The texture of water

Last week Sean and I were out for a drive to explore some countryside south and west of Calgary. We found some roads new to us, and stopped to explore a few times. It's always nice to visit with a buddy, and even better when cameras are involved. 

Yet somehow, most of my images are 'there I was and this is what I saw'. Lots of nice reflections, but not reflections of anything more interesting than cottonwood trees. We spent some time looking at a little stream, Sean working on an image of the stream curving between small trees, and me working on some rocks in the middle of the stream. I don't know how his turned out.

I'm often fascinated by how water moves over the stream bed and how light reflects off of it. This is one case where our brains see the world very differently than a camera does. I've had a few successful photos of water, but not many. The hit rate is marginally better than chasing bees or dragonflies. Which, as a note to self, I haven't yet done this year.

It's quite straightforward to take a photo of motionless water. A fast shutter speed (at least 1/1000 of a second) captures drops of water in mid splash. Under some circumstances you can even capture a selfie reflection in a drop. But that isn't how we see water. 

Slowing the shutter speed way down, leaving it open for multiple seconds, and using a neutral density filter, can turn a clear mountain stream into milk, and while that might be an interesting artistic choice, it doesn't look quite right either. 

Somewhere in between, then seems to be the ticket to give the impression of motion. Let's just say there's a lot of possible speeds between those two extremes. Then there's all the variables of exactly how much light is falling on the water, what's in the water itself, what the stream bed is made of, how fast the water is moving, if you have a tripod or neutral density filter, and probably more factors that don't come to mind at the moment.

In fact I had a tripod and filter available, but they were in the car. I was in the mood to try hand held, experimenting with camera settings to see what it looked like. I figured I could get the additional equipment if it seemed worth it.

For camera nerds, this is ISO 100, f16, 1/8, using a 70-200 lens hand held. There's a trick to making such a slow shutter work hand held.

I'm really pleased at how that turned out. I was considering the idea of setting up the tripod and trying the same shot using the GW690, but then the bugs found us. Even with repellant on they were getting the best of me anyway. Getting a better version of this photo would mean setting up the tripod, getting a filter on, and playing with settings again, then doing it again for film if desired, all as movement of the sun and clouds changes the lighting. Fighting off bugs totally takes you out of the zone. 

Of the Day

Driftwood, but first a double serendipity! A skyline shot from the west late 2016.

Near Lyttleton, New Zealand shot early Feb 2019.

And the long standing driftwood feature.

Flower

Peony

I have to admit when I look at these, I think of the helmets worn by the weapons techs on the Death Star firing the super laser.

Landscape

I suppose the serendipity shot above is a landscape, but wanted to give you another one. 

Film, Fish Creek, GW690 Ektar 100.

One down, two to go

Many of my readers know the ordeal I speak of. For 10 days a year Calgary goes even more nuts than it already is, and one aspect of that is Stampede breakfasts.  This year is even a bit more over the top than usual, as if to make up for the two years they were missed or dramatically toned down. 

Nobody knows how many there are over the course of Stampede. If you can't find a free one every day, you aren't trying. Some are enormous, like the one put on at Chinook Mall. I seem to remember that one year they put 50,000 people through. Some are private; many organizations put one on for their employees, clients, and business partners. Some charge a fee, and it could be open to anyone that wants to ante up, or it's for invited guests only. Most are public and free. Food quality varies, and you don't know what you're going to get till the plate is full.

Our community association put one on last weekend. It was the public and free variety. I'm told we had about 800 people, which I believe given the one time I counted there were at least 100 people in the lineup. There's a link to photos in my photo blog if you're interested to see what one looks like, plus the one below as a teaser. 

So that's one. Next is an organization I once contracted to, so I guess I'm still on the list. This is one of the ways of staying in touch with your network. Hobnobbing with people you've worked with to see if they have more work, schmoozing people that you think might have work, generally showing the flag. Lots of deals get done during Stampede, and some get undone. I had one once that was all flanged up but for the actual signatures before Stampede, and when I went in to sign after the dust had settled, it turned out the wheels had fallen off that particular wagon. A good thing too, for me, given stories I was later told. I'm sort of hoping to get pitched; that's always flattering, but the answer is going to be no thank you. Well, unless it's something truly astonishing, or is a writing or photography project.

And the last (at least according to the current schedule) is a political one. Our City Councillor is putting one on, and all the community associations are invited. I think I'm the designated hitter for Woodcreek. It will be a good chance to meet and greet my counterparts in other associations. Plus it never hurts to schmooze with politicians. You never know when they can do something for groups like ours. Even something small like a letter of support might make the difference in a grant application. 

I suspect that nearly every provincial and federal politician in Canada makes a pass through Calgary, especially ones on the conservative side of the spectrum. There is no better event to rub shoulders with your political buddies/rivals, and to hit up the base for donations. Even Justin Trudeau showed up.

I know there are people who turn up their noses at the whole breakfast thing, and it's related brethren, the BBQ lunch. But they're part of the culture here (maybe that should be 'kulchure') and you either go along or you go away. When I was working downtown I liked to take an afternoon and stroll the streets downtown. There's lots of free entertainment, some of which is fodder for divorce lawyers, and no shortage of eye candy no matter what your orientation is. I'm not sure if I'll do that this year. It's easy when you're already there, but to make a special trip, find parking, and stroll aimlessly seems like a lot of effort. Unless I take the small camera and try some street photography. Hmmmm.

Here's one from our breakfast.

Of the Day

Driftwood

Flower Iris

And Serendipity courtesy Green Fools, the Bouffon performers plotting their next move.

Peony, the last of the anticipation ones.

Film (6x9 Ektar 100) A peaceful scene in Fish Creek late one afternoon. Seconds later a bunch of kids jumped in the water and started playing.

 

495

There's an old song, 99 bottles of beer on the wall. You probably know it. I've been on a couple bus trips where it was sung. Forgive me, I was young then. Now, if I was that bus driver I'd be homicidal if that song started. Then again, I know almost nothing of modern music. There could well be some dreadful rap noise that is in vogue. That would be much worse.

But there is no beer here. Well, in fact that's not quite true at the moment. I've got a couple cans in the fridge, but that's a pretty rare thing. Sometimes beer is nice on a hot summer day, while tending the barbecue doing a big steak.

What there is, is wine. Wine making season just finished the other day. I did a bit of research. I've done 115 kits over the exactly 20 years since I started. That's 3335 bottles, assuming 29 bottles per kit, which is normal, plus getting a half bottle or so as a post bottling 'taster'. I figure we've spent about $10K or so buying the wine kits. Not an expensive hobby at all, especially if you consider that buying that much wine from the liquor store would probably cost at least $40K, with most of it being tax wasted by various versions of Conservative governments. Don't even think about what it would cost buying that much wine at a restaurant.

This photo has nothing whatever to do with this post. Facebook takes the first photo and uses that, and I didn't want the wine photo to be first. This is from a Zeller road trip last summer, going past Carmangay.

There are now 495 bottles of my wine resting on the racks downstairs. 

Don't forget, there is a fierce guard kitty who has been trained to savage and eat anyone breaking into the house. As a side note, she was off to the vet yesterday to make sure her teeth were in top condition for such a savaging, and getting a paw-dicure is part of the deal. Don't say I didn't warn you. 

That is somewhere between a 3 and 5 year supply of wine, depending on exactly how you do the math, and how much we give away. Our financial advisor likes to schedule a late fall meeting to review account performance, plan any changes needed for balance or risk tolerance, and start to get a grip on tax planning for the next fiscal year. It's just coincidence that a case of wine shows up for that meeting.

Of the Day

Driftwood

Plus a serendipity from the Birds of Prey sanctuary near Coaldale.

Flower

Peony (In an aside, I'm kind of surprised that hardly anyone has looked at the post of wet peonies from yesterday, if I am to believe the readership stats.)

Landscape

Film (6x9 Ektar 100)

courtesy Green Fools. Clowns playing a ball hiding and guessing game.

Wet Peonies

Monsoon season is well upon us. There's been a lot of rain for Calgary. From now till just after Stampede, the days will start off clear and sunny, clouds will develop over the afternoon, there will be some fairly brief but intensive localized rain showers, and then the evening will be sunny again till it gets dark.

I once flew back from Drayton Valley on the corporate jet. That trip was the most fun airplane trip ever. I got dropped at the airport by a plant foreman, and was the only person there. I had time to hit the washroom and heard the whoosh of the jet. I walked out onto the tarmac to watch the jet rolling in. I was totally having a fantasy of having my own private jet coming to get me, but was expecting to get wedged into the last seat of a full airplane. 

One of the pilots leaned out and yelled "come one, we want to beat the storms". The plane never stopped. I tossed in my bag, the pilot helped me in. There was only one other guy, stretched out and sound asleep. They told me to sit over the wing on the other side, and buckle in tight. By the time I had my bag stowed and my seatbelt fastened the plane was turning onto the runway. They punched the throttle and we were off. It was a Cessna Citation V, running light and they weren't kidding about being in a hurry. It was a rough ride, the little wings flapping like a bird sometimes. I could see the pop up thunderstorms all over the place, and there was a bit of dodging and weaving. Then we were on the ground and rolling for the terminal. They had a cab waiting for me, which is a nice perk. The other guy was still asleep.

This time of year one of the time management things is staying ahead of the grass. As I write this the lawn is soaking wet with dew. It's actually really quite pretty in the sun. There is sometimes a window of opportunity to mow the lawn after the dew and before the rain. Sometimes not, and it's easy to tell who has missed the window over the last several days.

One of the good things about it is there are two windows of opportunity for wet flower photographs. One is in the morning with dew, and the other is late afternoon after the rain. Both can offer really nice light. Sometimes I cheat and bring out a spray bottle.

Some of these shots might look a bit more moody than usual; that's just the light and me trying to emphasize the blooms and keep the background shadowy.

1. I've been working on the digital red. This looks closer to the real colour, but it's still not quite right. This peony is a darker red, but still somewhat glossy. I've had to edit this pretty carefully. I still don't have the film back from the lab.

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Of the Day

Driftwood

Flower (not a peony or lily, they have their own section because I take so many photos of them.)

Peony

Film during a walk with Sean and Cam along the Bow River. (6x9, Ektar 100)

courtesy Green Fools. Clown decision making. I think they're about to start a giant clown version of rock paper scissors. 

I do know better

I haven't been on Twitter for years. I bailed out when I couldn't take the rage and stupidity any more. I had a bit of extra time this morning, but I made the mistake of following some news links. Only did a couple of them, and then realized my blood pressure was going up. Out of there. Again. I knew better since they were sort of click-baity. The rule 'never read the comments' is beginning to apply to the news as well.

Here's a red peony photo to soothe you. Yes there are film versions in the works.

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The Dunning-Kruger effect came strongly to mind. It should be easier now to find out what is true than ever before. We have easy access to more information than we know exists. Part of the problem is that many people are really bad at critically evaluating information. And bad at evaluating risk. Even bad at evaluating their own self-interest.

A bigger part of the problem is that people who in fact are good at those tasks look at the proposition of running for public office, and decide, (correctly, for the most part) not to do it. The odds of success are not good. Even if actually elected they still don't have much influence on the outcomes. They can probably make more money more easily doing other things that are probably more enjoyable, and avoid the stress of dealing with people enraged over something you have no control over.

That opens the field to people like Trump or Kenney running for office. They know how to project an image of competence, but what they are good at is recognizing and pushing people's hot buttons in ways that get them elected. Trump is really good at it, whereas Kenney is more a back room operative, working hard in lots of small ways to influence people. Both cheated and broke the rules along the way to getting elected and trying to stay in office. Both disgraced themselves and the office they held, though neither has any concept of shame. That seems to be a prerequisite for being in public office now.

A simple example. There are lots of people, particularly in Alberta, that are worked up about Trudeau and the Liberals wasting tax money. It drives every other voting consideration out of mind. Now, as an aside, it's trivially easy to find examples of wasted tax dollars in any government. Mistakes are made. The situation changes so what looked prudent at the time looks foolish in hindsight. Sometimes the cost of controlling some issue, or the effort of finding it in the documents in the first place, is more than the issue costs. There are no end of scams and boondoggles that people try to get money out of the government, and sometimes it works. But ask them which Canadian Federal government has the best record for running a surplus and reducing the debt, and they flat out won't believe it's the Liberals under Jean Chrétien and Paul Martin as Finance Minister. They are so worked up about it that they can't admit or even see the facts. Graph below based on Statistics Canada, source here. 

Harper only ran a surplus at the end of his term through accounting trickery. I couldn't find this graph that continues into the Trudeau years, but strongly suspect there's a big dive into the red. He was elected in 2015, and COVID happened in 2020 which is where a huge rise in expenditure happened. I'd like to see the numbers for 2015 to 2020. So yes, like most other Prime Ministers, Trudeau is running deficits. No, the Canadian budget is not remotely like your household budget.

How do we know what is true? This question has been written about since writing was invented. The problem is that truth is a slippery concept. The world is far more complex than almost everyone imagines. What was true then might no longer be true because of advances in technology, or new evidence being discovered. Anybody that tells you there are simple and eternal truths (usually spelled with a capital T in this context) is out to scam you. 

Take a simple thing like letting go of some object. What happens? In almost all cases it falls down until it hits something. The exceptions mostly relate to the object being lighter than air, such as a balloon filled with helium. Or maybe the object is tied or glued to your hand. There might be other exceptions that don't come to my mind at the moment. How fast does it fall? Well, that depends. Air resistance might or might not play a role, depending on the object and the accuracy of your instruments. What path does the object take, relative to your hand or the point of impact on the surface? Again, that depends on several things. What happens when the object hits some surface? Again, that depends on the object, and the surface it hits, and maybe how far it's fallen. All that assumes you are somewhere in Earth's atmosphere; the situation changes dramatically if you're under water, or in space.

Given sufficient information about the context, there are people that can explain in detail what will happen, why, and do the calculations to describe it exactly. Given less information, it's pretty safe to assume the object will fall straight down and something will break when it hits a surface. Now imagine someone that has (somehow) only seen objects fall upward, arguing with someone that can do the math involved with falling objects. It ought to be pretty easy to decide which to believe. You'd think. It doesn't matter how sincerely the one of them holds their belief that objects fall upward.

There are lots of days I'd like to administer tests before allowing someone to run for office, and somewhat simpler tests before being allowed to vote. Identifying logical fallacies would be about the top of the list for me, though I wouldn't insist on knowing the latin names. Basic economic concepts and statistics would be right up there as well. As for voters, I oscillate between making it tough to weed out the riff-raff, which could be construed as a form of literacy tests to prevent immigrants and other minorities from voting, and being so simple that anyone ought to be able to pass, such as "The elephant, a federal or provincial responsibility?" (Trick question! None of the above, mostly. Elephants in Canada live in zoos, which are a civic responsibility.)

The only thing that consoles me about the news lately is the thought that half of the smartest people that have ever lived are alive now, and have ways to communicate and collaborate that weren't even dreamed of a generation ago. It's depressing to think that the same is true about the stupidest people, and there seems to be far more of them. Twain's quote comes to mind. "Never argue with an idiot, they'll drag you down to their level and beat you with experience." 

Movies are full of villains in their lair plotting world domination, or a shadowy but secretive cabal of people who are actually running things. (Don't get me started on conspiracy theories!) Consider that if they were actually good at it, they wouldn't need to be secretive. Demonstrating competence at running a national state would be so rare that it would shine out like a beacon, and they'd be elected in perpetuity.  

I'd love to see the media giants broken up again. Investigative journalism ought to be a respected and highly paid profession. People spending public money ought to be routinely examined for conflicts of interest. Screw balance, I want the facts! Let one journalist (try to) document how Kenney is a great premier, and another chase how his government lost track of $4 Billion in COVID related spending. Peculation is not alleged, at least not yet, but given that bunch of morally corrupt people and that much money I'm not going to be surprised if such allegations are made.

Some more peonies to soothe you.

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Of the Day

Driftwood

Flower

And in a flowery serendipity, courtesy of Green Fools, preparing for the Bouffon exercise.

Film (6x9 Ektar 100) and a landscape on the way to the Leseuer ridge walk.