Day 366: Returning to where it began

Do you believe in happy endings? After today, I might just begin to do so. To finish off this project I decided to return to the place it began, Lighthouse Park. In my mind's eye I imagined how poetic it would be to end the year on the same note on which it started with a photo of budding trillium. I headed straight to the spot I'd seen them last year, fully expecting to see white flowers poking through fresh green leaves. But mother nature decided that I shouldn't have it so easy: I found myself standing next to the low fence looking forlornly at a single green shoot barely six inches high. Nothing to do but to take its picture anyway.

So there I was, standing in a dull and cold Lighthouse Park, rain clouds threatening overhead, with a somewhat anti-climactic photo in hand. What next? Where was I going to get my finishing photo? Surely I couldn't let the project end with such a "nothing" photo? I looked at the map and picked a trail I had only walked once before, which took me to one of the park's rocky promontories, in search of the flower that had actually brought me to Lighthouse Park this time last year: white fawn lilies. I knew it would be too early to see them in flower, but perhaps I could find a leaf, or a bud?

I wandered around, doing my best to ignore the snow pellets, rain and cold wind. No sign of any flowers; and then something caught my eye. A single leaf, which I recognized immediately as from a lily. I crouched down and saw another - then a bud, and more leaves. I set about recording the evidence, hardly able to believe my eyes. I moved on and barely 10 metres further I saw another pair of leaves with a bud, and another and another. I picked my way carefully through the litter of dead pine branches, found a comfy spot and fetched the tripod from my backpack. A dozen photos later I figured I had my shot, and, marvelling at these wonderful little flowers-to-be, reluctantly put away the camera gear. I could not believe my luck. To top it off a pair of bald eagles squawked in the tree tops across the cove, and a hummingbird squeaked in the nearby pines. And only then did the rain begin in earnest.

Fawn lilies in bud

Day 365: 0.986 degrees to go

The penultimate day and I'm scratching my head - what shall I photograph today? I found myself in downtown Vancouver under unexpectedly-sunny skies and decided to walk home over the Burrard Street bridge to size up one of my favourite views of the city. I stopped mid-span and to size my photos: the conditions could not have been better with snowy peaks peeking through the city canyons and the flat calm water reflecting the blue sky. But it was this view that caught my eye - zooming in on the Inukshuk in English Bay (which, actually, was on my photographic list for this project) offered a perspective on Sunset Beach that I really liked, and I could follow the curve of the seawall path from there into Stanley Park.

And with that, I am less than 1 degree off finishing.

Following the seawall

Day 364: Along the old straight track

Some months back I was at the Commercial Skytrain station, admiring the view along the tracks towards downtown Vancouver, and kicking myself for not having the camera with me. I added it to my list and today (which is the Spring equinox - woohoo!) I took the bus out east and ticked off another photo from my now exceedingly-short list. The light isn't as good as it was 10 minutes earlier when I first stepped off the bus, and the sun had dipped below the clouds just moments after I crossed the road. I was also hoping to catch an approaching Skytrain, but in retrospect, I'm glad the photo is empty of trains - the exposure time was too long to stop them and I think a blurry train would have detracted from the photo. It'll just have to do as it is :-)

Today's title is brought to by the Jethro Tull song "Cup of Wonder" which includes the line "sung along the old straight track", though it is not referring to railway tracks.

Skytrain tracks pointing to Vancouver

Day 363: Night bridge

Another of Stanley Park's famous landmarks, the Lions Gate bridge was somewhere on my list of photographic targets but it wasn't until I saw a picture taken by a friend that I decided on a dusk shot. I've wanted to take a photo like this for some time, having seen many night shots of the bridge. With only a few days to go, my chances of including it in this project were diminishing by the day. And so, a rainy Monday evening saw me (and other photographers) standing on the bridge over the causeway, taking numerous long exposure photos of traffic on the bridge. I tried using the polarizer to help cut down reflections, but to my surprise (and disappointment) it had no effect. However, all was not lost - it acted as a perfectly good neutral density filter, allowing me to get longer exposures than was otherwise possible. Despite the rain threatening to soak the camera I got my shot.

I also have a graphic reminder that the bridge is a suspension bridge, with the oscillation of the bridge deck showing up in two photos taken back-to-back, about 20 seconds apart. You don't notice it while you're on the bridge as it's quite slow, and it's masked by all the vibration from the traffic. It's given me another idea for a diptych which may appear at some point in the future.

Lions Gate bridge at dusk

Day 362: House post

Not a (blog) post from the house, but a traditional west-coast house post. As kinda promised a few days ago, here's a photo of one of the Stanley Park totem poles taken on a nice sunny afternoon. I'm sure this must be the most-photographed totem pole in Stanley Park, perhaps the most-photographed object in the park. We have other sunny-day pictures dating back to when we moved here in 2004; like so many other photos, they're sitting on our hard drive, just waiting to be looked at.

Thunderbird house post

Day 361: It's so fluffy!

After a grey start, the afternoon brightened up and the day ended with a fine sunset. The stormy clouds over the mountains puffed up into great towering cumulus. As the sun dipped low in the sky, the bottom of the clouds faded to an ominous dark grey, while the middle was bathed in a rosy pink glow. Higher up, the tallest clouds were still the brightest of white. The structure in the clouds and the contrast between them and the blue sky made for a beautiful sight. I had taken some photos earlier in the day, but they weren't a patch on this.

Roiling clouds at sunset

Day 360: Full circle

Three-hundred and sixty degrees is a circle, but I am still six days short a my year. It feels like the year should be done already because spring is well and truly making an appearance here - the bulbs are flowering, the witch hazel is past it, the magnolia is in bud, and the forsythia is out here, there and everywhere. Not to mention the flickers - it's been a while since I heard or saw one of these birds, but they seem to be conspicuous in the spring. A few weeks back, we saw (and heard) one drumming on the top of a lamppost - presumably announcing itself as a way of marking its territory. And tonight, as I walked up and over the knoll by the Student Union building, there was a pair in the trees above me. The sun was at a favourable angle, and one of them kindly spread its wing as I pointed the camera in its direction. The late afternoon light caused its red feathers to simply glow. Beautiful!

Preening flicker

Day 359: Swimming against the stream

This is one of those photos I've had stored away for a rainy day. Except that rainy day never came, and so, with only a week to go, I figured it was about time I took it. I noticed this sculpture only 11 days into the project last year - that's how long I've been saving it :-) I think it's one of the nicest salmon sculptures I've seen.

Salmon sculpture

Day 358: Violet

I'd sized up this mural a few months ago while I was in the middle of the rainbow series, but hadn't had the opportunity to finish off the mini-project. I'd even got to the point where I wondered if I even wanted to take its photograph, my mental picture of it had lessened its impact during the intervening months. Today I walked past it and took a photo, mostly just to size it up, but I was immediately struck by how intricate the artwork was. I had taken another couple of shots, trying to work around the parked cars, when the car that was blocking most of the lower part of the mural drove away. I now had a clear view of the entire wall, so I framed my shot, ducked out into the pouring rain and took it. The rainbow is now complete.

The mural was painted by an organization called Nomadic Alternatives and they've done quite a few around Vancouver. I'll have to seek out some of their other work.

Bellissima mural

Day 357: City under cloud

A fine end to the day and I sped home to pick up Maria before heading out to Jericho Beach for a walk in the sunshine. I thought about using a nice picture of a ring-necked duck but the sunlight on the cloud-capped city won. It's not obvious in the photo, but the leading edges of the clouds showed some nice iridescence.

Vancouver under cloud

Day 356: Willow, willow, burning bright

With the clocks going forward at the weekend, I was hoping to get down to Kits Beach after dinner to catch the last of the light before the sun set. I was late getting there and the shots I had in mind were not possible, so I wandered around looking for alternatives, bracing myself against the strong wind. A few small branches had come down off some of the trees, now roped off by yellow "incident" tape. I had just returned to the car when the streetlight shining on the weeping willows caught my eye. My first photos weren't anything special, but they gave me an idea. I used automatic white balance to get those nice blue dusk skies, and crouched down low next to the streetlight, keeping it off the lens so it didn't flare. About a half-second exposure was enough to show the willow branches waving in the wind, the lower portions of which looked like they were on fire. The low angle also gave it a bit of an auroral appearance, which I really like. I went home happy.

Weeping willow lit by streetlamp

Day 355: Meadow and mountain

We were heading out east for a dinner appointment and, having not taken a single photo in the earlier part of the day, I took a small detour to find somewhere to get a view that I hoped would have something worthy of a photograph. I took a handful of pictures in all directions, but wasn't particularly hopeful that I'd got anything good. Only later when looking through them did Maria draw my attention to this particular scene with the farm buildings in the foreground and the snow-laden peaks of the Widgeon Creek valley forming a forbidding backdrop. What really helped, though was the fact that we processed this photo from the raw file, rather than using the somewhat uninspiring JPEG out of the camera. Hmm, maybe there's something in this raw processing after all.

Pitt Meadows farm and mountains

Day 354: Vancouver In The Rain

I think I saw this rock on my very first visit to Vancouver, before we'd experienced the shades of grey that rainy days bring. My boss even warned me how grey and rainy the winters are here. Maybe it's because I grew up in Britain, but for the most part the rain has never bothered me. Like the author of the text on the rock, sometimes it does get to you but then, yes, you stumble across something that thrives on our liquid sunshine, and suddenly it's not so bad. Like yesterday in Stanley Park. I think that the rain in May and June is more annoying, as by then, after enduring a grey winter, you feel you've earned a bit of warm sunshine.

Vancouver In The Rain

Day 353: Into the final fortnight

Computer problems took us downtown in the morning, and I took advantage of that to head into Stanley Park to look for today's photo. The obvious place to go was the totem poles near Brockton Point, which we've photographed before but have yet to show on our Flickr account. Knowing that we have photos taken in better weather (it's pouring down today) I decided to go for a detail shot, and sized up this carving of herring on one end of the Grandparents and Grandchildren welcome portal carved by local Musqueam artist, Susan Point. There are three of these welcome portals now; personally, I think they're nicer than the totem poles.

And with that, only a baker's dozen to go.

Herring carving

Day 352: Don't be daffed

Today's terrible pun brought to you by those ubiquitous yellow flowers seen in gardens everywhere (in the northern hemisphere) at this time of year. Like tulips, I have no great love for daffodils, though the smaller varieties - like the ones in today's photo - aren't too offensive.

Daffodils

Day 351: Vapour trails

No, not the Rush album - real vapour trails, in the sky :-) I was out trying to get a good picture of something else when I noticed this vapour trail. At first it was two bright white and parallel straight lines, but it quickly began to break up into a wonderful wavy pattern. I've seen helical vapour trails before, and I wonder if the shorter wavelength ripples are like that. Within a minute of taking this shot they'd disappeared completely.

Like a vapour trail...

Day 350: On the crest of a wave

As I get closer to the end of this project, I find myself having to fight a sense of complacency - the job's done, right? Not quite... Today was a perfect day though - clear sunny skies, a stiff breeze from the west and a rising tide all made for some wonderful beach photography. I spent my lunch hour taking pictures of the waves, trying to capture that precise moment when a wave starts to break. The strong onshore surge had piled up the pebbles, creating a small storm line along the beach. I stood at the edge and sized up a photo, waiting for a wave to break in just the right way to emphasize all the various perspective lines. The snow-capped mountains on the horizon, up to 60 km away, made the perfect backdrop.

Breaking waves on a pebbly beach

Day 349: Life imitates art

Well, not so much art as public information. I'd noticed the stencilling on the pavement and decided that it alone would make a good subject for a daily photo. The words say: "I can't believe the time. I need to hurry up if I'm going to get home for dinner" with the letters for "dinner" scattered about like groceries from a split bag. It's part of a public road safety safety campaign run by the city to try and reduce the number of accidents in Vancouver. I'd taken a couple of shots already, and was sizing up a couple more when a woman dashed out of the supermarket and straight across the road, right at the point where the words enter the roadway. Fortunately I was already lined up and was able to take a quick couple of photos. I couldn't believe my eyes, or my luck.

Life imitates art

Day 348: Father and son

We went out for brunch at the Red Wagon cafe in East Vancouver, meeting up with our friends Anne and Adib and their two boys. I captured this picture of Adib with Konrad as they walked back up the street, surreptitiously holding the camera in a way that wouldn't arouse suspicion. Yes, I'm a sneaky photographer. Sometimes I feel bad about that, but that doesn't last too long when I get a shot like this. I caught them both looking in the same direction, their attention drawn to the store front. Like father, like son.

Adib and Konrad

Day 347: Focus

I enjoy photographing Maria and her troop of Morris dancers, especially with the responsiveness of the SLR. Still, it takes a hundred or more photos to get a dozen or so worth showing. Today, and despite the grey skies, I was really pleased to get this photo showing the concentration on June's face as she launched into the next figure of the dance.

Focus

Day 346: Gloom

With today's gloomy weather, I had this photo in mind as a counterpart to the night shot from a few days ago. I meant to take it earlier in the day, but it wasn't until dusk that I set foot outside to get the shot. It was dull, drizzly and I didn't hang around.

And now there are only three weeks to go...

Vancouver in the gloaming

Day 345: Look east

Another 111 days from 123 and 234. Funnily enough, 111 days ago was 11/11/11. The usual story - dull day, didn't get out - but this time I had a bit of spare time at the end of the day and used it to take a different route home, heading along Fourth Ave instead. I got off at a stop with a superb view along Fourth Avenue - on the best days about this time of year, the snowy face of Mt Cheam over 100 km to the east rises above the city. The only time I saw that view, I was a passenger in someone else's car, and I've waited in vain for those weather conditions to repeat. I grabbed my photo and wandered down to the Jericho Beach pond and watched the beavers in the fading light.

Eastwards view along Fourth Ave