Day 284: Reflecting on the year...

It's the last day of 2011, a year that seems to have sped by. Time for one last walk on the beach. We walked around the pond in Jericho Beach Park, stood on the bridge and admired the reflection of the trees in the water. I took more pictures as we walked as far as the pier (the afternoon light on the city was nice too), but this one just felt right.

In reflection

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

Day 281: Words of wisdom

Between showers I went for a wander down the street to look at camera bags and pick up a coffee for me and a chai for Maria. On my way out of East Is East I noticed a rough-cut stool with a message that I thought was worth sharing: "Do not resent growing old - many are denied the privilege". And with that, I will get on and allow my own ageing process to take its course.

Words of wisdom


PS I should welcome the first picture with the newest camera, a Canon SX230HS. I've been after something pocketable for a while and when I saw this one for a sale price I couldn't refuse, well, I simply couldn't refuse :-)

Day 280: Christmas tree

I'd not heard the expression "Charlie Brown Christmas tree" before, but it turns out that it refers to the type of tree that looks sparse so you can see everything on it from any angle. This year, we picked up a small tree again, this time from the local school, and although it is a little sparser than trees we've had in the past, I like that fact that it's not trimmed. After our visit to the Vancouver Christmas Market we had accumulated yet more tree decorations. We have quite a collection now after a decade or so of finding new decorations every year, and we had to leave maybe half of them in their boxes as we can no longer get a big enough tree to take them all. I can't see how this situation can improve any, but I have to admit I have a weakness for nice tree decorations...

Our "Charlie Brown" Christmas tree

Day 279: On the contents of boxes

Boxing Day, and these days that means dealing with all the empty boxes from Christmas. In this case, it means dealing with the contents of one of those boxes, and today's photo catches Ed and Maria assembling one of Kara's toys.

Some assembly required

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