Frosty Forms

 While we were out enjoying our walk along the riverside dykes in Squamish, I couldn't help but notice the stunning blades/feathers of frost which had formed. I expect it was some combination of wind from the sea picking up moisture from the open river, but if anyone out there has a better explanation I am all ears. Even to the naked eye the ground looked like a little forest of ice.

 Luckily I had both my macro lens and my wife's patience, so I took a few minutes to hunker down and get some close ups of these shapes at the same time. Between the bright light of the sun and the contrasty highlight nature of the frost itself, I was able to shoot handheld with a high aperture and capture some very interesting images that would be invisible to average passerby. One thing I have truly learned to love about macro photography is finding the surreal or beautiful in day-to-day events we take for granted.

 There were lots of twigs and grasses poking above the snowline, and a totally different type of columnar frost had formed on them, radiating out at every angle. These shapes really remind me of the crystal plinths in Superman's "Fortress of Solitude." So for any of our snowbound readers out there, remember that even though you're sick of the snow by now and ready for summer, there are some pretty spectacular aspects to it if you only take a minute to stop and appreciate them.

Recreational Winter

 Over the holiday break, Kathryn and I rented a car (after a bit of a fiasco with a less-than-reputable car rental agency) and drove up the sea-to-sky highway to Squamish for a bit of seasonal winter. I'm sure we'll get a lot of sympathy from our Manitoba readers on this one, but living in Vancouver we have to make an effort to see snow, and thought we should fit in a few hours of winter. Below is a picture of Kathryn walking along the riverside dyke in Squamish with Mount Garabaldi in the distance.

 Truth be told, there was more snow and ice than we were actually expecting, and being delicate West Coast flowers, we forgot to dress appropriately for as much white stuff as there turned out to be. We took a little hike up to the base of Shannon Falls which were in the perpetual shadow of the mountains and as such were incredibly slippery and had no direct sun. The frost and snow across the rocks and trees was very nice though.

 We finished off our day with a walk along the river and I took the photo below which has become one of Kathryn's favorites almost instantly. I stopped down the exposure quite a bit and (happy accidentally) left my colour balance compensating for incandescent, so only a little direct light was let in, and it was tinted even more blue than would be expected. All in all a very nice day out and a chance to enjoy a few hours of snow before hurrying back to clear streets and civilization.

Traditional and Unexpected Glowing Objects in the Neighbourhood

 It's the festive time of year full of holiday cheer, final exams, and bright lights. The first two items have been consuming more than their share of my spare time lately, so we're a little late bringing you this update on the third item. The west end of Vancouver gets some pretty nice lights, as we have mentioned in the past, and this year was no exception.

 The middle of December had a festival called "Lumiere" which featured some nice light sculptures, the highlight of which is the life-size orca sculpture by a Slovakian artist which is covered in tiny LED lights and turned on nightly. It's a very pleasing addition to the area and we're both hoping it becomes a permanent installation.

 But winning the prize hands down for "Most Unexpected Glowing Object in the Neighborhood" was A-Borgg who decided to do a photo shoot in the park near our home on the same night as my work Christmas party. Yep, that is a 9-foot tall robot covered in LED lights. He is available for all your rave party/wedding needs, and apparently has a giant gun that shoots CO2 over the crowd... because of course he does. I love our neighborhood...

Salt Spring Free Range

 Salt Spring Island is dotted with small family-run farms which produce small amounts of dairy, poultry and produce for local consumption. The cows below were at a small dairy we visited and I was very pleased to know that our cheese came from "those cows right over there" as it is easy to have a disconnect between a food source and our plates.

 Our bed and breakfast had several dozen chickens scratching around the grounds and one morning we were treated to free-range eggs laid that very morning. I also got a pretty nice portrait of the rooster, which I think gives an air of majesty which poultry is rarely considered to possess.

 Our bed and breakfast also had a number of sheep, and while these individuals were more for the entertainment of guests as part of the hobby farm, we did pass several fields where quite a few sheep were out grazing, and sheepskin was for sale at the Saturday market.

 

 Not shown here, but worth mentioning, Salt Spring Island has dozens of small produce stands along the roads. Running on an honor system, farmers will leave their surplus eggs, fruits, and vegetables in wooden stands along the roads and passersby can help themselves and leave the appropriate payment.

In Vancouver, such a system would be quickly looted and vandalized, and while I'm sure there are some problems with that on Salt Spring, there was enough of it going on that its clearly a reasonably profitable venture without too much of a cost.

Wild winds, high tides, and the blood moon

 This fall there was a blood moon which resulted in some extreme tides in the same week as a fall storm brought in fairly high winds. Since you've all seen countless clear blood moon photos, I thought I'd share this stylized and shakey picture Kathryn took which neatly emphasizes the energy of the moon and the city night.

 Those high winds and tides caused a number of poorly moored ships in English Bay to slip from their ropes and wash up on shore. For a brief period there were 4 boats washed up in False Creek and while two of them were reclaimed fairly quickly, two were abandoned by their owners and have sunken further into disrepair. The boat below washed up quite high on the rocks and has since had its mast removed as it was hanging strangely over the seawall.

 The ship below, Tabasco, had apparently slipped its moorings several times already this year and had a bad reputation. This has no doubt been compounded as the owners have also abandoned it, and the day after this photo was taken, it had filled completely with water and was lying on its side underwater. This continued for a few weeks until someone pulled it out of the water, but not very gentley such that the keel and mast have both been removed.

 

So in summary, if you're lucky enough to own a sail boat, please tie it up properly, and if you can't be bothered to do that, don't be surprised if nobody else can be bothered to keep your boat ship shape for you.

Officially escaped visual effects!

 Having recently had my 3 month review at Bardel and not been fired for gross incompetance, I think its fair to say that my accounting career is on track with my labour-camp days in film behind me. Crossing that threshold, I thought I would share a few photos of the office and its features. Below is a picture of our office, which is really an unremarkable collection of cubicles, but there are 2 things I would like to highlight here:

1. This is the biggest desk I have ever had. It's not grand my any stretch, but its nice.
2. Sure, the view is of an overpass, but this is the first time I have worked in a room with windows in my professional career, including every job I have had since 1998 (except three months in a video store I guess).

 The office is a stones throw from Granville Island, which gives me a nice bicycle commute that I can share with Kathryn when our starting hours overlap. Its even a pleasant 40 minute walk on days where I have somewhere else to go after work and don't want to lug a bike around with me.

 Bardel has had turtles (though not these particular turtles) for several decades and their new tank is right outside the accounting office. They have it pretty good with room to swim about and a spot to haul out under a timed heat lamp, but there's something particulary hilarious about this pose to me. Maybe its saying something about visual effects, or business in general, or the human condition as a whole, but one turtle being resignedly pushed to the bottom of the tank while the other stands on his back and strains as far as he can to just get his head above water was too good a photo for me to pass up.

Checking in on Chester

 I had intended for this to be a follow-up, but we never previously covered Kathryn's work with the false killer whale calf "Chester" who was taken in by the Marine Mammal Rescue last summer (2014). Kathyrn spent many shifts monitoring and tending to him when he was first brought in but in time he outgrew the tanks available and was moved to Vancouver Aquarium.

 

Chester is currently sharing the dolphin tank with Helen, the last of their wounded Pacific White Sided dolphins, and is much larger than he was when Kathryn was looking after him. While we know that cetaceans in captivity is a touchy subject these days, we were saddened to hear interpreters at the aquarium explaining his drooping fin as a natural part of their design when it has a 0% incidence in the wild, and has been proven to be a direct result of tanks that are not large or deep enough to allow the animals room to properly dive and exercise.

 That aside, he is a very curious and inquisitive animal, and came over to visit us at one of the windows for a few minutes. He was very enrapt by the pair of us, and while we both very much want to believe it was because he remembered Kathryn and her efforts, it could just as easily have been light reflecting out of my camera lens that caught his eye as something new.