Again with the river - April 9, 2020

Less than an hour until sundown and here I am just parking at my new Bridgeland spot to start my photo walk/ride.  If you read yesterdays entry you might remember that I had discovered a new spot to park and unpack my bike and access the river paths but unlike yesterday I didn't start by getting lost in the heart of Bridgeland. Instead I made a beeline straight to the river pathway. To cross Memorial drive I went up and over the c-train bridge.

At the end of my journey yesterday I saw the view below but decided that I didn't want to stop an take any more photos. Since I'm now emotionally invested in the building on the right I stopped to take this shot thinking that it'd probably make a better sunrise location as the light would be a lot better. The sun currently sitting in the top left behind some clouds blowing out the corner of the image.  I waited for a view clear of cars on the road.

curvy

After getting to the river pathway I rode across the Skipping stone bridge into the East village area. Nothing was catching my eye so I thought to ride towards the library and maybe look around 9th avenue. I'd ridden along the river yesterday and thought it'd make a different view. As I approached 7th ave there were quite a few folks milling around the train station.

I witnessed the tail end of an interaction between police officers and an individual receiving a ticket for something.. the recipient wasn't too happy because she promptly took the ticket, dropped it in a puddle and stomped on it before jaywalking across the street in front of the officers. Seeing this soured my mood for the area so I made my way back towards the river paths and away from the depths of the downtown core which feels like it's becoming a lawless free-for-all after having been down a few times recently.

A few weeks ago my sister tagged me on an instagram post of the Telus Sky building at sunset or something but the windows were reflecting sky colour in a gradient so I have my eye out to try and capture a similar image. I took this zoomed in shot and wanted to rotate it so that it would look like the windows were cascading off the edge of it. A bit artsy but there it is.

cascade

I finally made it back to the river and rode towards Prince's Island. A week or so ago I was on this same bridge and I made the same as the one posted below. The difference is that last time the sun was down and I was all bummed out because I'd driven downtown too late and missed all the light. I ended up liking how the first image turned out but with the sun out today I wanted to try again to compare the two images.

To be honest, on my way back to the car yesterday I stopped at this location and tried to make this same photo with the light but I was too far back on the bridge making the tower structure way smaller. I didn't like it at all when I was reviewing photos on my computer. so I'm here again for a third time and I'm pretty sure I know where I want to stand.

There were a bunch of people out tonight and there were some clouds out west and sometimes the sun would fade behind the clouds. I was back to two constraints for this photo.. no people and brighter light. The light was changing slowly, but it was changing.. and it felt like forever before folks would move off to the end of the bridge. They just kept coming from both ends and sometimes they would walk to the middle of the bridge and just stand there.

I stood and waited trying to look all inconspicuous with my bike and camera. Eventually it cleared off and I ended up shooting while some people were 'small and far away but not completely gone'.  The other photo is here (link) if you want to compare the two. I think I like the warmer shot below.

begone

Strangely enough, after I felt like I'd gotten a photo I put the camera in the backpack and was getting back on my bike and I noticed that there was NO ONE! on the bridge. I was finally alone. lol. Isn't that the way.

With that, I made my way towards the Peace Bridge, it looked like the sun was out over there.

river ice is melting; I see sunlight!

I made a few progressive photos at the Peace bridge looking for a compositions. The light was really nice coming into the bridge through the open sides. The shots were typical Peace bridge photos just capturing the atmosphere created by the light.

At about the middle of the bridge I leaned out a little and was trying to capture both the inside of the bridge the sunlit skyline at the same time. I noticed the chunk of ice floating into the bottom of the frame and I quickly switched to portrait orientation to include it in the shot. This caused part of the bridge at the top of the photo to enter the frame as well. I really liked how this photo turned out.

delicious

From there I rode into down town a block or two to see if there would be any tunnel like sunlight light streaming down in between buildings.. it wasn't really flowing and I ended up back near the bike path and was just going to head back to the car.

After glancing at the scene below I decided to stop and see if I could capture the view. I was digging the colour gradient on the building and the compressed view down the street. I like it, but it might be a little bit tight on the far right. Perhaps next time, lol. I've established that I'm not above shooting the same scene over and over again. :)

5th Ave

With that, I rode all the way back to the car without incident. Another fine outing.

Click here to see photos from today.

Thanks for looking.