October 26, 2013: Playing with water

365 Project, Day 112

Here is my day 112 submission to my 365Project:

I am currently taking a digital photography class (DP200) with Mike at Clocktower Images in Victoria and for one of our assignments we were to take photos of water frozen in motion and blurred. I ended up taking a water fountain photo for my assignment but one of the women in my class did something quite simple and fun...she ran water over a mug in her sink which resulted in some pretty cool photos. 

After that class I decided I would like to do the same to see what results I would get. It wasn't very difficult since I just had to set the camera on a high shutter speed (1/1000s or higher and high ISO 800+); the hardest part was to get lots of light on the subject with the high shutter speeds to get these results. As you'll see below the results varied depending on the glass used and how fast the water was flowing. I also played a bit with post-processing and the colour of the photos. 

Fun fact of the day:

According to Zeiss the largest SLR lens made is the Carl Zeiss Apo Sonnar T. It was custom-built for an anonymous customer who had a particular interest in wildlife photography. It weighs 564 lb/265 kg and has a focal length of 1700 mm and was designed for use with a Hasselblad 6x6 medium format camera!

Read more interesting photography facts at this digitalcameraworld webpage.

October 15, 2013: On The Move

365 Project, Day 105

Here is my day 105 submission to my 365Project:

I spent another afternoon wandering around Beacon Hill Park to see what I could capture in photos. It was a lot of fun watching the peacocks and squirrels and ducks and the lighting was lovely. Here is a shot I grabbed of this peacock, whose tail and head feather's were just coming in, on the move through the park.  

One of many peafowl inhabiting Beacon Hill Park

Fun fact of the day: 

The term "peacock" is usually used to refer to both male and female birds but, in fact, the males are "peacocks" while the females are called "peahens" and the two combined are called "peafowl".

Read more about Peafowl on the National Geographic Peacock webpage.

 

It was lots of fun watching the Eastern grey squirrels (Sciurus carolinensis) running around grabbing nuts and stashing them

Going down for another nut :) 

October 8, 2013: To Infinity

365 Project, Day 101

Here is my day one hundred one submission to my 365Project:

Tonight I started the journey back to the west coast of Canada...the first part of the trip was a 16 hour overnight train journey from New Brunswick to Montreal. I snapped a couple of shots of the interior of the train before we departed and I really liked how using my wide angle lens gave the photo an interesting feeling of the train extending off into the distance. 

Fun fact of the day:
Via Rail, the railway operating the train I was traveling on, operates 497 trains per week in eight Canadian provinces. The train network consists of 12 500 (7800 mi) km of track. Approximately 4.1 million passengers travel on Via Rail tracks annually. 

To read more about Via Rail check out the Wikipedia webpage Via Rail. 

Here are a couple more interesting shots from inside the train:

October 7, 2013: Village of Gagetown Barn

365 Project, Day 100

Here is my day one hundred submission to my 365Project:

Wow! I've posted 100 photos in my 365 Project now. I think I managed to get a photo up most days but I have realized it would be more difficult than I had anticipated when I started. Still, it is fun to look back on the many photos I've taken. I think I have also learned something about my photography in the process. 

I'm still visiting my family in New Brunswick and while I was on a walk around the cute Village of Gagetown I snapped some photos of this barn. Recently, I learned it is a good idea to have a strong foreground in landscape photos and I liked the detail in the wood of the fence post and the wire leading away from it. 

Fun fact of the day:
The Village of Gagetown (to be distinguished from the nearby Canadian Forces base CFB Gagetown) was founded in 1783. The village is steeped in history and became a busy and vibrant farming community. Today it is a mecca for artists, artisans, bird watchers and boaters.

Read more about the Village of Gagetown at the village webpage here. 

And some more photos from around Gagetown :)

Another photo of my parent's cute pup, Yoko, the Shiba Inu

While taking photos for an assignment for a photo class I'm taking I snapped this photo in my parent's dining room and I liked the lighting, the contrast in the wall colours and the old feel it had. 

October 5, 2013: On Lookout

365 Project, Day 98

Here is my day ninety-eight submission to my 365Project:

Here's a photo I got of this cougar sculpture that caught my eye while on a walk around downtown Fredericton this afternoon in the lovely October sunshine. This sculpture is in front of the Beaverbrook Art Gallery.

Fun fact of the day:
Fredericton is the capital city of the province of New Brunswick and was rated, of all things, one of the top 7 Intelligent Communities in the World in 2008 & 2009 according to Intelligent Community Forum B-)

Read more about Fredericton at this Tourism Fredericton webpage.  

More photos from around Fredericton, New Brunswick:

Enjoying an afternoon stroll together :)

All roads lead somewhere..

The walking path along the St. John River, Fredericton 

I loved this old bridge, part of the walking path along the Saint John River, in Fredericton 

Love the fall colours here!

Loved this guy ripping along in his motorized canoe!

Some dozy bumblebees taking advantage of the last of the sunny days and warm-ish weather

October 1, 2013: Abandonment

365 Project, Day 94

Here is my day ninety-four submission to my 365Project:

I arrived in New Brunswick this past weekend and today we went out to my step-dad's property in New Brunswick to check things out and to go for a walk in the forest. Upon arrival though we discovered the sad state of things...the old house (where his mother lived when she was alive) was very dilapidated and there was this burned out car sitting in front of it. After meeting up with his cousins living on the land, we discovered that it was their son's vehicle which had somehow ignited over the weekend. They're not sure how...but it did make for an interesting photographic opportunity. 

Fun fact of the day:
Did you know that a car will not explode until the gas tank is empty of gasoline? Liquids are not explosive...it is the vapour from the flammable substance that is. This is why a leaking gas tank raises the risk of an explosion. 

Go to this WikiLearn page to get some facts on How To Rescue Someone From a Burning Car.

September 27, 2013: Reaching For Heaven

365 Project, Day 91

Here is my day ninety-one submission to my 365Project:

I've been in Montreal for a few days to visit my sister who is studying fine arts and writing at Concordia. She lives very close to Mont Royal Park and we went for a short walk there this afternoon. Here's a photo I took of the George-Étienne Cartier monument.

Fun fact of the day: 
Historians claim George-Étienne Cartier was responsible for persuading French Canada that they would stand a better chance of preserving their language, religion, institutions and culture if they joined in the creation of a unified Canada.

Read more about the George-Étienne Cartier monument on this public art in Montreal webpage.

Here is another photo I took of the monument:

September 10, 2013: Trial Island from Harling Point, Victoria, BC

365 Project, Day 76

Here is my day seventy-six submission to my 365Project:

It was a gorgeous day today and I went for a bike ride along Victoria's waterfront stopping at this viewpoint for a break and to snap some photos of the view. What a terrible place to live :)

Fact of the day:
Harling Point is named after Dr. Fred Harling (1887-1934) who died during an operation to rescue two people after their rowboat capsized off Harling Point during a sudden gale on January 15, 1934.

Read more the story of the rescue, Dr. Harling and Llewelyn Arther Hinder's subsequent deaths, and the naming of Harling Point here. 

September 9, 2013: Busy Bee

365 Project, Day 75

Here is my day seventy-five submission to my 365Project:

"Bees do have a smell, you know, and if they don't they should, for their feet are dusted with spices from a million flowers."
-Ray Bradbury, Dandelion Wine

(You can see the clumps of pollen on this guy's rear leg!)





Fun fact of the day:
20,000 plant species, including ones we know well like tomatoes, potatoes and cranberries, offer pollen (rather than the nectar that species like hummingbirds eat) as food. This pollen is tucked deep inside special tubes and only certain insects, including bumblebees, can get the pollen out. To do this the pollinator (the bees) grab the tube with its jaws and starts to vibrate hundreds of times a second. These resonating vibrations loosen the pollen inside the tubes which in turn gets blasted out and covers the bee with pollen. Then when the bee goes to a flower on another plant this pollen fertilizes that plant.

Read the New York Times article on Unraveling the Pollinating Secret's of Bee's Buzz including an animation of the vibrating bee loosening the pollen here. 

Here are some more photos from my little photo session around Beacon Hill Park, Victoria: