Ingot We Trust

Open-And-Shutter Case On Golden Pond

Photograph copyright: ALLAN COOK

What can you say when somene sends you a picture as good as this? Folks, it is my very great pleasure to introduce the great Muskokan, Allan Cook. He's an all-round good bloke, marketing manager of Muskoka Tourism and he sings with the Muskoka Men of Song (he's going to complain bitterly about that revelation) and he loves this amazing part of Ontario, Canada, as much as I do. I'll let him tell the story of this great photograph. In his words, then ...

``It was taken over seven years ago on a trip through Algonquin Park. We'd been following (by canoe) the trail of ghost towns left in the park from the years when the Canadian National Railway wound its way through the park's northern reaches and the lumber industry was booming. We had started out from campground among the remnants of the once prosperous town of Kiosk, and this was taken on Cauchon Lake on our first night of the five-day trip.

``I had recently been bitten by the shutter bug, and had just bought a second-hand SLR and I'd brought it along on the trip. We were treated to fantastic sunsets almost every night, and this first one was an especially brilliant shade of gold. I had been trying to capture it and our canoe in a shot together, and had been playing around with all sorts of settings to try to get it right. I toyed with the shutter speed, I fiddled with the aperture, and I wrote down which settings I used on which shots. For one shot, I accidentally forgot to turn off the flash, and I noted `NG (no good) - Forgot flash on'. Of course, that no good photo is the one you're looking at. None of the rest turned out. Thanks again for this honour!''