We had a windstorm the other day, with 80-100kmh wind speeds. I went down to Port Dalhousie to feel the wind in my face and take some pictures. It’s been a long time since I’ve experienced winds like that. There are few things better than being by the sea in bad weather.
There was a sandstorm on the beach — not good for the camera. I ran through it, to the edge of the water, and took this picture of the breakwater.
Brooklyn Bridge in New York City, last (and only) time I was there, in 2005. It was wet, windy and foggy. I processed this picture in a way to make it look older, like the kind of picture you’d see hanging in a bar somewhere.
I shamelessly intruded on this swan’s privacy. Captured on Lake Ontario in Port Dalhousie in February with my 300mm. Birds have never been safe from ‘big brother’.
I just took a few hundred pictures off my camera, dating back as far as Christmas. My memory card reader went on the fritz. Here’s Helios, licking sun from his namesake.
The Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., in 2006. I should have posted more of my pictures from DC before. The ceiling in the vestibule of the LoC is one of the most stunning I have ever seen. Here’s a great tip: beat the crowds and go early, early in the morning. You won’t regret it, the tranquility and beauty of the place is fantastic.
Another sunset over Lake Ontario, as seen from Port Dalhousie in St Catharines.
Leaving Riding Mountain National Park, looking back at the weather we left behind.
Wish I had a graduated ND filter there or at least a tripod so I could capture the dynamic range of the scene in two pictures. I wanted to capture the dramatic sky, which necessarily meant I had to underexpose the rest of the picture quite severely.
Scene from Riding Mountain National Park in Manitoba. I travelled there with a colleague at IISD to go hiking over a weekend when I was in Winnipeg last summer. It rained virtually the entire time! We had the worst luck with the weather; I did not actually bring my camera on the hike, it was too wet. In the afternoon the following day it stopped raining and we stopped to see buffalo and take in the scenery.
With this custom bokeh experiment — which turned out pretty well — I wish you Happy 2010, may it be better than 2009!
The lights in the picture are on the Christmas tree, but the picture has not been manipulated — the stars were achieved using a home made filter.
The torch relay for the Vancouver Olympics went through St Catharines a few days before Christmas. Jenna and I walked a few blocks down the street to watch just to say we’d seen it. Now we have. Of course, we wouldn’t have been able to see it if the Norway trip hadn’t been cancelled, but then again, nothing providential happened.
