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 180: Half a circle

Mum and Dad flew home today, and after reluctantly waving them goodbye at YVR we met up with a friend from work and a couple of his friends for a gentle wander around Lighthouse Park. We walked a little, found a rock to sit on for a bit, before walking for a bit more to find the next rock, etc. While sat on one of the rocks I saw a zodiac speeding over the water, and while the the sea appeared calm, the boat was crashing through waves, sending spray in all directions. I quickly raised the camera and shot off a few photos and this one caught the splash quite nicely.

Splash!

Day 1: And so it begins...

Blogs and/or photo projects of the "one-a-day" kind never appealed to me. I figured they were mostly an exercise in Internet-narcissism (look at ME!) and yet here I am, Day 1 on a new blog posting a photo which may be the start of something interesting, or just another navel-gazing series of words and pictures. Or it may fall flat on its face.

I've tried blogs of various kinds and they generally don't stick. I kinda maintain a hiking diary over at Wordpress but it's woefully behind and far from complete. I tried a generic "blog-when-you-feel-like-it" blog, but that disappeared into nothing. I even had the grand idea of reviewing every album I own. This got further than most, and yet it's been more than two years since I last felt compelled to write about the music I listen to.

With all that in mind, how on earth do I propose to keep up with a one-a-day prescription? To make matters worse, the backlog of photos scattered across multiple hard-drives at home would seem to suggest that posting a photo a day is simply beyond me. But perhaps with a different focus, and with the emphasis on trying to find one photo that is worth posting and (maybe) writing about, I might be able to pull it off.

Well it all seemed like a good idea when I was sat mulling it over a glass of whisky the other night.

So here's photo number one, and to my mind it's quite apt, perhaps even contrived. Today I took the morning off work and spent a couple of sunny hours wandering round Lighthouse Park in search of white fawn lilies. I didn't find any lilies, so I sought out a spot where I'd seen trillium growing last year and sure enough they were just beginning to emerge. One flower was slightly ahead of the rest and I could see the white petals furled up inside the third leaf, ready to emerge within the next few days. Usually I catch trillium at or past its peak flowering, so I was really pleased to find some at this early stage.

Unfurling trillium


Day 2 is another day...