Sunday, February 21, 2010

Sea lions in Port Alice

The Stellar sea lions have been hanging out on the break water at the Port Alice Yacht Club for a couple of weeks. 

I think I need a longer lens....



Looking up Nerotous Inlet towards the Frigon Islands, named after Edward Frigon, a French-Canadian fur trader who settled in the area in 1889.



The sun shining through the fog onto the tops of the fir and cedar trees gave the islands a golden glow.

Frosty mornings

Cluxewe is one of my favourite places during the winter, so peaceful.

The morning I took this photo, everything had a frosty fringe.

Sun set, Port McNeill Harbour

The weather has been exceptional this past week, perfect for a late afternoon walk.
 

There was no wind, making the water look like glass, creating nice reflections.



Turning to the east, the sun is highlighting the tops if Mount Stephenson on the mainland.



Sunday, February 14, 2010

Quatse River Estuary, Port Hardy BC

These photos are of the nature trail near the Quastse River Estuary.  Port Hardy has a great network of trails the follow the shoreline around the community.

These photos are along the dike trail.  I liked how the white bark of the Alder trees stand out against the brown grass of the estuary and gray sky.


Along the edge of the trail there are small spruce trees. Getting up close to the tip of the branch I could see that the needles are two-toned.  

The boughs of the spruce tree look like velvet, however after you brush your hand along the branches, you are quick to realize those needles are sharp!


Sunny Sunday for a ferry ride

Ron and I are on our way to Abbotsford today.  I'm happy to see the sun. Last night driving down to Nanaimo in heavy wind and rain was exhausting!

These photos are from the Duke Point BC Ferry terminal.  The first one is the Queen of Alberni coming into the dock with the north end of Gabriola island to the right. The second image is Gabriola Island.  I really liked the fluffy white clouds!



Thursday, February 11, 2010

Patterns from Nature

A couple of summers ago, this redbreasted sapsucker decided the mountian ash tree in my dad's garden was a good meal source. 


After repeated visits to the tree, the sapsucker created very neat rows of holes.... Nature's Patterns.

Patterns

Twice a month I drive up to Port Hardy to meet with other photography enthusiasts. We share images we've taken between our meetings or something we may have taken a while back. I really look forward to our meeting nights!

We usually have a theme for each meeting and it's wonderful to see how everyone interpretated the theme.
Tonight was no exception, our theme was patterns. We all brought something unique, here is my image.


My set up was on the kitchen counter.  Ron & I installed halogen track lighting over the counters in December and it works well for my "studio".   With the glass hearts arranged on a piece of white paper combined with the bright lighting,  it really helped make the hearts glow.

I used a my Nikon 28-105mm lens set to macro. I placed the camera on a Gorillapod.  While looking through the viewfinder, I slowly rotated the paper until I liked what I saw, then played around with different aperture settings to get the right amount of background blur. 

My first attempt didn't turn out so good, the red was too blue and flat looking.  I  adjusted the White balance using the K (kalvin) set to 2500, then voila!  I was able to capture the correct colour! 

P.S.
Happy Valentine's Day!