Azalea, or…how I’m trying to focus on the positive while my house isn’t selling.
My house is up for sale. It’s not selling. It’s got the right price. It’s in the right neighborhood. I live less than a kilometer from Chilliwack River and maybe 10k from Cultus Lake. It’s across from a park, a Twin Rink complex, down the street from a middle school and a ten minute drive to the highway for an easy commute.
Whatever. It’s still not selling. I’m getting the feeling that I’m moving to Indonesia and continuing to own a home in Chilliwack, BC, Canada. That’s not a terrible thing, but I’d rather not have to own it if I don’t have to. I want to be in one place, committed to where I am. If I still own – which means renting it out – this house, my mind will always be a little bit here. And I don’t want that.
If you know someone who wants to buy a house in Chilliwack, let me know.
To try to take my mind off all that, I snapped a couple of photos of the azaleas growing in my front yard. They’re pretty. They’re not taking my mind off all this yet, but I’ll keep thinking of them instead of BC real estate.
WordPress Photo Challenge: Two subjects
I was driving out to a friend’s house tonight to watch the (pitiful) hockey game when I saw this. I think I ticked off my wife as I pulled over and threatened to miss the first puck-drop just to snap this photo.
I think it was worth it. Although, I’m not sure if I’m supposed to focus on the sunset or the Hydro high-wires – WordPress’ photo challenge this week is “Two Subjects“. They’re both at about the 1/3 mark (rule of thirds) in the photo, but they’re competing with each other for your attention. Ah well…still pretty.
BC Grass (or is it weed)
Actually, it’s really just grass. The ditches are coming alive again and maybe Spring is really on its way.
I guess I’ll wait and see.
Blue sky thoughts
I was on my way home tonight and the clouds parted a little and made me think there was a chance I’d see some nice weather. No such luck.
Sadly, as I look at this photo, I can’t help but hope for some Spring weather. It seems like everyone else is getting nice weather but me.
Do I sound whiny? I think so.
Beauty. Unwind. (Photo Friday)
This is my daughter. This is the lake. This is the snow we’ve been experiencing lately.
There is little better in the world than going to the lake to unwind. Beauty, even cold, abounds.
Hey! Remember when it was almost Spring?
I remember a March or two wherein the sun shone and the clouds parted. Today? Today it dumped snow.
I don’t know about you, but my feeling is that photos like these should not be possible in March. Sure, in Saskatchewan or Minnesota, but in the Fraser Valley of British Columbia? Actually, I think it was warmer in Saskatoon today than it was here in Chilliwack.
Stupid global warming.
Nice photography weather, though.
Sumas Mountain (again)
It dumped snow over the last couple of days, as though Winter is screaming out to make sure we don’t forget about it as Spring approaches. Thankfully, it’s been mostly on the surrounding mountains. Here’s some fresh snow on Sumas Mountain.
Late post today…please accept some apocalyptic clouds
The top of Sumas Mountain looked like this about twenty minutes ago.
A little too much like “end times” clouds, but maybe it’s just a sign of the end of winter with Spring coming next week.
Kind of obsessed…
…with black and white right now.
Maybe I’m wishing that the world would present more obvious choices – seeing the world in black and white, as it were.
Ansel Adams is one of my heroes
There’s a story I read, once, that Ansel Adams told about his “Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico” photo. It is one of the most evocative photos, with the moonlight reflecting off of gravestones and crosses in a cemetery in New Mexico. As he tells it, he was driving away from another photo shoot. He saw the moonlight reflecting off the cemetery as he was driving, so he pulled over to the side of the road, took out his camera and climbed up on his car, set up his tripod, managed a shot and…then the moon moved on. A minute later and he would never have taken this photo.
It’s a cool story because of the timing. Much of what makes a good photo is timing.
Above is my photo taken along the Sumas River. It’s as much of an Adams photo as I’ve taken so far. He will continue to inspire me and I will continue to photograph.
Down, again.
This place, Monte Carlo (and Monaco), was not my favorite stop on the Europe trip.
Was it beautiful? Yes.
Was it luxurious? Yes.
Was it over-the-top? Yes.
What really put me off it was the new-ness and the “Las Vegas”-ness of it. Please understand, it’s not gaudy and grotesque like Vegas. It’s just the overpowering reminders money and…well…money, I guess. It didn’t feel like any other place on the trip.
Beautiful, though, looking down on the marina.
Good morning, from SFU
This is what it looks like when I arrived at SFU yesterday morning. I have to arrive, to mark exams, between 7:30 and 7:45 in the morning, as we start marking at 8:00. With the incredible weather we’re currently enjoying here in the Lower Mainland of British Columbia, the sunrises are gorgeous.
Well, I guess you might have already guessed that.
Enjoy your Sunday!
Heavens to Betsy! (Photo Friday is Tall)
I don’t know what “Heavens to Betsy” means, but I saw this last night and thought those words. Then I realized that I may have thought a phrase that my mother, maybe grandmother, would have said. I don’t say words like that. I don’t think words like that. I don’t even know people who speak like that.
Anyway, the heavens looked pretty impressive, so I snapped the photo. My favorite part of this shot is the streetlight, already lit, against the sky.
By the way, Photo Friday this week is “Tall” so I think this counts.
Photo Friday: Pristine
My entire world has just drastically changed, literally speaking. The snow that has shut down my city for the last four days just turned to freezing rain. The temperature in the clouds is warm enough to be raining, but the temperature on the ground is four degrees below zero. What that means is that everything is coated in a thick layer of ice. I snapped this in my driveway because I liked the way the light was playing off the ice coating my car. Also because I have no desire to drive anywhere until the temperature heads north of zero.
What is beautiful, however, is how the entire visible world outside my window has this unbroken, unsullied, pristine shininess. So shiny…
Who’s the fairest of them all?
Snow White, of course.
It’s been snowing here all day and I love how white everything is. It certainly appeals to the high-contrast aesthetic I so enjoy. As someone who has some red-green color deficiencies (not color blind, but seriously deficient), the snow turns the world into a black and white and grey paradise. I love how, as I look out my living room window right now, I see children in the distance sledding on the park hill and the entire scene is devoid of color. Just dark figures moving on white background.
So, hooray for black and white! Hooray for snow days! Hooray for contrast! (alright, the last one was a bit lame)
I know it’s Sunday, but here’s the Photo Friday challenge: Cloudy
The snow that fell on Friday and Saturday has some very nice side effects. The fields are full of snow (in Chilliwack, anyway). The side roads are nearly impassable, thereby curtailing any errand-running outside of the necessities. And…the mountains have taken on a Tolkien-esque quality that is majestic and forbidding at the same time.
The best part of the photo above (truthfully, a panorama made up of three separate photos) are the clouds. They are beautiful and terrifying – full of possibly treacherous precipitation. I guess we’ll see.
You can find the rest of Photo Friday’s challenge for Cloudy here.
Why I always pack my camera with me.
This is what was in my rearview mirror as I was on my way to work this morning. Just a nice January sunrise. I can handle seeing this on my way in.
This old house
is old and not very symmetrical.
I used to teach a course called Theory of Knowledge. During this course, students have to look at the hardest thing to see – things they’ve taken for granted. The obvious things in front of their faces. One of my favorite parts of the course was esthetics. There was little more entertaining than questioning the ideas of beauty, but also the widely held, completely non-critical idioms of our culture. Let’s try, “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.”
In the case of the photo above, the most beautiful aspects are the fact that the hedge is in line with the bottom line of the porch, right below the bannister. I also like the matching windows on either side of the middle of the house, both upper and lower levels.
What takes away from this house’s beauty is the fact that the front door and the upper porch door are offset from center. Symmetry makes something beautiful. The other thing that really bothers me is that the lines of the house are shifting, probably due to the age of the house. I struggled to straighten the photo – played with cropping the photo – but realized, after a couple of minutes, that the lines of the house are not straight. The upper porch roofline is sagging and kept throwing off my eye.
Don’t get me wrong – I like the tension that creates. I also love old things and the shifting and off-center doors are a sign of the age of the house. Age can be beautiful. I do, however, think that there are certain rules about beauty, certain criteria to what is beautiful. Symmetry is one.
What are your criteria? And don’t be all politically correct. Be truthful.
It needs a little work…
Actually, I think it needs a lot of work.
Actually…I don’t think it’ll ever run again.
It is beautiful, in a twisted, rusty, never work again kind of way.
It’s the details that count.
What is missed most in day to day observation are the things that exist, the beauty that exists, right under our proverbial noses. It is the trees that I pass every day on my commute. It’s the grasses, above, that grow outside my classroom. It’s the way headlights illuminate the reflectors on the road barriers.
Sylvia Plath wrote a poem called “Black Rook in Rainy Weather”. In it, she wrote the lines:
... A certain minor light may still Lean incandescent Out of kitchen table or chair As if a celestial burning took Possession of the most obtuse objects now and then...
It’s this “celestial burning” that I’m going to keep trying to capture this year. It’s day three of 365 photo posts. Let’s see how the rest of the year goes. Notice the most obtuse objects and capture celestial burning.
Well…at least that’s not too much a challenge.
WordPress Photo Challenge: Winter
I have to admit that this photo was taken over a year ago. The Lower Mainland of British Columbia has not seen winter (the WordPress Photo Challenge this week) yet – I think we had a snowfall back in November, but the snow lasted all of twelve hours.
I chose to go back to a photo that I never did process, but that was more due to the fact that I wasn’t very familiar with what Photoshop could do, nor with what I could do with it.
I hope you like it.
