Another retirement, not me this time

The important news of the day is that the hot tub at Repsol is working again. That and the training pool were out of action for maintenance. It has to happen, and this is a good time of the year to do it, but me and my creaky muscles missed the hot tub.

The surprise news of the day was to wander in well past the usual time to see one of my early morning buddies in there. We worked at Talisman at the same time, but not together. Both of us were contractors at SI and met at one of their functions. Then I'd run into him about weekly in the hot tub. Both of us in the same industry, we chatted.

Anyways, his company was bought and he took a package and he is now retired. Summer was essentially vacation. Now they've got some travel booked over the fall, and are planning more over the winter. We chatted a bit about the retired life and exchanged contact info so we could meet up again if we wanted. Us retired folks have to stick together.

So after the hot tub I was in for a swim, 500 m in 9:20, feeling pretty good. Unlike last week where the same distance was 10 minutes and badly out of breath. I added in some water yoga and water running and all was good.

Next was new shoes! Check them out. My buddy Richelle at Try-It was happy to sell me a pair and I can't wait to try them out.

Back to the retired thing. My buddy isn't sure he's going to stay in Calgary. There's a few places he doesn't want to go, he knows that and I agree with him. But there's a few others he's not so sure about.   Our plan has been to stay here till we're forced out, mainly because we can't face moving all our stuff.

But here's a view of Calgary that someone driving here might see, if they were taking a scenic route. Both of these are a moderate zoom of the behemoth lens. I get a kick out of how many places one can see the skyline from, and from how far away. This is light haze, by recent standards.

Another behemoth shot. Full on 600 mm, no cropping. It's a boring shot though, because our eyes can see it just about this well, and there's nothing around it to indicate scale or add interest. More learning.

Tree, meet moon

It's just on full moon again. I only noticed as I was walking home from the photo gig the other night, and noticed a neat juxtaposition between a tree and the moon.

Then the next night I was out again hunting a nice sunset (no such luck) and saw another one. I kind of like the idea of a tree holding up the moon, or reaching for it.

I didn't think it was terribly murky here yesterday, but sometimes you notice it most at sunrise and sunset.

You can see why I thought the sky might light up, but this is as good as it got. There will be other sunsets.

Yesterday was summer. I was out for a lovely hot sweaty run in about 23 C sunniness. That was 6 K in 43:40. I'd been sort of hoping for 7 K, and might have been able to grind it out, but I think it was better to stop before I had to stop. Today it's cold and raining, but the pool was the same temperature as always. I'm not sure if the run took more out of me than I thought, but I felt a bit short of breath in the pool compared to recent swims. I took it easy and did some drill stuff.

The full moon. Oops.

Sunday night I was out trying to shoot the full moon rising over downtown. Again. It didn't go as well as I had hoped, mainly because I blew the settings. As you can see, the moon is so bright it was just a disc of white light. There is no detail to be recovered through Lightroom mad skillz. I thought I had dialled down the exposure to balance the lights of downtown and the moon, but not enough. It's a tricky balance, and maybe I was trying for too much, I was letting the camera take a bunch of shots in a row, with the idea of maybe assembling a movie. I should have realized with the clouds that wasn't going to work and changed course.

Just as a thing to mess with Facebook, here's the photo I like better, and then the one that is a technical failure.

There was a win, though. I did my research and picked the spot to shoot from to get a shot of the moon rising over downtown. I figured from my vantage point it would appear to the side of Banker's Hall, and go over the tower. I wasn't sure if I'd get the moon right above the tower. You can see the clouds that the moon is disappearing into, and it did. The show lasted maybe 5 minutes.

I didn't hang around to see if the clouds would clear up. There was a nasty cold wind and I was freezing. I guess there was another win, though. I was there to see it, and I'll remember the big yellowy moon right between the buildings and the tower. I was out trying to get the shot.

I had the 6D on a tripod with the 70-200 lens aimed at downtown. At the same time I had the 24-70 on the T6 and was shooting some sunset and cloudy colours shots that turned out ok, considering I wasn't in a good spot for seeing the sunset. As well, here's the 6D set up ready to go.

Plus, as a consolation prize for scrolling through photos that are at best documentary, here's Celina!

Playing with the clouds, and cats

Everybody loves brilliant flaming sunrises or sunsets. But I was looking out at sunset earlier this week, and wondering how the new camera would capture the subtle cloud colours and textures.

The moon is always hard. Here's it's just beginning to emerge from the clouds, but I was mainly trying to see if I could get both the moon and the bit of colour all into the same shot, along with some of the shades of blue.

Curtis is just so impossibly cute. It was only after I walked away I realized I should have done a video to see if it would pick up the little snores and grunts.

I disturbed Celina's beauty sleep. "The Cat Judge shall hear of this!"

With Linda being away, both cats have tried 'helping' with various tasks. I'm not sure why they thought operating the track pad with their head was a good idea. Cats are mysterious. In any case, they offered a great many editorial comments.

These are iPhone photos.

A tree, twice. Thoughts. Hints.

You might be thinking, that tree looks familiar. It should, for people that have been reading my blog for a year or more.

My eyes saw a slightly hazy moon behind the tree, and I knew it would be a tough photo, but I zoomed out anyways. Several lenses and several shots later on each, I had this. I like how it's lit up by both the little more than half moon, and the streetlight across the road. The house isn't quite that yellow, but such is the price of getting the rest of it looking nice. I think the brightness of it balances the darkness of the rest of the image.

Here's the photo of the same tree a year or so ago. One of the nicer sunrises, even by the standards of the last little while.

Today was a thoughtful day, mostly. I think that people need some time to be quiet and think about whatever pleases them, and today was it. There was some time editing my various written works, fixing things that baffle me I could have written in the first place, and not noticed in the various re-reads. There was some time thinking about where I want to go with photography, and what, if anything, to do about equipment. All this was while Curtis was purring in time with my thoughts.

It's kind of cool out today, and I was feeling like a bit of a weenie so I didn't run. I can console myself that I had a really good swim and water run yesterday. Today was about 45 min easy spin. From there I crossed a few things off my to-do list.

There's been a few more entries in my contest, but no correct entries so far. One great idea for a macro photo session, so thank you there. There was a suggestion about hints, so I did one here. Here's another one - look at this recent blog post carefully. That should give you some ideas.

You didn't expect an apple

Winter has arrived, snow and all. We can't complain; it's been a wonderful long autumn in Calgary. We've had some spectacular sun rise and sun sets, and I captured some lovely fall-coloured landscapes. Things are just a bit whiter today, but there's still colour.

Our neighbour's tree still has some apples on it. Most have been picked by birds, or fallen off, but a few are still hanging in there. I'm not sure what kind they are, but they are tasty.

The deal on Facebook is B&W, no people, no explanation. You'll see a few more of mine over the next week or so. This isn't Facebook, so you get an explanation. Nobody was out in this if they had any choice about it. I was leaning on my front steps and deliberately going with a bit of a long exposure, trying to capture the motion of the wind and snow. I didn't mind if the camera moved slightly.

Along the way I got this nice serene half moon photo. A bit later was a nice sunset. That cloud amused me, looking sort of like a giant moustache.

Here's part of that sunset you haven't seen yet. I was quite taken with that grouping of trees and the yellow backdrop.

This is such a durable flower it will stay in bloom all winter.

I've spent some time today watching Thomas Heaton videos. I just loved how he responded to a guy complaining about water drops on his lens during a stormy shoot. He quickly said that of course there were spots, and that technically it wasn't a perfect image, but so what? He goes on from there, you can hear him say it better than I could repeat. 

It's another step along the way of thinking about what I'm taking photos of, how exactly, and why. A work in progress.

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.

Programming disrupted by colour

Full moon was yesterday evening (Saturday) at 10:07pm.  I'd scoped out a couple places to (try to) get a shot of the moon emerging from the murk. There's a nice spot in Fish Creek where I think moonrise would have been near the new hospital. Or I could head to the close in NW, and try for the moon rising over downtown. By the end of the day in this heat was not feeling the love for driving anywhere even in a car with air conditioning.

I'd done a little stroll in the green space and got a look at the sky. Wow! There's some smoke in the air from the fires in BC. I started taking photos of it, and mostly gave up on the moon. The action was in the west. I mean, look. There were a few shots from the green space that were ok.

I was really liking the shadow lines in the sky. Then I zipped up to the pedestrian bridge and took a big drink of the colour and forgot about the moon for a while.

A little later.

The hard part about sunrise and sunset is knowing when the show is over. One can wait, of course, but often there are competing urges. Some that are difficult to deal with on a pedestrian bridge above a busy road, with homes only a few yards away. I was really eager to see the photos on the computer screen.

This is from the middle of the road in front of our place.

I didn't totally forget about the moon. From the night before, and last night.

Some days I shake my head at myself. This is a lovely photo, and I didn't have the wit to take the garden hose out of the water and give it a minute to settle down again. Live and learn.

Another full moon

The other day I posted a pair of shots and asked which one was the one I'd worked on. There was a nearly full moon and a peony. Not together, that would take lots of work.

One of my faithful readers suggested it was the moon, and had good reason for thinking so. But, surprise! I'd been out doing some sunset photos. Walking back to the house I looked before crossing the street, and noticed this nice moon. I stood on the street to get the shot with the tree in it just right, and took 6 shots right after the other. No change to the setting, just trying to hand hold the camera still. Total elapsed time about 50 seconds.

The peony, on the other hand. I was lying on my tummy, rolling around like beached whale, trying different angles and settings, trying to get the background blur right, and catch the light glinting off the spider web under construction. I gave up on that last one.

The other night was the full moon and I was out trying again. This time I used a little piece of cedar mulch to prop up the camera lens on the lattice fence. I was playing with settings again for a bunch of shots, and finally ended up with this. Different tree this time.

A no-thought, and lots of thought shot

Sometimes there are photos you don't think about. You look, click the shutter and move on, only to have them turn out well, or better than well. Maybe it's the last shot when you're freezing your tail off, or you turn around and see it. Maybe it's just when you're setting up, waiting for the light, and you click off a few shots just to test the settings.

Sometimes you work at it, finding the composition, getting the camera settings just right, trying different angles, working on getting the light right, and eventually you get a photo that works. Or you get tired of playing with it and take what you get.

It sometimes reminds me of the zen cat artist. I'll tell you the story. Once upon a time a wealthy art patron approached an artist and asked for a drawing of a cat. The artist took his fee and asked him to come back later that month. It wasn't done. The artist kept putting off the patron again and again. Eventually the patron demanded the drawing of the cat he had paid for, or the return of his money. The artist reached for his brush and dashed off a drawing. The patron was amazed. It was everything he had hoped for. Every line, every space between the lines, the very paper screamed cat-ness. The patron demanded to know why he had been put off so long when the drawing only took a moment. The artist didn't say anything, just opened the door to the other room, a room filled with hundreds and hundreds of drawings of cats.

Here's a pair of shots. Neither are going to have other photographers dying of envy. Neither is likely to be the photo of the month, but they weren't ignored. One is close, one is far. Both are reasonably well composed, technically ok photos, though they are nearly at the limits of the equipment involved. You might like one or the other or both.

But tell me, which was the just look and shoot, and which one was the fussy play with it shot?

Went for a sunrise, and

I got this instead. There was the faintest of rosy glows along the poles that I wish I could highlight a bit more, or wait till the sun was up a hair more, but that moon moves pretty fast.

That location wasn't working out for sunrise so I moved down the road a bit, and got a really nice landscape that has someone so excited they want to buy a print. Yay! So I'm not going to show you that one just yet.  You get this one instead.

There was a slightly earlier shot of this that had lovely pink clouds over the mountain. Unfortunately, that turned lurid on the computer. Really lurid. Won't be showing you that one.

In other photo news I tried sunset from the Anderson Pedestrian bridge, but that was bleah. The view isn't as good as I remember it being, so I probably won't shoot there again. I'm still thinking of an equinox shot tomorrow, and am willing to meet up with anyone else interested.

In fitness news I was out for a lovely run with BRBE today in South Glenmore park. People are ready and past ready for spring. I was hoping for shorts and a tech shirt sort of run but we were just a bit early for that, so tights and a light jacket were perfect. A few people were doing shorts, but they didn't look happy. I'm glad we got the run done then, it's become really windy this afternoon. That doesn't slow down the BBQ bison burgers, though!

Yesterday got my swim groove back on, right in the middle of a swim. Last Wednesday was a basking shark sort of day. I'm ashamed to say how slow it was. Friday started sort of rocky and clunky and about 400 m in something clicked and I found the groove. The first 500 m was 9:25 or so, and the overall swim was 18:10, so I seriously negative split that. The second 500 (does complicated math) was 8:45. There was a guy in the next lane trying to race me every now and then. Wearing fins. Sorry guy. Maybe if he swam with his hands instead of his elbows he'd go faster.

Deeply involved in this book. Deeply.

Two views

From the top secret photo location this morning, one looking one way, one looking the opposite way. I'm sure you can figure out which is which. I hope.

Preparing for the heat wave

One needs to pay attention to the weather here. It's been in the deep freeze for weeks, and there's a ton of snow for Calgary. Here I am, digging my way to the BBQ. It's going to be warm enough to turn it on somewhere in the next few days, and by golly, I'm going to. I think there will be chicken burgers.

Access is clear. Ready for ignition.

There was a full moon the other day, and I tried again to capture it. Although it looked clear to my eyes, there seemed to be some light cloud that was messing things up. Sigh. The only reason I include it is that I liked the tree or bush branches supporting it. Look carefully.

While I'm in a moony mood, here's one from the day before.

Lastly, I wonder what Curtis is really thinking.