2010 Olympics..

I was very fortunate to be able to attend the 2010 Vancouver Olympic opening ceremonies.. While in Vancouver I was able to see the opening ceremonies a short track speed skating event and a medal ceremony.

As far as pics go, I only have one for you right now and here it is.. a panorama of BC Place prior to the Opening ceremonies..



If I was smart I would have done the same during the ceremonies itself, maybe during that awesome rendition of Hallelujah by K.D. Lang but because I'm not all that smart this is all you get from a panorama perspective.. I snapped 11 shots and merged them into a single photo using Hugin. I didn't do much processing or whatever to the pics other than to convert to .jpg, and overall I liked the results here..

If your interested in a print, the original is 16800x3920 pixels, please e-mail me and we can talk about it.

brad.

Oldman - Feburary 5, 2010

I was flying home from a trip to the US and had brought my camera and a small collection of lenses with me as carry-on. I spent the entire four hour flight with my head glued to the window searching for and taking photos of the interesting shapes and textures of our earth. When picking a seat for the flight I wanted two things - a window on the left side of the plane and a seat that was forward of the wing. I wanted to be on the left side so I’d see the mountains when we flew close to home and I wanted to be ahead of the wing because exhaust from the airplane engine will distort details in the photos.

As the plane approached Calgary I got pretty excited at seeing the river with the textures created by the light and shadow, it was exactly the kind of scene I was hoping for. The challenge to shooting out of the plane window is that it moves pretty quickly and you don’t have a lot of time to make the composition, and if you miss - it’s gone. I zoomed out to 22mm to capture as much of the river as I could and also was able to frame in the mountains. What I like about this photograph is the different textures that appear across the frame, from the deep bold cuts in the foreground to the soft, almost ethereal, mountains in the distance.

Later, I was able to locate the same view on Google Earth and discovered that the river in question is the Oldman river that flows through southern Alberta just south west of Fort Mcleod.

Thanks for looking,
Brad.

Skating in Crescent Heights.

Conor and I went skating this afternoon.. we drove around a bit looking for a skating rink we passed one in Renfrew and ended up in Crescent Heights.. There was a sign on the gate that said no non-members allowed but there was no one on the ice and the shack was closed up so we geared up and did some skating.

Conor goin for a goal..

Foggy city.

The city has been under a lot of fog and low lying clouds the last few days, lots of hoar frost gathering on the trees. I went out side late at night and froze my fingers taking a few shots at the otherworldly light. This is one that I like.

Olympic torch in Banff

After the hysteria of Monday at Olympic Plaza and the arrival of the Olympic torch in Calgary on Wednesday we drove out to Banff to see the torch there.

Karen Percy-Lowe carries the Olympic torch through the streets of downtown Banff

We left Calgary just after 4:30pm from the McDonalds by Calgary Olympic Park and drove to the town of Banff. The torch was suppose to start making its way down the streets of Banff starting at 6:15pm and to be presented at the end of main street in the park at 7:00pm.

Olympic Torch comes to Calgary !!

On Monday, the Olympic torch came to Calgary and there was a big celebration down at the Olympic plaza. Way back in 1988 Calgary hosted the winter Olympic games and everyone was excited to see the torch make it's way through the city again. For Clare and Conor, this may be the only chance that they'll have to witness this kind of event. I'm a little disappointed that I didn't realize the significance of 1988 at the time that it was all going on.. but such is the curse of being an introvert like me.

Jen brought the kids downtown after school and I was going to meet them on Stephen Avenue after work. Walking down 9th Avenue, I saw that the flame atop the Calgary Tower was lit so I stopped a few times to take some shots before heading over to Olympic Plaza to meet them.

The flame on the Calgary Tower

Tigers at the Zoo.

Was called into work around noon today and on the way home I thought I'd stop at the zoo and see how the botanical gardens are shaping up since they re-built them. I was there about a month ago and they had the one main room open and the other dressed up with nothing but poinsettia plants for Christmas. The Christmas room is being re-done and was closed today.

Other than that all I looked at today was the tigers. While I was watching them the sun broke down below the chinook arc and I was getting some nice low winter light.

I watched the tigers pacing the cages for quite a while. I wanted to get a nice dramatic shot using the bright sunlight. I love the warm orange colours on the tigers. After watching them for a while I'm a little bit in awe at how powerful and majestic these animals are. This is one shot that I like..

I was looking for some kind of activity that would give me some unique shots. When I was walking away I looked back and saw that one of them was lying in his hammock with his head thrown back yawning. I guess I wasn't patient enough ;-) I have a few shots to review and any others the I post will be found here.

Thanks for looking
brad.