Day 296: Frosty

Guess what? That big pile of leaves gathered up in the autumn is still there. The last couple of days have been sunny and clear, which has meant frosty mornings. I've been after a good "frost" photo for a few weeks now, and the big leaf pile made it quite easy for me. The sunlight had only just fallen on these leaves so the ice hadn't melted yet - so many ice shots end up taken in the shade, making it difficult to get good colours - so I was very happy to capture these leaves. Ten minutes later and there would probably have been no frost left.

Frosty leaves

Day 255: One more

...and I'll "leaf" this subject alone. Ha ha ha. I like this photo for two reasons: the lovely contrasting yellow and green, and the sunlight shining through the green side of the leaf, highlighting all its delicate structure.

Leaf lines

Day 245: Leaf art

Day two of my week off work, and a dry spell between downpours which prompted me to get out on my bike and ride around False Creek. I headed down to Kits Beach and then followed the path along the water. Sunday is the Grey Cup final, and it's being played at BC Place, home of the BC Lions Canadian Football League team, who are in said final. From what I've seen on the news, the stadium will be decorated and lit up for the event, and as I rode around False Creek, I kept my eyes open for the best spot to get a photo of the stadium. And I found it, so maybe Sunday's photo will be from here... In the meantime, something from my first stop of the journey at Kits Beach. Some nice leaf art courtesy of the poplars, chestnuts and cottonwoods.

Shelved leaves

Day 239: Red carpet treatment

What to photograph on a rainy day.... Most of the leaves have gone from the trees thanks to the recent chilly and blustery weather. Not that it matters on a day like today: leaves-on-trees photos don't look too good as the contrast is too low. But leaves on the ground is a different matter. I stumbled upon a patch of ground where maple leaves were laid down like a huge red carpet, obscuring the trail completely. Now that's overwhelmingly red :-)

Laying down the red carpet

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 232: A smaller pile of leaves

Yesterday's picture shows the sum of leaves from many trees: today's picture is of the leaves from just one tree, one of the many pretty little ornamental maple trees on campus. I spent several days in the spring trying to get nice leafy photos, but never got anything I liked (or simply got something I liked more :-), so it was nice to finally get a photo of these leaves. I took this picture because my eye was drawn to the circular hole in the sea of red and yellow - my guess is that it was caused by a squirrel burying acorns (there are many, many squirrels on campus).

Maple leaves galore

Day 231: A great big pile of leaves

Every autumn, the leaves around the Student Union building are hoovered up and dumped in a big pile, in the same open plaza used for the Storm the Wall event. These leaves are turned into mulch which forms the soft ground around the walls to be stormed - I recognize the aroma :-) Such a big leaf pile is an open invitation to take a running jump into it, and a few days ago a couple of students were doing just that, climbing up the container and jumping off into the leaves. Looked like a lot of fun.

Huge leaf pile

Day 230: Leaf litter

The clocks went back an hour yesterday, so now I have to make sure I get out to get my photo before 4 pm. I've not been very consistent about seeking out a photo before I lose the light, so I'm not sure how I'll be doing. Today I took the camera with me as I went for my afternoon coffee, and spent a few minutes taking pictures of leaves. Most of them didn't really work, but I liked this one.

Leaf litter

Day 222: Day two two two

Day two-hundred and twenty-two. Twice 111. Two, two, two. Day two was a long time ago, as was day twenty-two. There will not be a day 2222.

The rain stopped, the day brightened and we fitted in a quick wander on Jericho Beach. The park is full of colourful trees, including these ones which really caught our eye. The bunnies were out in force as usual - a couple of young kids were feeding them carrots - and it looks like the demolition of the old promenade is complete, the beach now restored. It was only a short wander, but it was a welcome breath of fresh air.

Colourful trees

Day 216: On fire

I've been watching the leaves change colour over the last week or three. Some of the trees near my office are turning brilliant colours, and today we had a perfect blue-sky day to capture them. I tried several trees but in the end this one won: the bright red-orange-yellow leaves against a blue sky is just irresistible. To me, they look like little leaf-shaped flames. (And no, there's not a hockey pun in there ;-)

Leaves on fire

Day 211: Red Green

No, not the colourful TV character, more like the colours of autumn. A still-green (mostly) tulip poplar in front of a tree I can't identify.

Turning leaves

Day 199: Colours

Today began quite misty and my initial idea was for a photo of the Vancouver skyline with the tops of the tallest high-rises lost in the low cloud. Later, the clouds thinned, parted and largely disappeared and we had a few hours of gorgeous autumnal sunshine. A few of the trees on campus are turning, and one in particular was a dazzling display of red, orange and yellow leaves. I had mentally ear-marked that tree for another day, but once the sun had come out, I couldn't help but take a few shots. And would you know, it was a good job that I did because my misty morning shots were terrible!

Red, orange and yellow

Day 184: These tulips are poplar with me

Remember my previous comments on tulips? There is one type of tulip that I do like, and it's a tree: the tulip poplar. It's a tree I grew to like when we lived in Maryland, as it's very common there. Our first visit to Shenandoah was striking as we saw hundreds of tulip poplars covered in bright yellow leaves. In the spring they produce some of the loveliest blooms of any tree. I was pleased to find tulip poplars here in Vancouver, but of course they're not native and when autumn comes, the leaves don't turn as golden as they do on the east coast. Here, they usually just go brown and fall. But occasionally one leaf tries to put on an east-coast show and today I found one stuck to the pavement. I couldn't resist.

Tulip poplar leaf

Day 81: Another green day

After taking the plunge of buying a new car yesterday we took it in to get its emissions test done (which it passed no problem) before picking up Andrew and Merewyn and heading to the North Shore for another gentle hike. First stop was lunch by Lynn Creek, where we watched a dipper diving into the fast-flowing water to find morsels for its noisy youngster, stood on a nearby rock. We ambled along the Lynn Headwaters loop, enjoying our surroundings, filled with fresh greenery. The new leaves on the vine maples glowed among the tall second growth.

We found many spring things to marvel at and photograph, from tiny fungi to giant skunk cabbage leaves, and dozens of flowers in between. It was a good day to be in the trees as the clouds never left the mountain tops, and the little sprinkle of rain just added to the freshness.

Peering into the heart of skunk cabbage

Day 55: New greenery

Another dull, sometime rainy day. Mid-afternoon, I took the camera out on a small wander to find a target, actually as a result of hearing some agitated seagulls fly by. I ended up at my usual spot, and soon found myself taking shelter under a tree as it started to rain. I heard and then saw the resident female hummingbird darting from flower to flower on a nearby bush. I tried to capture her but she was just too fast. I returned to stalking the local flora instead and found a few of the Oregon grape plants with new green growth. Having photographed the cheery yellow flowers a few weeks ago I thought it would be appropriate to get the leaves unfurling too. I like the way they form a little tunnel.

Next up for Oregon grape will be the berries in a month or so.

Unfurling Oregon grape leaves

Day 52: Thirteens all the way

What a coincidence: today is Friday 13th May, day 52. Of course 52 is divisible by 13 (like a pack of cards). And there are 52 weeks in a year - plus a day and a quarter ;-) On my computer screen just now, it's telling me that the temperature is 13 C. A little while ago I checked the time and it was 13:13. The album I was listening to this morning on the way in to work had 13 songs....

What's this got to do with today's photo? Nothing. I went out for a short wander around my usual patch looking for photographable things. The bright yellow bird I'd seen a day or two earlier was flitting around and to my surprise I managed to get a half-decent (if distant) photo of it. I later identified it as a Wilson's warbler. There was a halo around the sun, which I discovered is almost exactly the same field of view as the 18-55 mm lens at its widest setting. My photos of it didn't turn out, so I'll save that for another day.

The maple trees reminded me of another photo to try, capturing the silhouette of the leaves against blue sky. It was the ones with the brilliant red leaves that caught my eye and took a few shots with the leaves backlit by the sun to enhance the colour. I suppose really I should have hoped for a white cloud behind the leaves... :-)

In Canada

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 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...