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 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 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 339: Bagelry

I remember discovering bagels in the late 1990s. They were tough, chewy rings of dense bread that didn't work with standard toast toppings of butter and marmalade or jam. Then I tried them with cream cheese (at Einstein Bagels in Las Vegas if I remember correctly), and haven't looked back. I was delighted to find Einstein Bagels again when we moved to Maryland - we even lived within a block of one store for a while and it was a regular weekend breakfast. Imagine how happy I was to find another good bagel place so close to home in Vancouver. It's a toss-up between Solly's and Siegel's - Siegel's has a bigger range of flavours, and to have one of their bagels fresh out the wood-fired oven is a sublime experience, but Solly's is closer, and they serve Ethical Bean coffee...

And of course 3 times 3 is 9.

Solly's bagelry

Day 334: No need to fret

The usual rainy-day-at-home-goes-by-without-taking-a-picture scenario, so I spent a few minutes trying to recreate some test shots I'd tried while messing about with the small camera. Somehow it all felt like I was trying too hard, and I wasn't particularly enthused by anything I took. This was the only shot that I could say I was happy with, being a fun experiment in shooting with a small aperture (f/22) to get a large depth of field. It was instructive to see how much the depth of field changed from f/8 through f/16 to f/22. By comparison, the aperture on the compact camera only goes as low as f/8, but the small sensor means that it still has a very large depth of field, much larger than the SLR at f/8. But the main reason I took this photo is that I really like this view along the neck of the bass, in which the strings appear to be parallel. They are not, of course, but the angle the strings make is just right to give this impression.

Bass perspective

Day 332: Band of gold

The day started grey, got greyer and then somewhat wetter. On the drizzly walk home from a pleasant afternoon coffee at Momento I spotted the something bright on the western horizon: a gap in the clouds as the sun set, a gleaming sliver of golden light on the horizon. I hobbled home as fast as I could, grabbed the camera and went out onto the balcony to capture it before the light disappeared.

Band of sunset gold on the horizon

Day 328: Between the clouds

It doesn't seem that long ago that I was remarking on day 238, but that was three months ago already, a quarter of this journey around the sun. Today's photo was not planned (unlike the photo on day 238); just another opportunistic shot from our balcony, as the jagged white peaks of Crown Mountain poked out above one band of clouds and below a higher band to give the impression of the mountain lying between the clouds. We even had some blue sky, as expected for the Monday after a wet weekend.

Crown Mountain between the clouds

Day 319: Foggy

I first noticed the mist over the Burrard Inlet yesterday, and wondered if I could get a picture of it from down on the beach. The mist had largely drifted away by the time we went for our walk, and I found something quite different to photograph. Today, the mist hung around for longer and at about 4.30 pm I decided I had to head down to Kits Beach to capture it (despite failing earlier thanks to a dead camera battery). I trotted down to the beach (testing out the bare-foot running technique some more) and ended up down at the waterline on a small section of sandy beach. The mist was drifting through the trees of Stanley Park, with some making its way into the middle of downtown Vancouver. I was losing light rapidly and I snapped as many shots as I could as the sun sank until I got my favourite: the sun was still high enough to illuminate the top half of the mist, but low enough to have gone off the lower half, leading to a lovely pink-and-blue mist picture. With some trees poking out. Perfect.

Pink and blue mist over Stanley Park

Day 317: Hangin' out

I don't know when this trend started - it required the invention of shoe laces at least - but many streets seem to have one or more pairs of shoes decorating overhead wires. As we walked out for hot chocolate I couldn't help grab a photo of these wireline companions.

Just' hangin' out

Day 316: Former glory

A few short months after I took day 28's photo, the Hollywood Theatre closed its doors forever. It seemed inevitable that an old-style cinema showing second-run films would not be able to survive the modern movie-watching experience (you know, watching a horrendously-compressed version on a 4-inch phone screen). But the reason for its demise seems to be simply one of money - the owner was offered a deal he couldn't refuse (though maybe not in the Godfather sense), and the property was sold less than 3 months after celebrating its 75th anniversary. Before I knew this, I felt guilty for not frequenting our local cinema more often - I still wish I'd watched more films there, but I no longer feel guilty about it.

The late great Hollywood Theatre

Day 310: Climbing

The days are getting noticeably longer as the year climbs out of mid-winter. For the first time in over a week, the sun appeared at dawn and I could not resist the opportunity to get a sunny photo early in the day. Quite by chance, I sized up this view of Crown Mountain just as a float plane passed by, gaining height all the while. A nice alignment, I think, of the partially-lit snowy mountain and the bright aircraft against darker clouds. I tracked the plane until it passed overhead. I can't wait to ride in a float plane again - we have a voucher to use, so I foresee a flight to Victoria in the not-too-distant future.

Sunshine catches a float plane

Day 306: In silhouette

Another day goes by with no pictures taken. But yesterday's tour of Ikea saw us bring home a nice new standard lamp, the shade of which made the perfect textured backdrop for a silhouette shot of the headstock of my bass guitar.

Headstock in silhouette

Day 305: Spooky!

A large portion of today's daylight hours was spent within the confines of the giant warehouse that is Ikea in Coquitlam. With less than two hours of the day left, I bestirred myself to pick up the camera and find something to photograph. Our little green nightlight caught my eye. I let it recharge for a while before setting it on the floor, which required that I lie full length behind the camera to take the picture. I turned off the hallway lights, pushed the top of the nightlight and illuminated the area with ghostly green light. I quite like the glowing-green-orb effect. We bought this little fella from Ikea a few years ago, just because we thought it was cute :-)

Spooky spöka

Day 304: Here comes the rain again

After a few days of icy-cold weather the rain is back with a vengeance. I took this photo of streetlit-raindrops while waiting at the bus stop having just picked up some refreshments for the weekend. Seriously, who wants to drink cold beer in this weather?

And the rain is back

Day 300: Snowstorm

What better way to celebrate the 300th day of this project than with a nice abstract snowstorm photo. Yes, I'm being sarcastic ;-) I thought that with having some nice snowy scenes to view that I'd get something good today. Well, that only happens if you can be bothered to venture out of the office, so I was glad I'd taken a few shots at home before heading in to work, including this one of the neighbourhood pigeons flying around in the midst of this morning's half-hour mini-blizzard.

Pigeons in a snowstorm

Day 294: Reconstruction

I remember the first time I saw a house in Vancouver undergoing renovations: the lower half of the house had its boards and cladding removed, and was propped up on four or five towers of wood. It's a common approach round here to gut the entire property, leaving little more than the framework and then rebuild the house around it. Every time I've seen a house in that state, I've said to myself that I really have to take a picture... A few weeks ago I noticed that the tall cedar hedges on the corner of a nearby street had been removed to reveal the houses behind. Soon after that, the cladding came off, the interiors gutted and the rotting wood and fascia dumped into skips. Today I walked down to see underneath the houses, all the way through to the lane behind. I was disappointed to see that they're not jacked up on pallets, but they still capture the essence of house renovations and reconstruction here. Oh, and that's the shadow of my arm at the bottom of the picture.

Reconstruction and renovation

Day 291: Twelfth Night

I don't know if today is the actual Twelfth Night but it was as good a day as any to take down our Christmas tree. That and one of the Vancouver Morris Men is hosting a "Twelfth Night" party tonight. As usual, I'm quite sad to be taking down the tree - I get quite used to it brightening up the corner of the room (or taking up valuable space, depending on your point of view), and I've always liked leaving the tree lights on when all the other lights have been turned off. Oh well, until next Christmas!

Number play for today: 2 + 9 + 1 = 12 :-)

Dismantling the tree

Day 290: Souvenirs and memories

Another day, another cold. Well, it's the same one actually, but it's come back with a vengeance today. So I've been at home, watching the mountains gradually disappear as the next weather system moved in, wondering what I can photograph on a grey rainy day. What can I photograph indoors, that doesn't need setting up? Bingo - our quilt, hanging up in the second bedroom. An excuse to use the external flash too.

Our quilt was a leaving present from our friends from Maryland, Pennsylvania and West Virginia. We picked out some colours and fabric, but really one person made it all happen - Barb Hunt. Sure, she had some input from other friends, but it was all her effort that created this quilt. The green and blue represent the land and water, with hints of the mountains and a touch of the night sky too. And then there are the little touches, the ones that make you realize what people know about you, like leaves (including a maple leaf as we were moving to Canada), shells and a little bear. We love it. It's our very own personalized piece of art.

Our quilt

Day 283: As the sun sets

The last Friday of the year, and I slung the camera over my shoulder as we went for a walk up the street for a hot chocolate. I could see a little colour in the sky as the clouds began to break up and the sun made an appearance. I was hoping to see a rainbow, given that the rain hadn't completely stopped falling but it all came to nothing. Back at home, I could see the western horizon was beginning to get its sunset orange glow, and I went out into the freezing cold wind (where did that come from?) and tried a few photos. I've taken many sunset photos, so I wasn't convinced I'd get anything good. But then I saw an aeroplane taking off from the airport, rising into the orange sky and casting a long shadow on the ribbons of rain. I pointed the camera at the plane, but it decided to re-focus and by the time it had done so the plane had risen and the shadow had faded. Darn. I waited for another airliner to take off to see if the same thing would happen. It never did, but I was happy with this particular aeroplane shot, taken just as the sun had set, the sky now looking like a bright orange portal. Quite appropriate for the "time" travellers on board.

Sunset flight

Day 282: Self portrait

I have a cold, it's dull outside so what else to take a picture of? Me, of course! Ha ha, yeah, right... I'm not into people pictures, preferring to capture things as they happen rather than getting someone to look directly at the camera, and I'm definitely not into the self-portraits that adorn the photostreams of so many. But I hit upon this idea early in the project when taking some test photos of my bass guitar. I saw my reflection in the body, and thought about saving that shot for another day. I have several more guitar pictures in mind - I think many musical instruments are things of intrinsic beauty and I like trying to get good photos of them. At the interface between photos of people and musical instrument is the musician, and one of the reasons I like following the Morris crowd is to try and capture those moments where one of the musicians is totally engrossed in what they're playing. I find those photos quite fascinating.

Self portrait and bass guitar