Taking photos after a weekend of being lazy - December 14, 2020

I wasn't sure about stopping for photos this morning... it'd been a long weekend of just hanging out in the house and I wanted to get out but it was pretty cold out at -14degC. Driving out of downtown after dropping Jen off I turned at the zoo turnoff and parked in Bridgeland close to Edmonton trail.. I made my way over towards the river and there was Ice floating on the reflective water.. I took a few shots as the sunrise intensified.

In the east the sun was burning the clouds but it wasn't quite reaching over towards where I was.. I swapped lenses and turned my camera the other way.

A little bit of this, a little bit of that.. - December 9, 2020

After dropping Jen off, I hummed and hawed about taking photos (this seems to be a common occurrence.. but I will say, deciding to go and take photos always works out, whereas deciding to "just dive home and sit on my ass" does not work out photographically.. but my ass does get a good sitting on.

So I parked and started walking over towards the peace bridge.. I brought my tripod along just for kicks.. and also because it was still a little bit dark out.. the tripod might come in handy for longer shutter speeds.

As I got towards the Peace bridge it started to snow a little bit.. you can't see it below but it exists in other photos that I took. The shot below was after waiting a while for something to happen once I decided on the composition.. indeed, I had set the 20s delay and walked into the frame myself so there would be a human element to the shot.. fortunately the bikers showed up and I don't have to post a "selfie".

I explored the bridge looking for new and innovative photos to take.. 

A quick view - December 7, 2020

Today is Jen's birthday.. I'd made reservations for dinner at 5:30 and had to pick up Jen from work. Clare worked at 4:30 so after dropping her off at 4, I still had a little bit of time. The sun sets early and driving along I saw some pretty light coming out of downtown.. I made my way to a lookout above Bridgeland and took a few photos of the setting sun.

I wasn't there long before it was time to leave.. it was a short session but still I was able to come away with a beautiful capture.

Thanks for looking.

Chamber of secrets - December 6, 2020

I was driving Clare to work along 16th ave.. we were stopped at a red-light as so often happens when driving around the city.. I swear, some days I stop at every-single-light, and tbh, if I notice what's going on, it drives me completely nuts.. for example: when driving along Barlow trail this morning (this morning being today, the day that I'm typing this up, not today, the date of the blog.. ) I was stopped at a light, it turned green so I started driving and as I approached the next light it turned red - for no reason. There wasn't any traffic, there were no car's waiting to criss-cross Barlow trail, it just turned red. OMG I hate that..

Anyway.. I was sitting at a light and looked towards my left and noticed the sun was directly behind the bus shelter and the light was AMAZING!  I quickly reached around to the back seat for my camera and fumbled to get a shot before the light turned.. I felt lucky to get the shot below as frantic as it was.. I think it's everything I've always wanted out of a bus shelter since the city started putting these glass boxes in.

For context, the city upgraded these bus shelters a few years ago (!?).. and I've been eyeballing them ever since waiting for the opportune tine to get a photo.. I've been watching and waiting on a few spots and all of a sudden, this was it.. the two dudes standing to the right are just perfect.. I was so happy I got this shot.

Scotsman's Hill - November 24, 2020

After leaving the house I could see that the morning sky was going to be amazing.. There were no clouds out east which means the clouds to the west would catch some light. Driving into downtown the sun wasn't quite up yet, but it was coming.. the eastern horizon was starting to glow.  

I dropped Jen off and circled back around to 9th ave heading east.  I didn't have a lot of time because Clare had to be at work by 10 and I had to be home by 9 so I could get her to work on time. Also, I was almost out of gas so I needed to stop and fill up at some point or my morning of drop-offs might come to an unfortunate end. Driving down 9th, I thought of where I might stop and grab some shots and soon found myself driving up towards Scotsman's hill which has an overlook of the stampede grounds, the saddledome as well as downtown. I'm not sure what was going on, but there were a bunch of temporary no-parking signs all along the road.. I ended up parking in a residential zone thinking I was only going to be there for a few minutes to try and capture the sunrise.

The sky towards the west/north west was looking pretty good but the sun hadn't yet crested the horizon. In a rush I looked around for compositions of the skyline trying to place the tower in a nice position.

The next 15 minutes was a rush of trying out different compositions, swapping lenses, and hoping I wouldn't get a parking ticket. Above is a shot that includes my muse and a side view of the Saddledome. The sun was just starting to graze the tops of the building.

Unexpected sunset - November 23, 2020

Earlier this morning I waited in the east village to see if the sunrise was going to do anything. The cloud cover was such that there was no pretty light and everything was a dull grey.  So, I drove to the grocery store, got some supplies and went home to pack them all away.  It's been unseasonably warm for November, temperatures today got up to +3degC, the morning clouds burned off and it was a clear, bright day.

Victoria Park - November 20, 2020

So the sun is now rising after I drop Jen off at work. Today it crested at 8:04am I'm usually dropping her off around 8, so my big whiney "I'm missing all the best parts of the sunrise" post from a few days ago doesn't apply anymore and I have zero excuses. 

Since I was at the Peace bridge a couple days ago it's just been murky grey in the mornings with no fun light to inspire me and I've just been heading back home after dropping her off. 

Yesterday I left downtown and drove through Inglewood along 9th ave and kept on 17th ave SE until I got to Stoney trail.. There was a big fog bank on the east end of the city with some sun poking thorugh but I wasn't feeling it. 

Driving along international ave (17th Ave SE) I was forced to stop at every damn light.. and long lights too because of that express bus line that runs out that way. Every intersection has all-way turn advance signals and it was so frustrating. (oh poor me..) By the time I got to Stoney trail to head towards home, I was kind of done with driving though.

This morning it looked like the light would break so my great challenge was where to go. I made my way to the east village to park (meters start at 9:00am so I had an hour or so) I hummed-and-hawed about getting out of the car. It was showing -11degC but little or no wind. I had gloves, a toque and stuff so in theory I was ready to walk around outside.. 

I almost decided against getting out when I looked up and saw a bunch of pink in the sky towards the west.. the colour didn't last all that long. After I had parked and walked back the pink had faded to more of an orange so I just started walking and looking around.. There wasn't much traffic on 9th ave so I was able to snag some nice shots without any distracting cars in the foreground.

Fog - November 17, 2020

Looking out the window this morning I could see that they sky was cloudy and that there was low fog amongst the streetlights. This was a good sign because I'd been hoping to get down to the peace bridge after seeing some photos posted on instagram last week. Someone had gotten some nice photos with the sky overcast and snowing. I thought to make similar photos or at least see what I could come up with.

As we drove downtown, it was foggy but as I turned into the core to drop Jen off, the fog seemed to abate.. I was worried that it was all going to evaporate before I had a chance to get some photos.. 

Luckily, after dropping her off and heading towards the river the fog density increased. I parked and walked over towards the peace bridge taking a few photos on the way.. when I came to the entrance I stopped and framed up the shot below. I loved how the internal lights were reflecting off the wet ground and how the pedestrians were moving along the edges.

As I walked across the bridge, I was stopping to take different photos and then all of a sudden at 8:16am, the lights turned off.. I'm guessing their on a timer because with the overcast skies it was still pretty dark.

A race to sunset - November 15, 2020

A few months ago I downloaded an app on my phone that lets me borrow and read library books on my phone (The app is called Libby if you're interested.. seems to work ok, so thumbs up?!). Since then I've read seven different library books.. You can borrow a book for 21 days or sometimes they have a 'quick loan' which is a shorter 7 day loan. I'm not sure of the reasoning for the short loans but it's let me read a couple of different books so I'm ok with it.. So far I've read a few popular fiction books and a couple on mountaineering. It's been fun but like any library book at some point you have to return it and you need to finish it before the deadline because it'll just disappear from your phone when it's due. If it's a popular book there might be a waiting list before you can get it back.

Saturday was spent trying to finish a 7 day book loan that I was about half way through. It was due on Sunday at 12:15pm (based on the time that I'd borrowed it) so I scrambled to finish it because at some point I became invested in the story. I eventually finished the book ( the book was called 'City of Girls') and was feeling that melancholy you get after leaving a place that you'd spent some time in with some (fictional) people that you grew to like.. 

Sunday afternoon, I decided that I was going to go out and see about some photos.. My tossup was between east and looking for snowy owls or maybe to downtown to find the sunset. I choose downtown and the sunset so I drove down and parked in the east village.

I made my way over towards the library and noticed how the setting sun was creating this amazing light inside of the 'tunnel' near the library entrance.. I'd taken a few shots and moved closer until I found the scene below.

Side-light on fire..

The fellow was on his phone pacing up and down the ramp. I took this photo with the handrails in place trying to balance his position and the placement of his shadow.

Daylight savings time - November 2, 2020

Imagine this.. you've been driving your wife to work downtown every day for who knows how long and you're in the northern hemisphere and every day sunrise is showing up later and later as winter approaches. In October and November, the sun is making its way south and the angle of early morning light is just about perfect as you drive into the downtown core. Almost every day your gasping at how beautiful the morning light is.

For the past month or so sunrise has just been getting better and better and has just started to occur after you drop off your wife off at work.

Chaos - April 23, 2020

A fellow that I follow on Instagram had re-posted an image of a downtown cityscape that someone had taken. He went on to find an old photo that he had taken at the same location with a similar view. I took it that he felt like he'd been copied so I replied to his post saying that that's where I was going to go shoot next. He replied and we LOL'd back and forth.

A few days later I was picking up Jen from work and realized that the place mentioned in the correspondence above was just around the corner from where I was parked. I grabbed my camera and ran around the block to try and capture it. When I got on scene I quickly discovered that I couldn't exactly remember the photo in question.. just that it was shot upwards and had a lot of leading lines pointing at the sky. I made a couple shots before heading back to the car.

chaos

Later I looked up the post and realized that I'd missed in my attempt but in spite of that I'd made my own image. From left to right the lines and textures become more chaotic, hence the caption.

Thanks for looking.

Gratitude - April 22, 2020

Earlier this morning I dropped Conor in the north west and was heading home along John Laurie past the southern edge of Nose hill park. Earlier we had looked up at the various paths rising from the trail heads and discussed riding a bike up the hill and whether or not I could do it. From where we were all the trails looked quite long and reasonably steep. Half jokingly I said I would. Now that I was alone I wasn't sure but decided to parking in the lot off of 14th street. Soon I was pulling my bike out of the back of the car.

A few weeks ago I'd parked at this spot for sunset and ended up taking some photos of a big cloud that was hanging over the downtown core. At the time I felt like there wasn't much for photo opportunities across the top of Nose hill because of the lack of features. Once on top it's really a vast expanse of flat prairie like conditions, perhaps once the grasses sprout and wild flowers bloom the mood will change. I pedaled up the hill and soon reached the top where I picked a path and rode off towards the middle somewhere.

What's cool is that you can completely lose sight of the city while you're up there and become lost in the natural setting. Being somewhat new to the area I wasn't sure where to go or how to get there. There seemed to be some main/paved paths and a bunch of boot worn paths that crisscross the landscape.

I pedaled across in kind of a north west direction and somewhere in the middle I stopped to take a photo of this lone hiker. The muted colours and light tones matched my mood. A kind of calm simplicity.

simplicity

I'd been riding quietly across the plains, just me and the whisper of the wind. After a while I started to feel a sense of gratitude and peacefulness for being in this place. I spent an hour or so just moving across the landscape and taking it all in.

Sandy Beach - April 21, 2020

I'd dropped Jen off at work this morning. Her office has been closed for a number of weeks because of Covid and she's been working from home but there was some work that she needed to do from the office.  Rather than pay 10 or 15 $ for parking it was just as easy for me to drop her off, the bonus was that I could find a spot to park and see about getting some morning photos along the river.

I'd parked the car at the bridgeland spot and kind of rode around a bit aimlessly before reaching the river. I wasn't too sure what direction I wanted to go and soon found myself at the east village. From there I thought about exploring something new again and perhaps riding south along the elbow river.

Crossing 9th ave at the Deane house, I could see the light facing downtown was nice for 8:30am.. (sunrise was about two hours ago). There's a path detour with a narrow section that I thought would make an interesting photo. I got off my bike and tried to scout out a photo that would include the bridge and the buildings in the background.

Initially I climbed up the side of the pathway and stood on some road barricade's to shoot over top the edge of the bridge. I could hear a train engine idling and wanted to include it in the photo.

industrial

Pirates and more! - April 20, 2020

I parked at the Bridgeland spot with the intent of heading up onto Tom Campbell hill to see if there were any prairie crocuses blooming. There's been a couple days of warm weather and we're well into spring now so I was hopeful that I'd find some.

After unloading my bike I rode over to the base of the hill and petaled my way up by following a boot worn path to the top. I was secretly pleased that I was able to ride up the hill and had a view dreams about heading out to the mountains to do some actual mountain biking. The old Powderface mountain bike loop in Bragg Creek is calling out to me.

Once on top I scouted for the flowers but didn't find any. I wasn't too surprised, it's only been a couple days of warm weather. Now that my photo idea was squashed I was free to go anywhere and decided to head down the other side of the hill towards the zoo parking lot where the light in the egg/art thing caught my eye. I stopped to take a couple of photos. It took a few minutes before I realized that the animal pattern was repeating and that there was some symmetry to the display.

animals in a cage

Downtown again.. April 16, 2020

Earlier this morning Conor and I drove out to the mountains west of Longview. Some friends had figured out how to get around some of the covid-19 restrictions that are in place to keep people from parking at public land use zones or recreation areas as everything is currently closed. The workaround involved parking at a spot more than 1 km from the trail head. They used bikes to get from the parking spot to the trailhead which seemed like a good idea. I'd hiked the trail in the past and thought it would be a fun objective for Conor and I to try.

Driving out there was nice and we both were excited to be out after spending so much time at home. Turning onto a secondary highway we discovered that it was covered in about 6 inches of fresh snow. We'd packed the van with bikes and our hiking gear and as we drove further into the back country I was getting more and more nervous about the potential of getting stuck. There wasn't any cell service and the van wasn't really meant to be driving these conditions. I was worried that later in the day it would be slushy, wet and really bad.. We ended up turning around and driving home but I was able to grab a few photos.

Winter? O Sure.. 

In the photo above, some skiers head up highway 40 at the winter closure.. note the fresh depth of snow.

The winter that wouldn't end. - April 15, 2020

It's been about five days since I've been out shooting anything.. or out of the house even.. I don't really remember. There's been a bunch of snow and grey and un-inspiring cold weather. Even the lunch time walks have been deferred. It's surprising how quickly it's already the middle of April. Today wasn't that great either so I was surprised when the suggestion of the lunch time walk was agreed to.

For a while now when we've walked the circle there have been gophers running around enjoying the spring like weather. I thought a capturing a gopher poking out of a hole surrounded by snow would make a fun photo. So I grabbed my camera and an old lens.

I don't normally bring the camera on the lunch time walk but maybe I should, cause you never know what you might see. As it turns out having the the camera with me also turns on my photographers eye and now everything I look at becomes a potential photo.

I brought a long lens (300mm + 1.4x Teleconverter) to take the gopher photo because you don't want to get too close to them or they'll just run away and pop down into their hole.  The long focal length also offers up a nice compressed view which I used for the photo below after asking Jen to go waaaaay down the path.

white

On the opposite side of the circle we ran into a cold north wind that surprisingly(!) diminished our enthusiasm for walking outside and we ended up cutting back through the community where the wind was largely blocked by houses. Due to the route change there would be no gophers today.

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

Along the river - April 8, 2020

It's Wednesday and mildly warm out I was driving towards downtown to find some sunset photos. My thought was to drive to the Inglewood spot, park then ride my bike and search for photos. While driving I must have been lost in thought because I'd missed my turnoff. I quickly recomputed the route and turned into Bridgeland with the hope of circling around to my original destination.

That didn't seem to work out - I quickly became distracted with an influx of new ideas, perhaps I could park here and walk or bike over there, oh what's that look like I wonder if I should stop now, oop, there's a car behind me gotta keep going. My simple idea had hit turbulence and now I was unsuccessfully in computing a new path. Sunlight on the corner of a building with a large tree seemed important so I stopped and walked over to take a few photos, the scene didn't quite click.

Back in the car now, more confused driving with unclear goals. I give up on the Inglewood spot. I find a Bridgeland spot. I'll just park and go from here. Bike unpacked and on my way I take the non-obvious way and ride through the neighborhood rather than proceeding directly to the river pathway another reflection on my confused state of mind.

The streets are gridded and easy to follow until they aren't. I turn left then right, left again and end up at a dead end overlooking a set of wooden stairs to the streets below. I contemplate riding down the hill but renege after looking closer at the cluster of bushes, rocks and tree limbs scattered on the ground, surely a trap. The woman exercising on the stairs dissuaded me from taking that option, with thoughts of awkwardly carrying my bike around her on the narrow stairs. I backtrack and soon find a way to the familiar river trails.

I spot some light and stop to capture an image waiting for a scene to unfold. People across the river and a tunnel of light. I take some shots, zoomed in, zoomed out, how many arches to include. I like my images to be clean and the bushes are a distraction but there's no way around them. I'm not sure I like it when people are walking into the arch with their backs towards me. I see a shadow appear on the wall and soon runner and doggo emerge from the cave. I snap a few photos hoping to capture form and position in at least one of the frames.

Under the bridge

I head across the river to investigate the tunnel of light from a different perspective. I don't find anything I like and move on.

Pink Moon - April 7, 2020

On the morning of April 7th the mostly full moon would set in the west at or around sunrise before rising in the east at sunset.  The full moon is always at opposition to the sun otherwise the angles wouldn't work out and it wouldn't be a full moon. Another feature of the sunrise/sunset full moon is that there is ambient light from the setting or rising sun so that you can still see part of the landscape.

The trick to making the moon look bigger is to shoot it near the horizon with a long zoom lens. Usually there is just one day per moon cycle that everything lines up - a day earlier and the moon is out with too much sunlight and you can't see it. A day later the moon is out after dark and you can't see the landscape.

I woke up at 5:30am so I could drive downtown and try to capture the full(ish) moon setting against the downtown skyline. According to my app, the moon would be in place by 6:45am or so.

I'd lucked out last year and got some good photos on the way to work (link) and was willing to try again in spite of going to the same area. I was anxious that I'd just end up with the same set of photos and almost decided not to go because of it, but I hardened my resolve and was soon driving downtown in sparse traffic.

zoom

Missed - April 4, 2020

I'd left the house well after 7pm, closer to 7:15pm or so.. sunset was supposed to be sometime around 8:15, I thought I had time, but in reality I didn't. By the time I got downtown any direct sun was gone.. In spite of that I kept on hoping to find something to photograph I ended up parking the car near the west end of Prince's island.

I walked towards the Peace bridge thinking that I really didn't want to take the obvious bridge photos from this location (ie, one's I'd taken before). There was still a very low chance that the sun could do something like light up the sky but I wasn't very optimistic.

I took a hard right on the path onto Prince's island and walked over to the apex across from the Peace bridge where there were a few runners. I took a few zoomed in shots trying to for photos through the lines on the bridge. The posted photo below is zoomed out and was better than any of the other shots.

run