A much needed restorative day

If you were paying attention yesterday you will know I stated an intention of sleeping in. This is one of the limitations of text. You probably did not get the impression that plan was as solid as the foundations for a great big dam.

It's been a busy few weeks at work, and stuff on the weekends, plus a raspy throat that didn't turn into a cold, but really took it out of me.

So I intended, so I did. I didn't actually sleep all that much later than usual, and I was up at the usual time, but I drifted off again. Being able to lie there, thinking inchoate thoughts that occasionally rose to the level of semi-coherence, not having to get up, is wonderful.

Up. Coffee. Sitting outside in the shade, watching the bees already hard at it in the garden. Massaging the novels more, Curtis glaring at me through the window. Knowing I didn't have to get up and actually do anything till I felt like it.

Then this happened. I'd got the kit last week, but didn't get around to it till today. My bike will join hers when it returns.

BBQ chicken in a specialty marinade, on fresh buns, outside in the beautifully warm day. Not hot, just a nice warm day, with a slight bit of a breeze.

Some errands, then a walk through Fish Creek. Through, as in, my feet were wet, and the water was delightful. I sat in the shade at one point listening to the river do it's thing. So peaceful and soothing. Hardly anyone was around. I contemplated the bicycle infested with weeds, thinking of how it came to be here, wondering if some poor kid was missing their bike and saving up their allowance to get another.

No idea what I'll do what I hit publish on the blog, but it will almost certainly involve a glass of wine.

What happens under bridges

Most of us never think about bridges, other than crossing them on the way to where ever we're going. Almost nobody thinks about the underside of them, but sometimes they make for interesting photos.

This is one of the older bridges in Calgary, and the lowest. It's only 2.0 m clearance (6'6"). There are several signs about the lack of overhead, and yet there are still mishaps. On the day I took this, a tall cube van was doing an 11 point turn on one side of it, while drivers going either way waited patiently. That's better than the alternative for all involved. The driver had the grace to give the other drivers an embarrassed wave when he finished. Several people have tried to drive bigger vehicles under there and it worked out about like you'd expect.

There's a famous bridge in Durham county, North Carolina. It's informally called the can opener. Google 11foot8 and prepare to be amused. Thats 3.56 m, so I guess it's just high enough that people think their vehicle will fit. I wonder how many drivers have been fired over the years.

The graffiti is what caught my eye. It's actually fairly far from the path, and the river is lower than the path. I'm just guessing that some kid either scrambled out on the girders and painted with one hand, or they somehow used a ladder.

This was meant to be an arty shot of icy reflections. If there'd been 3 rocks in an artistic triangle I'd have  been a lot happier with it, but I wasn't about to hump 2 more rocks onto the bridge just to drop them.

You can see that same rock off in the distance. This is the pedestrian bridge over the Elbow, between 9th ave and the Bow river. I like the nice clean lines, unlike the cluttered mess of the first bridge. The only difficulty was essentially standing on some homeless person's front porch. There is a bit of an alcove in the bridge structure where someone has been sleeping.

I like that there is space for people to take in the view without getting in the way of people that are just passing through. Looking to the left in this photo is where Elbow joins the Bow. I suspect that there are some nice photos to be had there, if the light is right. The ones I got were blah.

There's lots of bridge construction happening. Closest to home are new bridges over Fish Creek  and the Elbow for the ring road, along with lots of interchange bridges. Crowchild trail is being widened and about time too, that's been a major bottleneck for decades. Macleod trail has a recently completed (I think) double diamond bridge at 162nd, and a new bridge for the ring road.

Construction is supposed to start on 9th Ave over the Elbow going into Inglewood, which is going to be interesting to see how they do it. Unlike the recently opened zoo bridge, they can't close off 9th Ave for two years of construction. Can they? There's some vacant land nearby, maybe they'll build the new bridge there, then one weekend remove the old bridge and lift the new one in place. That would be cool to watch. Let's just hope the engineers do their sums correctly, and it doesn't turn out like that pedestrian bridge over Shaganappi Trail that was 11 cm too short.

It's not really a bridge, but there's lots of work happening on the deck of the Glenmore dam so the bike path is closed for a couple years. It's not really a bridge, but there's a BRT underpass being built at 14 St and 90 Ave.  Those are just the ones I know of off hand, without doing any research. There are probably more, and that's not even talking about road widening and other construction projects.

In the mean time, getting anywhere is going to take longer. For obvious reasons the construction companies restrict access to the building site, and that means lane closures or restrictions. This just sets off the road rage idiots, who feel that it's all happening just to inconvenience them personally. It's probably going to surprise a few distracting driving idiots who think they can do their normal social media thing as they drive and realize too late the lanes have changed. I feel for the people around them.

A winter skyline

Like I say, fall is Calgary's best season. When I left to go to Yukon for a week in September it was summer. When I got back it was fall. It's been fall, more or less, till today. Today is winter. Snow.

I dropped Linda downtown, did some cameraing, then had a minor appointment. (Hint, I'm not deaf.) The roads were already greasy and I could see where a few people had given themselves or the drivers around them a thrill. It's only got worse since.

Two views from Enmax Park. Downtown in the snow.

The backside of my buddy Jeff's sculpture. I almost like the metal supporting rods more than the actual front of it.

Two views of the new zoo bridge. I snuck these in since the first blog about the zoo bridge didn't get that many readers.

Another snowy view of downtown. The geese were not interested in it, or in me. A few looked at me as I walked past them, but they didn't even waddle away. Safety in numbers or something. I like how the buildings were just fading in and out of visibility.

In the inevitable news department, I no longer have a living grandparent. My mom's mom passed away earlier today. I had begun to mentally compose a blog about being 60 and still having a grandparent alive, wondering how many other people could say that. A good blog idea down the drain.

Still, she outlived her life expectancy at birth by more than 30 years, and came THAT close to making 100. My mom is already well past her life expectancy at birth, (though she is only 29, somehow). According to stats Canada I'm going to kick off any time in the next decade or so. Bah! I say BAH! I'm going to be around and inflicting this blog on you for many decades yet to come.

A day walk with a bridge reveal

I was out for a wonderful photo ramble today. The zoo bridge was opening, Linda had a course at the zoo, so I figured park there, and ramble while she coursed. It worked out fairly well, including a bunch of shots, a lamb naanwich at Blue Star Diner, and 12 K of walking to burn it off again.

This is not the bridge that opened, though it is revealed in a different light than Neil's famous shot that includes the holiday train. I have my suspicions about exactly how he did it, but mum's the word.

 He had talked about rail safety, and this is why. It is surprisingly easy for a train to sneak up on you. I'm on the other side of a fence here.

I happen to know there are several other trees to keep this one company, and they all get a good view from up there.

A moose!

Thursday night this is what we saw when exploring the zoo bridge.

Today is a different story.

It's a lovely bridge! Lots of room for cars, bikes, pedestrians, and a horse drawn buggy. This is Calgary, after all.

Even the underneath is nice.

The beginning of the Fish Creek photo deluge

Today I was down near the Fish Creek Learning Centre, or Shannon Terrace, whatever you want to call it. The first thing I found was the typical flood just near the washrooms. Of course I had to shoot it as a reflection shot.

These are near bridge 2. I was strolling around trying out some new camera equipment by shooting scenes I was pretty familiar with. I'm really pleased so far!

Reflection shots are fun, though during the summer it's tough because the slightest breeze will create ripples. Warm weather in winter is a different story, and we get a lot of it. You can get a skim of water so thin the wind doesn't really catch it, and it makes a lovely mirror. I didn't even think about walking on the ice.

The related problem of course, is the risk of slipping on patches of ice on land. I had a bit of a teeter tooter moment once when I stepped on what I thought was soil, and it was a layer of mud on ice. Even the pavement was covered is a frozen skim of ice as I was heading back, and I watched one guy go for a bit of a ride.

There's a bunch of other photos that will show up on the blog, and I'm going for a walk (with traction aides!) in Fish Creek with a buddy on Tuesday, so I'm suspecting the whole week will be full of Fish Creek. I'll try to make them interesting for you.

A Fish Creek reflective walk, part 2

The first photos from yesterday's walk were posted here, check them out if you haven't seen them. Here's some more of them. No feet got wet during this walk.

You could be forgiven for thinking this is an iceberg.

Bridge 10

Bridge 11

Bridge 11 again, slightly different vantage point, different lens. Which do you prefer?

Cameraing on the Bow

I first heard that word from one of my photo buddies, and I've come to love it. Being out and taking photographs is far more than just the click of the shutter. There are many activities involved, and cameraing is a great word for the whole package. Walking around, looking at where you want to be, thinking of which lens to use for that shot, the various settings for the photo you want, enjoying the scenery, and chatting to whoever might happen to be around.

One of the interesting things about Calgary is that the downtown skyline is visible from almost all directions, and from surprisingly far away. Today I was strolling along the Bow river and found these shots.

It was a lovely afternoon, even if it snowed briefly.  The light came and went. I hung around for a while waiting for the trees to light up here, but they never did and I eventually moved on.

The formal name for this is Sapper's Bridge. That might tell some of you where I was.

I suspect the people living on the west side of those apartments pay extra rent for the view. I'd love to visit someone that lives there.

There was a big cloud building over downtown, which made for an interesting contrast. Trying to get it all in took a bit of work.

I've got a bit of a thing about these memorial benches. I like to photograph them, and the view they get. Sometimes it's not possible, and I'll settle for a photo of them, but I try to get interesting angles. I'm almost tempted to go back to this bench and tweak the shot a bit more. There is a hair more space between the top of the bench and the bottom of the skyline than I wanted.

Harvest moon meetup

Some of you know my buddy Neil Zeller, the famous Calgary photographer. I actually knew him from before his photography career, when he was the famous Calgary barefoot runner. Every year about this time he does a photowalk. The idea is to show up with your camera, stroll around cameraing, and chat with other people interested in photography. There are about 70 people in the group photo Neil took.

I've been to several of these now, and they're lots of fun. This year I ran into several people I already knew in person, a few that I knew on social media, and a few people new to me. I got several nice compliments on this blog, thank you very much.

Normally I'm out shooting by myself, waiting for the light to be the way I hope for it to be, or strolling along however seems good to me. I can set up where I want to be, subject to safety and consideration of other people that are using that area. Every now and then I've been out with other individuals or small groups, and that's fun too. It's interesting to see what other people shoot and how they go about it. It's quite the change to be around so many people holding cameras all at once.

If you're on Instagram you can see the other photos by using the hashtag #neilzeller. I wasn't in a moony mood, if you'll forgive the phrase. I was more interested in lights reflected on the river. Editing night shots is a little interesting because of the difference in what our eyes see, and what the camera sees. As you edit, the program often assumes you want it to look like daylight, which increases the noise and often looks terrible. But we know it's dark, and I like to edit the photos so they are somewhat dark as well. I try to replicate the colour of the sky, and bring up the reflections in the water.

Some people are playing with composite shots, where they take one photo exposed for the scene with the moon a blinding white ball, then another with the scene really dark so the moon is properly exposed. Then if you properly placate the Photoshop demons, you get an image with both the moon and the scene properly exposed. I haven't done that.

Here's some of my shots.

Courtesy of Brad from Canon Canada, I got a chance to shoot a Canon 6D Mark II. Wow! I am seriously tempted. It feels great in my hands, and once I brought Lightroom up to date, the photos look terrific.

It wasn't a late night at all, even by my standards. I was thinking about doing some more shooting afterward, but headed home. Then darned if I couldn't sleep. My mind was full of photography projects, potential macro shots, a shopping list, and all sorts of photo related stuff. It took a long time to get to sleep.

Another park of colour

You're probably all sick of the colourful Yukon photos, so I'll give you a break. You get Bow River and Fish Creek colours! I was a few minutes early to meet up with a buddy for coffee, so I strolled along the Bow River a bit, loving the reflections of the fall colours in the water.

Later I was down in Fish Creek for a walk near bridge 7. Not in the creek like I've done other times, just around it. This view is looking south east. You'd almost never know there was a major road, a railway track, a light rail track, a small creek, several good sized parking lots, and lots of other stuff related to being within a big city.

This is not bridge 7.

This is bridge 7. Look at the colour reflected in the water!