Day 16: Progress around the sun

The earth has travelled through about 4% of its orbit around the sun since I started this project. I thought I was doing well having taken a photo every day for the last two weeks or so, but put like that I still have something like 96% of the task ahead of me...

Time to look at it a different way then. How about the moon? It has travelled more than 50% of its orbit around the Earth since I started. That sounds much better :-) The last two nights have seen clear sunsets, which have felt quite rare of late, and it's been nice to see the young crescent moon in the darkening evening sky.

When we first got our "superzoom" camera a few years ago, I used to take moon pictures almost every clear night. Now I hardly take any as I've come to the conclusion that I need a longer lens and/or a better tripod to take good photos. The telephoto lens for our SLR does quite well, partly thanks to the camera's umpteen megapixels, but it's not often that I'm satisfied with the results. I was too lazy to set up the tripod tonight, so I tried my luck hand-held. This rarely works so I have to wonder why I bother, and yet tonight, between gusts of wind, I was able to get a sharp shot. Thank you, image stabilization.

Crescent moon

Day 15: Woden in White

Today is Wednesday, two weeks since my foray into Lighthouse Park and the beginning of this project. Today is also the first truly sunny day in quite some time, welcome relief for Vancouverites after the deluge of recent days. The mountain tops emerged gleaming white from the clouds, freshly decorated in new snow.

It's hard to believe we're still getting snowfall on the North Shore, almost a week into April. Plus it's going to be a long time before those peaks are free of snow given the amount that's accumulated over the winter. Officially, mid-mountain snows depths are of order 5 metres! Hopefully we'll get a warm and sunny May to begin melting it all, with bonus spectacular waterfalls...

White Wednesday

Day 14: Flower power!

It's spring and flowers are blooming everywhere. The cherry trees are at peak blossom, turning many of Vancouver's streets into pink corridors. On the UBC campus, there are a number of magnolia trees at various stages of flowering, and the oregon grape is covered with tiny yellow buds and flowers. I found a good crop near the Student Union Building and spent a few minutes with my afternoon coffee photographing several clusters of cheerful, pea-sized, bright yellow flowers. Much as I like our SLR, the macro capabilities of our old camera are still superb, perfect for close ups like this one.

Cheery yellow Oregon grape

Day 13: A case of the Mondays

It's Monday and guess what? It's raining; the kind of rain that Vancouver is (in)famous for. Heavy, featureless overcast grey skies and a steady fall, delightfully called "light rain" by Environment Canada. If you didn't know the mountains were there across the water, you'd be hard-pushed to accept tales of jagged peaks and glorious vistas.

But even rainy days end eventually, and while down at Kits Beach I could see the western horizon brightening, and I caught sight of an empty bulk carrier on its way into port. The ship was almost end on to the beach, and I walked along until it was as close to end-on as I could make it before taking a few photos. After such a miserable grey day of rain I was amazed to be able to get a photo with as much colour and detail. I went home happy.

Steaming in to port

Day 12: Snowy Sundays

We haven't been snowshoeing much this winter. A few years ago we were out every weekend, but the last couple of years have seen us getting picky, saving our trips for days with good weather and/or good snow. I never thought I'd be a snow snob. Having said that, sometimes you just have to get out there and today was a day to get out in the snow whatever the weather. Sure enough the weather was, by all accounts, pretty crap. No views at all, visibility barely 20 m at times. And yet it was a great day out. We still found some good, fresh snow, it was peaceful and we had the place pretty much to ourselves. That's what makes a good day out. You don't always need sunshine.

Other photos from today are on Flickr.

Shake hands with the raven

Day 11: Saturday

It's the weekend again and after a dull rainy Friday, the weekend started dry and sunny. We went for a walk on Jericho Beach in the afternoon, and thoroughly enjoyed the fresh spring feel to everything. The red-winged blackbirds were perched on rushes and in trees around the pond. As we stood on the bridge, a turtle poked its nose above the surface, only to be trampled back underneath by one or more mallards dashing off to scoop up a bounty of thrown seeds.

We wandered around past Jericho Sailing Club and over to a row of cherry trees covered with deep pink blossom. I heard an odd noise, like a bird or squeaky toy, and stopped to work out where it was coming from. I tracked it down to one of the cherry trees and saw some movement that went with the sound: a pair of courting northern flickers! I snapped a few shots, then took some video to try and capture the sound. They were so cute to watch, and luckily one of the photos I took turned out quite well. All I did was crop and apply a little sharpening. I'm not sure if this is the male or female, but it looks pretty surrounded by pink cherry blossom.

Other photos from today are on Flickr.

Flicker on Flickr


(Update: it's a male)

Day 10: Into double figures

After yesterday's finish-line pun I think today needs something different, so how about another ending? Today is the last day of Storm the Wall and after taking a few photos of the last set of competitors, the organizers quickly set about dismantling everything. By the time I left work for home, all the fencing had been cleared away, the mulch bulldozed into piles and both walls tipped over. My second photo was of the walls set up ready to go, so I felt I had to capture their demise as well.

Having this event take place during my first week of daily photography made it easy to get my photos. Now that it's over, I'll have to work a bit harder.

End of an era...