More Fish Creek, with some red, and bridges

Here are some more of the shots from the recent Fish Creek photo ramble. Because I know you never get tired of red.

I hung around for a while, trying to get better light on those orange leaves, but it never happened. That's the way it goes sometimes.

Here's a couple warm up shots of the bridges. You get another view of this bridge tomorrow.

Keep this shot in mind for tomorrow as well.

You know how during the winter the weather forecasters here like to give us hope? The weather will be cold and crappy, but a week out they say it will be plus one and nice. That nice day stays there, a week out the entire winter. I don't know if they do it as a public service, trying to cheer us up. Or maybe they're just cruel, I don't know.

The last several weeks have been very un-Calgary weather. The forecasters are already getting into the game. It seems like there's just a few more days of cool rainy weather, then a few nice warm days. We've both been looking forward to those warm days so we can both enjoy the dahlias a little more, if they make it, and the bees can top of their winter supplies. Linda wants to do some fall planting and put the garden to bed, and has been waiting for some nicer days, those promised sunny days. But I think they're done.

I'm so glad I went down to Fish Creek on the spur of the moment. I've already started looking at image of the month, and I can hint that several from that walk will be featured. One of them, nobody but Linda has seen.

I found the red!

Not just red, a few bushes or leaves here or there, but RED!

I spent much of my grade school years growing up in Ontario. (No cheap shots from the peanut gallery about the extent of that growing up.) There are maple trees all over the place, and they explode with colour in the fall. For a while I lived near Hockley Valley road, which is near the top of everyone's lists for a scenic fall drive, and they aren't kidding. Scenic is barely adequate, spectacular is a better word. I didn't know how good I had it.

Calgary in the fall is orange and gold and yellow and evergreen green. It's beautiful, stunning even, if you get the right light and background. Like this,

Or this.

But red is rare. Until you find the ultra secret location, and you get this.

I'm seriously considering getting this printed big. Really big. Then stare at it on the cold white winter days that are coming.

150 to 600, or the behemoth

If you've been keeping up you know a buddy has lent me a Tamron 150-600 mm lens to see if I like it enough to buy. It weighs a ton, but is half way to being a telescope, and that's on my full frame camera. On my old T6 it would turn into 250-960 mm lens. I'll have to try that sometime.

These are the first mostly serious photos. I think one is cropped slightly just to get the horizon level, but the rest are as is. The point here wasn't to get artistic photos (It just KILLS me not to crop those two poles out of the first one!), it was to get a sense of what the lens would shoot, and what the photos would look like for colour and sharpness. All of them are hand held, with minimal processing in Lightroom.

In one sense, it was a bad day for this, and you'll see why shortly. The construction photos are from the ring road. These first two are from the top of the sound barrier near 130 Ave looking west at the new intersection. First at 150 mm, then 600 mm. You can see how much closer the lens takes you. I'm not sure how far away that bit of scaffolding is, but it's down the sound barrier and across 4 lanes of highway and a bit of a median, plus a construction zone.

These are from just before the bridge on 37th St, looking mostly south towards the new bridges over Fish Creek.

These next ones are in about the middle of the zoom range, where the lens ought to perform the best. Yes, there's a hill. Yes the bright hazy sun washes out the yellow a bit.

This is from 146th Ave, what used to be a little known or travelled short cut to 22X. I've ridden my bike past here a great many times, but without this view. They cut down all the trees to build the highway. Now I wouldn't dream of riding my bike here. This is at 150 mm. Note the excavator bottom centre.

From the same vantage point, this is the skyline at 150 mm.

This is why it's a poor day to test a lens. From the same spot at 600 mm. Look at the haze! This is even with more processing than the rest of the photos to try to reduce the haze.

The excavator looks sad sitting there all by itself. Same one as a couple photos ago, at 600 mm.

All the rest of the equipment is neatly lined up in a herd.

Then down into Fish Creek park near bridge 2, just to see how the lens deals with green and water, though there isn't much water just now. The first is at 150 mm from the bridge, then the same rocks at 600 mm.

Bridge 2 from the bend in the river downstream. Some of you might remember several winter shots from a little over a year ago, three different lens at 3 different distances. This is about the same place as the last shot in that blog, only a bit to the right and a few feet higher. I tried a panorama at 600 mm, but but goofed. Next time. It would be a whole lot easier on a tripod. There's some haze showing up in this shot as well, and the direct overhead light sucks for colour.

This is the part of the bridge at 600 mm that is almost in focus. I got rid of most of the haze in Lightroom.

Even at low water, the stream is pretty.

I hung around for a while looking for dragonflies, but they were too quick for me. Lots of wildlife photographers carry around a big lens so they don't frighten their subject. This is the only bird I saw the entire time. Then again, it wasn't the best time for birding.

The toughest target in all of these. Embiggen and look at the terminator line. There are craters! This is uncropped, on a hazy morning, no tripod but resting on a support, 600mm, ISO 6400, f 6.3 (I think that's the fastest the lens is at that zoom), 1/25 of a second. If you look really carefully you can see some stars. As I've said before, the moon is a tough target. I'll have to work on this more on a less hazy night.

This is a tough lens to hold up to your face for any length of time. I might need to start pushing some weights at Repsol, instead of just hitting the pool, if I'm going to do some serious shooting with it.

July image of the month.

It's been a busy month. In addition to the work thing, I had several photoshoots, including a pancake breakfast, a triathlon, and a couple photo rambles of my own. By my own rules, the events someone has asked me to shoot don't count towards photo of the month. Well, maybe if it was extraordinary.

I've really been looking forward to this long long weekend. One of the top things on the list is to get the image of the month posted. Here's the contenders. I sometimes post it in advance to build the anticipation, but you get it all at once. Maybe don't scroll down instantly, and let the suspense build. Of course there's lots of flower shots, being busy with work and not being able to get out as much as I'd like.

Second runner up. I tried a bunch of shots shooting the light through the blossoms, and I think this is the one that turned out best, though some of the yellow lilies were right up there as well. For some reason the red of the day lilies comes out really well on screen, but the red of the peony doesn't. Plus the background in the evening light really pleased me. You'd never know there's a truck in it.

First runner up. These dark lilies are difficult to shoot, especially the shadowed side. The morning light just caught the tips of the blossom, and there was enough light to capture the texture of the blossom without washing out the dark colour. The yellow background for contrast worked out just like I hoped.

And the winner! It looks like a panorama but it's not. It's just the way I cropped it to get rid of an ugly sky. This was during a photo ramble with Sean, taken not far from Chain Lakes. I love how the morning sun has illuminated that patch of fog, and the gently rolling landscape. The power lines hinting at the curve of the shadowed road, and the patch of sun in the upper third adding interest to the shadows.

As always, it's a difficult choice. The flowers are mostly eager to please, trying to show off as best they can. Well, not the dread Alberta Rose, it swears at me when I try to photograph it. I try to get out every day and see what's new, to capture it before the next hail storm comes along. We've had two big ones now, and a few lighter sprinkles. The garden has taken a bit of a beating, but it mainly affects the flowers in full bloom. Most of the buds are ok, so we'll be getting more blooms soon. The dahlias are still on track. I'm sure the bees can't wait for them, and me neither.

Did I miss your favourite? Not all of the ones in contention have been blogged yet, so if there's one (or more) you particularly want to see bigger, be sure to mention it to me.

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.

A polyptych for you

There was a photo ramble today with my buddy Sean starting at the traditional time of oh-dark-30. Exactly so, as it turns out.

It's easy to tell where we started. Just behind us was a medium sized motorhome that was rocking a little as we pulled up. Sorry buddy if we interrupted something. Yes, my version of these photos have stars.

We had a lovely drive down sort of towards Chain Lakes, and stopped several times when the mood or view took us. Sean has talked several times of how images placed near each other provide context, and one has to consider the relationship between them. I finally got it, on a simplistic level today with these two images. Neither works particularly well alone, but together I was quite charmed. Yes, the two are looking at each other. It's kind of a pity my blog format doesn't really let me display photos side by side. You'll just have to arrange them that way in your mind.

This will amuse several of my readers, if they look closely. Of course there was coffee in it.

The light was kind of odd, mixing in with some mist on the ground, and some atmospheric haze to producing some ugly sky in the HDR shots. So ugly I took it right out of several of the shots. This is the only one where I left it in, since it's at least a little bit believable.

These were tough edits, and I'm still not entirely pleased with what the camera captured as opposed to what my eyes saw. I was thinking of the fog shots in Arrival, and trying to go for the same thing.

I'm not sure if I should show this photo. This is merely a scouting photo. I think in the right light it will be stunning. I'll have to return to this.

Finishing with the traditional Alberta landscape canola shot, and then breakfast in Turner Valley.

Over breakfast we spoke, as always, of many things. One of them was the apparent waning popularity of blogging, and if blogging was easier in retirement. I suspect it is. In any case Sean wondered if my blogging frequency had changed. As it turns out, I'm blogging a little more frequently than my traditional blog every day and a half.

........................................Blogs...........Days......................Days per blog
Oct 27, 2007 to today....2755............3921...........................1.42
2017 (mostly retired).......322..............365............................1.13
May 2018 to today............69.................82............................1.18

I strongly suspect my word count per blog is way down, so the fans of my wall'o-text blogs are likely pining a little. Yearning for the days of a rip snorting rant. And what are they getting? Flower shots. They probably think I've gone soft and they've defected to some red meat blog.

As I said, a perfectly lovely morning.