The Fish Creek Tree

Here is a new year, well underway. Sunny, starting cold but getting warmer. News flash! Calgary is no longer colder than either of the poles. People have been emerging from their homes, blinking at the light, and trundling around without quite so many layers on.

The pool has been quiet my last few visits, but today is getting back to the usual form. A few new people but I don't know if they are resolutionistas or what. A couple swim clubs were in, but they seemed sort of half hearted about the whole thing. Maybe the coach is just getting them back into the groove to start working off the Christmas flub.

I certainly need to do that. Holy Doodle! Dialling back on the run might have been good to give my legs a rest, but it's been bad for the gut flub. Starting to work it off. We should have given more of the GF cookies to BRBE. She has the discipline to freeze some, hide some, and ration them out. Not me. I see cookie, I eat cookie. But so far this year I've been to the pool twice, and I've been out for two photo walks (see below.)

I took this photo a while ago, and I've been meaning to put it into a blog, but somehow other, older photos have been muscling it aside. Yes, still working on the photo review. This isn't of anything in particular. It's just pretty, or I think so. I like the colours gradually fading into one another. You can try to guess what the base image is, if you like.

Fish Creek is an interesting park. The west end, closest to where I live, is hilly and thickly wooded with evergreens. It is stunningly beautiful any time of year. There are some meadows here and there if you know where to find them.

The east end is more of a plain, wide open grasslands. A couple times riding my bike home from work I've struggled through that area, head down into the wind, churning along at a mighty 15 KpH. A couple times I've baked my brains out 'running' the last leg of a half iron down there.

Along the way is one tree out in the middle of the plain. I've looked at it many times as I've run or rode my bike past it, and have wondered about it's suitability as a photo subject. I wonder no longer. I shall return.

It snowed. I swam

They said 10 to 20 cm. More like 10 inches arrived here.

Typical carnage ensued. I shovelled last night, and I shovelled again this morning. Then off for a lovely swim in a nearly empty pool, thinking stroke thoughts. My golf score is 81. I haven't done that for a while, and there is a person deeply interested in that number. A goal for them, I think.

The funny thing was me lounging in the hot tub when a bunch of the swim club kids arrived. They'd been given a break, and didn't want to stand around getting cold. They'd barely sat down with their coach showed up to hustle them back to the pool for something. The looks on their faces!

I was out walking around a little bit. The best shot of the day (No, I'm not going to do an image of the day, or of the week feature.) happened by accident, of course. It's the first time I've got half decent bokeh with this lens.

Errands tomorrow, and a buddy photowalk on Friday! Hope the snow holds out.

Dragonflies in flight, doing

Lots of nice social media comments on the bee photo in yesterday's blog, thank you! While all that was happening I was wandering through Fish Creek again, downstream of bridge 8. That's the one just beside the LRT tracks.

I've run and biked past there many times, but never right along or through the river. The trees are beginning to turn colour, but the water is still warm and shallow. There was no plan for what I was going to shoot; I just wanted to be out in the sunshine and fresh air.

There were dragonflies! Not as many as I've seen a bit further upstream, but some. If I stood and waited, more of them would show up and fly around me. I've been reading up on dragonflies, and it says they have excellent vision. Maybe if I'm moving they see me as a threat, but standing still I'm just a strange kind of tree or something.

Standing still makes it easier to take photos, especially standing on slippery rocks in ankle deep water. Let's see what order blogger puts them. All were shot with the 70-200 mm lens, which limits how close I could get for the shots when it was resting.

Not the nicest background I admit. It was flying just above the creek, darting in and out almost faster than my eyes could follow. I took lots of shots, and almost all are rejects. Lots and lots of rejects. This is the best one for focus, and it's zoomed in a bit, which is why the background looks terrible. (1/1250 sec exposure if you're wondering what it took to get the wings captured.)

This one is slightly out of focus. The only reason I included it is that two dragonflies are flying formation. They were doing it for a while, and this is the best shot. There was a different pair doing the same thing, but no photos of them. I'm not sure what they're doing, exactly, but I have suspicions. So do you.

Two different views of this one getting some sun on a rock. I was wishing I had the 100 mm lens to get closer. I love looking at the structure of the wings.

I liked the calm reflection of the concrete pillars, and the other diagonal lines.

I'm told this is a Sandpiper, but my buddy says she isn't sure if it's a Greater, a Lesser Yellowlegs, or a Solitary. I didn't see another one around, so maybe that last one.

It's an interesting exercise, trying to stroll along, and be open to whatever might make an interesting photo. Point, line, shape, form, texture, pattern, tone, colour. Stopping often to look around. Listening to the creek as it tumbles over rocks. I liked the patterns of sunlight on the water, and how the rocks shaped the ripples in the water.

The dread Alberta rose

We have an Alberta rose just beside the garage. I'm quite sure it has plans for world dominance or something. It waves it's thorny branches in a menacing way, hoping to drag some prey in. There are roots and shoots springing up in the lawn and down the walk way between the neighbour's house a surprising distance.

Today I learned what it's role model is. The Millarville market has a rose growing beside one of the buildings. I was terrified.

Br'er Rabbit probably lives in there sometimes.

In comparison here's one of our roses. Still getting it's growth.

And another rose bud, a different one. Because I know you can't get enough.

Lastly, an arty shot. There was so much green in it, and I was looking for an alternative view. A few of you may have seen this on a Facebook groups page.

Nearly 20,000 or MacroMonday or HairyAntButts

I couldn't decide on the title.

A year ago I brought home a new Canon T6i. I've been out on any number of photo trips, some hosted by my buddy the famous Neil Zeller, some with other less famous buddies, and some by my not famous at all self. If I believe the image file numbers I've taken just under 20,000 photos this year. That comes to about 50 a day.

All the trips have been fun. The furthest is down to Waterton Park. Some of been as close as our back yard or even inside the house, but I guess they don't count as trips. But the photography itself has been more fun than I had imagined it would be. The camera sees things differently than our eyes do, which has been a learning experience in so many ways. I see the world differently now. I think about composition, and lines and shapes and colour. Even when I'm looking at a flower, I'm realizing there is stuff there I can't see. Plants are surprisingly hairy.

Lots of photos get a big X on first view and they get trashed. There's been about 1000 of them since I last deleted a bunch.
Most are so-so for whatever reason and nothing happens to them.
Some (about 4100 so far) get one star and I look at them again and decide what to edit. I might go back and edit for something else, or someone might happen to see it and like it. Hey, it's happened.
Editing a photo gives it 3 stars (Not quite 1100 of those). These are the ones I'd show people if asked. Lots make it onto the blog.
Then we get into the good ones.
There are 212 with 4 stars. These are ones I like a lot for whatever reason.
There are 55 with 5 stars. These are my WOW! shots.

You can do the math on the percentages in each group. I'm always striving to better myself, knowing that on average 1 in every 400 shots is a Wow. The more shots you take, as long as you are honing your abilities, the more good shots you'll get. You can see lots of my 4 and 5 star shots here, if you haven't looked already.

Some days are better than others. One morning I was up on Tom Campbell hill shooting skyline and I was so disappointed when I got home that only a few of them were in focus. They looked ok in camera. Turned out it was a gusty day and the tripod was moving ever so slightly. That's all it takes.

Today was a great day! I was out this morning with good light and no wind. I put all the extension tubes on the 100 mm macro lens and captured 167 shots. Some were hand held with one tube instead of three. Imagine my astonishment when my initial pass gave me 87 with one star! More than half! Of course, I downgraded some of them when I looked more closely.

I still ended up editing 20 shots, which is a huge percentage for this kind of photography. Here's a few of them, including more hairy ant butts! These are on our peonies. If you look carefully there are two different species.

Here's another random bug I found. No idea what it is.

Celina. And more flowers

Celina is quite a pretty cat, but she's a harder photograph than Curtis. She blends in to more of the backgrounds, and unless she's asleep, doesn't really sit still for me. But here you are anyways. It's only after I edited the photo that I noticed the giant thumb.

Lots of photos of the garden of course. I was thinking, after taking the photos of course, that I should have misted them with a bit of water, and then taken the photo. Maybe next time. Live and learn. Stay tuned.

Ants on the peonies are pretty reliable, and they hold still. I've been reading up on extension tubes to get more magnification. One day soon you'll see me out there the tripod, giving the peonies the giant photographic eyeball, using them as background in order to capture ants. If anyone wants in on the ant-ly action, let me know and I'll make lots of coffee.

One of my buddies is almost obsessed with photos of a flower blossom backlit by the sun, showing the delicate tracery of flower blossom stuff. The top of this tulip is strongly lit by the evening sun, and the bottom was in shade. The whole thing glowed like hot glass fresh from the kiln. Not overexposed or oversaturated, just a beautiful strong orange. I wanted to see if I could get that same effect to show up in a photo. I think this gets a passing grade, but still needs work.

This is one of the shots that happened without thinking. I was on my way somewhere else when I looked down, and loved the almost metallic sheet of the purple, and the twisted blossom shape. Click. Next. The trick was to edit to keep that shade, and not overdo it.

With the abstracts, it's not only easy, it's desirable to push the colour, push the sharpening, push everything. Nobody knows what it really is, so they can't say that looks wrong. All they can do is react to the colours, lines, shapes, and feel what the image says.

Flowers are a little tougher. There's the delicate nature of the leaves or blossoms. Plus most of us know what an orange tulip, or a red rose, or a yellow daffodil looks like, and if you push the photo too far it won't look real. It's easy to tweak it to turn a red to orange or vice versa, and much of the time nobody would know. Depending on the plant and variety, both could be natural colours.

Speaking earlier of unnatural colours, here's one of my recent abstracts.

April Image of the Month

It's that time of the month again. Here's the two runner ups, an abstract from each series that I'm working on currently.

And the image of the month!

Curtis is of course an exceptionally handsome and photogenic cat. I have have many good photos of him, but many of them are fairly easily reproducible. This one of him partially in shadow is not. I love how the morning light is strong enough to light up individual strands of his fur, but not wash out the white. This leaves a lovely shadow framing him, setting off the rich and creamy shades of orange in his fur. Even for a cat this is a thoughtful and meditative pose.

My photoblog has had a couple Gallery updates, one to the Landscapes, and one to the Skyline. I've noted a few that should be added to the Still Life Gallery. Stay tuned.

A flower, cat mood shot, and rock snot

This was a tough blog title to work. Often I'll have something happen, or someone will say something, and I'll know right then it's a blog title. There was a comment today about a great big windshield that I could have done something with, but the rock snot had to be done. Just had to.

Firstly, another bloom!

We had tons of sunshine coming into the house today, and the cats were writhing on the floor. How could I not take a photo? Or two. Or two dozen...

That last photo of Curtis and Celina did not turn anything like I expected. When I saw that line of shadow above his eyes on screen it totally changed how I was going to edit the shot. Yes, I could have brightened it up and showed the wall and floor without blowing out the white patch of fur. But no way! I love how his ears and eyes emerge from the shadow, and the sunlight picks out the highlights on his fur. Maybe you can't see that in the web version, but I sure see it in my version.

The light was interesting this morning so I had a go at some of my series one abstracts. None of them did quite what I thought they were going to do. Even so, I like the shapes here.

In comparison, here's one of the series two.

Lastly, the rock snot. I know you're all burning with curiosity. I'd never heard of it before.

This was seen during our run in Fish Creek. The weather was nice and both of us (or more importantly, our legs) felt like running. We explored the north part of the 70.3 run course, from 22X up to somewhere about the turnaround point. Lots of people out running today. I ended up 12.2 K, 1.5 hrs, 7:23 pace.

This was a happy run! It's surprising how one day you don't want to run and the next day you do. My "run" earlier in the week was a 2 K train wreak. I stopped before I was going to hurt myself. Today, 12 K nice and easy. Michelle blames her shoes and switched them up. I'm not sure what it was with me. My half marathon is June 17, so 7 weeks out, and I'm feeling apprehensive. I'd hoped to get a good training cycle done this year and maybe flirt with breaking 2 hours. No way that's going to happen. I'm going to be happy to finish and earn my cinnamon bun. The problem is, I'd told myself there weren't going to be any more races where I was going to be happy to finish.

I'm happily picking through the April photos looking for the Image Of The Month. Stay tuned.

A new series of abstracts

I've missed being alone with my camera, outside in the fresh air. What with one reason or another I haven't been able to get out much this month. Today it was going to happen rain or shine, and what do you know? It turned out nice by recent standards, meaning no snow. The light by photographic standards was nothing to write home about, but I did get some nice shots.

What has me all excited is finding a new way to create abstracts. This is fun! Here's a couple of them, let me know what you think!

This was all after a so-so swim. I've been feeling weak and feeble in the water, though my times are only a little slower than usual. This morning I was in the hot tub first for a long time. Normally I get straight into the pool, but it was really busy and I wasn't in a rush. Back into the hot tub after the swim of course. Water ran a little.

There was a bad moment going into the Farmer's Market. I was a bit early, and had my mind on coffee. (Duh!) Nobody was in Analog and for a bad moment I thought they had closed. But no, just running a little late to open, or I was earlier than I thought.

The long kiss goodbye

The lips are waving. Linda had a huge giant milestone in her working life. After 35 and a bit years, she pulled the plug (insert any number of cliches here) and handed in her retirement notice. June 9 is her last working day at the City. She will be on "vacation" for a while after that, then the retirement gig starts.

It's amazing to me, and lots of other people that someone has been with the same employer that long, but there are people at the City with more service time than that. I'd have to stop and think how many employers I've had in that time. More than a dozen in oil and gas alone, and there were several jobs before that.

Even with all the thought and planning (and teeth gritting endurance) that's gone into it, the reality hasn't sunk in yet. Changing a routine is hard sometimes, and this is a long habit. She is looking forward to spending lots of time in the garden this summer. I don't think she's going to miss work in the slightest.

My current contract will end about then, though the timing is less certain. I'm looking forward to spending lots of time on photography this summer. Maybe more of these abstracts.

First blooms!

A little Johnny Jump Up is the first bloom this year! Lots of other plants are pushing up out of the ground.

The Hens and Chicks are doing well too.

In between photos I was on the bike, on the trainer. They were only sweeping our streets today, so I guess it's time for me to put the road tire back on. 45 minutes mostly easy spin feeling pretty good.

The next wine is a Spanish Milagro. It's been fermenting and today got racked to the carboy.

Is this an abstract or a kids crayon drawing?

Photo Gallery news

I've been teasing you for a while about the possibility of a photo gallery. Zenfolio was the first suggestion, and to be thorough I looked at a bunch of others, Squarespace, 22slides, Format, Photoshelter, 500Px, 1x, Smugmug, Shutterfly, Photobucket, and probably some more. I'd go from one to the other, trying to keep track of what I actually needed now, what I might need, and what I didn't need.

I had a full scale dither happening! I couldn't make up my mind. Even reading the various 'getting started in x' didn't help encourage me to dive into a free trial. I was almost landed on 22slides, when I had a brain wave.

Why not see if the tool I already had would work? Why not indeed? I spent a happy little while puttering between templates, and thinking about layout, then pushed the button.

Basic and simple is the word. You'll see some tabs with different groups, such as Landscapes, Skyline, Cats, and some others. You'll need to go there to see them all for your self. Don't be afraid to click on the photos to embiggen them, all of them should be worth looking at big.

Go where, you ask? I'm glad you did. Here. I've also linked to it on my blogroll. Just remember Keith Cartmell Photography and it's easy. Check it out, I'll wait till you come back. There's still work to be done, and some more images to find. I'm not as consistent as I'd like to be about keywords and star ratings. Serves me right. Now I'm going to have to scroll through a great many images to find the ones I want.

That blog is going to concentrate on photography. I'll add new photos as good ones arrive. Maybe a year from now I'll wince at seeing the ones in the gallery now, but that just means I've grown. I might blog about photo adventures, or if there's a good story to tell. I'm too lazy to write the same thing twice, or even do copy paste, so I might tease you with the start of the story, and link to the other blog so you get the whole picture. I might add a couple more groups, but I'm limited on how many I can add. There's always limits; you pick the ones you want to live with.

What's going to happen with this blog? I'm not entirely sure. I've liked the idea of putting up a photo a day, and photo of the month. I might still do that. I'm pretty sure I'll continue doing rants once in a while, those seem popular. I'll babble about fitness but won't harp on it. The fitness people reading this know the ins and outs already, and the rest of you don't care that much. There might be a bit more about the writing process, and progress, or the lack of it, or the attempts at it.

Maybe it will turn into the retirement adventures of K&L. We've been good for so long, maybe it's time to cut loose, kick up our heels, and frisk off into a whole new world! Stay tuned.

Here's one of the abstracts that didn't make it into the gallery. I think of this one as a bit of an old fashioned map. Lots of mountain ranges in the darker shades, with some valley in the yellows, and a long skinny lake. Now I'm thinking about the people that could be living there, and what they'd get up to.

The passion of the cats vs human serenity

When I was out in the garden the other day revelling in the smell of spring, of wet cedar mulch, of defrosting ground, I was trying for some reflection shots of the rain chain. I've never really been entirely happy with shots of it because it's so long and skinny. But I'll keep working on it.

But I did get this shot of one of the cups in the rain chain in perfectly still water, and thought it was such a peaceful image.

I'm big on peaceful the last little while. Our lives are full of go go go. Lots of people seem to think that the world can't carry on without them involved, and it's just not true. Try the experiment. Turn off Facebook, Twitter, email, and don't answer your phone for a day. Pay attention to your kids if you have them, a spouse, your parents, your family, your friends. Take some time for yourself, too. The world will carry on without you just fine. It will never stop, and is relentless about messing with your life unless you say no, so be firm. That's before kids. Or cats that want something.

The cats are feeling their spring catnip or something. They've been eating like little fur pigs the last few days, shedding like mad, and telling us to feed them more. They are playing with each other fairly roughly, by cat standards. I was there taking photos, and am amazed anew how fast they move. In a pair of frames not shown below, Celina is ready to pounce straight up, in the next frame less than a second later, all I see is a tail at the top of the photo.

Then they played dominance games at the top of the kitty condo. The Paw made an appearance. You'll know it when you see it.

In other news, I was working on the abstracts some more. Maybe I got lucky with the experiments. Even though I used the tripod, and took some care trying to compose them, I'm not quite as happy with the results.

Here's one of the better ones, but I think still experimental. Are you interested in seeing more of these? Or would you rather see more real stuff like cats, flowers, bridges, or landscapes and such? I'll still take the photos for my own amusement, just won't put them here.