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 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 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 341: The otter and the beaver

A wander downtown on a fine but chilly Sunday. Getting a photo of the floatplanes here in Coal Harbour has been high on my photographic to-do list for this project, and today was a good day for it. I could have got closer by walking round to the west side of the convention centre, but that wasn't the direction we were going today. We watched several planes take off and land (do float planes "land" on water?), but it was this shot of two together that I liked best. The smaller plane on the left is a de Havilland DHC-2 Beaver, like the one we flew in to reach the beginning of the Nootka Trail; the larger aircraft is a de Havilland DHC-3 Otter. I've always liked aircraft, and I could watch these all day.

Floatplane greeting

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 327: Grumpy

In local birdwatching circles, great blue herons are known colloquially as GBH (which means something a little different in the UK). I think it can also stand for "grumpy blue heron" as the expression and demeanour of this bird might suggest. "Grumpy" is also how I feel tonight after twisting my ankle on a small kerb on the way back to the car (after enjoying more tasty hot chocolate and a waffle at Leonidas). Back to the heron, we were amazed to find this one standing in little more than an inch of water right next to the trail along the shore of Lost Lagoon in Stanley Park. This is as close as I dared get, not wanting to spook it into flight, and it's as close as I've ever been to a heron.

Grumpy blue heron

Day 320: Trapped under ice

From eagle sculptures to Eagle Bluffs. My first snowshoe trip of the year took us up over Black Mountain to a pleasant lunch spot on Eagle Bluffs. On the return, we explored some of the small ponds and lakes on the plateau, taking great pleasure in being the first to walk through the soft snow. At the edge of one lake, the outlet stream was still open and only partially covered by ice. I was delighted to see the ice was full of bubbles, reminding me of one of my favourite shots on Flickr. Some of them looked like bubbles trapped under the ice, rather than frozen into it, but many of them were indeed trapped in the ice itself. I've wanted to see that for ages and I'm really happy to have found a good example.

Today's title is brought to you by a song from Metallica's "Ride the Lightning" album.

Bubbles in and under the ice

Day 313: Happy New Year!

Wait, didn't we do that a month ago? This time it's the Chinese Lunar New Year, bringing in the year of the (water) dragon, and simply by asking the Tiddlies managed to get themselves into the parade. With help from a few extras (including stray Morris men), they danced their way along the route for almost two hours. In the capacity as "official photographer" I walked along with them. That was quite a surreal experience, being in the parade like that. It's not a perspective I'm used to at all. I did my best to stay out of everyone's way though I was caught by the TV cameras a couple of times. And most remarkable of all - the rain stopped while they were dancing. Afterwards we all filled up on copious quantities of Dim Sum.

Camera notes: I had the external flash on and armed at all times, and it fired just about every shot - all 300+ of them! To my surprise, I had no battery issues at all. I'm really impressed with those new Eneloop Extra batteries.

A parade's-eye view of the parade

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 299: Lions!

Maria went snowshoeing up on Thunderbird Ridge, which I didn't feel up to thanks to the remnants of my cold. I opted to take a wander round parts of Stanley Park. First stop was Prospect Point and views of the snow showers blowing over Grouse and neighbouring peaks. I walked back along the park drive until I was standing on the bridge over the causeway with its great views long the deck of the Lions Gate suspension bridge. Like the big bridge, this small road bridge also has a pair sculpted lions at each end, miniature versions of those just below me. Overnight snowfall had left a dusting on the head, nose and paws of the lions and I couldn't resist getting that picture. Snowy owls a few weeks back; snowy lions today. :-)

Miniature lion

Day 292: Plough Sunday

The day after the Twelfth Night party is Plough Sunday, where the Vancouver Morris Men take their plough and dance in the streets, or in this case Granville Island. A small but enthusastic crowd (mostly from the local Morris teams) turned out to watch. The celebrated day is actually the Monday, the first Monday after Twelfth Night and the start of the agricultural year but some of us have to work...

Vancouver Morris Men on Plough Sunday

Day 285: A new year

Happy New Year, and welcome to 2012 :-) We met up with our friend Carollyne for a walk around Stanley Park, accumulating photos as we went (as usual). There were lots of birds on the water, including a really large raft of surf scoters. I took a short video clip of them as a wave of birds ducked under the water (no pun intended), each bird diving as the one in front disappeared. It made for a really interesting effect. My photos didn't turn out so well, so I've ended up using this one of two types of seagull feeding in the shallow water as the tide was going out. Don't get me wrong - I really like this photo. The long zoom makes the mountains of Vancouver Island look very close, the sky is a lovely peachy colour, the waves are just breaking and the birds are nicely in focus. It has a lot going on, and yet retains a feeling of space.

Feeding gulls

Day 278: Christmas Day

It's Christmas Day - Merry Christmas! Today was dominated by present opening, with Kara doing all the hard work :-) Mostly I was using the external flash to get "nice" photos, but when the rain stopped and the sun made an appearance, I couldn't resist a natural light picture. At the time Kara was engrossed in trying out the Play-Doh set she had just unwrapped, with Brenda sitting behind her. Even though this is heavily underexposed, I like this shot for the lighting, which highlights just enough to see what's going on without needing to illuminate every part of the frame, and the human elements of the connection between mother and daughter and the expression on Kara's face. She loved the Play-Doh.

Playing with Play-Doh

Day 271: A sea of clouds

We set off to Dog Mountain a little later than expected, and much as we did last year, we missed the sunset by a few minutes. Not that it mattered: the sight that greeted us was truly spectacular. Below us lay a sea of clouds, lit from above by the orange-red sky. Venus emerged from the twilight to add a bit of sparkle. What really caught my eye was the way the clouds were "lapping" at the edge of the forest, like a wave that had broken on a beach. The mist draped itself over and through the tree tops, creating the most amazing effect. One of the most beautiful views we've seen from a mountain, and that's saying something!

That was our first hike in two months and it felt damn good to be back in the mountains.

Where the forest meets the sea (of clouds)

Day 264: Not you again...

After last week's snowy owl watching, I couldn't resist going down to Boundary Bay again, on the pretext of showing Maria (really, I just wanted an excuse to go again :-) Sure enough, in almost the same place, there were three snowy owls decorating a few logs close to the dyke. Not long after we started watching this one, it stretched out a wing, then one of its legs - which prompted a barrage of shutter firing. I shot off a few and caught this one where both of its furry/fluffy/feathery legs can be seen. Oh yeah, and there were a few eagles and northern harriers too, and a short-eared owl sat on a distant fence post.

Snowy owl stretch

Day 257: Like a bump on a log

Last weekend I saw someone's photos of snowy owls and I couldn't wait for the working week to finish so I could go and see them again myself. They last made an appearance in 2005/2006 at which time we had our little point-and-shoot camera. We have no photos from that time as we imagined that all we'd see were a couple of distant white dots (much like our bald eagle spotting in Maryland). We were wrong, and we were treated to the sight of the owls very close to the dyke. When I went down there today, it was the same deal: a couple of snowy owls sitting on a log, barely 10 m from a crowd of gawking photographers (I swear some of those lenses were long enough to poke the poor birds from that distance... ;-) I counted another half-a-dozen owls out on the marshes, and I was disappointed to see yet more people out there lugging their huge lenses and tripods around to get a close-up shot of one of the owls. I have no doubt that they would have got as close (or closer) had they stayed up on the dyke. A couple of times I saw owls take flight - a big no-no when doing any form of wildlife watching. If they react to you by moving further away, you're too close.

I kept to the dyke and snapped away with our tiny 55-200 mm lens. Compared with much of the weaponry I saw out there today, our camera still felt like a little point-and-shoot. I came home with over 100 photos of the owls, which spent the entire time sat there like two white bumps on a log. Seriously, the only movement I saw was them swivelling their heads to look around. But at the end of the day, that's a good thing.

Snowy owl

Day 250: BC Place

Today is the 99th Grey Cup game, something I'd not heard of before we moved to Vancouver. It's the Canadian Football League's championship match, a bit like the FA Cup in England, and they make a huge fuss of it. Which I think is quite amazing considering the league has only 8 teams. But it seems all very good-natured, unlike the hockey, and the BC Lions beat the Winnipeg Blue Bombers to be the first team to win it at home since, well, the BC Lions in 1994 :-) Which, coincidentally, was the last time the Canucks reached the Stanley Cup finals and we all know how that turned out...

As I mentioned a few days ago, I had sized up this shot on a bike ride around False Creek. Unfortunately the weather wasn't cooperating today, and the lovely reflection I was hoping for was nowhere to be seen in the choppy waters. I had a hard time keeping the camera still in the strong, gusty wind (even on a tripod), so I took a lot of very-similar photos. But all it takes is one.

BC Place

Day 243: Two for three??

That sounds like a very bad cricket score. I forgot to mention that yesterday also marked the two-thirds point in my photographic journey around the sun. That remaining third looks like an awfully long time... Despite spending the day at home, and having a nice fine morning to take pictures, the camera stayed in its bag all day. We bought an external flash unit to give my winter Morris photos a fighting chance, but playing about at home I couldn't find anything to really test it out on. And so it was getting late, the promised snow hadn't yet arrived and I still had a clear view of the North Shore mountains. I thought I would try a long exposure photo of the lit ski runs on Grouse, using a small aperture to get those nice starburst effects on the lights. I had only just closed the balcony door when the lights went out an I was left with, well, not much. I tried a few shots, and this one is pretty much the best, but really I'm not that chuffed with it. I think I'll try again at some point over the winter, probably from a different viewpoint though (say, Queen Elizabeth Park) to avoid shots that are too similar.

Grouse Mountain at night

Day 236: Leaves in a line

Today's title is inspired by an old reason for train delays in Britain: leaves on the line. It became a bit of a standing joke among rail passengers, but the truth is that wet leaves on railway lines are just as bad as wet leaves on roads when it comes to grip: trains have a hard enough time stopping as it is without adding wet mush into the equation. Back to today's photo, one of the ornamental cherry trees we encountered on our wanderings had this nice almost-horizontal branch with leaves of varying colour dangling from it. Looked very pretty and I think makes for a lovely photo. Don't thank me, though - Maria spotted it. I just wielded the camera ;-)

Oh and before I forget, 2x3 is 6 of course :-)

Leaves in a line

Day 229: Jug Island

The fine weather continued into Sunday and of course we wanted to get out somewhere. We went for Belcarra Regional Park, near Port Moody, a place we'd visited briefly once before. We took the northward-heading trail to a small beach with a view of Jug Island, about 50 m offshore. I thought we'd get a better view of Indian Arm from here, but I'd forgotten that the fjord narrows, and the headland there prevents a view right up the arm. We'll have to revisit the Diez Vistas trail on a good day to get that view again. The trail was largely unexciting - a 6-km round-trip through mostly dingy (if fungus-festooned) second-growth forest, with a short stretch of Gulf-Island-like hiking (complete with water view). But it was easy going; we saw a pileated woodpecker and it was just nice to be out and walking.

Jug Island