April, 2005
Hey look, it's month two
The cliché about the cobblers children going
barefoot seems to apply to photography as well - I live next to some of
Vancouver's choice tourist spots, but I rarely bring my camera if I
ever visit. So I was reading National Geographic while
waiting around for a seabus and this picture caught my attention:
Granville Island (where I go grocery shopping) has no shortage of human
desensitized birds. I did my grocery shopping and then went
outside to go find the birds. Funny enough - there weren't
any. It was after a rainstorm so the benches were wet and no
tourists were spilling food for birds to pick up. I hung out -
everntually the benches dried, tourists came to throw french fries at
the birds and kids came to chase the birds. Time to take
some photos.
So did I get that killer shot? As they say in Art School - if you
can't make it good, make it big. Yes, I don't have the exotic
species and I decided that the 105mm really isn't the right lens for
the job (I should have used the 80-200) and I really didn't have the
lighting necessary, so no, I didn't get the shot. But I have the
gear (you can see daylight through the Gull's nose).
On my walk home I walked past
two geese sitting and
grazing. (Animals are lazy too - these birds had a ring of grass
plucked around where they sat - they didn't bother to get up and move
along.)
Canada goose makes 131 species in my
Taxonimic
Database. Cool. Collecting nature is so much more open
ended than collecting books or movies or action figures.
April 9th
David and I tried our best to stay out of trouble for the day -
we hiked a
12km section of
the Baden Powell trail from Lynn Canyon to Grouse Mountain.
April 10th
Building update! The hole is definitly bigger - they have
dug down a number of stories and put in retaining wall up against the
street.
I don't know how much deeper
they will get
(you start
running into
problems like how are you going to get the loader out?), but it's moved
way faster than the building across the street.
Mike was talking about going for a hike. It wasn't a great
afternoon weather wise but why not? There is a nice short hike in
Deep cove - the tail end of the Baden Powel trail out to a rock
bluff. Mark was game and so was Catherine.
Geek story. So
yesterday I saw all of these baby
ferns. Curious, I came home and read the bible on local plants
and it turns out there are about 12 species of local ferns, not the 3 I
had on the web site. I really should have known this (I've seen
others) but now the hunt was on - find a new species!
Turns out it wasn't the shortest hike ever - it took us about an hour
to reach the rock bluff. It was raining but not hard.
We walked back and had dinner at the Raven. Good pub, good
burgers.
April 16th:
Building update! I was quite surprised to see a crane poking up
over the buildings when I went out for a walk this morning. When
I got my camera they were assembling the gantry at the top. As
near as I can figure this crane will be beside the building
itself.
April 17th:
A bunch of us are big fans of the show "Dead like Me".
One of the most common sets in the show is a
"Der Waffle House" where the cast have breakfast and get
assignements. There is a "Der Waffle House" in New West. We
would love to have breakfast in the same place as the show so we gave
it a go.
Short answer - not the same as the show. Long answer - the Waffle house
on the show is actually a set that has been used on a few different
Vancouver based shows. The one in New West isn't bad but it isn't
worth the drive out to New West. Oh, and we need to go back to
Sophies for breakfast some time.
Tags: bird(6), shallow depth of field(2), BC fauna(2), invasive(2), hiking(2), Do Not Tag(2)
People: Michael(2), Mark(2), Catherine(1), Eric(1), Gabi(1), Stephen(1)
From: John Harvey Photo > Blogs for 2024 to 2005 > April 2005
Last Modified Saturday, August 8th, 2009 at 22:10:03 Edit
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