Sunday, August 30, 2009

She Mae Moo Portobellow Market 02 Aug 30 2009_DSC8275

The crew from She Mae Moo jewlery at the monthly Portobello Craft market on August 30 2009.

Left to right - Sile (master crafts person), Nicole (120 watt smiles and jewlery model) and Lesley (logistics and setup).

English Bay Sunset Aug 29 2009 Nikon D300_DSC8268

A rich sun slowly decends behind the gulf islands in the Straight of Georgia due west of Vancouver.

Thursday, August 20, 2009

Toronto Storm


Toronto Storm, originally uploaded by Janine Massey.

Just two words is all I can come up with - Holy Cow. What a shot!

This is today's storm in Southern Ontario rolling in to Toronto. Shudder.

OK, all that denial stuff about global warming I've been spouting on for awhile ... I take it back.

Monday, August 17, 2009

Mike and Kendals Wedding Aug 16 1998

Here's the Farmer/Finkle gang just before the reception at Mike and Kendal's wedding on August 16 1998. Starting in the bottom left corner and going clockwise is Colin, Diane, Cam, Peter, Dad, me (Doug) and the victim, er.. groom (aka Mike). :)

Friday, August 14, 2009

North Shore Mountains Vancouver Aug 13 2009 Nikon D300_DSC7986

Summer seems to produce the prettiest sunsets over English Bay in Vancouver. Here's a photo of the north shore mountains in the background and West Vancouver in the foreground both nicely complimented by some rather spectacular cloud formations.

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Beaver Lake Lillies Stanley Park Vancouver Aug 12 2009 Nikon D80_DSC1411

Near the middle of Stanley Park in Vancouver you'll find Beaver Lake. Earlier this spring a beaver did take up residence in the lake but was nowhere to be seen today. Instead the lake was covered in thousands of blooming lilies. A color explosion and me with a converted black and white only camera. Ack.

Fortunately this is the digital age and while my photo colorization skills can't compete (yet) with a 5 year old I am learning. Time to channel my earlier crayon and coloring book self or get some tips from my 6 year old niece Elise.

Lost Lagoon Swan IR Aug 12 2009 Nikon D80_DSC1371

The big difference between my first Infra Red converted camera (my quirky but ever faithful 6 mega pixel Nikon D100) and my second generation one (my ever excellent 10 mega pixel Nikon D80) has been focus. I'm not sure if it's the higher resolution (most likely) or a bit of dud during conversion to IR (unlikely) but getting crisp focus with this 'new' IR rig has been a challenge. So much so that I've started honing my expertise in what's called hyper focal photography. It's a subject worth a Google if you are looking for mind blowing depths of field and being able to get the crispness of a large format camera with a digital SLR.

It's a technique that's not for the meek however. You'll be shooting in the f/16 to f/25 aperture range, on a tripod, at 1/10 of a second on a sunny day if you are lucky. And, to make it even more brain power humbling I use an application called PhotoCalc on my iPhone to get the exact start of the hyper focal range. The hyper focal starting point varies with focal length (damn those zoom lenses), f stop, etc.

Here's one of my favorite Stanley Park Vancouver compositions - Lost Lagoon complete with the requisite swan. Notice that the depth of field in the capture is ... well ... the whole picture. :)

Monday, August 10, 2009

Lost Lagoon Algae Bloom Aug 10 2009 Canon A530_IMG_0705

Recently Lost Lagoon in Stanley Park has turned a rather nifty shade of turquoise. No big surprise given that the days have averaged above 30'C the past month (it seems). One theory, the scary one, is that this color change is due to seismic activity deep under Vancouver and is a precursor of "the big one". Up close however it's a fairly obvious algae bloom due to the elevated temperature.

Here's a snippet from the Vancouver Sun on August 6th:

"The Vancouver park board is testing the water in Stanley Park's Lost Lagoon after a section of it turned an unnatural turquoise colour.

The colour change so far is localized in the shallow narrows north of the lagoon's pedestrian footbridge.

Most of the lagoon appeared to be unaffected on Wednesday, with some patches of cloudy blue visible south of the bridge, but the main body of water remaining clear.

A slight discoloration was first noted Tuesday by Stanley Park Ecological Society members, but samples didn't end up on executive director Patricia Thomson's desk until Wednesday afternoon, when the colour transformation was jaw-dropping."

Not to be outdone by panic or rationality I've come up with a third theory. The color is due to alien nutrients being added to the lagoon to transform it into an incubator for the advance warriors of an interstellar invasion force. However, sigh, no one considers the idea 'plausible'. Too "Hollywood" they say. :)

Sunset Beach Rain Flowers Canon A530 Aug 10 2009_IMG_0720b

Here's proof that a wet and blissfully rainy day in Vancouver, especially after two months of above average temperatures can bring out the best in the Sunset Beach flower colors. Today was nice and damp and being a bit of an equipment wimp I took along my ever durable Canon A530 point and shoot camera. I was rewarded with colors you'll never see when it's warm, sunny and safe for the higher end photo-gear.

Wednesday, August 05, 2009

Beach and Thurlow IR August 2009 Nikon D80_DSC1357

I took the IR conversion plunge a second time and had my Nikon D80 (10 megapixel) converted to IR sensitivity. It's taken a good amount of work and learning to get everything just right but it looks like the final part of the learning curve is complete.

IR photography is very senstivie to focus which is not suprising given that camera makers calibrate their optics for visible light rather than the infra red sort.

I've much more to learn including putting to use what's called the "hyperfocal distance". This is focus setting that, in theory, puts everything start at a certain distance in focus to infinity. Pretty key when you want to get an absolute perfect in focus shot.

Funny - a more sophisticated camera versus my first IR camera (the Nikon D100) is teaching more about IR photography.

Sunday, August 02, 2009

Grade 1 Class Photo Page 02 Full Scan

My class photo - 1965 grade 1 ... or 1964 kindergarten. This was during the height of the cold war in Werl West Germany. I'm the kneeling ruffian on the far left. Why I'm the only one kneeling remains a mystery to this day. The anthropologically nifty part of this is that to this day I still kneel on my left knee. So much so that I've a callas on that knee but not my right. :)

From a photo restoration perspective this was a nice and clean photo. Very little yellowing after nearly 45 years of existence. What I found cute though was the goofy depth of field the photographer set. The back two rows of kids are in focus while the front two, including me (sigh) are a bit off. My guess is that the photographer took the shot with mostly natural light and an aperture in the f/4 to f/5.6 range to get a semi decent shutter speed. Narrow depths of field seem quite common in the photos I've restored from the 20th century.

This is page 2 of my school photo. Page 1 you can find here -> http://www.flickr.com/photos/vancouverdoug/3782206779/

20090729-_DSC7821


20090729-_DSC7821, originally uploaded by VancouverDoug.

Here's another shot from the show presented by the United Kingdom. Last night was China who presented yet another spectacular show.

Saturday, August 01, 2009

Her Masters Voice Jennifer 1982

Here's a nice capture of my first cat - Jennifer. She was a patient soul who taught me much about feline companions. The generations of cats that were to follow owe much of their pampering to Jennifer.

Here she is perplexed by the spinning disc of vinyl that was the first release of a digitally mastered version of the Brandenburg Concertos by JS Bach.