In art school painting or photographing a white egg on a white background used to be a standard exercise. I would like to have icebergs in the fog added to that lesson on contrast and light. With the coming of digital photography many have left the incident reading light meter in the bottom of the drawer but this is a perfect situation for the light meter. Other than that, bracket your exposures up to 2 stops either side of the best guess of your camera meter. This was the iceberg in Ferryland, Newfoundland on the way out to the lighthouse on the headland last weekend. There are still a few icebergs along the Southern Shore if you have not managed to get out for a drive yet. It's been the best year for icebergs on this coast in a long time. International ice patrol have counted as many a 600 on the Grand Banks in the shipping lanes, fishing areas and the near the offshore oil fields  ...not THAT far from the Titanic site. More photos over in the left column.  
Photo by Greg Locke © 2008

 
We finally managed to get some free time do a little iceberg hunting this weekend. We drove the southern shore with mixed results (Ferryland was FREEZING!) before deciding to hike down to LaManche towards the end of the day. Heading out along the East Coast Trail I spotted this little berg. Didn't look like much from the trail but I thought it was close enough that if I climbed out on the headland rock I could get a nice shot from above with a wide lens. It was OK but not great. The adrenalin rush was better than the photo. Turns out my friend, Joe, got the better shot by staying where he was. Ah, well, back to work....  Photo by Joe Chase © 2008.

 
While offshore last week I had never seen the Grand Banks so calm. They were rare days indeed and as bad luck would have it all the sea ice and icebergs had blown east by the time we got there. Well, bad luck for a photographer looking for some dramatic photos of icebergs and oil rigs but a welcome relief for the oilfield operators who had to deal with it disrupting business. I was lucky enough to get this rare shot of all the ships together at the Terra Nova site. The Terra Nova FPSO, the tanker, Vinland, and the attendant supply vessels Atlantic Hawk and the Burin Sea. Thanks to the crew of the Atlantic Eagle for being the shooting platform ...that didn't move that much ...REALLY! Photo by Greg Locke © 2008

 Writer, playright and actor, Joel Thomas Hynes is the Newfoundland & Labrador Arts Council 2007 Artist of The Year award winner.
His first novel, Down To The Dirt was critically acclaimed and won him the Percy Janes First Novel Award, was shortlisted for the Winterset Award and longlisted for the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. It has been made into a movie that will be screened at this years Cannes Film Festival.

Last year you saw him in Mary Walsh's TV series, Hatching, Matching and Dispatching. His second novel is Right Away Monday from HarperCollins.

 Neil Butler and Deidre Gillard-Rowlings were the hosts of the 2007 Newfoundland & Labrador Arts Awards last light at the Reid Theatre in St. John's.

We set up a mini studio backstage and did portraits (like the one at left) of winners, presenters, performers ...and anyone who wandered past our backdrop for a future magazine story.

Look for a selection of these photos on the NLAC website soon  ...and we'll have a gallery up here too 

...when I get a chance.

 The Canadian National Magazine Awards nominations are out and a major package I worked on with Zena Olijnyk, Alex Mlynek and Tim Davin at Canadian Business magazine has been nominated in the Words and Pictures Category.

Where Canada Meets The World was a collection of stories and photos about Canada border towns, businesses, security and international trade. It spanned from the port in Vancouver to the 200 mile limit on the Grand Banks of Newfoundland. My contributions came from my cross Canada drive in September making stops along the Canada-US border. The photo at left is the international boundary marker on the 49Th parallel in North Portal, SK, where the final hole on the local golf course is in North Dakota, USA.

Another Newfoundlander with a nomination is Kathleen Winter for You Can Keep One Thing in the New Quarterly