The Canadian North Atlantic Coast and Newfoundland

The Arches, Gros Morne area, Newfoundland

Bonavista Peninsula and Twillingate Islands

This concluded our exploring of the western part of the island. We moved on towards our last planned destination; the outports of the Bonavista Peninsula and Twillingate Islands on the eastern side of the island. The eastern areas are different from the western areas of Newfoundland. Where as the west has mountains and rolling hills, the east is more flat. It is the eastern part of the island that has the majority of the fishing villages, called “outports”. The outports were what we were most enthused about capturing on film.

At our motel that night we did our obligatory walk to the area in the lobby where all the tourist attraction pamphlets were displayed. One that caught our attention was for the town of Trinity, where an old world outport recreation had been created for a miniseries.

The next morning we drove into Trinity. We didn’t find the movie set, but that was alright. Trinity presented several photographic opportunities. We took our photos and continued onward to the Bonavista Lighthouse. Being that we live in New England, lighthouses aren’t particularly fascinating to us but this one was different, it was candy striped. The image here also includes a couple remains of an iceberg in the distance.

We drove on to our final destination in Newfoundland, TheTwillingate Islands. These Islands have only had road access from the mainland since 1973. Before that the only access was by boats. We expected and found old world looking outports. What we didn’t expect were the very small tracks of land jutting out of the ocean and that people were actually living on them.

Summary

In total we visited a couple dozen outports taking photos when the subject and light were right. Towards the end we knew we were done, as the outports all started to look the same. We felt satisfied, as we ended our last day of photographing. The image opportunities exceeded our expectations. We were excited to get back and start our post processing.

As we made our way back we reflected on our journey. The stories we had heard were true. Newfoundland was a land of wonder and enchantment. Maybe it was the melancholy light, maybe it was the isolation, and maybe it was the simple architectures of their villages. All I know is that being there did feel like walking in a lost world.

More images can be found in our galleries:

Enjoy,

Michael and Tammy Rice

Gros Morne, Newfoundland

Bishops Harbor, Newfoundland

Several of our images were taken in color with the full intention of converting them to black and white in Photoshop. Through digital dodging and burning darkening can hide the messy details, and lightening can bring important elements forward. Some scenes just seem to lend themselves to black and white. Capturing scenes in color and converting them to black and white is a true luxury of digital photography.

Twillingate

“Capturing scenes in color and converting them to black and white is a true luxury of digital photography.”

“The stories we had heard were true.”

Bonavista Peninsula

Bonavista Lighthouse, Newfoundland

“Photo trips like this are a lot of find and seek, find a local map and seek out the landmarks on it.”