Rainbows - August 2nd 2010

Hi, it's been a while since I've posted.. not that I've stopped taking pictures, but just neglecting this process a bit. This blog is suppose to complement the pictures that I put up on my smugmug site. The idea was that I'd write something about a picture so you, the reader, can better connect with the photo, or at least have some background around the pictures. Every picture has a story and that story should be told.

So here I am posting an entry and linking a photo. The photo today is a rainbow. I knew it was raining - hard - cause I'd gone around and tried to hook up all the drain pipes on the house so that the water wouldn't collect around the foundation and I got pretty wet doing so. The reason that the drain pipes were all disconnected is "kids". That's all I'm going to say about that.

Heart Creek on Clare's birthday.

So today was Clare's birthday, she's eleven now.. I can't believe how fast everything is going by. We went to Banff for dinner to celebrate and on the way we stopped at Heart Creek for a walk - which was Clare's choice. It was real windy while driving out but luckily Heart Creek is a pretty narrow valley nestled between some mountains and the wind didn't affect us while we were walking.

I've processed just one pic so far and here it is.

I'd found a tree stump that looked a lot like a baying wolf up on the side of the hill at the end of the trail. Initially I didn't have my tripod with me and I was having a hard time getting a sharp picture because it was a little bit darker where the stump was and the shutter speed that the camera wanted was pretty slow at 1/20th of a second. I really needed my tripod. So I climbed down the hill got my tripod and was heading back up when Jen said that they were going to start to head back cause they were getting a bit cold.

Ok I said, thinking I wouldn't be too long.. I climbed up took a pic of the tree-stump wolf, took a few other pics of some trees next to the cliff and climbed back down to where Jen and the kids use to be, thinking I'd start to head back.

Downtown Sunrise

For a few weeks before and after the first day of spring - when the rising sun is still low on the horizon - the light will pour down the street wrapping everything in it's golden hue.

I think this light is magical.

As we move further into spring towards summer the sun will continue it's march northwards the angle will change and the effect will be lost. Until the fall when the sun starts to move south again.

I love the changing of the seasons, and am looking forward to the light after so many days of darkness.

Thanks for looking
brad.

Spring weather..

Driving home on St. Patrick's Day, the sky was looking real nice. There was a big cloud moving across the city and the sun was starting to set and lighting it up from the side. I chased the cloud out east of the city for a bit looking for a place to take a photo of it. Most of the country side east of the city is flat.

Driving past Conrich I've seen a field with a windmill in it. I thought that it'd make an interesting subject if I could get it lined up with the clouds in the background. The clouds were moving away faster that I expected, and soon they would be off on the horizon.

I was a little nervous because I had to jump a gate to get into the field and I had no idea if the farmer lived in the house across the road from where I stopped. I didn't really want to get yelled at for trespassing in the field. Eventually, I got enough courage to jump the fence and started walking towards the windmill. I noticed a lot of cow pies in the field which made me a little jumpy but I couldn't see any bovine's in the area so I felt a little safer.

I took two lenses into the field with me, the real wide 10-24mm and the longer 24-70mm. I noticed that the 10-24mm was a bit too wide and because the sun was low behind me my shadow was entering the frame. I switched to the 24-70mm and zoomed in a little to compose some shots. The one above is one that I liked.  I didn't notice until after that there is a pump in the middle of the windmill.

Thanks for looking.
brad

School Dance

I went to the kids school dance.

Conor, doing his thing.. 

Brought my camera, and had fun snapping pictures.


Thanks for looking.
brad

BC Place Panorama..

I was in Houston on a business trip in early February. All the IT Leaders from my company came together to discuss IT things, from our Australian region Jamie Paterson was in attendance and I spoke to him a little bit about his photography pursuits - in his spare time he's a big Australian landscape photographer. It's because of his influence that I tried to make a couple of large panorama's when I was in Vancouver.

Here is a shot of English Bay with BC Place ( where the opening ceremonies where held ) and some of the Olympic venues. The big Q was a pavillion put on by Quebec, the orb on the right was a Saskatchewan exhibit.



This particular photo is 14 stitched images, and was taken on the morning of the opening ceremonies for the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics.

I'm hoping to use this technique more this spring and summer as I start to find the outdoors again. It feels like it's been forever since I've been to the mountains.

Thanks for looking,
brad.

Our Olympic trip - Day 1

I've posted some images from the first day of our trip to the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver on my smugmug account. We left on February 11th and flew from Calgary to Vancouver at around two o-clock in the afternoon. The flight is just under an hour and the time difference is an hour so we almost got there before we left ;-)

Before flying out we had lunch at the Calgary airport.

Conor having a big ol slice of pizza

Clare munching on a french fry

Our Plane getting ready to take us to Vancouver..