The Scarborough Bluffs

This shot was taken about 20 minutes away from my Toronto house at a place called the Scarborough Bluffs, which is basically still Toronto. Who knew you could find a setting like this here?

Toronto is known more for its gritty, urban scene than its natural beauty and I hardly believed it myself the first time I went there. It’s basically a lagoon buttressed by a 200ft sheer wall of clay but given the right light and time of day, it can look like it’s not even part of this planet, let alone Toronto.

I made my way down to my favourite spot in Bluffer’s Park and set up my tripod on the shoreline here around 9:30pm the other day. I’m always amazed that of all the places in the park to hang out, hardly anybody actually chooses the beach area where this shot was taken. I was more or less by myself the entire time, aside from about 200 mosquitoes – all of which helped themselves to some dinner. Maybe that explains the lack of people.

The sky was beginning to turn this really subtle pinky blue so I figured I had a few more minutes before things would get really interesting. They say the best light for shooting is the ‘golden hour’ prior to sunrise and after sunset, which I tend to agree with, depending on what you’re shooting.

With my tripod set up and my camera metered on the shadows I was ready to start firing some shots. I didn’t have my neutral density filters with me (or any filter, aside from my always-on UV filter) so I had to improvise to ensure the sky wouldn’t be blown out, since I was metered on the darkest part (the foreground shadows).

So I took out my black Moleskine notebook and made my own graduated filter. Some people call it the ‘magic cloth’ technique, I just call it luck.

How to get lucky:

Compose and meter your shot
Lock in the exposure and focus
Place a black object or material (could be a cloth, book, etc.) in front of the lens and look through your viewfinder (or LCD) to make sure it’s approximately lined up with the horizon
Fire the shutter
Slowly move the object in the direction you’d like the gradual fade to appear

You will need to experiment to achieve the shot you’re trying to get. I took about 25 shots in all and only 2 luckily worked out. This is the better one.

In this case, I set my camera to f22, ISO100 and 30 second exposure with a custom white balance of about 6500K. I held the black notebook on the horizon line and since my exposure was 30 seconds, I began gradually lifting the book up and away to the left side of the frame (so as to not underexpose the bluffs) after about 17 seconds. You can see the sky fades a bit from pink to blue at the top. Look close and you can also see the shadow goes up the bluffs on the right side as well. This is what I was trying to avoid by moving the book toward the left side of the frame. C’est la vie.

I definitely plan on returning to the Bluffs with some proper gear but if you’re ever caught in a pinch without it like I was, this technique can definitely save some shots you wouldn’t otherwise be able to get.

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