Happy Easter everyone, hope the big chocolate bunny visited your house and deposited some chocolate for everyone! ;-) We're off to a lovely brunch buffet with Jen's family today.
Lovely sunny day here in Ottawa but yesterday wasn't so nice. To escape the weather and to play photographers we headed off to an Orchid Show at the Nepean Sportsplex. The Orchids were AMAZING! Over 260 shots later we dragged ourselves out of the place with sore arms from holding camera gear. Today (Sunday) they allow tripods which might have been a smarter time to visit but we had a good time even handholding the cameras.
Still sorting the images but thought I would post a few teasers for fun. Click the image to see the fullsize.
Well we finally had a decent day on a day off! The past few weekends have been cold or rainy, good Friday turned out to be sunny and reasonably warm. Although my photo partner thought the wind was still too cool ;-) But we took a run out to Manotick and the Long Island Locks. Familiar stomping grounds but things are still pretty wet and muddy so unexplored areas will just have to wait a bit longer.
Click the image for a larger version. Editing on my laptop so hopefully the colours and stuff are good, I prefer my big screen at home ;-
My 500th picture of Watson's Mill ;-) I still need to get down there and shoot this at night.
Signs of Spring
Beside Long Island Lock is an old farmhouse in it's final years of decay.
and my ever favourite hand cranks at the lock.
I think we're off to an Orchid thingy here in Ottawa today. It's back to pouring rain outside so we're going to move indoors and try shooting some flowers. Good practice before Bermuda ;-)
I've been known as being witchy before but this one even had me raise an eyebrow. In yesterdays blog post "Bermuda Sunsets" the first picture was taken from a cliff beside Horseshoe Bay. I posted it just because I ran accross it while looking for another photo. This today at 12.38pm there was a small 4.6 earthquake 50km's off Bermuda. The cliff that I stood on to take that picture slide off the hill. This is a picture spreading around the internet.
Now, there have been a few reports that this image is a fake and that it actually happened over the weekend. So far none of my friends on the island have been able to confirm for me ;-) But for me it's still weird hahahaha.
Busy week here. Doing lots of studying in my new/temporary job and working way more hours then I should be but enjoying it so far. But makes for a very long day. Hope everyone is having a great week!
** Reports continue that this happened over the winter during a winter storm and wasn't caused by the earthquake. Still strange that no one heard about it. One month today and I'll go see for myself! ;-)
Was looking for a particular picture tonight and ran across some of my Bermuda sunset pictures from 2007. Never did find the picture I was looking for, will have to keep searching, so I pulled these instead. I don't think I ever published any of them. Given the crappy weather this weekend these are very appealing ;-) Just over a month and Jen and I will be on the island, hope she can see some of these awesome sunsets. Looking forward to the trip!
Click the image for bigger size
From the cliff overlooking Horseshoe Bay looking west.
We had a wild thunder and lightening show run through the area last night. Knocked me outta bed at 3am and then at 5am it got really wild. It rained all yesterday afternoon, poured through the night and continued into this morning.
Driving home this afternoon this is some of the flooding along the way and near my house, glad my place is on a hill!
The "stream" is normally on the other side of the trees. Note the picnic tables and garbage can.
This is normally a little park. See the top of the picnic table on the right ;-)
Just down the hill from my house. That line of trees is normally this side of the little river that flows through the field. The entire corn field is flooded and the waves are lapping on the shore.
The river from the other side of the road.
Currently it's 7.20pm at night, the temperture is 21C, humidity around 77% and winds around 55km/per hour. In the next few hours it's going to drop 21 degrees to 0C. What a weird spring!
They heard me singing and they told me to stop,
Quit these pretentious things and just punch the clock,
These days, my life, I feel it has no purpose,
But late at night the feelings swim to the surface.
Cause on the surface the city lights shine,
They're calling at me, "come and find your kind."
Sometimes I wonder if the world's so small,
That we can never get away from the sprawl,
Living in the sprawl,
Dead shopping malls rise like mountains beyond mountains,
And there's no end in sight,
I need the darkness someone please cut the lights.
We rode our bikes to the nearest park,
Sat under the swings, we kissed in the dark,
We shield our eyes from the police lights,
We run away, but we don't know why,
And like a mirror these city lights shine,
They're screaming at us, "we don't need your kind."
Sometimes I wonder if the world's so small,
That we can never get away from the sprawl,
Living in the sprawl,
Dead shopping malls rise like mountains beyond mountains,
And there's no end in sight,
I need the darkness someone please cut the lights.
They heard me singing and they told me to stop,
Quit these pretentious things and just punch the clock.
Sometimes I wonder if the world's so small,
Can we ever get away from the sprawl?
Living in the sprawl,
Dead shopping malls rise like mountains beyond mountains,
And there's no end in sight,
I need the darkness someone please cut the lights.
Last fall I hit 25 years of government service. Surprisingly the government actually got me my award before I hit my 30th year like some of those who received awards with me. One of the nice things is that you get to select your award from several that are available. As I have such an interest in native and Inuit arts I just couldn't pass up this dancing polar bear. Beside it is the 25 year gold filled lapel pin. Being in the government sure has it's downsides but it's little things like this that make me realize how much I've enjoyed the past 25 years.
Nope, not an island in British Columbia, it's right here in Ottawa. Located just off Booth St. in the Ottawa River. It gives a another unique angle to see the parliament buildings from if you have a decent zoom and maybe a tripod. Jen and I went down for an hour or so just to check the place out and to see the graffiti wall located at the bottom (or is it the top?) of Bronson. In my opinion she got the better of the pictures at the graffiti wall but I might have out did her at Victoria Island ;-)
Sorry for the large number of photos but when you spend 15-20 minutes per panorama on a laptop it's tough not to post them. Trust me, there are many that I didn't!
Be sure to click the image for the fullsize versions.
During the summer months there is an outfit called Aboriginal Experiences who operates on the site. So there are several native sites to see. For some reason every time Jen sees the camera she gets a strange look on her face :-/
A panoramic of the view of Ottawa from the island. Click the image for the full size, you can see parliament on the left.
A zoomed in look of the Ottawa side.
A little different view of parliament. As seen from the west. The parliament library is visible on the back of the building.
A close-up of parliament.
The shores of Victoria Island.
A Canadian Goose taking off. Love the way his/her tongue is hanging out ;-)
My pretty photographer sidekick ;-) She's becoming pretty damn good!
I think she saw a UFO?
Meanwhile over at the graffiti wall, couldn't resist chuckling at this one. Name that movie?
Some of the more interesting artwork.
I don't get it? What's he smoking? ;-)
I found this to be the most interesting and the best art on the entire wall.
A pano of the entire area. Still pretty dirty from the winter and everything is still melting. Will be interesting to check back in a few months to see what artwork shows up.
A pano of just the wall itself.
Well that brings my vacation to an end. Managed to get some serious photography in, although I'm not 100% happy with all the results. It's a tough time of year, everything is brown, melting or dirty. I've also had to reteach myself a few things along the way, amazing how fast you can forget the basic skills of photography. But I feel ready for Bermuda. I have the 2 new lenses sorted out and have a good feel for how they work. Very happy with the Nikon 80-200mm and I'm so/so with the Tamron 17-55 which is very good when handled properly but can be unforgiving when not. Tomorrow I'm back to work but want to try and stay in the habit of getting out with the camera more, even with the stresses going on in my life. Jen's been great about it, she wants to get out and shoot more so we motivate each other. She's becoming a wonderful photographer in her own right but the only place you can see her work is on Facebook right now. So if your not a friend your shit out of luck ;-). But we're finding more and more places in and around Ottawa. Now that it's warming up we'll soon be hitting the Byward market and other places around the city.
