Most Commented Photography Blogs (166)

Video of lava 'waterfall' into the ocean in Hawaii for your viewing pleasure.

A full moon highlighted surrounding clouds, illuminating fields and the ribbon of freeway. Head and taillights streamed the highway in sporadic intervals. I sat in the dark of my car, parked at the south end of the overpass ramp, waiting.

About a dozen pick up trucks with flashing bars on their cabs darted back and forth across the overpass, setting up orange road closed signs. My camera, on tripod, perched in front of my right headlight, aimed at the overpass. Still, I waited.

Another car pulled in front of me, partially blocking my view of the overpass. Fortunately, the young couple were cognizant enough of their position and moved voluntarily. We spoke a little, checked camera and video settings and waited.

Another vehicle pulled in and two guys in safety vests got out and walked up the road closed ramp. As they returned, one of the workers yelled at him to get off the road and couldn't he read?

I heard the rumbling before I saw the bright headlights, my heart skipping a beat as I leaped out of the car to position myself behind my camera. Focussing on the peak of the overpass, the massive load came into view, taking up the entire width of the two lanes.

A bright red truck and attached red low-bed gleamed in the daylight like glow of the numerous pilot trucks surrounding this epic load. Molson Brewery's new plant was ready for the delivery of their massive brewing tanks. Having watched it being barged up the river last Saturday, Monday I was waiting for the last leg to be trucked from the dock to the plant, two of the largest tanks 'dressed' in Molson's trademark brands. One looked like a giant beer can of Molson's Canadian, and the other a giant beer can of Coors Light.

With transportation as our photo assignment for this month, I really wanted the brewing tanks as I didn't think too many would submit a photo of them. One, because very few knew about it, and two, I didn't think anyone from our club would wait until midnight to take photos, other than me.

Although I got numerous photos with great results, a photo just doesn't do justice to the actual size of these tanks. Due to the size, hydro crews were in the intersection to keep the truck clear of the wires, along with all the pilot cars in front and behind this very long and very tall load.

Stopping on the downward slope of the overpass ramp, waiting for crews to ensure clear passage through the intersection, it was obvious the tank was taller than the traffic lights and the back end of the low-bed had flexibility in moving separate from the truck. It was absolutely amazing to watch the skill and manipulation of the truck driver, eking that load in and around traffic lights, street light standards, hydro wires as well as barriers. What would have been a simple left hand turn for anyone, was a complex and complicated procedure that took the better part of an hour.

Once safely through that intersection, the tanks headed for a second overpass, crossing back over the highway before heading towards the plant. Due to the length of time it took to finesse the load, I had plenty of time to find a new location and set up my camera. Finally, the trucks appeared, gears shifting noisily as they chugged into the night on the other side.

Racing to the final intersection, more crews were already set up, waiting for the immense load to make it's debut. Setting my camera up again, one man in a safety vest with a camera was behind me. I asked him if he'd been hired by Molson's to take photos, which he affirmed. As he looked familiar, I asked him if he'd been on the fishing boat that was following the tug and barge up the river, and if he'd waved at me when I was on shore. He affirmed that yes, that had been him.

Many, many photos later and watching the tail lights of the trucks disappear at the plant, I headed home at 3am. The last photo of the truck/tank in motion, with the photographer standing taking a photo is my submission for Monday.

While it is chilly with blustery winds today, the ice & snow is almost completely gone now, as spring gets even nearer.
The following photos were taken by me several weeks ago, when temperatures were much more frigid albeit less windy.

The initial 5 photos below are of a Great Blue Heron standing on a mostly frozen pond to get dinner through the only unfrozen area of that pond.

The last two shots were taken while taking crunching walks into the woods to find
stream 'winter wonderland' scenarios. I hope you enjoy them.

By the way, clicking on the photo will restore it's original clarity.
This site seems to reduce that when I post them here.

As usual, the fall has been crazy busy with work and no time for much of anything but either preparing for it, or working. It's a fun but exhausting time of year for me, with the break from now until May greatly appreciated and anticipated.

Along with the usual busyness of the season, I was asked to make a calendar of my photos for my community. Although I have all the tools and skills to design and layout my own calendar, I just didn't have time. My printer to the rescue. They had a template I could use with all the holidays marked and all I had to do was supply the photos. Yes!

I set up the parameters of the calendar page with a bleed and added my very large photo files and resized them within the bleed so the quality would be retained. When they sent me a proof, I uploaded it to the community page (it was protected so no one could download it), and asked for prepayment for the orders. I was blown away with the orders and had them all ready for my shows.

What I didn't expect was to have to print two more runs as many people either did not see the first one and I had numerous requests for more calendars. In fact, I'm still getting requests but have run out and will not be printing another run.

I'm thrilled with the success of the calendar and have been asked to print another one for next year, as well as do one for the resort area with funding from their tourism department. Yes! I can cope with that.

In fact, I have some ideas for some other things for next year, utilizing my photography. Never, in a million years, did I ever expect to be making money off something I enjoy so much. Due to the popularity of my calendar, I've also sold a number of prints of my photos to other provinces and even overseas. Gotta love that!

Now that my crazy schedule has slowed down, it's time to focus on getting my photos onto my own website, putting up a blog site that I've been wanting to do for some time, and figure out which logo to use as a watermark that I designed years ago.

For the first time in years, I also had time to make my own Christmas cards and was so happy to get into my art room to print them and use my calligraphy on the inside. I was in heaven! I haven't really used my art room since I moved and being in there was like being wrapped in a blanket of joy. Even better has been the pleasure the cards have brought to the recipients.

Onward with goals and plans for the new year, constantly improving my photography, enjoying the nature around me and giving other's an opportunity to see what I see. It's extremely satisfying when other's tell you that they've never noticed something you've taken a photo of, but because of you, they're more aware of their surroundings. Yes!

A rainy day today, and a good one to move furniture around between my office and art room to make room for the hide-a-bed. You never know, after a year and a half, I may even hang some of my paintings. Oh yeah, that reminds me, I have to get some photos together for my display in January at another photo finishing place.

I remember feeling like this when I was in university for graphic design - incredibly happy at being immersed in art, in many of it's forms. This is what I am meant to do.

Have you ever heard the saying, don't be good at something you don't want to do? I heard it many years after I developed the liniment I make, and after it had taken over my life. It was never something I wanted to do for a long time.

Twenty-one years later....

So yes, I did and do make an excellent product, but it wasn't something I wanted to do for a long time. Filling bottles isn't my idea of a good time, or creative. As I'd attended University and received my certification in graphic design, that's what I really wanted to do. Although the business took most of my time, I still found time to do some watercolours and drawing. That took a back seat when I was under a lot of stress.

After moving a year and a half ago into this small community, it was the absolute best decision ever. I have the single floor house I always wanted, with a small yard for me and Sadie (the cat) to enjoy and a big enough garden to grow some vegetables. I joined the local FB community page, where I noted there was a tremendous amount of complaining, and public humiliation occurring.

I started posting some photos on it, just to break up the constant negativity and to show people how much beauty was in the area. Little did I know I'd receive a following and many people that would log on every day to see what I'd posted. Nor did I have any idea that those photos would lead to my 'fans' wanting a calendar - a very lucrative undertaking.

I have already received requests for calendars for next year, although it seems I will have a fair amount of competition. The District I live in wants to use some of my photos in a calendar for their 125th Anniversary next year, and other locals seem to think I should tell them how to put one together and help them sell theirs. Um, they obviously don't get that they are competing with mine, regardless of whether they're doing flowers or whatever. People are funny.

As I knew the District's calendar would affect my sales, I suggested that they do a small booklet, kind of like a guide for a walking tour for their anniversary. After speaking to the coordinator, it sounds like they're committed to doing a calendar, but they also love the idea of a guide for the area and have been given funds to do 'something' for the 125th. I'm thrilled and flattered that my photos are appreciated.

At photo club the other night, as I'm the webmaster now, I had told them how out-dated the site was and how difficult it is to change anything on it. They asked me if I'd re-do their site and they will pay me for it. Woohoo! There's the new camera body I wanted!

So this next month will be busy re-doing the website, meetings with the District in regards to their 125th, and I almost forgot about the book the First Nations publishing house wants me to put together.

At this point, I've still been gallivanting around taking photos, but it appears I'll have to structure my day a little better in order to get these projects done.

When it rains, it pours. But I'm okay with that when it's pouring appreciation and feeding my need to be creative.

What does one do on an overcast day? Well, you can do all the things indoors that you've been putting off, or, if you're me, you get in the car to find a landmark. Granted, it's not a landmark everyone would want to visit, but it was interesting.

I had no idea the area I lived in had so many hidden areas! Travelling the back country roads, farms abounded with verdant hay fields alternating with towering corn fields, and sunflowers lining the roads, their bright yellow heads sagging with the weight of their seeds.

Exploring the road, I wanted to see where it ended up, and, as I suspected, it ended up at a dead end. The great part of it was though, as I drove down the gravel lane, a dike dissected it, so I found another place to ride my bike and explore. I just had to find where the end of it was.

Driving back along the lane, cows lay on a grassy hilltop overlooking the slough.


Passing the cows, I glanced under the trees and spied an old semi truck near the overgrowth. What a find! I love these old trucks and cars, especially in a state of disrepair.




I had a couple of people pass me and look intently at what I might have been photographing, and I'd bet that they hadn't even noticed the truck before.

Carrying on back down the road, I took a side street in hopes of finding the end of the dike, and sure enough, although it's not the end, I believe it's close enough, as the farm gates on it are closed. I have no idea how far it goes, but I'm going to find out, hopefully tomorrow, if it's just overcast like today.

Returning to the winding country road, I drove back to my planned destination - an old cemetery. Now, it's not my thing to visit cemeteries, but this one opened in 1895 and closed in 1946 and someone had mentioned the other day that it was well worth a visit.

Parking at the bottom, I'd been warned that it was on a really steep hill, and they definitely weren't lying. Holy cow! Starting the climb up the many, many stairs, after the first set of stairs, a bench made from boulders had been set into the side of the hill.


A sloped path cuts across the grass from the left side stairs to the precipitous stairs on the right. Looking upwards, and with a bad knee, I wondered if I'd make it to the top. Thankfully I'd grabbed my cane, as there are no railings to hold onto.


Starting up, there are, as any cemetery, there are large headstones encircled with wrought iron fencing.




Some of the fencing is missing on some of the graves, or laying in a heap behind a headstone.




I criss-crossed the grass in order to take photos, glad I was wearing my hiking boots with the extra grip on the soles. I definitely needed them as the hill is exceptionally slanted. Finally, I reached the top where the founding father of the town and his family are buried, their crosses signifying the end of the property at the very top of the hill. You can just see the top and a cross between the two trees from the below photo.


Turning around to make my way back down, here's how steep the hill is, the road at the bottom on the left:


And a different viewpoint looking down the hill:


Almost near the bottom:


On the same row as the one above, a child's grave is marked with a sheep on top of the headstone. A discarded stuffed toy lays at the foot of it, there for who knows how long?


-cont-

Borrowing the theme for this blog from my old buddy, the one the only JimNastics. He has done a lot of these and I found an interesting pic.

My caption is .... "I said can you please join the car pool."

Yeah, I haven't done one of these in a while.
Lets have some fun sharing some suggestions.

My first ones are;

He loves to play the music of Howling Wolf.

or

His favorite song to play is; 'Who Let the Dogs Out'

You're up.

Here's the photo;

With new tires on my bike, thanks to my awesome neighbour, I headed out early this morning to the dike for a short ride. With the advent of the May long weekend, everyone is heading out to campgrounds and various and sundry places.

As flood warnings are prevalent along the rivers from as far north as my daughter right down to where I live, many of the campsites are under water already, and if not, very close to it.

I noted the other morning that I'm able to use a higher gear to pedal and put that down to increasing muscle. Yay! So off I go to the dike, riding by newly mown hayfields, dotted with huge white plastic wrapped bales like giant marshmallows. It's overcast again today, but as with the previous couple of days, it's high clouds and will burn off. The sun is already peeking through areas, and it's one of those lovely spring mornings where it's warm enough to wear shorts and a t-shirt, but cool enough to be refreshing.

Not much wildlife, or for that matter, any signs of life along the dike. The river is slowly making it's way closer and closer, and an incline that I used to walk down to wander into the river bed, almost half way across the river, (about 2km) is now completely under water. As it's still quite a ways from the dike, I'm still comfortable riding it, so far.

I love taking my bike out and being able to spontaneously take a different path or road. This morning instead of following the road home, I took a sharp right to find out where the country road led. Surprisingly, it led to an old building with faded lettering of 'Scott's Meat' - an abattoir I'd presume. The paved road turned into a gravel road and curved back to the dike.

Riding towards the dike, a huge dairy barn was below the dike on my right, the cows still quiet in the early morning. On my left, an overfull slough was creeping through the grass and bush, it's green stillness reflecting the trees and overgrowth. A closed metal farm gate prevented me from going further, birds landing briefly on it before disappearing into the mass of wild bush. An American Goldfinch (wonder if he has a visa? lol) landed on the farm gate, and luckily I already had my camera out with the zoom lens on it.



Pedalling back the way I came, an abandoned shed sits right next to the train tracks, and I wonder what animals it used to house.



Back at home, I'm excited today, as I'm heading across the border to a wonderful area for photography and to check out a new bike. As the price here was rather exorbitant, I couldn't justify buying a new one. Until a good friend and accountant advised me that as my photography is a business, the bike is part of how I take photos and therefore a business expense. Yes!!

Man, I love that woman! lol. The bike will need to be ordered in, and take about a week, but I can wait. In the meantime, with transportation as our next assignment, I'm thinking I'll head down to North Bend on Tuesday and take photos of the ancient trains.



Enjoy the day! (Doing the happy dance at having my bike back)