Day 39: Weekend waterfalls

Waterfalls. How can you not love waterfalls? We'd first visited Cypress Falls park a few years ago and somehow had walked away not feeling particularly inspired. The Lower Falls were nice, but the view point wasn't that great, and we never did find the Upper Falls. Yet for some reason I felt that today was the day to revisit. We drove over to the park in West Vancouver and ambled gently uphill through the trees, gradually wending our way to the precipitous banks of Cypress Creek, running in a deep, narrow canyon.

The trail led further upstream, passing an ominous sign disclaiming all liability, and we soon found ourselves face-to-face with the Upper Falls, a single cascade dropping perhaps 15 m into a deep pool before squeezing through the chasm below. Carefully, we picked our way down the slippery slope to get the optimum view. Impressive falls, for sure, and I'm mystified as to how we didn't find them last time.

Heading back downstream we followed the creek, passing more huge Douglas firs on our way to the Lower Falls overlook. The view there was pretty good, the Lower Falls being slightly higher than the Upper Falls, but the canyon narrowed immediately below the falls, which limited the view. Once again, some very careful footwork was required to get the best view, complete with mossy rocks and trees. When we got home we found that the photo in Dawn Hanna's book, "Best Hikes and Walks in Southwestern British Columbia", was taken from exactly the same spot that we'd picked our way down to. Personally, I think ours is better, despite their rainbow :-)

Lower Cypress Falls

Day 38: Weaving towards the weekend

I'm a big fan of alliteration and a little punnery. Today is Friday and the tagline above comes from the fact that the word "Friday" is derived from the day of Frige, a Germanic love goddess (no less!). Frige may or may not be the same goddess as Frigg, who is often associated with weaving. Ta-da! Plus there may even be a tip of the hat to the custom in some countries of getting drunk on a Friday night, and staggering home (usually via the Indian take-away or kebab shop). Not that I engage in such activities...

And so on to today's photo. I'd been wandering about (weaving, even) getting a few photos here and there and I was heading back to my office when the guy on the bike in the photo below rode by. A couple of these high-rider bikes had been locked up near the Student Union building for a few weeks but this was the first time I saw someone riding one. I pulled out the camera, which fortunately still had the long lens on, and snapped his photo as he rode away. The yellow frame and backpack contrasted nicely with the blue construction fencing, and the picture worked out much better than I expected. Like the old Penny Farthing, I have to wonder how these riders deal with all the stop signs in the city...

Weaving weekendwards

Day 37: Tulips

I don't like tulips. And yet they are planted everywhere. We went for a day trip south of the border a couple of weekends ago with the aim of visiting the Skagit Tulip Festival if our hike didn't work out. The hike went to plan and we saw no tulips :-) only some beautiful fairyslipper orchids. However, one of the things that does make tulips at least photogenic to my eye is that they are often planted in rows and grow straight up with the single flower head. This makes for photos with good lines and perspective, a thought which struck me again as I walked past a planted area on campus.

I particularly liked the way the flowers looked before blooming, and when viewed from above the pattern of three barely overlapping petals is really interesting. I'd taken a couple of test shots with the old camera but wasn't too happy with the results and I noticed that the tulips were opening quickly so I made a decision to bring in the good camera today. I spent a few minutes around lunchtime taking a load of pictures: I couldn't resist taking pictures of the ones with Norwich City colours :-)

So, yeah, I didn't really expect to take any tulip photos, but there you go: that's part of the reason for this experiment in the first place.

Tulips

Day 36: Ten per cent

Thirty-six days in: that's 10 per cent. It's already been more than a month since I began. Perhaps it's excusable to use this milestone to indulge in a little reflection. Here's what I've learned over the last five weeks and a day.

• Some days it's hard to be motivated to seek out something worth photographing.
  
• Despite my off days, I'm still convinced that the variety of new growth makes this time of year the easiest time to commit to a 365 project. It's only going to get harder from here on :-)
  
• I'm lucky to work on the UBC campus which has plenty of naturey stuff I like to photograph.
  
• Knowing what you like to photograph is important, as is having a plan for finding such things every day. I've been making a list of things to photograph on those uninspired days.
  
• A surprising reaction is that I don't like the "random-stuff" look to our Flickr photostream. Taking photos every day for the purpose of taking a photo every day doesn't sit very well with me. I began taking photographs to document things we did, places we visited. I'm used to trying to tell a story with a series of photos, rather than highlighting a single moment in time. I think the Flickr set I've been adding these photos to looks messy.
  
• Much as I generally dislike our Canon S3IS, I'm still very happy with the macro photos it takes.
  
• Choosing a single photo can be difficult on some days :-)
  

And while I don't yet have a decent picture of the flowers I've visited several times lately, I did at least get an OK photo of some deep pink magnolia buds.

Magnolia buds

Day 35: Not expecting the unexpected

After all, why would you? :-) I set out deliberately to take a few photos of some flowers I had saved for another day and spent about 5 minutes wandering around trying to get the optimal photo. A few birds darted about from tree to bush and back again and I ended up following the sound of some calls that I didn't recognize. I caught a fleeting glimpse of a tiny bird flying off into another tree but I wasn't close enough to stand any chance of identifying it. I moved on and found even more of the flowers I'd set out to photograph, and spent another few minutes getting their best side.

Satisfied that I'd managed to get the best-ever flower photo (!), I turned to head back to the office, only to be stopped by some yellow lilies that at first reminded me of my all-time favourite alpine flower, the glacier lily. These lilies were nothing like that, being much larger and more showy. Typical cultivated species I guess. I took a few pics just to see what might work for future days. Once more happy that I was done I continued on my way... only to be surprised again by another patch of lilies, this time pink. These looked much more like the wild varieties (including the white fawn or trout lilies I'd gone to Lighthouse Park to find at the beginning of this project). I crouched down and took a handful of photos, mostly to show Maria.

And would you know it, I liked one of them so much I made it my photo for today. To say that was unexpected would be an understatement.

Pink and green

Day 34: And the rain continues to fall...

It rained pretty much all day today. While I had the day off, I didn't get an opportunity to get out somewhere to find a photo subject. After dropping off Maria at morris practice, I decided that rain or not, I had to get some fresh air. I drove round to Stanley Park and pulled in at the sad-looking hollow tree. I wasn't after a photo of the tree itself, instead I was heading for my favourite tree in the park - an enormous red cedar about 100 m from the hollow tree. It was raining lightly and I had thought hard enough about getting my photo to recognize that bringing the tripod would be a good idea.

I traipsed down the path and struck off into the trees to find "my" cedar. I set up the tripod and took a handful of photos. As I was moving the camera, I looked down to see a gorgeous patch of fresh bleeding heart flowers just blooming, their distinctive leaves bright green in the gloom, and dappled with glowing water droplets. I couldn't resist photographing them as well, but had to give up soon after that due to the rain getting a little heavier.

I drove round to Third Beach and parked up next to the restaurant there, and walked to the edge of the cliff above the seawall. I'd not stopped here to look at the view before, and was delighted to find a clear vantage point over the beach itself, further revealed by the lowering tide. A few patches of seabirds bobbed around here and there; the occasional cormorant flew by inches above the water. My view was drawn upwards when I heard a cawing crow, and I was greeted by the sight of a bald eagle drifting barely 20 m overhead. It was almost completely silent, and I had the place pretty much to myself - no one else could be bothered to get out of their car.

Sanity restored. I should really visit Stanley Park more often.

My favourite tree

Day 33: And it's raining again

Two glorious sunny days, timed just right for the long Easter weekend. Barely. Alas, the rain returned as promised on Sunday, and although we continued our exploration of the island, it was difficult to get enthusiastic about getting out of the car for too long. At least here in BC the rain (for the most part) tends to fall steadily and straight down: none of this gale-force, horizontal rain we've experienced in Britain :-) We were still able to get out and wander along a pebbly beach, which we had all to ourselves.

A common theme to places with a slower pace of life seems to be a public expression of light-heartedness through either extra happy road signs (as simple as a hand-painted "Be Happy" seen in Hawaii), or amusingly-annotated road signs. The first time we drove past the sign seen below I had to do a double-take and I wondered if I'd really seen a red nose on the deer. Sure enough the next pass confirmed it and I decided I simply had to get a photo. Well, a rainy Sunday seemed like the right time. If you look closely, you'll see the raindrops as short streaks in the photo. Bowen Island has a significant deer population and all the main roads have these warning signs. We saw another similarly decorated where the rider had a pony-tail. And yes, we even saw a few deer on our travels, though none had red noses, and if they had riders, they had decided to dismount and hide as we drove past :-)

Rudolf the red-nosed rain-deer, with rider...

Day 32: Sights and sounds of the farm

Our getaway cottage is on a farm. Most of the livestock were chickens, with a handful of greylag geese, some muscovy ducks and the occasional emu or three. Included in the chicken role-call was a trio of roosters of a couple of different kinds. As expected, they crowed at sunrise, and at multiple times during the day. Not that we noticed: I came round as it got light on both mornings and heard the strained "cock-a-doodle-doo!" but it was by no means loud, and didn't wake me or stop me from going back to sleep. There was even a bit of a dawn chorus, though nothing like the ones I've heard back in the UK. It was wonderful and soothing to hear all the various bird sounds and songs, rather than traffic, honking horns, sirens and the fake chirping of the pedestrian crossings. Yes, definitely worth getting away for a couple of days.

Noisy rooster

Day 31: On Island Time

"On Island Time" is a local phrase to indicate that things happen when they happen, and not before. It's a measure of the slower and less frantic pace of life on the many islands between the Lower Mainland and Vancouver Island. There's no doubt that the more relaxed approach to life is, well, relaxing, and we both enjoy soaking up the chance to do very little when we visit. This weekend we're off to Bowen Island, the closest island to Vancouver. We've been to Bowen many times, but usually just to meet up with the Black Sheep morris dancers (I'm only there to take photos - and maybe partake of a beverage or two... ;-) or to hike to the summit of Mt Gardner. But this time we're taking the time out to explore the rest of the island, and relax with some time at a small cottage on a farm.

The relaxation began after we missed the 12 noon ferry, the next one not being until 2.25 pm. Nothing else to do except find someplace to sit, eat and enjoy a glass of something in the sun. After lunch, we ambled back to the car along the short stretch of seafront in Horseshoe Bay. Next to the small tourist-information doubling as a coffee shop was a painted eagle sculpture. We'd seen a few in Vancouver when they were out and about as part of a public art project, but hadn't seen any we really liked. However, this one was in the perfect location, decorated with what must be said is a fairly accurate depiction of Anvil Island (only barely visible from this spot), complete with salmon-and-kelp undersea-scape. To my mind, it summed up the BC coast in one illustration. OK so maybe it needed an orca...

Howe Sound eagle sculpture

Day 30: Once around the Earth

This project is about a journey once around the Sun; tonight I got the chance to document a journey once around the Earth. I checked the spaceweather.com flybys tracker and noticed that tonight there was the chance to see not one but two passes of the International Space Station. And for once the skies were clear enough, which prompted me to dig out the tripod and set up a long exposure shot to capture the two flybys.

The first photo was a bit hit and miss, thanks to some patchy cloud cover and I figured that the second pass would offer me a better chance. Unfortunately I messed up the camera focus as I moved the camera, so it's not as sharp as it should have been. But I got my shot and I'm more than happy with it.

Now, I don't know about you, but the thing that strikes me most about the photo below is the colour: it's ORANGE! To my eyes, the sky looked dark, and fairly clear. I was shocked when the picture came up on the camera screen and it brought it home to me again just how much light is wasted and sent upwards.

I waved, but I don't think the astronauts saw me ;-)

The International Space Station streaks across the sky

Day 29: Scouring the neighbourhood

One of our favourite spring-time blooms is the downy serviceberry tree. Its long, droopy white petals appeal to us in a way that the oversized magnolia flowers do not. Perhaps it's also because downy serviceberry is a native wild species that gives it the extra appeal. It was one of the first (of not the first) tree to bloom in the high ridges of the Appalachians, and we saw plenty of it when we lived in Maryland. I'm not a big fan of cultivated species, especially if we've seen native versions growing wild. Bleeding heart is one that springs (no pun intended) to mind: we much prefer the understated, pale pink wild flowers to the in-your-face fuchsia-pink and white cultivated equivalent.

Since before I began this project (quest?) I have been keeping my eyes open for a nice tree to photograph. Somehow I haven't been very lucky so far, only encountering good trees on dull, rainy and windy evenings, and all the photos I've taken have been decidedly shrug-worthy. Tonight was also dull and drizzly, and the blossom on many trees is looking a bit past it, but while I was sizing up a different photo altogether, I walked by a small tree only recently in bloom. A good number of emerging flowers complete with fresh green leaves were perfectly lit against a dark, yet colourful, background.

As ever, the light was low so I had to hold as steady as possible to take the photo (well, photos: I actually took about a dozen). The outcome wouldn't win any prizes for sharpness, but I really like the overall effect. It's slightly soft, but in a soft-focus kind of way rather than the usual unsteady blurriness :-) It won't stop me looking for the perfect flower, but I'm more than happy with it for today's photo.

Downy serviceberry

Day 28: When night turns to day

No, not another sunrise photo. Instead, another movie set photo. Standing on our balcony, I noticed a tall crane about three blocks away, with spotlights mounted on the top platform. After dark I wandered down the street, hoping to get a better look and saw that the block containing the Hollywood Theatre was blocked off for filming, police directing traffic as necessary at the call for action. The overhead lighting wasn't quite daylight but it was incredibly bright, and much brighter than light of the full moon.

There wasn't much to photograph at street level so I wandered away and took to the alley behind the stores on Broadway where I was able to get alongside the crane-mounted lights. Had it been a dry night there wouldn't have been much to take a picture of, but there was a little bit of moisture in the air which caused the beams of light to be visible. Plus there appeared to be a smoke or dry-ice generator up on the crane, showing up the beams even more clearly. It reminded me a bit of being at Niagara Falls at night.

I tried a few shots, trying to balance length of exposure with the ISO setting, and eventually plucked up the courage to try a one-second exposure, hand-held. I didn't have a tripod with me, but I was able to lean against the corner of a building for stability. To my amazement several of them worked out, good enough at least for showing in a web browser. In case you're wondering, the little dots in the sky are stars.

Turning night into day

Day 27: What was I saying about flowers?

Umm, yeah. So as I was saying, it's all about flowers and birds :-) Today's flower is a little violet found on a small sunny slope not too far away from the hummingbird's favourite perch. The hummingbird was there, singing (or wheezing) away, flying from tree-top to tree-top, rising like a skylark then disappearing in a blur as it flew down to the tree again. I did manage to catch a shot of him stationary, but quickly gave up on the idea of catching him in flight. That's where it's handy to have flowers to fall back on. While they don't fly away from you, they do have a habit of blowing around in the wind, and today did have a keen breeze off the water. Fortunately, the violets were just sheltered enough, and the sunshine was bright enough to keep the exposure suitably short. I'd tried a quick photo a couple of days ago when I first discovered them, but the light was too low they were pretty blurry. Today, however, was perfect.

Early blue violets

Day 26: Flowers and birds

It may be kinda obvious that there's a bit of a theme with this project so far. First comes a flower picture, then there'll be a bird picture, then probably another flower, and perhaps a bird might be next. It's spring, so there is a lot of fresh growth, blossom and flowers to capture. It's a great way to mark the seasons, and most years we chase spring from sea level up to the alpine as the snow retreats.

Birds are easy, to a point. Again spring helps because the song birds are prominent, singing away in the tree tops, defining their territory and attracting a mate. Other birds are actively feeding and foraging for nesting material. Plus we live next to the sea and a fair bit of parkland, and a wide variety of birds is present for most of the year. I still get excited every time I see a bald eagle, or a hummingbird. Obviously, living by the sea means that seagulls are all too common, and it's rare that I bother taking photos of them. However, today they provided some comic relief with one stern-looking glaucous-winged gull deciding to perch on the back of another, equally stern-looking gull. And I was in the right place at the right time.

Seagull parking

Day 25: Domes of oysters

Well not really but we did a hike to a rocky summit called Oyster Dome in Washington state. The border crossing was loooong: almost an hour to get to the border kiosk, then nearly as much again inside waiting to get visa waiver cards. Still, it turned out to be worth it as we took in a bit of historic Fairhaven (and tasty lunch at the Colophon Cafe) before driving south on Chuckanut Drive. We stopped off at Larrabee State Park and explored the eroded sandstone shoreline before continuing the scenic drive down to the trailhead for a hike up to Oyster Dome.

Not long after setting off up the hill, Maria spotted a fairyslipper orchid, the first one we'd seen since our backpacking trip in the Okanagan almost two years ago. Of course, no sooner had we spotted one than we saw another, and another. So, yeah, I had to take photos of them all :-) After that we found trillium in full bloom. We continued on our way up to the top of Oyster Dome and enjoyed the views over Samish Bay and the San Juan Islands. A great little hike, and not as steep as it looked on the map.

We made it back to the car just in time to catch sunset over the San Juan Islands before making our way through the flat fields to Mt Vernon and the Skagit River Brewery for a tasty way to end the day.

Oyster Dome orchid

Day 24: Another week...

...goes by. I had the good camera with me today to follow up on a couple of test photos I'd taken in the week with the other one. I had a few options in mind, but they all went out the window when I passed a tree and noticed some movement in one of the outer branches. I thought it was just a chickadee and went in for a closer look. It turned out to be bigger than a chickadee, but not by much. I moved closer and to my surprise I saw it was a tiny downy woodpecker, not much bigger than a sparrow. I set down my bag and dragged out the camera as carefully as possible, hoping that I wouldn't spook the woodpecker into flying off into another tree.

I was lucky: the little bird hopped over to a nearby branch which gave me an even clearer shot. Click, click, click. And despite a late afternoon visit to the resident hummingbird for another photo or two, it was the little woodpecker's day.

Female downy woodpecker

Day 23: Soggy blossom

What happened to spring? Today started off deceptively fine but then the rain came in. Cold, with big fat rain drops. I swear I even saw some snow mixed in there at one point. On my way to the bus I passed a few small cherry trees in full blossom, their heads hanging in the rain. I stopped to take a picture of one and the phrase "soggy blossom" came to mind, no doubt inspired by the Soggy Bottom Boys from O Brother, Where Art Thou?. I continued on to the bus stop, getting colder and wetter as I went. Of course it's stopped now I'm home, and it's even beginning to look nice out there...

Soggy blossom

Day 22: Working for it

I think today was more representative of what much of this year will be like. I had no firm ideas about what to photograph, and since I've been carrying the old camera, I have to pick my subjects with a bit of care to get the best out of it. I saw a couple of things I liked the look of on my way in to work, and took some shots, but generally wasn't too happy: the subjects weren't as interesting as I'd first hoped. The only other chance I got today was at the end of the day, and I took a detour on my route to the bus to check out if the resident hummingbird was still around.

I'd taken a few of him yesterday but they were all against a bright sky (something which this camera doesn't deal with very well), so I wasn't happy with them. Today, I spotted the hummingbird in a different tree, with a dark background - much better. I put the camera on continuous shoot, zoomed in all the way and took a dozen photos. Most of them were blurry (no surprise as I was down to 1/100 s or longer), but a couple looked good enough to crop. I still wasn't sure any of them would be useable so I found some flowers to photograph too. As it happened, the hummingbird photo turned out much better than the flower photos. I'll save those for another day :-)

Anna's hummingbird

Day 21: Flickers a-foraging

My afternoon coffee breaks just keep on giving... Today I took my coffee for a walk round by the library with the intention of scoping out a place that one of our Flickr contacts had photographed a hummingbird. But I didn't get that far: as I rounded the far end of the building I looked to my left and saw two birds foraging in the grass. A second look confirmed what I suspected: a pair of flickers poking around. I set down my coffee mug and lined up a couple of shots. To my surprise they allowed me to get closer, and I was able to line up a good angle with both birds in view. I can't believe my luck - that's two fabulous flicker photos in as many weeks.

And in case you're wondering, yes I did find the hummingbird :-)

Foraging flickers

Day 20: Camera action

If there's one thing you can be certain of encountering in Vancouver, it's rain. If there's something else you can be certain of encountering in Vancouver it would have to be film sets. We noticed it immediately when we moved here a few years ago and have since seen countless signs up all over the city pointing towards one or other film sets. I recognized the distinctive back alleys of Vancouver, seen in many a film. I've also seen Boston police cars, Russian tanks and, today, Seattle volleyball tournaments. Walking along Kits Beach we saw the set for a film called Geek Charming, which to my mind sounds awful, but it's probably not aimed at me ;-) As we passed the main set I spotted a camera set up on a tripod, completely unmanned and I couldn't resist indulging in a bit of what I call "meta-photography", photography of cameras or people taking photographs. Snap!

Camera on camera

Day 19: Rain, rain and more rain

Guess what? It's raining today... I couldn't think of much to take pictures of, but on Friday while walking along the street, I noticed a bushy little maple tree with lots of fresh young leaves. I knew that today was forecast rain so I thought I'd wait until I could capture them dotted with raindrops. What I didn't consider was how many photos I'd need to take to ensure one that was sharp. Of course, with it being overcast and rainy, the light level was quite low and there was just enough of a breeze to make the leaves dance in front of the camera. Out of something like 40 photos perhaps three were useable, including this one. I liked the pair of maple leaves near the top of the photo, pointing in opposite directions. To me they look like a pair of hands, maybe jazz hands? :-)

Young maple leaves

Day 18: North Shore snow

Though the fine weather disappeared overnight, it was still good enough to get out for some more April snow. We met up with a few friends and headed for Hollyburn Peak on the North Shore, a good little workout with a nice mixture of terrain. And the promise of views. Well, the views didn't quite work out, though we caught occasional glimpses of Vancouver, and it was generally clear to the west. Once or twice the clouds parted and we caught dramatic glimpses of Crown Mountain (which is today's photo). But it didn't matter: nobody cared and we all had a great time in this week's dump of snow. For once we were able to sit on the actual summit, where we enjoyed an early snack lunch consisting mostly of chocolate-flavoured things :-) To top it off, we watched a pair of eagles ride a thermal up from Cypress Bowl to soar past us at tree height.

More photos from today are on Flickr.

Crown through the clouds

Day 17: Fun in the sun

Despite being more of a night-owl, I really like seeing the sun rise. This causes problems in the summer :-) So far this year I haven't been tempted out of bed by too many sunrises. The only other memorable one was back in January when I drove all the way out to SFU. Since then I've been content to watch the sunrise from home. However, this morning promised to be clear and I had already decided to take the day off work so I figured that today would be a good day to catch sunrise. I wanted to see the sun come up behind the city skyline so decided that somewhere along the waterfront between Jericho and Locarno Beaches would do the trick.

I checked the time the sun was due to rise and set my alarm. I got up just before 6am and almost didn't go out as the temperature was only about 3 C (prairie folk can laugh now). I didn't fancy the idea of being cold down by the water. But I told myself it would be worth it, grabbed the camera, hat and gloves and headed on down. I went out onto the pier by Jericho Sailing Club, which was covered in a light frost. Looking around me I could see the sand was also frosty.

And so I spent the next three-quarters of an hour admiring the golden sky behind the city, and the blue then pink sky to the west. The wind was calm, and though it was cool I didn't feel cold. A group of people were fishing for crabs off the pier, loading up their traps and casting them into the shallow water. I took pictures of the city, of the mountains, of the water, generally keeping my sights occupied until I saw the first light on the tips of the Tetrahedron Peaks. I snapped a few in that direction and turned back to the city. I noticed a strange halo more or less directly over the Shangri-La tower, and within seconds the sun peeked over the Golden Ears ridge and lit up everything around me. I'm guessing it was a pollen corona since all the cherry trees are in bloom.

With the sun up, it was time for me to head home for some breakfast. But I took one last shot as the sun cleared the tops of the Vancouver high-rises and saw crepuscular rays where the buildings were casting shadows. It looked like a golden orb had been perched on top of Vancouver. And I decided that was my photo for today.

Other photos from this morning are on Flickr.

Golden sunrise over Vancouver

Day 16: Progress around the sun

The earth has travelled through about 4% of its orbit around the sun since I started this project. I thought I was doing well having taken a photo every day for the last two weeks or so, but put like that I still have something like 96% of the task ahead of me...

Time to look at it a different way then. How about the moon? It has travelled more than 50% of its orbit around the Earth since I started. That sounds much better :-) The last two nights have seen clear sunsets, which have felt quite rare of late, and it's been nice to see the young crescent moon in the darkening evening sky.

When we first got our "superzoom" camera a few years ago, I used to take moon pictures almost every clear night. Now I hardly take any as I've come to the conclusion that I need a longer lens and/or a better tripod to take good photos. The telephoto lens for our SLR does quite well, partly thanks to the camera's umpteen megapixels, but it's not often that I'm satisfied with the results. I was too lazy to set up the tripod tonight, so I tried my luck hand-held. This rarely works so I have to wonder why I bother, and yet tonight, between gusts of wind, I was able to get a sharp shot. Thank you, image stabilization.

Crescent moon

Day 15: Woden in White

Today is Wednesday, two weeks since my foray into Lighthouse Park and the beginning of this project. Today is also the first truly sunny day in quite some time, welcome relief for Vancouverites after the deluge of recent days. The mountain tops emerged gleaming white from the clouds, freshly decorated in new snow.

It's hard to believe we're still getting snowfall on the North Shore, almost a week into April. Plus it's going to be a long time before those peaks are free of snow given the amount that's accumulated over the winter. Officially, mid-mountain snows depths are of order 5 metres! Hopefully we'll get a warm and sunny May to begin melting it all, with bonus spectacular waterfalls...

White Wednesday

Day 14: Flower power!

It's spring and flowers are blooming everywhere. The cherry trees are at peak blossom, turning many of Vancouver's streets into pink corridors. On the UBC campus, there are a number of magnolia trees at various stages of flowering, and the oregon grape is covered with tiny yellow buds and flowers. I found a good crop near the Student Union Building and spent a few minutes with my afternoon coffee photographing several clusters of cheerful, pea-sized, bright yellow flowers. Much as I like our SLR, the macro capabilities of our old camera are still superb, perfect for close ups like this one.

Cheery yellow Oregon grape

Day 13: A case of the Mondays

It's Monday and guess what? It's raining; the kind of rain that Vancouver is (in)famous for. Heavy, featureless overcast grey skies and a steady fall, delightfully called "light rain" by Environment Canada. If you didn't know the mountains were there across the water, you'd be hard-pushed to accept tales of jagged peaks and glorious vistas.

But even rainy days end eventually, and while down at Kits Beach I could see the western horizon brightening, and I caught sight of an empty bulk carrier on its way into port. The ship was almost end on to the beach, and I walked along until it was as close to end-on as I could make it before taking a few photos. After such a miserable grey day of rain I was amazed to be able to get a photo with as much colour and detail. I went home happy.

Steaming in to port

Day 12: Snowy Sundays

We haven't been snowshoeing much this winter. A few years ago we were out every weekend, but the last couple of years have seen us getting picky, saving our trips for days with good weather and/or good snow. I never thought I'd be a snow snob. Having said that, sometimes you just have to get out there and today was a day to get out in the snow whatever the weather. Sure enough the weather was, by all accounts, pretty crap. No views at all, visibility barely 20 m at times. And yet it was a great day out. We still found some good, fresh snow, it was peaceful and we had the place pretty much to ourselves. That's what makes a good day out. You don't always need sunshine.

Other photos from today are on Flickr.

Shake hands with the raven

Day 11: Saturday

It's the weekend again and after a dull rainy Friday, the weekend started dry and sunny. We went for a walk on Jericho Beach in the afternoon, and thoroughly enjoyed the fresh spring feel to everything. The red-winged blackbirds were perched on rushes and in trees around the pond. As we stood on the bridge, a turtle poked its nose above the surface, only to be trampled back underneath by one or more mallards dashing off to scoop up a bounty of thrown seeds.

We wandered around past Jericho Sailing Club and over to a row of cherry trees covered with deep pink blossom. I heard an odd noise, like a bird or squeaky toy, and stopped to work out where it was coming from. I tracked it down to one of the cherry trees and saw some movement that went with the sound: a pair of courting northern flickers! I snapped a few shots, then took some video to try and capture the sound. They were so cute to watch, and luckily one of the photos I took turned out quite well. All I did was crop and apply a little sharpening. I'm not sure if this is the male or female, but it looks pretty surrounded by pink cherry blossom.

Other photos from today are on Flickr.

Flicker on Flickr


(Update: it's a male)

Day 10: Into double figures

After yesterday's finish-line pun I think today needs something different, so how about another ending? Today is the last day of Storm the Wall and after taking a few photos of the last set of competitors, the organizers quickly set about dismantling everything. By the time I left work for home, all the fencing had been cleared away, the mulch bulldozed into piles and both walls tipped over. My second photo was of the walls set up ready to go, so I felt I had to capture their demise as well.

Having this event take place during my first week of daily photography made it easy to get my photos. Now that it's over, I'll have to work a bit harder.

End of an era...