Saturday, October 31, 2020

Happy Halloween - October 31st, 2020

With Covid running rampant and our kids all grown up we decided that we weren't going to be doing anything for Halloween this year. So my evening was free which was good because there was going to be a blue moon rising right at sunset and I was hoping to get some photos of it against the skyline.

I have an app on my phone called 'photopills' which allows you to map out where the sun and moon will rise and set and will give you the times and so on. Using the map I looked for a spot west of downtown that will have the moon rise occur near or between the buildings.  I'd left the house a couple hours before sunset/moon rise so I could scout out a few of the locations ahead of time. 

Friday, October 30, 2020

McHugh Bluff - October 30, 2020

There was fog along the low areas in the Deerfoot valley as we drove towards downtown. Rounding the corner at Memorial drive we could see a dense fog bank along sections of the Bow river and further west of the downtown core. 

After dropping Jen off for work I decided to stop up at Rotary park and take a few photos as the fog was hanging around.

There was a low hanging cloud over the center street bridge. There was little traffic as I crossed the road and I was able to take a few shots of the tower. The light hadn't quite arrived yet. 


Sunday, October 25, 2020

On the hunt for Owls - October 25th 2020

It'd been cold and snowy for a few days and on Sunday afternoon I decided to drive out east of the city to see if the snowy owls had arrived yet. I'd looked online at some birding sites to see if anyone else has some intel but my searches came up empty. I looked at my photo library to see when I'd found them before. 

I think it's still pretty early but I was hopeful I might spot something to photograph so off I went. I took this photo while stopped at an intersection out there on the prairie. I kind of like it's simplicity so I've posted it here.


I kept going east on gravel roads and got as far as Highway 21 before swinging north for a bit then heading back on the 563. My recently-installed winter tires were kicking up rocks all over the place. I think some rocks got thrown up into the breaks and something must have gotten stuck in there because my back right tire was making an awful noise.. backing up and going forward didn't seem to dislodge it. 

When I eventually got onto paved roads I didn't notice the sound so I was hopeful that it had fixed itself.

In the end I didn't see any owls. There was a bald eagle in the distance one time and lots of magpies and some smaller birds. I'll have to try again some time.

Thanks for looking.

Tuesday, October 20, 2020

Grey - October 19, 2020

It was cold and grey out with low clouds. As I left downtown I wanted to capture some photos where the tops of the buildings would disappear into the gloom. 

I spied the tower peaking out from behind the buildings and took a photo as I made my way towards the center street bridge and Rotary park.



Tom Campbell's Hill - Oct 20, 2020

After dropping Jen off at work I was driving out of downtown and I thought to stop at Tom Campbell's hill which is just above Memorial drive and close to the Zoo. There's a dog park there and a nice view of downtown. After making photos yesterday I wanted to get some shots again today and see if I could pick up on my hobby.

It was busy, so I parked the car up the street a little bit and walked through the entrance. To my immediate right there were some tall grasses and a view of the skyline. I stopped to make a photo, trying to position the head of the Calgary tower between the grasses.

Monday, October 19, 2020

Winter comes again.. October 19, 2020

It's been a cold and un-inviting couple of weeks as October zooms by.. I'm writing this on Oct 19, 2020.. It looks like the last blog post was on April 23 so anything that you read between then and now has been backfilled.. I might do it for certain things or I might not, who knows at this point.

My last hike was a few weeks ago at Gibbon pass in Banff, I then went mountain biking a couple times out at Bragg Creek. I'd hoped to ride a few more times but it snowed, got cold and it's been cold since. 

We had a regular kind of fall this year where it got colourful then cold and now it looks like winter has settled in. In recent years it would get suddenly cold in mid September, snow would fall, all the colour would be sapped out of all the trees leaving dead brown leaves hanging limply on the branches. It'd warm up for a few weeks before the cold came back and there'd be this back and forth of cold/warm until the -30's hit in Nov.

It wasn't like that this year, and for that I'm grateful.. you'll hopefully have read some of the backfilled posts that I have yet to create which will show off all the beautiful colours I saw. 

Back to the current situation, it's been a cold an un-inviting couple of weeks as October seems to be zooming by.. The sky went grey and the snowflakes were falling; adding to the dusting of snow that's been collecting around the city.  It was reported that twitter was showing pretty photos of snowflakes on this cool Sunday morning.. after looking out the window and seeing evidence of the snowfall I scrounged around for my camera. I located my macro lens and a set of extenders and found myself outside trying to find snowflakes to photograph.

I'm still in denial that our summer and lovely fall is truly over.. I was wearing shorts and was spelunking around in bare feet as I wandered around the yard looking for snowflakes to photograph. I found some on the hood of my car and as my body temperature started to fall and the shivers came on. I desperately tried to frame up some photos. The goal was to find a snowflake that was standing in the right position against a compatible background.. after a number of attempts I headed back into the house. My feet were colder than I had thought because they did that achy-breaky-heart thing as warmth started to return to my extremities.  

Of all the photos, I think the one above turned out and so I'm sharing it here.

Thanks for looking.