos.