Peak Summer
Hello, and welcome back!
This might be my last blog for a bit as I travel to England in October to hike Hadrian’s Wall, visit the Lake District or York, and catch up with a dear cousin. I can’t even express how much I’m looking forward to this!
In any case, the last few weekends have been particularly rewarding behind the camera.
First up was a canoe trip. We were treated to a spruce grouse mother, and her brood of six or seven chicks, who wandered into our camp and proceeded to peck the ground around us, getting within a couple metres or less. It was pretty interesting in its own right, and I thought I was in bird-photography heaven…but in truth I had a good laugh when I got home: they are basically just chickens; there was no drama; and I had to wade through literally dozens of shots of “a chicken in the woods”. There was only one really “interesting” moment photographically, when the mother hopped up on a canoe to keep better track of her kids:
And of course they got so close, the feather detail was pretty impressive (this compressed image probably doesn’t do it justice):
Meanwhile, another “mother and child” scene played out a little differently. If you’re squeamish, skip this one, but…a mother gull kept getting pestered by her “teenager”, squealing constantly and begging her for food:
“Mom! Mom! I’ve tried so hard and I haven’t found nothin’! I swear I looked everywhere. Mom? Mom!” Mom gives me this look like “Are you seeing this?” But finally she relents:
…and upchucks two mostly-whole fish, both of which the teen-bird proceeds grab greedily, as if worried Mom might change her mind. Now he has two fish in his beak and can’t get them both down. Meanwhile, Mom looks noticeably slimmer, and soon moves off to try and recover her losses.
But lets get the taste of dead fish out of our beaks… before all this mother-and-child drama, I was treated to probably my favourite sunrise this year:
The curving sweep of the clouds and the reflection were unreal, I couldn’t have asked for better. I had a timelapse going on the GoPro, which I’ll link to here (HD, about 90 seconds):
I had forgotten my tripod, but between a boulder, a pine cone, and a twig, I managed to get it pretty level. You can briefly see me in the far right, working on the shot above.
(I should mention that for some reason the colours seem a bit muted in the timelapse, reality was a lot more intense. I haven't done enough timelapses to get good at it yet, something I’ll have to work on if I do more.)
Gentle dawn light eventually turned a little harsher, testified by the backlighting here. I just gotta try those abstract shots:
Next weekend I was back at home, and treated to a foggy morning at Bird’s Hill Park. Unlike most mornings, where the fog is usually only in the low sections of the park and dissipates quickly, this fog was a lot thicker, and up on the “highlands”…okay, it’s the prairie, so it’s only a few metres here and there, but it makes a difference. The fog also lasted well past sunrise, so I got to see a very familiar landscape in a new way.
Maybe there are too many shots here, but everywhere I turned there was a new scene, and it’s still hard to pick a favourite, so I’ll just present what I think are the best in the order they were taken:
Then, this past weekend I had a lot of fun during a walk around the neighbourhood when a train pulled to a halt in an opportune spot, then proceeded to cross a nearby bridge very slowly. It gave me a lot of time to play around with three different subjects. First up, some amusing graffiti, it seems like somebody either has cats, or doesn’t like cats:
Next, a composition all about lines:
And then, crossing the bridge. The morning was a bit hazy, we still have smoke from wildfires, and it gives the sky a bit of a bronze glow:
Finally, I’ll end with a “pretty” picture of the pedestrian bridge at Assiniboine Park, the well-watered potted flowers add a nice splash of colour:
I’ll just note: the first hints of autumn colour have arrived! I should have most of September to work it, and then have it repeated all over again in England in October…could I be so lucky??
Cheers, and take care!
