Hawkless Falconer

Catch-up and recommit

2012-02-08T09:26:00.000-08:00

I am now teaching two photography classes and have challenged my grade 11 and 12 students to keep a photo blog as part of their course work. That said, I didn't think it was fair for me to not hold to the same standards. So. Three photos a week, taken in that week, not necessarily posted in three separate posts (because of time constraints) but hopfully so. Here goes....

From Photo of the day 2012

Technically this one doesn't count because I took it over the Christmas break a few weeks ago. This is at Echo lake outside of Vanderhoof on the frozen lake. I went snowshoeing with Meg in the -20C or so, and there were a number of abandoned ice fishing holes. I'm not sure how they cut these giant chunks (or got them out of the hole) as they were square. Maybe someone here will enlighten me. I think I tweaked the lighting in Picasa 3 afterwards. I used Meg to give the blocks and the hole a sense of scale. She wasn't to sure about the black part.

From Photo of the day 2012

Another taken at the same time - the contrast of the white crystals against the smooth black ice was cool. I think the dog came by to check out what I was doing and had a go at digging the hole again (ruining the smoothness of course). Ah well, I liked it. I may have tweaked the lighting in Picasa, don't really remember.

From Photo of the day 2012

This one I did take yesterday - after work no less! Those down south don't appreciate their longer winter days enough. It is now light to about 5:30 pm (bliss!) so I don't have to run Meg in the dark in the morning AND the evening. This is almost straight from the camera - I liked the long red light and the fence leading off into the back - I did have to touch up a big sensor dust spot in the sky with Picasa 3. Now I just need to find my sensor cleaning stuff so I don't have to fix all my pictures... where did it get put after the move??

From Photo of the day 2012

The side of my house - this has made me laugh over the last week or so. It makes me think that the house must have an itch and is trying to scratch it with its 4 ft long curly chunk of snow. I like how the icicles are no longer verticle and get a curve as the gravity has changed for them. Not the most spectacular picture, but one I've been meaning to get for a while (hard when its dark most of the time you are home). I did take some others from other angles but they just didn't work. I guess thats two for this week. I will have to find another.

A few more

2011-12-04T18:44:00.001-08:00

So I've got a bit of time to update this.

From Photo of the day 2011

I took this while helping some of my photography students find pictures around the school yard - to be honest, I think I swiped the idea from one of them, or at least partly. I like all the textures in the worn out swing, and the sharpness and colour around the rust stains. I will fully admit the blue post in the corner is a bit distracting and perhaps should have been cropped out. Anyways, one that just kind of worked. This is straight from the cam with my wide angle lens.

From Photo of the day 2011

This one I took at my house just as the sun was going down on a friday evening a few weeks ago. The temperatures were down around -15 or -20 C and still falling. That weekend it got down to -33 C at my house - and this was just the first of my windows to display frost. Later in the weekend this little feather was lost in more frost. I liked the fading light in the background too. Straight from the camera, wide angle lens.

More to come later.

Back online

2011-11-20T17:14:00.001-08:00

I've been offline since my move to Vanderhoof in Northern BC in August so I have a fair bit of catching up to do. I have still been taking photos, not as often as I should, as I am teaching a photography course as part of my employment. I will post a few photos at a time over the next couple of days and weeks as I have some time.

From Photo of the day 2011

Low bush blueberries - the whole plant is about an inch or two tall, and the berries are very small, but absolutely delicious. I took this shot at the end of August off the trail to Echo Lake under the powerlines. Once Meg discovered what I was doing it was a race to pick them. As she didn't have to bother with hands I think she won by practically sucking the berries off the plants.
I think this was straight from the camera, but I have long since forgotten.

From Photo of the day 2011

A frosty, single-seeded dandelion. These pictures look odd now, as there is several inches of snow outside, but at the time I was kind of excited by the frost in early September. The back-lighting made this shot interesting - I like how it illuminates the fluff of the seed so dramatically compared to the shady background. The other stuff around it is alfalfa from one of the many hay fields around my house.

Dog Walks

2011-07-30T20:54:00.000-07:00

Just a couple shots from my dog walking and other outings over the last couple of weeks.

From Photo of the day 2011

I took a trip up to the Crow and Gate pub outside of Nanaimo last week. The food was pretty good, the gardens were great. Lots of hummers, mostly Rufus hummingbirds like this guy, I took around 30 pictures of them but this one was the best. I like it because it looks a lot more natural than the usual one with the feeder in the shot and I managed to (almost) freeze his wings. Shot handheld with my 70-300 lens, cropped and (can't remember) I think I might have tweaked the shadows.

From Photo of the day 2011

This was an on the spot shot. I walked down to McKenzie bight yesterday with the dog and a friend. The tide was out, but coming in, and the foam was trickling in among the rocks. It must have woke up all the shore crabs hiding under the gravel because everywhere you looked there were crabs poking up or crawling in the water underneath. You could hear them there were so many - I liked how some were emerging from the foam so you couldn't see the whole thing. I was crouching for this shot, again with my long lens. This is cropped for aspect ratio and framing only.

From Photo of the day 2011

This guy I found today on my walk at Elk Lake with Meg. He was only about 4-5 inches long and he didn't look like the typical garter snakes (red or yellow stripes on the side) so I thought I would brave the snake stink and grab him to see if he was something different. He coiled himself firmly around my fingers and actually let me swap my long lens for my wide angle with him there! I wanted a bit more zoom but the focusing distance on my long lens is further than my arm length and I'm awful at trying to shoot without aiming through the viewfinder.

Anways - this is straight from the camera. I think he's just a young garter, but all my vertebrate ID books and notes from school are packed so I can't check.

From Photo of the day 2011

And another find from Elk Lake today - a red squirrel. Actually - it could be a douglas squirrel - one has an orange tummy, one white. Anyways, I spotted him as he scampered to the far side of the trunk as I was coming up the path so stopped and got the camera all ready. He came around and went up the tree - I have some shots of that too - but then turned around and was glaring at the dog in this one. I liked his stance - it just oozes squirrel. I did have to tweek it a bit - a fair bit of shadows in Picasa 3, nothing else.

Scaley

2011-07-12T17:20:00.000-07:00

From Photo of the day 2011

This is a European Wall Lizard - introduced into BC. I though they were alligator lizards until 5 minutes ago when I looked it up to make sure. They are all through my friend's rock garden in Brentwood and, yes, they do crawl up his walls (the outside!) This was shot through a lot of grass, so I was impressed with how it came out. He is quite sharp, and I had to be sneaky. As you can see he is watching me, any quick moves and he would run down a hole. This guy was about 5 inches long. I cropped it a bit to get rid of some of the more distracting grass, sharpened (a touch) and gave it a little bit of highlights to bring out his colours and brighten it up a bit.

From Photo of the day 2011

Also from my friends garden - a swallowtail butterfly on mock orange flower. I cropped and sharpened only in Picasa 3. Technically butterflies have scales too, hence the title.

From Photo of the day 2011

And not the best photographic quality - but Mr. 6V was back at my place today, so I thought I'd throw this in. I had a few of him preening but they are a lot darker. This was cropped only. Maybe he will find a mate for next year and nest near here.

Bee and the bird

2011-07-10T18:14:00.000-07:00

From Photo of the day 2011

The bee beats out the shot below for top spot for photo quality, as opposed to subject. The full size version of this is remarkably sharp, and could easily be printed quite large. I took the dog to Elk Lake again on off chance of seeing the red-tails again in better light. I hadn't heard them at all where I usually do and was in a photo taking sort of mood. The light was nice and the bees were pretty close. It was harder than I expected, they move quickly and unpredictably and I was working at the end of my zoom. I took several of a couple of different bees and this was the best. I sharpened a touch and cropped a bit in Picasa 3.

From Photo of the day 2011

And then I did manage to find one of the young red-tailed hawks from the last week. He started soaring over top of me, and did a couple of passes. Evidently he was curious as he's looking right at me in this shot - cool! The evening light helped me out a bit, and its way better than the last posts shots in terms of quality. I did a little saturation for the sky, a bit of highlights/shadows, sharpening and a crop in Picasa 3.

Fledgelings

2011-07-08T17:06:00.000-07:00

From Photo of the day 2011

This is the "official" shot for this post. It makes the cut for this size, but it is cropped and a bit over worked (some saturation, sharpening, and cropping) for viewing large size. It is good for the light available (bright overcast) but not a great shot quality-wise. It looks cool here with the white background, the bird looks like it is not framed.

The story behind the angry adult red-tailed hawk above follows:
I found a number of early fledgling red-tailed hawks yesterday while walking at Elk Lake. Of course, I hadn't packed my camera (or binos!) so was left squinting at them and listening to their calling. Today I packed my camera and headed back out as they were young and likely to be found in the same area. It took me a bit but I did find them in the end - two - and just learning to follow mom around a bit on their wings. I got a few pictures of the babies hanging out and flying, but I was shooting towards the sun in bright overcast conditions. Quality not so good - the bird watching very cool. I included one of the babies in flight below.

From Photo of the day 2011

Catch-up and Merritt

2011-07-08T16:54:00.001-07:00

I have spent more time away from home in the last week and a half than I have here. I've taken a number of good shots, just no time to put them up. So here are some of the more interesting pictures I shot in the last couple weeks:

From Photo of the day 2011

This shot is actually sharper than it appears at this size (maybe it's just my monitor) - all the details are pixel sized. You can view the large size by clicking its link. I took this at Island view beach on the 19th of June. The dog spooked a couple of herons towards me so I got a mass of shots of them flying by. This is one of the best ones - the hill in the background gave it some perspective, and the bird was in breeding plumage. I like how smooth the back of his wings look.

From Photo of the day 2011

This is a marmot hiding from my dog - the things I would miss without her! A friend and I decided to head out to Merritt to do some kestrel trapping again this year. I think the cold spring set everything back - we did catch one adult male kestrel, but we didn't find any active kestrel nests. While we were checking out a likely tree, Meg found this guy. I took some pictures and hauled her off.

From Photo of the day 2011

Again from Merritt - the lighting wasn't great so I metered off the tree to make sure the bird didn't come out a silhouette. The tree had a bunch of these mountain bluebirds in it. Not sure if they all had separate nests in it, or just liked the tree and were nesting in the bluebird boxes on the fence posts by the road.

From Photo of the day 2011

I believe this is straight from the camera - possibly a little sharpening. Large aperture to blur the background and a step back with the long lens to get as much zoom as possible. A wild columbine - the overcast kind of morning light really worked. Taken outside of Merritt on the hike back from another fruitless nest check.

Cooper's Hawk

2011-06-19T13:04:00.000-07:00

From Photo of the day 2011

This little guy came to hunt around our birdfeeder and the neighbour's back yard this morning. There has been another juvenile hanging around the last couple of days, not sure if it was him - I thought the other one was a female, but not sure. He has bands on from Andy Stewart - a local researcher who bands most of the cooper's hawks in Victoria. Blue bands are male, red are female. I've sent off the numbers to (hopefully) get a bit of a backstory on this particular bird. I had some pictures I went outside to get when he was further back in our yard, this was from his second visit this morning, and I shot all three through our dining room picture window.

From Photo of the day 2011

Just a different pose, another good shot from a larger series I shot while waiting for him to take off.

From Photo of the day 2011

This one I think is very cool - even though the bird has a bit of motion blur. For the speed he would have been going I was suprised how well he came out and that I actually got all of his head in the frame (just). He had just launched himself from the previous branch and was chasing a crow. It was just as cool as watching my own bird hunt - he had his feet on the crow, tussled with it in the air for a bit before he lost it and chased it up over our roof and flew away. Not suprisingly all our feeder-visiting finches were sitting very still and quiet in the labernum tree!

Photo hunting

2011-06-19T12:57:00.000-07:00

This is going to be a post for photos from a few days ago.

From Photo of the day 2011

I took this on Friday morning at Cadboro Bay beach on my morning dog walk. It turns out its almost as handy to have a pointing dog for picture taking as it would be for hunting. Meg is trained enough that she will wait, pointing the ducks, until I tell her to chase them. It works out for me - I can get my camera set and ready - and for her training for when I have another bird and want to hunt ducks. You can just see her blurry head in this shot. I was going to crop it out, but then the framing was off, and besides it tells a story. I could even call it "shooting" - she's just a camera dog, instead of a gun dog.

I cropped, increased shadows, and sharpened this in Picasa 3.

From Photo of the day 2011

Same duck from the same chase, just with a bit more time. With the 5fps I've been able to catch a lot more action, and had several shots to choose from. I liked how sharp her tail was and the side lighting worked. Again, a bit of a crop (the ducks were a bit far for my lens), increased shadows a touch, and sharpening.

Scale

2011-06-15T19:28:00.000-07:00

From Photo of the day 2011

I took a paininting down to Prism Imaging in Victoria to have some prints made a few days ago in the morning. Seeing as I had to go downtown for that, I took the dog to the Dallas Road beach for her morning run. It must have been a spring tide (or close to it) as the water was way out and this big rock was exposed. I thought the big barnacles were cool - about the size of a twoonie around - and then I noticed that they had little barnacles on top of them. I was reminded of the saying "even my bruises have bruises" and figured this could be the "even the barnacles have barnacles!". The kelp added a bit extra for perspective and interest. I've been discovering the auto-bracketing function on my new camera which is cool. It gives me a chance to take the same picture in a three (or more) frame burst, and the camera will vary the exposure a little bit with each shot. I have it set to do this using shutter speed. You can do it with aperture too - I guess you could use that for action shots - but that would change your depth of field, which was way more important to this shot. I think this was the -0.3 exposure shot (meaning my chosen settings resulted in the image being more exposed than I would have liked) , which I further sharpened in Picasa 3. No cropping.

From Photo of the day 2011

While the previous was small scale, this is obviously large scale. I took this one the day before - actually, this several - on a hike up the aptly named Mt Work on Sunday afternoon. This is another stitched panorama shot using ArcSoft's Panorama Maker Pro (though this time version 5). Unfortunately the free version of the software only outputs 1/16th size panoramas - good enough for here, but not for printing. The free version of Pro 4 did the full size ones, but I guess then they weren't selling any software. I may remake this with a purchased version when I get some money.

Anyways - I shot the individual shots in a vertical camera frame to get more of the foreground in with the rest of the scenery. Also used as high an F-stop I could get and still hand-hold the shots in the given light (f 11) to maximize my depth of field. A total of 5 shots to make this one. You can see the Bamberton mill/quarry/construction site on the shores of the Saanich Inlet, and I think if had I bothered to haul out my binos on site I could have made out bits of Mill Bay and Cobble Hill. Of course, having the camera set up with the wide angle lens for scenery shots, I missed two great opportunities at eagles flying by at eye level or lower off the edge of the rock face. Bother. Other than the stitching, I did no post processing.

Flowers

2011-06-11T20:02:00.000-07:00

From Photo of the day 2011

I took this photo yesterday, but didn't get a chance to process it. I took it on a walk around Oak Bay and Willows Beach with my mom and sister in the morning. I didn't see anything much that sparked my photo-eye until we were almost finished and I spied this iris in someone's roadside flower garden. It was huge, and I liked the brush of stamens waiting to paint the next bee to visit with pollen as he crawled in. I stood back and shot this with my long lens (70-300mm) to make it more like a macro shot. I sharpened a touch in Picasa 3 just to bring out that brush a bit more.

From Photo of the day 2011

This one I took today at the end of a walk around Durrance Lake with a friend. I liked how they were clinging to the rockface above the parking lot, and I liked how the light was hitting them from the side, but not the rock behind them. This made it look like they had a bit of a spotlight on them. It also let me meter off them and leave the rock behind them underexposed enough to be black. Just cool. Again, I shot this with my long lens as they were up out of reach, and it just does macro better than my wide angle. Slight sharpening in Picasa, nothing else.

Takeoff

2011-06-09T19:07:00.000-07:00

From Photo of the day 2011

I didn't see much at Cadboro this morning for picture taking. I did have some fun trying out the 5 fps feature of the new camera on some pigeons, though my focus was off so they didn't make the cut.

Meg spooked this heron from the rock where I was going to take pictures of him (closer to shore) but he landed on this kelp-raft. I waited around long enough for him to take off and got a bunch of shots of his actual take off - being a heron, that part of his flight takes a second or two. I liked this one the best - you could see his face and the trail of water coming off his feet. It is far from camera-direct, however. I cropped this a fair bit to remove extraneous image and played with the highlights and fill light (the original was too dark). I also significantly sharpened it - all in Picasa 3.

Will have to figure out the focusing better for next time.

Cadboro Bay

2011-06-08T18:57:00.000-07:00

From Photo of the day 2011

I really like how this one came out and if I knew I was going to be more consistently posting, I would have left it here. I will call it the "official" photo of the day. I spotted this scene immediatly on arriving at the beach this morning and liked how the oars of the rowboat looked. I framed it long to give it more perspective, same reason for using a wider aperture to blur the driftwood out. It makes your eye look out towards the fellow rowing rather than the foreground. He looked kind of lonely out there by himself, not sure if he was. The boat in the picture turned out not to be where he was headed, there were two more anchored out of the shot to the left and he went to one of those. This is straight from the camera - I was going to clone out what I thought was sensor dust just above the bow of the boat, then realized when I zoomed in, it was actually part of the boat!

From Photo of the day 2011

A barnacled rock being washed by the waves. I liked how the waves were coming in, and figured the bubbles would make a neat shot, but knew from previous experience that those kinds of shots need something to focus on - bubbles don't work on their own. This lonely barnacled rock worked out quite well - I had fun trying out my new D200's rapid fire (5 fps) continuous shooting and so took a lot of these ones, some with the water just coming in, some with more water, etc. This one came out the best. I cropped it a bit to change the framing (put the rock more to the center left) and to bring out the focus on the barnacles some more. I know when viewing the small versions on here the little details aren't so clear.

From Photo of the day 2011

And last but not least - my pooch. Mostly in here just because it is a nice picture of her. I think she was watching some ducks and debating if it was worth swimming out to chase them or not. Turns out it was. I adjusted the fill light (increased) to bring out her dark face a bit more.

Nikon D200

2011-06-07T15:42:00.000-07:00

So after the escapade with the barred owl and my camera eating the better picture of the flower, I decided to take the Nikon D70s into the shop. As it turned out, it needed a new card slot (estimate ~ $200 to fix). As I could buy a used D70s body for 200, I figured I would instead replace the camera body with a cooler one and use the $200 to upgrade. Thus - all my shots on here will now be taken with a Nikon D200, unless otherwise stated. I have kept my old D70s, probably more for sentimental reasons than anything else.

From Photo of the day 2011

I saw this shot on the way to Cadboro Bay beach this morning with the dog. I made her wait and fired off a bunch - its another one of my reflection shots. You can see me on the left with the new camera, and the dog in the right lens. The sky looked cool too. I used my wide angle lens, increased the highlights a touch in Picasa 3, nothing else.

SLR photos

2011-05-26T11:50:00.001-07:00

Ok, so here's a few of my Nikon shots over the last month.

From Photo of the day 2011

Just after I got back from Toronto, I drove up to Vanderhoof for a teaching job interview. After my two days up there getting to know the people at the school and the area itself, I took a drive around some of Vanderhoof before I left. While I should have been taking a few shots of the houses by the small airport I was interesting in renting, I ended up taking pictures of a Long-billed Curlew (too far off) and this little insect that fixed itself to the driver's side window of my truck. I believe its a kind of ichneumonid - a type of wasp-like thing - though my entomology ID is a little rusty. This was not the shot I thought I would keep, but on the screen I could make out his reflection in the glass, and the lighting came out better. I cropped this, and did just a touch of highlights/shadows and sharpening in Picasa 3.

From Photo of the day 2011

I took this Sunday- wow, I've got down to take-process-post within a week! - on a hike down to Mckenzie bight in Gowland-Todd park in Victoria. The light was nice, so I stood back and took this with my zoom lens. I liked how the sun picked out the flower. Unfortunately, my Nikon is having some issues with cards, and I think it ate the photo I was actually going to post. This one was the best of the rest, though it took a little work. I played with highlights/shadows, and sharpened it quite a bit. Way to go camera - soon to go into the shop and get serviced.

From Photo of the day 2011

This is cropped only enough to remove some distractions, and is nearly full frame. It was way too dark to be taking hand-held shots however, and turning this into a yellow-filtered black and white with Picasa 3 produced the best contrast and sharpness I could bring out of it. This barred owl was hanging out near the trail when we came back up from the beach at McKenzie bight on Sunday night. Its a neat shot, pity I was thinking like a film photographer and didn't up my ISO to get some better exposure. Well, you only have so much time with wildlife I suppose.

Collection of mobile photos

2011-05-26T11:31:00.000-07:00

I took most of these photos several weeks to several months ago. I was going to make this post the day after the last one but, of course, things and work got out of hand and it didnt happen. This a collection of neat photos I took with my phone (HTC Desire). I am not impressed with the sharpness of the photos it takes - they tend to be very pixel-y - but I guess that is what you get with a lens and sensor only several mm wide. It may be 6 mega-pixels (or more I'm not sure) same as my good camera, but its obvious that it is glass and lenses that make a picture nice.

Anyways, on to the pictures!

From Photo of the day 2011

One of the first set of pictures I took with my phone, back when I got it in February. This weird ice stalagmite had grown underneath a park bench on the trails at Elk Lake. I liked the way the light came through it, and how often do you get to take cool ice pictures in Victoria? I don't think I did much (if any) editing - possibly fill light in Picasa, but I don't recall.

From Photo of the day 2011

This was taken a few days after cabbage pictures in March (see "Getting a bit behind... March 2011). Its amazing the number of pictures I have spotted in my friend's helicopter hangar. There is another one I need to take my Nikon out to get - some sunny evening I'm sure. Anyways. This is a small convex mirror sitting on the work bench. I liked how it reflected everything behind me. You can make out the back end of the R-22 Helicopter and the pattern of the rafters I took a shot of earlier. It took me a couple shots to make sure I wasn't in the shot, and to get the extras right (jar of screws, etc). No editing, but seen in its larger version, the pixelating and over contrast from the phone camera is evident in both the reflection and the jar of screws.

From Photo of the day 2011

I was kicking myself when I took this one. The shot would have been really nice with the Nikon, but I had left it in the car because it was raining. This the path down to the beach on Dallas Rd. The grey sky brought out the brightness of the flowers up the hill, and the lines just worked to lead the eye into the shot. Pixel-y again, but it was better than not taken at all.

From Photo of the day 2011

I had a trip to Toronto in the last few weeks - training for new employment. I didn't bring my Nikon - too bulky for such a short trip. Really, I didn't have time to take a lot of pictures anyways. After training on the Saturday I walked around in the Yonge-Bloor neighbourhood and spied this on the way back to the hotel. My first reaction was along the lines of "try this one on, Escher!". I liked how all the corners were reflected in each other, making it hard to figure out where the building edges actually start and end. The only shot I took in Toronto.

I will get back to some more Nikon shots next post.

Lone Tree Hill

2011-04-19T18:47:00.000-07:00

From Photo of the day 2011

With all the nice weather we've been having in Victoria, I decided I needed to get out somewhere different for a hike. Preferably somewhere with a view. I picked out Lone Tree Hill Park (a Capital Regional District park) in the district of the Highlands. I've been there once before a number of years ago and remember the view being nice on a sunny day. So I packed up the dog and the camera and went looking for some good shots.

This is the first one I took - the dead branch of the arbutus backed by its very much alive trunk just looked really cool in the light. I spotted it while exploring a side path while waiting for some other people to vacate the peak - I didn't want the dog to bother them on their outing. Once they left I had the place to myself. I really like how it came out, so this is the "official" shot for the day Its actually a one shot deal too - I took some others of the same subject after this one and they are not as good. I didn't need to do any editing either - bonus! Straight from the camera.

From Puppy!

I've included these other two shots to give you a better impression of the park itself. Meg was enjoying a stick between chasing the soaring vultures. She made a good foreground to the background of the city. Straight back above her head you can make out Mount Doug, the white dot to the left of that is the observatory by Elk Lake, and believe it or not, you can actually make out the Legislative buildings downtown (with binoculars on site). I probably should have cloned out the sensor dust visible in the sky, but forgot. Oh well - now I can say its straight from the camera. I believe I used my circular polarizing filter on this one to bring out the sky better.

From Puppy!

And Meg again - its not a sheer cliff, but it is very steep. She's busy pointing a turkey vulture that was flying below us. Crazy dog, I guess she thought they were going to land.

Sidney and a Hummer

2011-03-19T19:55:00.000-07:00

From Photo of the day 2011

Two of my Aunts from Saskatchewan are out visiting for a few days, so we've been doing some of the more tourist-y activities available in Victoria. Today we made the trek out to Sidney - partly for the fish and chips at Fish on Fifth, partly to visit the Shaw Ocean Discovery Center. We went to the center first, I'd never been, and were impressed to say the least. They make a great show of making you feel like you are going into the deep when you come in and their displays of local habitats are fantastic. Highly recommended. Anyways - this was a shot from one of their jellyfish aquariums at the start, I can't remember what kind this one is but I've seen them off the piers occasionally. I'm a bit disappointed with the moire patterns, but the files of a bunch of the others, along with my moon jelly shots somehow got corrupted (not cool). This shot is only cropped to remove the light that was reflecting in the top corner.

From Photo of the day 2011

A stunning great blue heron in full breeding plumage hunting on the shore in Sidney. This was shot with a wide angle lens! I didn't bring my whole camera bag out because it was having zipper issues (and its heavy) so that was all I had. I think if I had my long lens it would have been the best heron picture I have. I cropped this slightly to "zoom" it in a bit, but not much. I also liked how calm the water is and how well the rocks showed through the sea. Other than the crop, straight from the camera.

From Photo of the day 2011

This was shot from my dining room table a few days ago. This female Anna's Hummingbird has taken to sitting on the side of the feeder so I can get more than her head in a picture. I used my long lens from abou 4-5 ft away from her, so I could zoom in quite close. I was impressed by how sharp it came out of the camera. I did crop this (to remove more of the feeder), increased the fill light, highlights and shadows (to boost the contrast a bit) and then added a touch of saturation. I don't think I would've needed to do all that had the sun come out more. Really, these are just tweaks, all in Picasa3.

Now if only the male would visit that side of the feeder!

Getting a bit behind....

2011-03-08T19:46:00.001-08:00

I'm beginning to think I should change the subtitle of this blog to "occasional photo weblog" - I guess I'm not a Hawkless Falconer right now either.

Some of my backlogged shots:

From Photo of the day 2011

I took this at Elk lake a few days ago. I was going to try out out the macro capabilities of my new phone's camera (HTC Desire). I was not impressed. It wouldn't focus where I wanted and was hopelessly un-sharp. I took the photo with my Nikon and a wide-angle lens so I wouldn't have to stand so far back. This is the underside of of a swordfern frond, the little balls are called sori - clusters of sporangia that produce fern spores. I liked how all the veins looked and hey, if I ever teach biology 11 on call again, I will have an illustrative photo. This one is only cropped to remove distractions.

From Photo of the day 2011

This is taken with my phone. I must say it looks a lot better on the phone. The limitations of a physically small lens are apparent when viewed on a monitor. The colours, likely because of the unconventional and dim lightsource, were washed out and it didn't take much zooming to find the loss of sharpness. Still, it was the only camera on my person, and I got the shot rather than not. This was taken on Mitchell's Farm in one of the fields near my friends helicopter hangar. I have increased the saturation and increased the shadows a bit in Picasa 3.

From Photo of the day 2011

Here is another one from my phone. I think it fared better here (more light, less camera shake?) I guess its just not built for macro. This is the inside roof of the helicopter hangar. I was hanging out waiting for my friend to come back with the heli, enjoying a coffee, and listening to the starlings trying to make nests in the insulation. the pattern of the roof beams and the light just looked cool. Straight from the phone.

From Puppy!

And last, but definitely not least, my hound. I took her down to Gowlland-Tod park this afternoon on the McKenzie bight trail. We saw about 20 harbour seals in the bay - photos weren't great. The lighting picked up towards the end of the hike and Meg was watching some ducks. The nice thing about a pointing dog - they pose! I liked how the evening light highlighted her ears and face. Straight from the camera.

Elk Lake

2011-01-21T11:23:00.000-08:00

From Photo of the day 2011

I was finally able to get my dog out and about again on Wednesday after 2+ weeks house rest. She cut her foot while we were out hawking, so things have been a bit slow for me. Anyways, got her out to Elk Lake outside of Victoria for about an hour and a half, I had just got off work and the light was lovely. Took the camera in case I found something and took a bunch of shots. This one is shot from the Beaver lake side of the park looking across to "The Center of the Universe" observatory. Just the lighting and shadows made it work. I added a bit of warming colour temperature and highlights in Picasa.

From Photo of the day 2011

I also found this guy - a juvenile red-tailed hawk. I accidentally spooked him from a closer perch out of the sun before I could get a shot off, but he conveniently landed in the light on a higher perch. Made the angle a little funny, and he was a bit put out with me (as you can see in his expression) but looked pretty good all the same. This one is the last one I got before he got annoyed enough with me staring at him to take off somewhere else. I had a few of him in flight but all the branches were in the way or he was out of focus. Cropped this and Sharpened in Picasa.

Hooded

2011-01-14T19:34:00.000-08:00

From BCFA for sale

My sister complained I don't post enough on here, so this one was unplanned.

I finished up this hood this week to enter in the NAFEX.net hoodmaking contest. I needed some pictures of it on a bird so I got Fowler to model it for me. I had him stand on the gate of my deck and shot it with a relatively large aperture to blur the background. I wasn't really looking for an artistic shot but I like how it came out - the hood looks good on him and the picture is sharp. Straight out of the camera.

A new year

2011-01-01T21:28:00.000-08:00

From Photo of the day 2011

So this one takes the "official" photo of the day title. And to think I wasn't going to take the shot but for prompting from my friend. A vivid sunset taken from my friends helicopter hangar after we got back in from flying. I had another with the whole helicopter in the shot but liked how the main blade in this one led one's eye into the sunset rather than out of it. I played with the fill light a tad to bring out a bit more of the sky, which lead me to just touch up the shadows to hide the pixeling that shows up in barely exposed kinds of shadows.

From Photo of the day 2011

And this takes second place. My friend and I flew his gyrfalcon, Tula, before we took off flying in the helicopter before dark. She is sitting on her lure (fake duck) which she just piled out of the sky for. I really like her posture and the exposure was just right so that her back was visible without burning the sunlit breast feathers. I took some with the sun behind me but the grass in the background and the harsher shadows were more distracting. I could easily print this off to paint from - who knows, I might. This shot is straight from the camera.

Eclipse

2010-12-28T23:15:00.000-08:00

From Photo of the day 2010

I know this one has probably been done a lot recently - the whole thing isn't going to happen again for another long time (that is a total eclipse on the winter solstice) so I got myself organised and took a few shots. It turned out pretty good for shooting with only a 300mm lens off my back deck in town without a lot of forethought (such as: "what are good camera settings for shooting an eclipse?"). The weather wasn't really cooperating either - there was a fair amount of high cloud and a number of larger ones that obscured the moon at times, but I shouldn't complain as it had been overcast and raining most of the day.

In the end I shot with a low ISO to combat graininess in the black areas, large aperture, and whatever shutter I could get with the other two settings. I also turned on the long exposure noise reduction feature setting on my camera. I compensated for the halo generated by the clouds by increasing the shadows in Picasa for processing. Not a lot else! I'm impressed with the amount of detail I got in some of the craters. I really should have a go at shooting a full moon in good conditions with a remote sometime, I think I would be suprised by the quality.

Downtown Victoria

2010-08-17T12:05:00.000-07:00

From Photo of the day 2010

I have been meaning to take some photos of the old buildings in downtown Victoria for some time and finally got around to it. I took a walk from Clover Point all around the outside edge of town, skirting around the Legislative buildings and the Empress Hotel. It was kind of fun wandering around among the tourists. I didn't find anything around the major landmarks that grabbed my eye though. I've also discovered its really hard to be on your own with a dog down there though, forget going into any shops - apparently its not legal to leave your dog tied up, even in the shade.

Anyways, I found this on Yates street (I think). I liked the symmetry of the windows and the bricks and the angle of the light. I tried to put the flags in the window at the top third, I would have liked to have them in a top third corner, but couldn't make it work with the surrounding buildings. It was only after that I noticed the fan at the bottom third, which works in its own way. I had to fix my exposure settings in Picasa afterwards with a little highlights and fill light, but it is not cropped. I was using a circular polarizing filter to bring out the colours in the bright sun.

Recent Travels

2010-07-25T20:07:00.000-07:00

From Photo of the day 2010

I took this shot last weekend while down on Fonyo beach in Victoria with Meg and my parents. I liked the log and the monochome-ness of the shot - It came out remarkably sharp which only intensified this feel. Just kind of a neat shot - and straight out of the camera.

From Photo of the day 2010

I stitched 5 vertical photos together with ArcSoft's Panorama Maker 4 Pro. My pilot friend and I flew out to Port Alberni last week and stopped in at the Mars Water Bomber site. These are the largest water bombers in the world - built in the 1940's and there are 4 left - two of which were in Port Alberni. This one was on the dock, the other in the water. Look at the semi in the shot for a sense of scale. Neat thing to go and see.

From Photo of the day 2010

And last but not least, an adult male kestrel my friends and I trapped in Merritt BC this last weekend. We have permits to take a juvenile for use in falconry but can't tell the age until they are in the hand. This little guy was an adult so we took some pictures and let him loose. Stunning little guy. This shot is also straight out of the camera.

Island Scenery

2010-07-11T15:54:00.000-07:00

From Photo of the day 2010

Kind of funny how this shot made the cut - I really like it but it was shot from the hip and its straight out of the camera. A friend of mine has a small helicopter (Robinson R22) and we went flying a few weeks ago. I'm not sure what river this is, its either the Nanaimo or the Cowichan, and something makes me thing its the former. Anyways, I was trying to center the shot down the valley and obviously missed. Once on the computer screen though, I liked the lighting and (remarkably) the framing as well. Who knows, I might even get it printed.

From Photo of the day 2010

This one I took two days ago while walking my dog at Cadboro Bay's Gyro park in the morning. The last few days here have been fantastic weather. I metered this off the log to avoid over exposing it and then framed the boats to lead off into the horizon. Large F-stop to keep things all relatively in focus with plenty of light for the shutter. Again, this is straight out of the camera. The mountains in the distance are those of the Olympic Peninsula in Washington state.

I'm back to taking more photos now that I'm not so overwhelmed with school work but seem to forget to process them. I will work on that and try to get stuff up here sooner.

And in case you are interested, a basic shot of my friends heli, taken when I got out to try get some shots of an osprey.

From Photo of the day 2010

Some Passerines

2010-06-17T07:00:00.000-07:00

I took these pictures about a week and a half ago. I was planning on getting them up on the Monday, but I'm enrolled in a summer institute at University which is mainly in front of the computer and didn't have the energy to face sitting in front of the screen for any longer. Last weekend I spent creating a stop motion animation film for the same institute and had had enough of cameras and photos by the end of that. Anyways, Here they are. I took the first two on a walk with the dog at Clover Point.

From Photo of the day 2010

I'm not sure what this little guy is - my guess is a juvenile sparrow, what kind I don't know. He was pretty tame, but getting my camera set properly took too long for me to get any more than this one shot. I liked how he was sitting on the branch and that the background was free of noise. I cropped this, lightened it up a bit with highlights and sharpened in Picasa 3.

From Photo of the day 2010

This one, on the other hand, I know is a mature song sparrow. The small dark spot on his chest along with his grey and brown striped face gives that away. He was remarkably tame - or defensive - and stuck around for a lot of shots. Most of the backgrounds were too noisy for my taste so they didn't make it up here. This is full frame from the camera at 300 mm (which will let you just how close I was, maybe 5 feet away). I increased the highlights a bit and sharpened in Picasa 3.

As I was sorting these photos I came across a neat one I took nearly 2 years ago. I cropped it today to remove some distractions and change the bird's postition in the frame. Because of that, and the fact that I didn't have this blog when I took the shot I figured it was fair game to put up here. This is a cedar waxwing at the water garden at Minter Gardens outside of Agassiz, BC.

From Photo of the day 2010

Spring Oaks

2010-05-21T21:24:00.000-07:00

Just finished off my first teaching practicum this week, so I've had a bit of time to look through some pictures I took last weekend in the sun. Though I completed my entire undergraduate degree at UVic and called Victoria my home for nearly 5 of the last 7 years, with summer work I have not yet spent a summer in Victoria. I'm not quite used to all this green. After cleaning out Fowler's mews officially before removing his anklets and letting him take the summer off to moult, I looked up and saw the light through the Garry Oak branches in my backyard. Always nice - I fetched my camera and took this shot. The white background of this blog really doesn't do it justice - it needs a dark background to offset the sky more. Oh well, it is what it is.

From Photo of the day 2010

Later in the afternoon Mom spied some feathers floating down from the tree tops. We went out to investigate and found this adult male Cooper's Hawk plucking something up on a high branch. I'm not sure what it was, I didn't get a good look at it from the angle I had and he flew off (pursued by crows) after a few minutes. Two of the better shots I took of him below. These were taken with my 70-300mm lens, F5.6 (it should have been more like 7 to get a better depth of field) 1/250 s (that explains it, not much light for a moving animal. I suppose I could have increased the ISO but I like to keep that low.

From Photo of the day 2010

I cropped the first one to make him look a bit more hidden as he is a bit obscured and eating, that and to remove a very blurry branch from the shot. The second I cropped out the same blurry branch but put the hawk in the top right to give him some space to look into. As he's looking at me it works a little better.

Its been awhile..

2010-03-02T20:53:00.000-08:00

Ah the joys of a busy life. I started this wanting to give myself something to do other than work, now I am a full time student again with my dog, a hawk again, and a whole lot of homework. No doubt things will pick up again when I put Fowler up for the moult in the summer and get a break from school.

With regards to Fowler, it seems I've been in the (real) media a bit because of this blog. It seems a bit ironic to me still, as the site is called *Hawkless* Falconer, that it has led to this sort of thing. The Agassiz-Harrison Observer ran a story on me in the fall - both on my photography and falconry hobbies. You can read that here
Not all my personal information is correct, but it was neat all the same. Partly because of that article and partly because of this blog, CBC Radio One's On the Island based out of Victoria contacted me and asked to go hunting with Fowler. They just aired the first segment this morning, and a few more to come. I will post links to them as I get them.

Anyways. Back to photos..

From Photo of the day 2010

These are a few shots I took at the Blue Whale Project's open house. The aim is to have a fully articulated blue whale skeleton on display in Vancouver when it is finished. As it is now, it is in several articulated pieces, as the space they have available by the shipyards in Victoria is not large enough to connect them all together. This is the lumbar section, equivalent to a human's lower back. For more information on them, check it out here

I have only sharpened and done a bit of highlights and shadows in these shots other than convert them to B&W, the one a focal black and white, in Picasa 3

From Photo of the day 2010

This shot I'm quite pleased with as people are not my usual subject and the light was very low. Because it was in concert (I took a series of photos as a favour for Guitar Victoria at a recent concert) I could not use a flash, and managed to figure my camera out for the shots with a tripod. It came out not bad. If you want more information on them, you can head here at www.guitarvictoria.com.

This one is straight from the camera.

From Photo of the day 2010

And last but not least - I headed out to Agassiz and Maple Ridge for a visit over reading break, just at the start of the Olympics in Vancouver. As I was in a vehicle, I avoided all the venue locations as much as was possible. I caught an early ferry and discovered a fantastic dog park in Delta by the boundary bay airport. Meg had a blast tearing all over the place and jumping in water filled ditches, I had some fun taking pictures of the over abundant eagles. I must have seen over 30 between the Tsawassen ferry terminal and Maple Ridge. Spectacular.

The shot is cropped, sharpened and a little of highlights/shadows in Picasa 3.

Border Agility

2009-12-28T22:33:00.000-08:00

Hawkless Falconer

Catch-up and recommit

A few more

Back online

Dog Walks

Scaley

Bee and the bird

Fledgelings

Catch-up and Merritt

Cooper's Hawk

Photo hunting

Scale

Flowers

Takeoff

Cadboro Bay

Nikon D200

SLR photos

Collection of mobile photos

Lone Tree Hill

Sidney and a Hummer

Getting a bit behind....

Elk Lake

Hooded

A new year

Eclipse

Downtown Victoria

Recent Travels

Island Scenery

Some Passerines

Spring Oaks

Its been awhile..

Border Agility

BCFA meet

Dog bed

Pine cones

A collaboration

A couple of birds

Dog light

Shadow of a Falconer

And back at it..

Road trip - day 1

Macro

Stave lake

Cats

Beaver

Float plane

Kamloops

Manning Day Trip

Classic Car

Tractor

Cliff Swallows

Beans

Hicks lake

Canyon Daytrip

Flower

Hooligans

Garlic

Wisteria

Volcanic knoll

Dandelion

Tree revisited

Patience, or Stupidity?

Goose

Tu-Lips and Swallow

Kingbird

Lined up

Cherry trees

Island

Robber Fly

My farm

Cheam

Free range

Birch

Trees

Magnolia

Bricks

Lambs

Library

Cactus flower

Flicker