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...