Showcasing the beauty of Mother Nature
While heading out for my walk last Sunday morning, I saw a huge column of smoke the minute I left my building. I snapped these photos from out of the passenger side window, as even when pulled well over on the road, I didn’t want to be out of my vehicle and get in the way of emergency services heading to the blaze. It only seemed right to wait to go through the photos until I had heard the news report about what happened. Thankfully, loss of property only.
A gorgeous start to Canada Day.
Sunday morning was incredibly beautiful. We were up bright and early, and heading off for our favourite spot at the dikes before 6. I haven’t had much success recently when I have taken my camera along, but this past Sunday more than made up for that. I’ve got lots of images to go through, both landscape and of birds. 🙂
As I was driving, the light was so lovely that I had to pull aside and put on my 4-way flashers while I snapped away. Good thing it was so early and the road was deserted.
Here are a few shots from the side of the road. More to follow in the coming days as I have time to edit and organize.
I’ve been hoping that the weather would finally cooperate, and I would be able to get some photos of the crocuses before they are gone. Sunday afternoon I finally got my chance.
I’m still getting used to the focusing of my new macro lens, and I am sure I will look at these in a couple weeks and cringe at the decisions I made on focus, but for now, I’m pretty happy with the results.
I set this photo as my desktop wallpaper a couple days ago, and that seems as good a reason as any to share it. This was taken on our first game drive at Londolozi.
1/800sec, f4.5, ISO100, April 2, 2013
The clear, cold weather over the weekend brought with it a lot of shivering, but also a lot of great photos opportunities. I had Spencer with me, so I was more concerned with his well-being and enjoyment than getting the perfect shot… but, I still managed to get a few that I really like.
I hadn’t set out with a theme in mind, but the strongest photos of the weekend were all silhouettes (a clear topic for the blog – hurray!)
Sunday morning walks with Spencer are my very favourite. When we get up and head out early, we can find, for a few brief moments, a bit of quiet space. On Sunday mornings, the trucks aren’t moving around in the gravel pit along the river, and fewer people are out early in the mornings. There are gaps when we don’t hear a train in the distance or the hum of the airplanes on the landing path into YVR – and we can hear the birds chirping, the geese honking, the ducks quacking and the breeze rustling the trees.
It was in one of these blissful gaps that I realized how much I miss while out walking the same stretch of dike. How did I fail to notice the blinking light on the top of the buoy in the channel? I’ve seen it every weekend for months, I’ve been past it on a jet ski and on boats, but until today I never actually looked at it. I know this is true in all aspects of my life – how much gets done or accomplished in busy-ness without really thinking about it, rushing around without really seeing what’s happening, being consumed with mental clutter and stress…
So this morning, I took photos of some of the things I have missed, over and over again.
The light this morning was stunning. I don’t even have words for how beautiful it was, and doubt the photos do it any justice. It was crisp this morning, with all the trees and grasses covered in thick frost. There were banks of fog swirling around close to the river; alternating between showing the water and mountains, and obscuring them. The sky was dotted with fluffy clouds, and the mountains all had a generous coating of snow… the early morning positively glowed and showed off the most subtle colour palate of pastel tones. And, it was blissfully quiet, without another person around, just the dog with me and the birds singing their wake up songs.
All in all, the perfect start to a Sunday.
