The Great Wide Open, Reflections on week 11 of #52weeksofWE

Here is the description for this week’s theme:

Before you press down on that button I want you to take a deep breath and let your eyes relax. There is no a building springing up in your way to interrupt the great expanse of sky, trees, fields, water, etc that unfold before you and your camera. Get the shot, but maybe get another, and another, before you are forced to confine yourself between four walls, a ceiling and a floor. It is time to celebrate the great wide open with your wide angled lens in this week’s theme. You may not even have to leave the city for this one, but chances are you will have to do some looking.

I took a breath before every shot that was submitted this week. “Of course you did,” you may be thinking. These weren’t any normal, sitting at my desk, mundane breaths though. These were, expansive, heady breaths in anticipation of the sublime vistas of Windsor – Essex – the splintering, retreating ice of the Detroit River and Lake Erie; the jagged lines of a lightning storm; the vibrant colours of a sunset on the Detroit horizon; and the arcing lines of telephone wires with an open backdrop of sky beyond. 

 by Lupita

 by Frank Shepley

After picking up cat litter and other staples from the local grocery store, I was able to sneak out after a long week of basement renovations to grab my Great Wide Open shot of the week. I returned to the site of the old, abandoned refueling station at the mouth of Lake Erie (the photo featured for the Hidden Gems week) in order use the lake’s expanse and the descending sun as the subject of my shot. Though I got some interesting shots of the receding ice, and some ice bathing seagulls, upon looking at the shots when I uploaded them on my computer I was not as happy with the results. Fortunately I snuck a little more time and took the scenic route home, stumbling across a river full of swans and seagulls near Knapp Island. I am still editing the shots of the swans, but was able to get capture the glow of the river at day’s end broken by the silhouette of swans, and a solitary seagull’s flight in the fading light of dusk. These are the shots that I ended up selecting for this week’s theme.

River Swans by Patrick Firth

Sunset and Poles by Patrick Firth

Things are looking up for next week. You will see what I mean if you do some looking at the Flickr site, where you can see the rest of the Great Wide Open shots, as well as the Facebook site where you can get updates on the #52weeksofWE photography challenge and other arts related news.