Some watery photos to cool you down

The main news is that I've finished the first draft of my next photo book. It's called Memories of Sundown at the Arctic Circle, A trip up the Dempster Highway in September 2019. Unless I come up with a better title. Right now it's 42 pages, 67 photos, several of which are panoramas taking up the entire width of the layflat book. My loyal blog readers will have seen at least some of the photos before. I need to fill out some of the stories that go with the text, but the main attraction, I hope, are the photos.

I am reminded of the 80 20 rule. During the first book I goofed on the layouts, and had lots of tweaking to do. I was more careful this time, but there's still a bit of tweaking. The whole size of the photo container vs the size of the photo is a bit of a pain in the butt.

Last week I dropped off 8 rolls of film to be developed, and as always, I can't wait to see what's on them.  While I was out and about on Canada Day with a film camera, I got asked why? The young adult couldn't get over the manual focussing, manual settings, not seeing if it was done right, waiting till the roll was done to take it out of the camera, dropping the film at the lab to be developed, waiting to get the negatives back (though I could have the developer scan them for me), scanning them myself, and then running them through Negative Lab Pro to finally, FINALLY see what is there. 

They thought it was such a hard process and took so long. But that's the point. People appreciate what they work for. There is more to photography than carrying around a camera set on auto, with the lens that someone told you was appropriate, pointed in the direction they said was a nice photo, edited by AI software.

It's been smoking hot here, and it seems everywhere else. So I thought I'd show you some photos of water captured in the last 3 months.  

1. Fish Creek in subdued light, finding out how Lomo 100 film reacted.

2. Fish Creek on a smoky day.

3. Fish Creek on Acros II film.

4. The film black and white version of #2 above.

5. Fish Creek.

6. A road trip into BC. This waterfall is just off the road to Takakkaw Falls. This is the digital version, I think I've blogged the film version that I happen to like better.

7. Takakkaw Falls.

8.

9.

10.

11.

12.

13.

14.

15. Film is Kodak Gold 200

16. Film is Kodak Gold 200

Of the Day

Driftwood (NZ)

Driftwood (BC)

Peony

Flower, One of Linda's new roses that is living near the front door.

Yukon, Miles Canyon.

Film (old) (You got lots of new film above.)

Recent books

So what has Keith been reading lately?

I saw this in the library, but already had a few things picked out already and figured I could get it on the next trip because this is a thick book. A very thick book. It might well be sub-titled 'digressionary and alternate views of history'. Lots of digressions. It's well enough written, but it's almost more conversational than anything else, having grown out of conversations between the two authors. It was still there when I dropped off some books the following week so I got it. I figured it would take a while to get through and I was right.

It's interesting, almost more a philosophy of history, but good Lord does it go on, and around and around, taking multiple runs at various events. They needed a ruthless editor.

If you saw The Good Place, which we have, and liked the bits where Chidi is explaining various philosophy points of view, then you'll enjoy this book. A fast and easy read.

There's lots of books about the 'best' or most important photos. You've probably seen them, and maybe even you've read those books. You've almost certainly seen some of the photos. Except this book doesn't show any of them. It dives a bit deeper into the photographic history, and talks about some of the other developments. (I hope you see what I did there.)

It was interesting in places, but I'm not THAT interested in the history of photography. A quick read and back it went.

So I actually met George Webber the other day. The Camera Store was hosting a seminar on black and white photography, and he dropped in. I'd read several of his books, and after the seminar made a point of telling him how much I enjoyed them. (The only thing more flattering to an author than saying you liked their book(s), is that you'd bought them, and for most, asking them to autograph it is a dream come true.) I'd been to any number of the places he had photographed, and in some cases the 'there' in the photograph wasn't there any more. We chatted about darkroom printing, and the next day I looked up his books in the library.

I hadn't read this one so I borrowed it. I've been to a few of these places, and know the names of many of them from oil and gas work. But overall it's a sad book. The future for Saskatchewan looked so bright 100 years ago. Buildings were put up, some of them quite handsome brick structures, proudly looking to the future. I've seen some of them. Then the Dirty Thirties happened, and a world war, and mechanization, and the corporateization of the family farm, and the kids moving to the big city for fame and fortune. We're left with the relics of a bygone time, slowly fading away, or falling down. 

The thought occurred to me while reading, what if a bunch of well off retired but active people moved to a small town? They bought homes and fixed them up. They brought their pension cheques and tried to spend locally. What businesses would be revitalized or be started? How many people does it take to make an economic base?

And speaking of books, my first one arrived here the other day. It's a test book, done purely to see how photos look on the printed page, and take a run through the process of putting it together. I've already started on the second one.

Of the Day

Driftwood (NZ)

Driftwood (BC)

Peony

Flower

Yukon

Film (new)

Film (old)

The hummingbird fest

Birds two posts in a row! Whodathunkit? You guys are going to be thinking I've gone over to the bird side, but not so. I've always said that I'm not particularly a wild life photographer, if the critter poses nice, I'll oblige.

This morning Celina was out on her harness, doing her vole patrol. She is a good kitty, contributing to the household economy. 4 voles so far! At the least that is fewer plant roots getting chewed by voles. Our neighbour 2 doors down has caught several voles in mouse traps, so we suspect there is a  vole colony in the yard between us. Maybe we should ask if we can let Celina roam in there.

I digress. While checking on her to make sure she wasn't tangled up on something, I noticed a hummingbird checking out the delphiniums. I'd heard one last night, but didn't see it. I watched this one then ran for the camera, since it seemed to be sticking around. 

So today you get several hummingbird photos. These are cropped way in on a 200mm lens, and the shutter speed is slightly too slow. Enjoy the uniqueness, at least. This is the first time in 3875 posts you've seen hummingbird photos.

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

Of the Day

Driftwood (NZ)

Driftwood (BC)

And a serendipity from 2019. This isn't a freelance artist, those rocks are glued or pinned in place.

Peony

Flower

Yukon

Film (new)

Medium format Acros II.

Film (old)

I actually remember taking this photo. It's probably one of the first ones where I saw composition and walked a bit to get in the right place, getting the roof aligned to the mountain. This is probably late 80's.

The owl sequence

 You read about the canola trip that was photo-bombed by a steam train. That was fun, though I'm not a train chase kind of guy. Well, for this train I am. But that was only part of the day. We got a late lunch and carried on with the tour. We eat in all sorts of places, and this was another. Let's just say Carseland is in no danger of becoming a culinary destination.

I am constantly amazed at what my fellow roadies see along the way. Often they'll say, "there's a x over there", and then they talk about the details of what it is, or what it might be, down to individual feathers. Typically I don't have a clue where it is and see nothing. All this is happening as the van is zooming down the road. "There's an owl in that tree." The van slows a bit. "It's a great horned owl, shall we stop?" Usually that's a yes, and we all get out carefully so we have a chance. Usually the owl flies away.

Or it will be a critter in the bush, or canola, or in the ditch, or on the road, or beside the railway tracks. I think it's usually between 200 m and 1000 m away. I'd be a hopeless hunter gatherer.

So there we were, zooming along. 

1. Someone spotted the owl in the barn when we were 'bring the van to a safe stop' distance away. We got out and took the first photos. This is with the 200mm lens. I didn't see the owl with my eyes at first, and then I thought it was a piece of wood sticking out. The others had better eyes and 500 or even 600mm lenses, so they can practically count feathers from here.

2. The owl promptly disappeared, flying out the other end of the shed into a grove of trees. There was no fence or a no trespassing sign, so we walked in to see if we could see the owl in the trees. I was a bit behind them, looking for a landscape or abandoned building photo, when I saw the owl flying out of the trees toward the shed. It flew directly over the other people, only a few feet over their heads. They heard nothing but saw me aiming the camera. None of them were able to catch it. I was fortunate enough to have focused the lens to about the distance to the owl, though it's slightly out of focus in these first two photos. The time stamp on the first one is 6:31:17.

.

3.  Still 6:31:17

4. Now it's flying into the shed, and about here the owl disappeared, since it was fairly dark. I didn't care. I clicked the shutter button. 6:31:18.

5. 6:31:18

6. 6:31:20 It took me a second to change from 70mm to 200 mm and find focus again. This is not cropped, so you can tell how far away I was.

7. 6:31:20

Normally I'm about trying to get the face of whatever critter is posing, but those feathers in that light are just gorgeous! On the camera I could see just enough to know it was in focus, but could only hope in Lightroom I'd be able to brighten up the shadows a bit. And so I did, but not too much. I wanted it to look like I was aiming into a dark shed, and not that I had a search light shining in there. This is cropped in quite a bit to get the feather detail.

Of the Day

Driftwood (NZ)

Driftwood (BC)

With several faces.

Peony and Film (new)

Flower, I just love the little towers the hens and chicks build to reproduce.

Yukon, The water in Miles Canyon really is that colour. I was imagining this whirlpool sucking down a paddle wheel boat.

Film (old)

Linda saying goodbye to Nefertitti just before that last visit to the vet.