Lone Tree Hill

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

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....

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

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

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

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

From Photo of the day 2010

From Photo of the day 2010

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

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

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

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

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

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

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..

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

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

From Photo of the day (2009)

From Photo of the day (2009)

From Photo of the day (2009)

So I went out last week to watch my friends dog agility lesson. I've seen the competitions on TV but never really seen someone at work. Learned lots of stuff - apparently the courses are never the same, and a competition course is checked over by lots of people to make sure it hasn't been used in competition before. Not only does your dog have to know all the tricks of the trade and be able to do them quickly, it has to pay attention to you so it knows which bit to take next!

I figured shooting these guys would be relatively easy compared to say, a lure flown falcon which follows an unpredictable path - I couldn't have been more wrong. I think it would have been easier had I been more versed in how things were run - I have some ideas how a falcon will fly - but those border collies sure are fast! Then there's the obstacles to contend with - other equipment, the handler, and of course lighting. The dogs being a combination of jet black and pure white really doesn't help that situation on a cloudless frosty morning!

Anyways, here are three shots from the lesson, the first two are my friends dog, Jess, the last is the instructor's dog, and of course I've forgotten its name.

I have played with the fill light, highlights and shadows, and cropped in Picasa 3 for all shots, I've also sharpened Jess coming off the ramp.

BCFA meet

From BCFA 2009

From BCFA 2009

Took Fowler and Meg out the BC falconry association (BCFA) meet on the 5th. Saw a few falcons fly, one caught a duck, we even managed to lure in a wild peregrine with some pigeons. It treated us to a fantastic stoop from a couple hundred feet up which turned a pigeon into a cloud of feathers. Very cool. I didn't get Fowler out much, he had a swollen wing and there wasn't any rabbits for him, but he did fly around a bit with a friends big female Harris hawk.

It just so happens that the two better quality shots from the meet are of him. These are straight out of the camera - got to love evening winter light.

Dog bed

From Photo of the day (2009)

Not actually her bed. My 60 lb pooch and I share a single bed at night. She was hanging out waiting for me to go to bed the other night when I was doing some school work. I liked the lighting and the expression. I had to fiddle a fair bit with this because of the low light and the fact that it was an incandecent bulb (things came out looking yellow) I set the camera white balance to incandecent, then further cooled the colour temperature in Picasa. I had to play with the fill light and highlights to make up for the darkness of the picture - without digging out my tripod and hoping the dog would hold still for an extended period I made do with some increase in ISO. Not liking the grainyness you get with low light and high ISO, I kept it as low as possible and fully intended to rework it a bit in Picasa. It is not a shot that would be large print quality - you would see the grain - but it works for this situation.

Pine cones

From Photo of the day (2009)

I took the camera to the dog park on Thursday hoping to get some shots of dogs playing but no score. I almost got a great one of Jazz (a labradoodle) and Meg sitting - but Jazz went and turned his head for the shot, and then he was leaving. This one was the best of what I had. Nice and sharp. Douglas fir cones, hanging ready to drop their seeds. I cropped, increased shadows a bit and sharpened.

A collaboration

From Photo of the day (2009)

I have been a bit lax on my photo shooting of late. The usual culprits - school, dog, hawk, rain, and early darkness have conspired against me.
I was sorting some pictures and came across this one my father took while we were out hawking a few weeks ago. I fly Fowler in Langford under some high-voltage wires, and this is the pole that holds them up. I guess someone took a paintball gun to it. The fall rain soaked plants and the way the paint had dripped looked cool. Granted I didn't see this while flying, paying too much attention to my bird. I put it in black and white as the colours were a bit drab (dad is new with the settings and the camera may have been on auto) and this just made the plants and the paint blur together better. I also cropped to remove some of the noisy branchs and bring the focus back to the post.

A couple of birds

From Photo of the day (2009)

From Fowler

A couple pictures for this week.
The first one is a little American Dipper that I found in Goldstream Provincial Park just outside of Victoria. I was on a field trim with my observation practicum students to look at the salmon run but there weren't too many fish. These little guys run around on the bottom of the stream and pick insects off of rocks. Not much to look at but a neat bird all the same.

The second is a shot of Fowler I took today while out hunting. He spotted one bunny and chased (missed) and Meg chased another around in the trees somewhere but I didn't see one at all. Oh well. I liked the pictures though. Hope you do too.

Dog light

From Photo of the day (2009)

I decided to try and take some dark pictures seeing as I am not out that much right now. I am currently on my first 2-week practicum for my Secondary Teaching PDPP program, so I am in school from 8:30-3 just like the old days. When I am out, it is generally dark, or I have the hawk out and bird + dog + camera is a few too many things to handle (or I simply forget the cam at home).

Anyways - I get up and take the dog out at 6am so she gets a good run before I have to get to school and now its not light until after 7am. She wears a little LED contraption on her collar so I can see her bounding all over the park. I was hoping to get a time lapse sort of thing with the light showing a trail of all the places she had been but it just wasn't going to work without the tripod. Maybe next time. I had her sit and did a 1 sec exposure with some obscenely high ISO and this is what I got. You can make out some of her spotted fur on her chest right around the light and if you look closely you can make out her chin above and to the right. It is kind of a neat effect on the computer screen. I was planning on posting a different shot but this one came out better.