The editing

Whew! The massive edit is done. I looked at about 3500 images from the digital and two film cameras. To be honest, I was getting a bit punch drunk by the end, so who knows what I'll think when I look at them again. There is almost certainly more keywording to happen so I can find things later. It's easy to miss a photo, or overlook an entire category.

In other news it's still smoking hot here, with the smoke in the air coming and going. There was an impact on the garden, of course, but Linda thinks that even if she had been here, what with the water restrictions and the whiplash between late frosts and early heat, there isn't much she could have done differently than what our wonderful house sitter did. And yes, we're still hearing from Celina about what rotten humans we are, and she wants that wonderful person back. All we can say is, hard times kitty, suck it up.

NL likes those portable radar speed signs. They're everywhere. Often as the speed limit drops just before a town or construction zone, but other places too. Like at the bottom of big hills. There are several different styles of flashing to tell drivers what speed they're driving, which typically they know perfectly well. I often thought that hybrid vehicles would be a good fit because there are so many hills. But sometimes the radar thingie is at the top of a hill for no reason I understand. Like this one.

Yes, that's a speed radar thingie picking up Linda as she strides up the hill to the Citadel. It says she was doing 9 KpH. It's technology, so we have to believe it, right? It's a wide angle photo, do you see a car? No. In comparison, back in my running days, if I ran 10 K in an hour, I was really pleased with myself. So if you wonder why there are so many photos of Linda off in the distance, this is why.

The idea behind attaching key words to photos is so you can find them later. Newfoundland is a universal key word for all the photos from the trip. But other key words include, seascape, landscape, water, reflection, Linda Mulligan, stone, panorama, cloudscape, sunset, sunrise, panorama, flowers, bee, dragonfly, long exposure, plus things like Delta 100, film6x9, film35mm, b&w, Kodak Gold 200. I did not specifically create a keyword for waterfalls, though I'm wondering if maybe I should. I like photographing waterfalls. Neither did I do one for red chairs, though there were some blue ones as well. And the puffin chairs on the way into Raleigh, though a purist would say they were the exit chairs because that photo was the last thing we did before heading out for the last time.

There are a few photos taken specifically because I was thinking of a particular person at the time. I'll tell that story when the mermaid butt shot shows up. Some photos were because I was trying for a specific long exposure effect, or the light was so gorgeous, or it was documentary in the sense of a sign or plaque telling me what we were looking at. Which is important for me. There are a couple where I didn't do that, and just from the individual photo I've no idea what the photo is about or where we were. Sometimes I can piece it together from the date or the photos just before or after it, or knowing the date and consulting my notes about where we were. There were a few bucket list photos I wanted, like the reflection photo of a fishing village, a storm lashed rocky coastline, a foggy scene, the entry sign to a particular village, a whale, a moose, a scenic lookout onto an iconic NL scene, the colourful homes, you get the idea. And rocks. Some of the rocks are really interesting, and are there ever a lot of rocks.

So my thinking now is to work through the photos, show you a reasonable number at a time, preferably relating to a story, but maybe not. At the same time, behind the scenes, I'm thinking about book images. I'm also thinking about a process to revisit some photo sequences, like the one set of cloud photos from The Rooms. I was captivated by them in person, but the photos did nothing for me. Perhaps a revisit and careful editing will change that. And yes, the July image of the month is likely to be a NL image, and probably the runners up as well.

The red chairs are everywhere, and yes, they're a bit of a cliche. This is near the Citadel, and the reverse is Linda in the Of the Day feature. Something to keep in mind about many of the photos is that a hill is often steeper than the photo appears, and if there is a cliff, it's usually a really long way down, landing in a jagged intersection of sea and rocks.

Colourful houses clinging to the rocks.

Even though we didn't see an actual live moose, there's lots of evidence of their existence. Like this moose exclosure. Someone went to a lot of time and trouble to build a moose-proof fence around a big area to let the vegetation recover. It turns out that if moose move in after a fire, they'll strip the recovering trees before they get big, and then the nature of the forest changes permanently.

Of the Day

Driftwood (NZ)

Driftwood (NL)

Oddly enough, I didn't see much driftwood till later in our trip.

Yukon

Film (new)

From a wander along the Bow River, just south of 22X.

Michelle

Linda

I'm only a few feet in front of her, with a steep hill right behind me. Yes, I was really careful with my footing. There were times other people were around the chairs. Usually people were good about sharing, but not always.

Here's another view of those particular red chairs.

Newfoundland

This view of the Citadel is taken not far from the red chairs. 

People like playing with rocks, and there's going to be more of these. But this tall pile is near the Citadel, not far from the red chairs. I've never had any luck piling up rocks.

Second

Chugging along. I'm in the middle of editing the 3rd SD card, where the first pass gave me 350 images to work with out of 668. Lots of subtle repeats and tricky lighting during the Western Pond boat tour. The last pair of medium format film rolls are drying. The three 35 mm rolls have been developed and will be digitized tomorrow.

So it's been busy.

So there I was, up early, thinking about coffee in Brooklyn, (NL, not NY) when I looked outside. This was a grab the camera and run morning. Having some foggy reflection photos was on my bucket list for this trip, and this fit the bill perfectly. I walked up and down the road for maybe an hour as the mist shifted and the light changed. For a while I couldn't tell if it was my sleepy eyes that weren't focussing, or the camera.

1.

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4. I took lots of panorma photo series, hoping they would work out.

5. The red chairs are a bit of a cliche, but they will show up in a bunch of photos. 

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7.

8.

Of the Day

Driftwood (NZ)

Yukon

Since you won't get a Newfoundland moose, (see below) you get a Yukon one. It's funny, they'd let us into a cage with three Lynx, but not a cage with a moose. Go figure. 

We weren't sure if the moose was mocking us or not.

Film (new)

Fish Creek, the water going from dark to light.

Michelle

Linda heading down the hill from the Citadel to the walk we did around it. Lots of up and down.

Newfoundland

This was at the MUN gardens. Linda loved them, and more will show up from there. But if there's one land animal Newfoundland is known for, it's moose. They figure there are about 110,000 of them, (although I don't have the faintest idea how they came up with that number), starting from a couple breeding pair a little over a century ago. No natural predators except humans, and they take about 20,000 a year. So many swamps and bogs, no wonder the moose love it. However, we didn't see one. The statue below is as close as we got. Moose burger is good. 

The first in a bunch

OK, there's the first SD card edited, of four. No, don't panic. I'm not going to show you all 874 photos on this card. Not even the 106 edited photos. Not even all the whale photos.

I'm planning to edit 1 SD card a day. I'm going to work through developing the medium format film a roll or two a day. I'm going to take the 35mm film to a lab later today. There's a plan to buy the colour  chemistry and do it myself, but not on these rolls. C-41 chemistry has a shorter shelf life and it might be a while before I expose more colour film. 

I'm thinking the blog will continue to be as topical and frequent as ever, but will probably include at least some Newfoundland photos, and maybe tell some of the stories around them. But not all at once. Maybe not even in order. The blog might or might not include anything that might or might not go into a Memories of Newfoundland book that might or might not get done. Some of the film photos might, I hope, will be good enough to be included in the currently titled, The Film Project book. Which, I'm hoping might actually sell a few copies. More detail on that as they develop. (I hope you see what I did there.)

We started and ended our trip in St. John's. We stayed in Quidi Vidi (which is sort of between St John's and the airport), Brooklyn (near Lethbridge on the Bonavista peninsula), Twillingate, Burlington, Cox's Cove (north of Corner Brook), Rocky Harbour, Port Saunders, Raleigh (which is just about as far north as you can get in NL), and then heading back, Daniel's Harbour, Bishop's Falls, and Chance Cove. I'm working on marking up a map that might or might not get included below. Mostly we just put our destination into my phone and followed the blue line. Mostly. Google has no clue where Chance Cove actually is.

I drove 5,500 Km in those 28 days. Some of it was easy, cruising along empty roads. Some of it was brutal, dodging maniacs and potholes. Lots of twisty turny roads at 30 kph going through places purported to be villages. Lots of construction. Gas was typically about $1.80/l. 

The other transportation was feet. I walked more than 120 Km, and Linda much, much further. I haven't figured out the Linda rampage conversion factor, but I wouldn't be surprised if she walked over 200 Km.

Nearly everywhere we went, often before we even got out of the car, a local would drive by and give us The Look. The Look that said, we know you aren't from around here and we want you to know someone is watching in case you're weirdos. Once, while at the lovely swimming hole near Cox's Cove, I'd been working on some long exposure photography. I'd just put the camera gear in the trunk and we were heading off, when a Conservation Officer in an official truck, and an NL Constabulary officer in a marked car showed up. They both gave us The Look, but let us drive off without any further interaction. I've no idea why they were there. Maybe it was a nice spot to have lunch and share info about evil-doers.

Anyways, there's two rolls of 120 developed and digitized. A couple of nice photos I'm happy with, and some so so. One I'm wondering why I took the photo at all.

So let's start with the Citadel, overlooking St John's harbour.

What it looks like from the parking lot at the top of the hill.

What an old time sailor would have seen from the sea, or what it looks like from Cape Spear.

Can you imagine, back in the day, trying to storm the castle, before there were stairs, before the undergrowth had been cleared, with people shooting at you or dropping rocks over the edge. One thing NL will never have, is a shortage of rocks. I'll return to this topic.

Of the Day

Driftwood (NZ) (Hint, there might be a section for Newfoundland driftwood coming soon.)

Yukon

Film (new) Another view of the little breakwater in Policeman's Flats.

Michelle, as we scoped out a location for a photo session in Fish Creek. This is the backup location, the desired location being a thigh deep wade.

Linda. There's lots of her in Newfoundland, so maybe it overlaps categories. Life is hard all over.

Newfoundland

We had fabulous luck with the weather. Only a couple rainy days, and we had wanted to do some indoor stuff as well, so that worked out. If you're in St John's, The Rooms and the Geo Centre are a must.

The view inside the lobby of The Rooms, and another down a little.

One of the most amazing art pieces I've seen in my life. This is by Billy Gauthier, It's called The Earth, Our Mother. It started as a fin whale skull, 4' 8" high, 6' 8" high, 30" deep, and weighs over 600 pounds. The carvings all have a meaning. It represents the earth, and says she is alive. 

The view from The Rooms.

The Geo centre, on the side of the hill leading to the Citadel. It was more amazing than I thought. There's a huge section on geology, of course, but that leads to a section on oil and gas, and also about the space industry. I could have spent an entire day at either place.

We're back

 There and back again. Newfoundland is bigger than you think. Much bigger. Lots of it looks like Northern Ontario. Rocks, water, and trees. Lots of all that.

But we're home now, listening to an ungrateful cat complaining about how badly she has been treated, when we have photo and video evidence of her totally adoring her favourite human. Writhing on her back showing her tummy, which she never does for me, and rarely does for Linda. We walked in the door and she looked so disappointed.

Anyways, there are a ton of photos to look at and edit at least some of them. There's 6 rolls of 120 film to develop, and 3 rolls of 35mm in colour. Not sure if I'll get the chemistry to do that, or hand it in to a local lab. At this point I don't have the faintest idea how I'm going to blog about the whole experience. Not sure how interested any of you are the experience, or photos of it.

Bedtime. It's been a long day.

June Image of the Month

Two unusual things for this month. First that I actually chose the images early, around the 23rd or so. I knew I'd be wrapped up in flight preparations. Which, if you haven't heard the story was a bit stressful. First there was a strike notice and a few flights cancelled, then they were back to negotiations. Then there was strike notice, then the binding arbitration notice, so our flights went ahead on Friday. Then they went on strike anyways, so if our flights had been on Saturday, rather than Friday, we'd be stuck at home. Or worse, in Toronto. They have a month to sort it out, though I was having nightmares last night about the whole thing.

Second, and actually more topical, you know I like wandering along Calgary's rivers looking for interesting photos. Sean and I had never been to Policeman's Flats, a boat launch just SE of the city. There were some lovely photos there. (Hint, anticipate the last photo below.)

After that we wandered over to Predator Bay because it looked like another place to get at the river. Except the sign says "No river access." We thought this might mean no river access for boats, but there might be paths. I knew there was a parking lot near the river, and it looked like there might be paths, so we explored. It turns out to be a private club for water skiing, on private land with a private lake. Completely by chance we met up with a person involved with the organization and were prepared to apologize and skedaddle. When we explained what we were doing, we were invited to wander around and take a look. Then we got invited back for a weekend ski competition.

We were excited to do that. We said neither of us had ever photographed people water skiing, and had no idea how it would turn out. Well. Holy Doodle. 

On Saturday we basted ourselves up with sunscreen, found a good spot, and worked hard at figuring out the camera settings. I took a bazillion photos. I deleted a great many from the camera because they were badly out of focus, or I had completely missed the photo. And when I say a great many, I mean a great many hundreds, and then ignoring hundreds more on the computer because the focus wasn't quite there.

The competitors are moving very fast, the camera auto focus wants to focus on the water, and the shutter speed has to be very high. This one is 1/3200th of a second. (In comparison, an eye blink is about 1/10th of a second.) Motion tracking is hopeless. I've never had to have the ISO that high in brilliant sunshine. These are the most technically difficult photos I've ever taken. Good thing each competitor made multiple runs.

I was hoping to get just a few good photos, but once I got dialed in I ended up with lots of good ones. This is the first one that really scored. Even just looking at the back of the camera I knew it was good. And then when I edited I was really pleased with myself. This one just exploded off the screen for me.

We put the first days winners onto a laptop and showed our new buddy, and some of the competitors. They loved them!

A bit of a digression. The question for me was, are these in the running for image of the month? My community association and race photos are not, and neither are photos done for a private client. But these were done on spec, for fun. And if you like bright colourful action photos, well, I could pick out 3 no problem.

So Linda suggested this be treated as an honourable mention, and that seems like a great idea.

2nd Runner Up

So there I was, between water ski rounds with this dragonfly showed up. Change the camera settings, find focus, a couple tries and here we are. I love catching dragonflies in flight.

1st Runner Up

A long exposure of the Bow River.

Image of the Month

I was struck by this one as soon as I saw the roll of negative film pulled from the developer tank. Some of you know I share images on VERO. This one got posted there and has done quite well, with a number of nice comments. 

There's been lots of long exposure photography lately, and I'm just loving it!