Video Kinda Day

Well the first Saturday passed as a whirlwind, as it usually does.   Woke to another beautiful day, there is a trough that has been hanging over Bermuda since I arrived and even the longterm forecast has no changes before Thursday.  Everyday is 21C, with mix of sun and cloud.  Evenings are 16C.  Winds light.  Can't ask for much nicer this time of year

Got moving in the morning and went up and met a Canadian friends of mine, John, who has been out here for about 17 years now and his lovely new bride Lisa.    Was nice to catch up and see their new abode and their dog Milo.   Had some spare time as I left their place so I put the GoPro around my neck on a string and took a short ride into Hamilton Bermuda, enjoy the show;

Got back from the little run and discovered I had some afternoon time so grabbed the camera gear and headed down to Spittal Pond to take some pictures.   I was hoping to do some blurred surf or catch some Longtails but neither worked out.  The sun was really bright so the ND filter still wasn't doing it and seems to be still to early in the season for the Longtails to have returned, although I'm told there has been some sightings.   So took the opportunity to film some of the surf down there, it was a very calm day so not as dramatic as it sometimes is;

The evening was out to supper with our friends Donna and Bruce where has a great meal of fresh caught Bermuda Rockfish and Bermuda Fish Chowder.   A few hours of "socializing" and it was bedtime at 1am hahaha.  Bruce and I were going to stay up and watch the F1 race out of Australia but we agreed to hold off until the replay at 3pm vice the 3am start time.   Now I'm trying to stay off the racing websites so I don't ruin the race for later today.

Haven't sorted this morning out yet but expect to be out and around this morning and early this afternoon before heading out Bruce's for the race and then back here for BBQ steaks this evening.   Gonna be another great day in Bermuda!

Flatts

Another lovely day on the island. Again most of it was spent visiting friends (it was Friday happy hour you know) but did manage to get out for a bit in the morning to play with the GoPro. This was my first time putting the camera "overboard" so was a bit nervous about the waterproof seal but all went well. This location is right at the mouth of the Harrington Sound. The tide was low and the water was rushing out of the sounds, thus causing some murkiness in the water. The fish wouldn't come as close to the camera as I would have liked but it was a great 1st experiment. Naturally I now have more ideas to try out ;-)

Took the camera but the light was very harsh at that time of the day.  But I did fire off a few shots;

The weekend is scheduled for more visiting ;-)   Off to see a Canadian mate of mine who has been down here for the past 20 years.   Looking forward to meeting his new wife!   Out to supper tonight with more friends and we're talking about getting up at 2am to watch the first F1 race of the year.  Then watching the Bristol race tomorrow afternoon ;-)    Going to be a great weekend!   Not sure if the camera will get much use before Monday hahaha.

Enjoy your weekend everyone!

Back in Bermuda

Hey everyone!   Back on the island for the next couple of weeks.   Was sitting around with the winter blah's back a few months ago and I started playing with flexible dates on Air Canada and found a deal I couldn't pass up.  So I booked a short trip to the island.

Not overly warm down here this time of year (keep in mind Bermuda is off North Carolina and not way down in the Caribbean) so mostly jeans and my fleece jacket except during the prime of the day.  20C during the day and 15C at night.   But nice to be visiting with friends.

Good flight down, I was a bit worried that the Air Canada baggage handlers might be a bit disgruntled but no issues what so ever.   Had a little fun with the GoPro on landing.  Unfortunately I was on the wrong side of the plane ;-)

My buddy Glen picked me up at the airport.  After a short suitcase search by customs (what's up with that!) I went outside to find a camera pointed in my face;

The first evening was a quiet one.  Was pretty tired out after getting up at 3.45am for my 6am flight out of Ottawa.  Thank you to my love Jen for getting up at that horrible hour to drive me.  A quiet evening catching up with friends but I did notice the stars were very nice on a clear night so dropped the tripod outside for some star trail shots.   90 images later I came up with this;

The next clear night I'll go after the north star now that I know where it is ;-)

Heather and I took a run down to Tuckers Town today.  All the years I had lived here and all the visits I had never gotten past the gate and into the point of land.   Fortunately Heather has some connections and we drove right in.  She was looking for some surf to do some surfing but breakers just weren't good enough. But I got a few good shots;

A beautiful beach and as you can see some very very nice houses.  This is a rather wealthy area ;-)

One of the local dogs playing with a Frisbee in the water.

That yellow house up on the cliff belongs to Ross Perot.  Remember him?   A rather famous guy ;-)

Rest of the day was catching up with a couple of more friends and got my scooter so I'm mobile now.   Tomorrow I'll get out somewhere and then off to Friday night happy hour with another friend.   Weekend is starting to book up as well.  Seems I have quite the social life down here.

Stay tuned, there will be lots more coming.

Beware the Ides of March

Sorry it's been a few weeks.  Can't really say I've been busy or anything just the never ending winter taking it's toll hahaha.  Nah, it hasn't been that bad.  After being seduced by lovely spring like weather in the middle of Feb, the past two weeks have reminded us that mother nature is not done.   Like I said before "I don't need a rat to tell me we have 6 more weeks of winter, this is Canada, of course we have 6 more weeks!"   Stupid groundhog and for people who listen to it ;-)

We've had snow, ice, wind and cold temps the past few weeks just to keep us honest.   But less then 2 weeks left until I head down to the island to visit friends for a few week.  yippee!!!!   So looking forward to seeing everyone.  To bad Jen can't make it this trip :-(   Just me.   Already doing an inventory in my head of all the various camera gear that needs to travel, I have some visions in my head of what I want to shoot this time round.  Mostly sunrise/sunsets with long exposures on the shorelines.   So tripod, 17-55mm, 80-200mm, debating about the 10-20mm, ND-8, D-200, GoPro, waterproof housing etc etc...  Somewhere in between all that stuff I need to fit a few clothes.....

Finally broke down and bought myself a new laptop.  My poor old MacBook wasn't really cutting it anymore.  Besides, since the release of Windows 7 I have been less impressed with the Mac OS.  So got me a nice shiny Dell XPS 15 with lots of memory and a big video card.   Easily handles Photoshop and should handle my movie stuff well.  We'll find out after I do some shooting on the island.

Got my new tattoo all finished up (well almost).  It involved 2 sittings, the first for the inukshuk and the second for the snow and the moon behind it.   Will need one more short sitting in month or so to clean up a couple of spots but it looks really good.   Just need to let it heal up now.   Pain wasn't bad at all but had some bleeding so it takes a few weeks for everything to smooth out.  

Project 52 wise.   Last week was "at work".  Well that's not very possible for me - no cameras allowed.  So I just used myself in front of the computer.  I actually don't play solitaire much but it looked funny (you can see the new Dell in the back - it's running the big monitor);

This week was a bit more fun.  Depth of Field.  I had numerous ideas but in the end I pulled out my old faithful Enterprise and put a monster behind to give the appearance that it was chasing her;

That was my last 2 weeks in review.   Once I get to the island there should be lots and lots more pictures.  Hope everyone has a great week ahead!

Week 8 - Other Photographers

Wow - 8 weeks into the new year already, the time is flying!   It appears I can say the same about winter.  Fingers crossed cause we could still get nailed but this past week has been pretty mild for Feb.   The sun is been out most days this week and the snow is melting and evaporating.  Maybe the stupid ground hog was right for once..... we'll see, cautiously optimistic.

Was a strange week.  Monday was the work grievance hearing.  Not sure how it went but it went 40 minutes longer then it was suppose to and I felt pretty battered by the end of it.  It was more confrontational then I would have liked or when compared to other grievances I've been involved in.  But we made our case and it's in the hands of the "jury".  Should know within the next couple of weeks if we were successful or not.  From there we have to decide if we want to go to a formal process or let it go.

Thursday afternoon I got the first half of my new tattoo.  The main piece (an inukshuk) is pretty much completed and when I go back in a few weeks the snow and full moon will be added.   When done I'll put a picture up for a few days for everyone to see.  The inukshuk is awesome, Greg at The Ink Spot did an amazing job.  The rocks look real.  He knows how to do realistic work.   Walking around with muscle shirts this weekend to try and help it heal.  Pretty sore but coming along nicely.   Looking forward to the rest of it, it's going to look amazing.

This weeks theme was "other photographers".   Jen won't let me take her picture so I resorted to the other photographer in the house - Jackson!  

One of the better shots I've managed to take of him, he was very cooperative this morning ;-) and got himself a treat in the process.

My buddy Glen in Bermuda has joined the ranks of bloggers.  It's mainly to showcase his ongoing renovations at his house but with encouragement maybe he'll do some writing? http://bermudaglen.blogspot.com/   He's a pretty funny guy in real life and I expect he could do the same in writing.  Come on Glen!

That was my week in a nutshell.

Week 7 - Shadows - From the Shadows

Greetings from deep winter ;-)    Only 1 month and 2 days before I head off to Bermuda, can't some soon enough!  Looking forward to seeing my island friends.

Deep into the winter blah's this year but we're keeping a smile on the face and carrying on.  Lots of unknown things going on in my life right now.   Waiting for C and her 3rd lawyer to get moving on the next stage of the divorce mess, still where we were 2 years ago when we separated.  Seems to be the never heading headache.   Changes coming at work.  Looks like a long overdue (and much needed) re-org is on the horizon.   I know I'm in good shape but curious to see what my position will look like when it's over and tomorrow my crew and I head into a labour grievance over market allowance pay.  Spent the past week getting ready for the presentation and preparing our arguments.   We're the first grievance to be heard tomorrow morning at 9am.  Lets hope being the first out of the trench to storm the lines doesn't end with machine gun fire hahahaha

Nice and sunny this weekend but the teasing warm weather that we had earlier in the week ran away.  It's around -20c with the windchill here today so walking the dog was not a pleasant experience.  So deceptive with the sunshine streaming in the back windows, it feels so warm.  Stick your nose out the door and you discover the truth ;-)

This weeks Project 52 theme was shadows.   Naturally most people went for shows of things on sunny days or lights at night.   Trying to continue to treat these themes as outside the box.  What comes to me is, what lurks in the shadows.   Not getting much reaction from the Project 52 people, but I like it anyhow;

As with every other photographer in the world, spend this week drooling over the new D800.   What an amazing looking camera.   But mentally trying to justify a 3k+ price tag.  Not something I could afford easily.    I'm actually not in to bad of shape lens wise.  I have the 80-200mm that would fit it nicely in FX mode and I could look at a Tamron F2.8 to cover the low end.  Another 500 or so.   Sell off some of my DX stuff maybe?  hahaha, the possibilities are there.   But would like to see what they are going to come out with when replacing the D300s.  But that FX D800 is a piece of work.  Going to have to think this one through but for the foreseeable future my trust D200 will continue to keep me entertained.

Well that was the week in review, not much happening.  Just over 1 month till Bermuda, 2 months till canoeing starts and 3 months good spring weather.   Every year I find myself liking the idea of retiring "south" more and more attractive ;-)

Week 6 - Signs - It's all Ok!

Still not sure if I like this new look and feel that blogger has when creating a new post.  Why do websites feel the need to keep changing things for those of us who were content?   Oh well, live with it I guess.

So first up, my shot for this weeks Project 52.  The theme was signs.   Naturally lots of people took great photos of various signs around them.   I was kinda hoping to find a "no dog poop" sign and then have Jackson take a shit in front of it, but that would be the stars aligning ;-)     Once again I tried to think about something besides what others were doing, thus the hand sign - ok.

In the process of shooting this I discovered;

1.  My remote shutter cable is to short for me to take a picture of myself,
2.  Guessing at the focus setting, hit the timer, press the shutter and get in front of the lens in time and in focus is a major pain, and
3.  I look much better in black and white ;-)

I thought I was so smart, no one else had posted something like this.  I worked on it for over an hour and once I posted, sure enough, someone beat me by 30 minute - doh!

Had another clear evening on Friday night so this time decided to do the startrail thing again, but this time to the north.   Once again the batteries are just not up to the task when it's cold (-10c) and 30 sec exposures.  The result is only 53 images blended into one.  But now I know exactly where the north star is when I look out my front door.   Just a pain that I have the glow of the city to the north and have to deal with that in my images.

Not a bad week overall.   Still getting the winter blahs on and off a bit, so the occasional self pity party.    Work has been steady but actually been finding some time to do some things that have been sitting on my to do list for the past few months.   Friday I hit an ice snowbank and put a nice dent in the plastic bumper on the truck.  It's down low and not really visible or noticeable to most people, but I can see it and it sucks!  

Been working on a new tattoo design ;-)   Jen and I are booked for the 16th.  Not sure if we'll have time on the 16th to get it done but hoping so.   I'm not going to post the image but it does involve an Inukshuk ;-)

That was my week.   Winter continues but we're surviving!  According to the rodents we're suppose to have an early spring.  I'll believe it when I see it.   Only 6 weeks till I head for Bermuda!  ;-)