I invoke the power of Hercules to get me through the next two days!
From the Firenze files. This is the statue of “Hercules beating the Centaur Nessus”, which is in the Loggia della Signoria in Florence. I thought of this statue tonight because I feel as though my strength is waning. As though Friday cannot come soon enough. As though Hercules needs to loan some of his strength to me and then I’ll make it through this week.
Hercules! Help!
Would anyone like to move here?
The big mountain just to the right of center is Mount Cheam. Next, to the right, are Mounts Archibald and Mercer and then Mount Thurston to the far right. I drive home looking directly at these mountains every day, when it’s not raining or foggy.
When I was in Montreal last year, I had a few people ask me where I lived. My answer was, “British Columbia.”
“Is it all mountains and rivers?”
“No. No, it’s not all mountains and rivers.”
“Well, where do you live?”
“Chilliwack.”
“And what’s that like?”
“Um…I live about 500 meters from a river and about 600 meters from a mountain.”
“Is it beautiful?”
“Yeah. It really is.”
So, anyone want to move out here?
Sunset Road
It’s late. Sorry. I had some grocery shopping to do and my wife’s got a bit of a migraine. Nothing I can’t handle, but nothing I want to ignore either. The photographs can always wait a little.
This was shot on my way home from work tonight. I guess it must have been a nice day.
Black and white always makes me feel cold.
What is it about black and white photos that feels so cold?
It was a very cool morning when I shot this. I was wearing a cardigan sweater and t-shirt and freezing my niblets off as I stood on the back end of the ferry to take this shot. When I was playing around with this in processing, I flipped the RAW photo to grayscale and felt that the photo suddenly matched the feeling that I had while I was on the ferry.
So, why it is that black and white photos feel cold? Anyone?
What’s the opposite of sunset?
Is the opposite “moon-set”?
Is moonset even a word? I don’t know.
What I do know is that the Sunday morning last week was chilly and beautiful and wonderful. The moon had not yet set to the west of Vancouver Island and the sky was blue and the water was blue and…well…it was great.
And, yes, that tiny dot in the sky is the moon. I promise.
Claustrophobic nightmare…or romantic Titanic moment?
Welcome to the bottom deck of a BC Ferry. We had the pleasure of attending my brother-in-law’s wedding in Victoria, BC last weekend. I hadn’t been to Victoria since the last time we attended a wedding there, back in 1995. I forgot what it’s like to travel on the ferry to get to Vancouver Island.
The ride over, from Tsawassen to the island, was on the upper deck of the Coastal Celebration. We stayed in the car and watched the Gulf Islands slide by. I got out and took some shots of some of the islands and vistas. It was quite nice.
We ended up on the lower deck on the way home. Once the ferry is full, the doors close and the bottom deck is completely closed up. And…that’s when the claustrophobia settled in. I’m not claustrophobic, normally, but my mind flashed back to one of the most insipid movies I’ve ever seen: Titanic. I was sitting on the lower deck thinking of the steerage passengers who had no chance of survival once the water started in and none of them had a clue that it was coming. Oh sure, my mind could have traveled back to the beauty of Kate Winslet, or a certain sweaty moment…in a car…on the lower deck of the ship. I was in a car on the lower deck of a boat with my wife. That’s where my mind could have gone.
But it didn’t. It went to, “Hey! If this thing starts to sink, we won’t even know.”
Thanks, stupid brain. Thanks a lot.
Click on the photo above, btw, if you want to see it in more detail.
Don’s Food Market
I don’t know who Don is, but his grocery store looks very cool. I particularly like the juxtaposition of a very old building that has been put to a modern use.
I’m a bit tired out this week, though, so I’ll leave it at that. Perhaps all of you have something to add.
See you tomorrow.
Set your mind adrift…
I don’t know what’s more interesting – the boats on the water, waiting to take their owners on watery adventures, or the reflections of the boats in the water.
Photographically speaking, I’m enamored of the reflections. I love how everything is mirrored, but not quite exactly. There’s that wavering quality that suggests that the world below is just like ours, but dreamier.
How can government be so…dumb…when they meet in a place like this?
This is the Legislature building in Victoria, BC. It is beautiful and old. Click on the photo above and you can see more detail.
It was built from 1893 to 1896. It is remarkable in its details.
So, my question is, “How can a group of individuals meet regularly in this amazing building and get nothing done?” Someone, or ones, spent a great deal of time and effort making sure that this place looks the way it does. The least we could do is elect people who are effective in their jobs, care about more than getting re-elected or avoiding criticism and are selfless civil servants.
Wow, I am feeling the rants tonight. Sorry. Enjoy the pretty building.
A view of history
This is St. Ann’s Academy in Victoria, BC. During the reception for my brother-in-law’s wedding this weekend, I took the opportunity to shoot the area surrounding the Parkside Resort and Spa. Across the street from Parkside is St. Ann’s Academy. It’s been a lot of different things in the more than hundred years it’s been around, but one thing that’s not changed is the beauty of this old building.
We do not build buildings like this anymore.
Late night post: sunset
This is the sunset in our province’s capital city. I’m in Victoria for a wedding (it was beautiful, by the way) and the reception was held on the top floor of a hotel. This is one of the shots I managed to take while eating appetizers and meeting new people – well, new to me, anyway.
Sorry this is so late. I hope you like it.
Anyone feeling beachy? Beach-ish? Beach-esque?
I am.
Right now.
Anyone want to come with me?
I can leave before work tomorrow…really.
Today was the first day of school…here’s the beach
I went back to work, officially, today. I’ve been in the school (I’m a teacher, btw) a few times already this year, for a 9th grade orientation that I run and to put some things together for the year, but today was the first day that all the students were in the school and classes kicked into gear.
So…I’m thinking of the beach. And how much I wish I was there.
It’s not that I don’t love my job. I do. I feel that teaching is my calling – it chose me as much as I chose it. It is an incredible profession and most days I can’t believe that I get paid to have this much fun. I do, however, wish that I was still on holidays, lazily enjoying the ocean breeze, desperately avoiding real life.
To that end, I present to you…driftwood. A friendly reminder that only seven hours away from work is a beach. A happy place, as it were.
Welcome to 4th Grade Social Studies (Canada edition)
I don’t know if there’s anyone I remember more from Social Studies than Samuel de Champlain. He founded New France and Quebec City over 400 years ago. He’s kind of a big deal in Canadian history, so of course I’ve had to study him and teach him. When I was going through my photos from my Quebec trip last September I found this photo. So here he is.
Path through history: WordPress Photo Challenge
I had the privilege to escort five students to a National Student Leadership Conference last September. The conference was in Quebec, Montreal specifically, but we did a three day tour of Quebec City and Montreal before the conference. I loved “la belle province” and had a great time. It seemed that no matter where I went in the old city of Quebec I ran into history. When the WordPress Photo Challenge came up this week with “Path” this was the first photo I thought of. It’s a path laid down by men a couple of centuries ago. A little path to history.
Mind on the beach
Where I’m going to be in a week? At school, back at work for the next ten months.
Where I wish I was going in a week? Back to the sandy beach of the Oregon Coast.
I guess there’s always the lottery to make that come true. Or, another 21 years and then retirement.
C’mon lottery…
Walking on the beach was never so mystical
I will try to write as little as possible for this photo, as I feel it speaks volumes on its own.
It was shot on film, not digital, media.
It was shot on a camera that is thirty-five years old.
It was shot on the Oregon Coast, near Manzanita. It has not been touched by Photoshop; the only processing that occurred was at London Drugs Photo Center.
It has captured the mystical, magical, other-worldly aspect of the Oregon Coast and shows the main reason why my family will probably return to the coast for all of the foreseeable summer vacations.
Cue cheesy product placement…now!
For my wife and son, this may be the greatest reason to visit the north coast of Oregon: the Tillamook Cheese Factory. I’ll admit, their ice cream is unparalleled and the tour of the factory, wherein one has the opportunity to watch fifty pound blocks of medium cheddar move on a byzantine labyrinth of conveyors, is pretty cool. Even the cheese taste-testing, with its squeaky cheese and pepper-jack, is pretty great and the Peanut Butter Chocolate ice cream, and the Root Beer Float Ice Cream and…
You know what? I think my wife and son are onto something. I’d like to head to Oregon again. Now. Just for ice cream and cheese. Anyone with me?
Parenting takes love and courage
“In spite of the six thousand manuals on child raising in the bookstores, child raising is still a dark continent and no one really knows anything. You just need a lot of love and luck – and, of course, courage. ” – Bill Cosby
Above are my two beautiful children. I love them more than my own life. But they have spawned in me some complete confusion and inspired love. Let me give you a couple of examples:
1. When we were traveling to Oregon only a scant two weeks ago, my children made me so proud. The happily dealt with a full day of traveling, followed by five days of bliss. They got along. They saved small aquatic animals from death. They found utter joy in throwing a stick in the ocean, only to chase it down the beach, rescue it from the surf and throw it right back in. They comforted me when, in a fit of stupidity I thought I was younger than I am, I hurled myself into and over a railing, leaving a sizable dent in my shin. They were stupendous. And for a brief and amazing moment, I thought, “We’re amazing parents. We should write books.”
2. My children decided last night that they wanted to sleep in our basement in our original three-man tent. At 10:00, my wife found them lying in the tent with the lights out but their Nintendo DS’s fully engaged when they were supposed to be fast asleep. After a stern, but amused, talking-to, they went to sleep. At 2:00 in the morning, my daughter came upstairs to the living room, where my wife chose to sleep so she could “hear the children”, to inform my wife that she could not sleep. My wife made her way to the basement, where she slept in the tent on the floor so that the children could continue their adventure. This morning, after a dearth of sleep, my children proceeded to fight with each other at such a volume that even I could not ignore it. And for a brief and groggy moment, I thought, “What were we thinking when we thought we could be parents?”
In the span of two weeks I’ve gone from proud and maybe a little arrogant parent to a bewildered and short-fused parent. I love my children, but this parenting thing? Well, I can’t have one without the other.
Low-tide pools
When dusk hits the Oregon Coast, at least where we were camping, the tide goes out and leave these nice little pools all over the beach. Now, some of the slower, less intelligent organisms get left behind on the beach and in the pools. Jelly fish, starfish, little shrimp, all left behind by the retreating ocean. What this process does for the photographer is leave an odd, asymmetrical pattern that reflects the light of the sunset, which is beautiful.
The entrance to the Pacific: Cannon Beach style
Cannon Beach is a beautiful spot on the Oregon Coast. It is one of the many “entrances” to the Pacific Ocean along the coast.
Its major landmarks are the rocks and the beach you see above. What you see is “Haystack Rock” and “The Needles”. Needles and a haystack – get it? If this view looks familiar to you but you’ve never been to the Oregon Coast, then you’ve seen films like The Goonies or Kindergarten Cop. Both films feature Haystack Rock.
Kindergarten Cop hobbles together a bunch of scenes that are all supposedly in Astoria, OR, but in reality are three different areas – Cannon Beach, the highway to Seaside, OR, and Astoria itself. The Goonies also purports that Cannon Beach and Astoria are situated right next to each other. Astoria and Cannon Beach, in reality are twenty-five miles apart (40 kilometers). It’s as though Hollywood producers figure that most people will never go to the coast and will never be able to tell.
Silly producers.
Here’s another, similar view of Cannon Beach. It’s a panorama put together from four different photographs. Click on it and you ‘ll get a much wider view of the beach.
Whose steps will you follow?
As my son walked across the sand in front of me, I wondered, “Who will he follow?” Will he follow his friends and not make his own decisions? Will he follow his parents into education? Will he put others before himself? Will he lead and not follow?
I think these are pretty universal conundrums faced by parents everywhere. I did not anticipate, before becoming a parent, that I would be that worried about how my children would turn out. But now that my daughter is ten going on fifteen and my son is seven and a perfect combination of anxiety and over-confidence, I think about these things. I think it was easier for me when I was their age because I was in the middle of it. My parents, however, must have thought the same things I am thinking about my own kids.
I guess I’ll continue to influence them as much as I can and hope for the best.
A spot on the beach…I think it’s a girl
Photo Friday’s challenge this week was “Spot“. When I was in Oregon last week I spotted this woman on the beach far below the viewpoint that Oregon nicely provides to travelers. This beach is situated between Cannon Beach and Arcadia Beach. Both are beautiful beaches and in order to get to the area that you see above you have to walk from either of those two beaches. There is no direct route to this beach.
It looks like the perfect place to take a walk, doesn’t it?
I don’t know what to write. I don’t know what to write. I don’t…well, you get the idea.
I’ve learned that the part of blogging I like the most is the motivation to take more and better photographs. It inspires me to move and look for great photographic vistas, to become better at shooting subjects and processing the photos afterwards.
What I’m not that excited about is the process of writing about my photos. I find that I delve far too often into cliché and that I’m sometimes at a loss for what the photo might mean, or what it brings up in my head. Sometimes, like my shots from Disneyland, the words just flow out of me like they were pre-ordained.
Take this photo. It’s the third I’ve posted of the Alexandra Bridge, the second bridge over this span (built in 1926). It’s a beautiful, old, suspension bridge. Cars and trucks used to used this bridge to travel the Fraser Canyon. Until they built the current bridge, a two lane, modern steel arch construction, everyone had to use this. Now, I’m tempted to start using clichés: All of this talk of the past is really just “water under the bridge.” Or, everyone had to “cross that bridge when they came to it.” Sad, really.
Personally, I think that a photo should speak for itself. Now that I’ve written over two hundred words, I’ll leave you alone to ponder what this photo says to you.
