A Touch of Fog

Now that it's not cool anymore here are MY fog pictures which are much better than anyone else's and not from last year either.  I took these biking around the sea wall of Stanley park during those foggy days we had in mid-October.  I like the one below because of the heron in shadow.

This one was taken the exact same time as the one above just looking towards the bridge to Deadman's Island.  Fog is so changeable.  There is so many different plays of light, shadow and mist. In one spot it can be very sunny and than the other way all shrouded.

I had to do something artsy.  I figured the Lion's Gate bridge which is hidden in the fog shot through a dew spotted spider web would do it.  I also did the same shot but with the web in focus.  I love biking around the park this time of year. I do it fairly early in the morning and have the path all to myself really.  I see lots of cool wildlife too: bald eagles, snowgeese, flickers, otters, mink..... I hope some more fog comes in soon. 

Waved Albatross!

Albatross! These are all Waved Albatross that live only in the tropics of Peru and Ecuador.  We saw these in the Galapagos on Espanola Island.  They are medium sized albatrosses.  To me they seemed pretty big. They can glide for hours without flapping their wings as the one below is showing.

They greet their partners and other albatross by clattering their beaks against the others. They can also live up to 45 and maybe even 50 years.  Courtship is intricate which much bowing, beak clattering and oo-oo calls. I find Albatross humeri very interesting because in length and vague overall look they resemble a human humerus.

There were many half grown chicks going into their adult feathers.  The one below looks quite mangy as he still has lots of chick down but you can see on the back and wings the adult feathers coming through. The parents regurgitate over 4 pounds of fish oil a day to feed the young.

Siwash Rock Underwater Time Lapse

So after alot of testing, retesting, buying the right equipment, re-testing and fails Geordie and I did it!  We have an underwater time lapse!  It worked out incredibly well especially for a first time outing where we really didn't what to expect. There were so many variables that could screw it up.  Large waves, odd tides - though we checked the weather and tide tables.  Also people horsing around with it or even stealing it. Geordie hid it but it was visible from a very public path.  It is obvious in the video where we set it down.  It is facing Stanley Park's Siwash Rock on the mussel beds.  We had to be careful minimizing our ecosystem impact gingerly climbing over the little shells to set it down and then pick it up.

Here are two stills taken from the timelapse.  We caught in several places schools of small fish.  I don't know what kind.  I was really hoping to get a crab or starfish crawling over it but no luck.  This area is usually crawling with starfish but something is killing them off and this spot was completely bereft of them.

I love the rainbow and the gods rays refracting through the water.  The light highlights the mussels and kelp in a glorious way. I hope you enjoyed these photos and timelapse.  Geordie and I are brainstorming ideas where to set it down so if you have your own thought of a good underwater spot please let us know.  It just has to be accessible by foot and relatively easy to hide.

BCIT - First Month In

 So its been a full month since I decided to trade in a regular paycheck for a backpack of books and the hope that a few years from now it will all be worth it. Thus far BCIT has been a very good experience even if I am 8-15 years older than most everyone else in my class. The campus itself is nice without being sprawling and the majority of our classes are in a handful of buildings, so after the first week of disorientation passed it has been pretty easy to find my way around.

 The classes are divided into lectures and labs with lectures taking place in large halls like the one shown below. The finance intake for the year was several hundred students so we are divided into 'sets' of around 30 people. Lectures will contain 4-6 different sets and labs are more focused on a single set with more attention and back-and-forth with the teacher. Labs are typically in small classrooms which I have skipped a picture of since they are identical to any classroom you've ever had in your life. And yes, I am a big nerd and sit in the first few rows of every class, so this photo is not my typical perspective on lectures ;)

The first words out of the Deans mouth on the first day were "midterms are just 5 weeks away" and we've already had a number of high-stakes tests and midterms with 2 more to go in the coming week. So far I think I have done well on all the tests and I'm keeping my head above water with my reading and homework. Its nice that I can focus on my studies and not work until summer since the courseload is pretty heavy but there are a few people in my set working 20+ hours a week who I do not envy much.

Qualicum Falls- Turquoise Liquids.

Impressive cascades of water are part of Little Qualicum Falls Provincial Park.  The water is an incredible ice blue.  It is a narrow rocky gorge in a lovely forest setting.  There is also picnic facilities and lake swimming though Geordie and I just hiked around on the very easy trail.  I really like the tree bridges that the fallen logs make. You can't walk across but still very pretty.

You have to be careful though.  These are NOT for swimming or boating.  There is the rare, odd fatality the most recent one in August of 2013.  So don't be stupid.  It amazes me how people ignore the warning signs. Often it looks stable near the edge but sometimes the forest floor including roots, moss and dirt grow over the rocky edges.  It looks solid but really is a spongy mat that will not hold any weight. You can see it over growing on the other side of it.

The park is on Vancouver Island between Nanaimo and Port Alberni.  It's just before Cathedral Grove going West towards Tofino. It's just a few kilometres of the main highway and worth a stop for a leg stretch, picnic or day trip.  Good place to run dogs or children I would think as the park is over 400 hectares.  Still can't get over the colour of the water.

Survival of the Fishiest- the Quatse River Salmon Hatchery.

Back in hmmm July Geordie and I went to the Quatse Salmon Stewardship Centre. I really wanted to go and educate myself as I thought it was important to know about Southern and Northern Resident Orcas main food source.  As a prairie girl I didn't know a huge amount but I certainly expanded my brain and experiences with my visit.  The place was deserted when we got there which turned out to be alright because we got a private escorted tour and when I mentioned I worked on a whale watching boat they took us for the V.I.P. behind the scenes look.

Cute little baby coho.  They are really curious when young but lose this as they get older and larger.  They follow your finger and in the wild if you dip into the streams where they are hiding they will come up and nibble and peck at your fingers and toes.  I got to even feed them! 

Outside there are big tanks that pump in natural water from the nearby Quatse River so the little baby fish can be exposed to the diseases, parasites and unfortunately pollution that is out there.  One tank had a fungus that had gotten in from the river and was experiencing a higher rate of die off but its all part of getting their immune systems strong. Survival of the fishiest. I love the photo below. I had the idea of sticking our GoPro in one of the tanks and the staff let us do it. Thoroughly recommend a visit if you are in the Telegraph Cove/ Port McNeil/ Port Hardy area.

So Long Visual Effects!

 Many of you have heard about this for the past 18+ months, but for those of you that don't already know, I am attempting the often dreamed of but rarely executed Plan B of Visual Effects.... going back to school and trying to learn something else to pay the bills while hoping its a step up. My good friend Jason Booth made a demotivational poster much like the one below in 2005 during Superman Returns which was widely accepted as one of the most toxic and badly managed vfx productions of its time.

 Jason moved on to other things not long after but many of us have stuck it out for years. I moved to Vancouver and worked in a bunch of shops, every time thinking that the next one would be the one that had things under control and didn't crush you with overtime and mismanagement. I have since likened it to the scenario of complaining that all the male crackheads you've had as room mates keep stealing your stuff and hopefully living with a female crackhead will solve the problem.

The issue is not the gender, its the fact that you're dealing with a bunch of crackheads.

Beyond the long hours and the unstable working routine, the average compositor workstation no longer appeals to me and seems to get darker by the year. The picture below is without exaggeration what most companies are like these days. Staring into a bright monitor in a black windowless room for 9-14 hours a day. Blech.

Not that VFX was all bad. I met some great friends, learned a lot of cool computer tricks and have my name attached to dozens of movies with varying levels of watchability, but its time for me to have a change. It was a fun job in my 20s, a frustrating job in my 30s and not something I want to entertain in my 50s. All the very best to my many friends that continue to stick it out in the dog-eat-dog business, you're doing great work. It just needs to be 3% less cyan and feel a little less janky... and its cut.... ;)