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Lens-Artists Challenge #412—Places Shaped by Water

Inlet to Peggy’s Cove

It’s been a scorcher of a summer, and with September upon us, I think we’ve earned a cool change—shout‑out to Little River Band. This week’s Lens‑Artists Challenge takes a slightly different angle on water, focusing not on the waves or currents themselves but on the landscapes, structures, and stories that unfold around them. Every photographer has images shaped by water—a harbor lined with fishing boats, a wetland alive with reeds and wildlife, a boardwalk skirting a tidal marsh, or a cityscape mirrored in a quiet canal. This week, we’re celebrating waterscapes in all their forms, where places shaped by water serve as subjects in scenes that give them character.

The Challenge: Share up to six waterscapes—images where water shapes the scene. Choose your favorite places, your favorite photos, or a single location that inspires you. Natural or man‑made, peaceful or wild—if water helps tell the story, it’s fair game.

For my opening photo, I revisited a journey to Peggy’s Cove and reprocessed an image captured with my Nikon D500. The small fishing village has drawn photographers and visitors for decades. Peggy’s Cove sits on the edge of St. Margaret’s Bay, where the protected inlet gradually opens to the full reach of the Atlantic Ocean. The weathered buildings clustered along the rugged shoreline capture a classic Atlantic coastal setting and serve as my starting point for this week’s challenge.

Morning Light on Possession Sound
Morning Light on Possession Sound

Crossing the continent to Washington State, Lynn and I took State Route 525, which includes a short ferry crossing between Whidbey Island and Mukilteo. The highway runs down the southern end of the island and ends at the dock, where the road simply becomes the deck of the Clinton–Mukilteo ferry. From the upper deck, a moody morning caught my attention—low clouds drifting over Possession Sound, a distant ferry moving across the horizon, and the muted outlines of the mainland coastline. My “real” camera was tucked away in the car, so my Samsung S20 Ultra stepped in and captured a minimalist waterscape, which I later processed in Luminar 4.

Textures of Sprague Lake
Textures of Sprague Lake

In November, Sprague Lake’s shoreline offers a prelude to winter as the trail curves along the water toward a small bridge tucked into the trees. In black‑and‑white, the textures dominate—the frozen shallows, the rocky bank, the snow‑patched path, and the mountains rising beyond. The changing seasons shape this place, inviting visitors to follow the path and see what lies around the bend. I captured the image with a Nikon D500, processed it from a 3-exposure bracket, and converted it to black-and-white with Nik Efex 2. It’s part of a Colorado monochrome photoset I haven’t published before.

Aguasabon River
Aguasabon River View

In 2022, our annual fall trip brought us along the North Shore of Lake Superior, where we headed toward Thunder Bay and eventually continued through Ontario until we re‑entered the United States in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Along the way, we noticed a sign for the Aguasabon Gorge and Falls, a roadside stop with a short walk to a boardwalk ending at a viewing platform overlooking the river’s plunge. From the high viewpoint, the river looks small, yet the tall cliffs reveal a landscape shaped by water—an environment carved over centuries by the force that created the gorge. I captured this image on my Samsung S20 Ultra and processed it in Lightroom Classic and Luminar Neo.

Lake Devonian at FortWhyte Alive, Winnipeg
Lake Devonian at FortWhyte Alive, Winnipeg

Back in 2019, a quick trip to Winnipeg for Civil Air Patrol business covered Friday’s duties, allowing Lynn and me to stay for the weekend. We caught a RedHawks/Goldeyes baseball game and visited FortWhyte Alive, a serene nature preserve on the city’s edge featuring walking trails, lakes, and prairie wildlife. As we walked along one of the trails, we passed close to Lake Devonian. Seeing a bright orange canoe tied to a dock almost tempted us to rent one from the park office. I settled for capturing the tranquil, tree‑lined scene with the D500, processed in Lightroom Classic and Luminar Neo from a three‑shot bracketed exposure set. The escape to FortWhyte Alive helped ease the sting of our team’s loss to the Goldeyes. >grin<

Coldwater Lake - A Landscape Rewritten
Coldwater Lake – A Landscape Rewritten

In October 2020, we visited Mount St. Helens, the mountain that “blew its top.” On our tour of the park, we found Coldwater Lake, a body of water that didn’t exist before 1980, formed when the eruption blocked Coldwater Creek and created a brand‑new basin. Surrounded by the blast zone’s scars and fresh regrowth, the young lake is barely four decades old. On that windless morning, its smooth surface held a crisp reflection of the surrounding landscape. I’ve shared this image in other challenges, but as one of my favorite waterscapes, I felt it was worth sharing again. Captured with the Samsung S20 Ultra and finished in Luminar 4, the image needed no further adjustments for this theme.

Thanks to Sofia for her “What Is It?” challenge. Next week, Beth will be ready with a new theme. Follow her here so you don’t miss her challenge on Saturday, September 12, at noon Eastern Time. I look forward to seeing your responses. Be sure to link to this post in the comments section and tag your entry with “Lens-Artists” so we can find it.

If you’re sharing a Lens‑Artists Challenge response for the first time, welcome—we’d love to visit your post. To participate, publish your take on this week’s theme, link back to this page, and add the Lens‑Artists tag so others can discover your work. You’ll find more details on how the challenge works here.

John Steiner.

91 comments

  1. Great theme, John. Your photos are exquisite. I appreciate the recommendation for Aguasabon River View, that’s not too far from us in Madison. Since I live on an isthmus, this is a great challenge.

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  2. I love this theme, John. I’ll put on my thinking cap and come up with my post for early n the week. Your images are so beautiful. Although the entire gallery is breathtaking, it is the Sprague Lake monochrome that kept me still, admiring the beauty of Rocky Mountain NP.

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    • Thanks, Egidio! Black-and-white has its own beauty, focusing on textures and tones rather than color. I love a good color landscape, but when a photo is right for black-and-white, it’s often so much more dramatic.

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  16. Great theme John. I agree some cooling water is a perfect segue to the change in the season. Love your opening image of Peggy’s Cove. You captured the down-home charm of that landscape perfectly. Of course, I might be a touch biased since I am in Canada, eh.

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  19. What a great theme, John. Your examples provide plenty of inspiration for those entering the challenge. I love the B & W Sprague Lake although the Coldwater lake has to be my favourite.

    Hard to believe that lake is only 46 years old. It’s not often I get to see a windless day and flawless still water on my side of the world so this was a winner for me.

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  21. Brilliant! I love the concept and I enjoyed working on my rendition. Mostly though, as always, I thoroughly enjoyed your choice of images and even more, your lovely narrative. Thank you John. pp

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  24. Your first picture, dear John, reminds us of the summer house we had in Sweden. We enjoyed it very much.
    Your black-and-white picture we especially like.
    Thanks
    The Fab Four of Cley
    :-):-) 🙂 🙂

    Reply

    • Thanks, Klausbernd. Those buildings are distinctly Northern European in design. Thanks for the compliments. I need to post that gallery of black-and-whites that never got published.

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  29. Coldwater Lake is the one that stopped me — a body of water that simply did not exist before 1980. Such a good reminder that landscapes are still being written. Peggy’s Cove opening out of St. Margaret’s Bay is a lovely place to start a water theme too. In our family the water is always what the kids remember longest from a trip, ferry decks especially, so the Mukilteo crossing shot felt very familiar.

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    • I appreciate that. Coldwater Lake stopped me too—hard to imagine a whole lake appearing in our lifetime. And I love your note about the kids remembering the water. Ferry crossings have a way of becoming the highlight.

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    • Thanks, Sofia… This morning, I got to thinking about my theme and the photo’s inclusion in this challenge. Truth be told, forces other than water shaped the Coldwater Lake basin in 1980, but had it not been for Coldwater Creek that ran through the area unimpeded, there would have been no source of water to create a lake, and no inflow or outflow. Now the water is continuing to write the next chapter in that landscape.

      Reply

  38. Wonderful, John! This is a great challenge theme. I’m enjoying looking through everybody’s take on it. Your images are terrific. My favorites are the Aguasabon River View and the Coldwater Lake. The latter is perfect – Composition and framing, color, etc. I love it.

    Reply

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