Iain Leitch Photography

Recently I took a day trip down to Murphy's Point Provincial Park. I ended up going on two hikes in the park and spending some time at the day-use beach. On my first hike, I saw a lot of different mushrooms scattered throughout the forest floor. The first two photos in this post are showcasing some of these mushrooms. These first two photos along with the dragonfly photo at the end of this post are all being added to my portfolio which can be found here . The first mushroom photo in this post is a set of small mushrooms growing out of a fallen tree. There are some ferns in the background which make for a nice touch of green in otherwise a brownish photo.  The second photo is of a single lonely mushroom growing in a sea of moss on another fallen tree. In this photo, you can see the underside of the mushroom a bit. This is a photo of a Willow Flycatcher. This is also my first time grabbing a photo of this species. I got this photo at the lookout point of the trail I was on. The bird ...

Since moving to Ottawa I have been down to the Rideau River a few times to go on walks or to try to grab some photos. These photos are all from one photography outing.  The first photo and what I think is personally the best one I have taken in a while is of a Grey Catbird perched on a branch. I had just left the river and was walking home when I saw a bird land on this branch. I quickly pulled my camera out of my bag and went to shooting. I ended up with a couple of photos of the bird, but I think this is my best one, with a nice side profile. The second photo in this post is of a song sparrow perched between two thistle branches. I was on the end of an uncut area of this field down by the river where I was trying to grab a photo of an American Goldfinch eating the plants seeds, but they always flew away before I could get the right shot. Instead, I ended up with this great photo of a Song Sparrow perfectly perched between the two branches.  This photo is of an Eastern Chipmu...

Recently I moved from Stratford to Ottawa, and with that came a lot of new photography opportunities. For this post, I will be talking about my first attempt at panning. For those that don't know panning is, it is a photography technique where you swivel your camera from a fixed position while being focused on an object. If done properly this will blur the background while keeping your subject in focus.  This was my first attempt at this technique so its not as good as it could be, but I thought I would share what I had so far. These five photos are the best ones that I took out of maybe 50ish, so there is a lot of trial and error especially when first trying this technique.  To get this effect my settings were an aperture of F/32, the shutter was at 1/20, and the ISO was 100. I was just practicing what was easily accessible and available to me, which in my case was buses and the train. 

The Thames River flows through a small village in Perth County called Motherwell. Near this village is a dirt road that runs perpendicular to the river that I always love driving down, as it has great views of the river and lots of birds to see. The day that I took theses photo was exactly one of those days.  The first photo of this rather short post is of a swallow. I am not sure what subspecies of swallow this is but I was excited and happy to grab a photo of one, as normally they fly away as soon as I step out of the car. This swallow was sitting on a telephone wire with two other birds. I tried to get a good photo of all three birds but it just wouldn't work out. The second and last photo of this post is a view I have posted before, however, I still love the view as it makes for great photos. There used to be an old steel bridge over the Thames River here. The bridge was removed due to lack of use and high maintenance costs. Now it is a great place to go to find some peace and ...

The Royal Botanical Gardens (RBG), located in Hamilton, Ontario, is designated a National Historic Site of Canada. I live only an hour and a half away from the RBG but yet I had never been until today. Today I took the trip down to the RBG and was wowed by the gardens. I went to three of the gardens today and each experience was a pleasant one. I started out exploring the Hendrie Park Gardens, which comprises a rose garden, statue garden (closed at the moment due to COVID-19) and a native plant garden among other themes gardens. The first two photos here are showing the rose garden in all its glory with full blooms and beautiful colours. The tall purple flowers seen in both photos are actually a type of onion that is planted among the roses to help them fight disease and pests. Moving on from the rose garden and into the native plant garden, I saw this beautiful yellow flower that I thought was perfect. Adding the overcast day, this made for an amazing photo in my opinion with the righ...

A couple of days ago I looked up into the sky and found this beautiful looking Waking Cresent Moon shining bright in the evening light. There was a light dusting of clouds at evening, but I feel as if they just made the photo better and added more depth. You can also check this photo out on my Instagram @iainwf Today I decide to go down to St Mary's just for something to do rather than just play around on my computer all day. St Mary's is known to have a great old rail-trail with a huge bridge. The first photo here is looking over the bridge at the start of the trail. On both ends of the bridge, there are thick tree canopies that add to a tunnel-like sense at both ends. This bridge use to run trains between Toronto and Sarnia up until 1988 when CN abandoned it.  The rail-trail bridge crosses the Northern branch of the Thames River which flows through the town. Here the river does a large bend as it flows into town, which is what this photo captured. On the left of this photo is...

In my backyard I recently had a family of Blue Jays move in. They seemed to be nesting in a neighbour's tree and would always come down to eat the seeds we put out for them. I had taken these photos a couple of weeks ago, but since then a third Blue Jay has appeared which makes me think they were successful in raising a family. I had seen on INaturalist that there had been a few sighting of Baltimore Orioles around town. This inspired me to cut up a couple oranges and set them out to see if I can get some in my backyard. After a couple of days without anything, I was almost set to give up when a group of three finally came one morning. I quickly found out that these birds are very skittish and are not a fan of being photographed. However, I still managed to take some okayish photos of these birds anyway. 

On the Avon Trail, a person will find a variety of different habitats, ranging from farmers' fields, woodlots, valleys, streams, and rivers. The most recent walk I went on, I passed through almost all of these habitats. The first photo is of an Eastern Chipmunk who I saw in among a bunch of Trout Lilies that were just coming up. This is a photo of a Trout Lily in full bloom. It is called a Trout Lily because the leaves of the plant have spots on them just like Trout does. This flower was in full bloom with all of the flower petals pulled back which is something distinct to the Trout Lily, but I could be wrong. The provincial flower of Ontario is the Trillium which is exactly what this photo is of. When I went for my walk the Trilliums were just starting to bloom with, only a couple actually out in full bloom. I like this photo due to the very green and natural background that draws your eyes in towards the white of the Trillium. This photo much like the previous one, is one ...

One day during the quarantine I decided to go for a drive out in the countryside. I ended up down some random dirt road where I found a bridge going over a branch of the Thames River. I pulled the car over once I had passed the bridge and walked back to check out the view from the bridge. What I found was a beautiful scene where the river was meandering along its course in a curvy snake-like fashion.  The bottom two photos are looking out at the same view but from different points on the bridge. The first photo is closer to one side of the bridge while the second photo is more from the middle of the bridge. Both of these photos were taken in early April hence the lack of life in the photos.

Recently there has been a family of rabbits that have moved into my backyard. There appears to be a male and a female, with the male rabbit slightly larger than the female. I'm not too sure which one is in the pictures but overall it is fairly cute. These pictures were taken one evening when they were out looking for food. I was able to walk right down to the grass and snap some photos, as the rabbit wasn't scared of my presence due to me being out when they are a lot of the time. This has allowed the rabbits to grow accustomed to me and my presence as they know I don't pose any threat.  This photo is of a female Ruby-Crowned Kinglet hence the lack of a ruby crown. I spotted this bird as I was walking along a portion of the Avon Trail near Stratford. It was only in the tree for a brief second before it flew away, but I was still able to capture this photo which I really like and have added to my portfolio which can be seen here .  Bloodroot is native to t...