sunrise...

...2011-05-03

1st year in a LONG time that I've been living on the West Coast of a land-mass, and consequently unable to watch the sun rise over the ocean...



driving down-town





thought fate was messing with me this morning when I found a nice spot on the eastern tip of stanley park, pre-dawn light all around... and the clouds moved in.






Try to kill some time by shooting some mountain shots, and a pair of Seals surface to investigate what the lone-human is doing at this time of day... They're too quick for my unsteady-hand, and the only shots I get are blurry... after faffing about with some shots of the ever-brightening sky - I decided to switch lenses and walk a little closer to the city.





Just as I'm walking away, the clouds make a hole, and the sun peaks through


I'm on an ultra-wide lens, and miss the best of it swapping to my tele...

ok, no worries, I'll move a little further down and set up for some city shots.





it starts to rain...





not heavy enough to discourage me though... I'm here till the sun pokes it's little head out... again.



The Seaplanes must have been waiting for noise-regulations, because smack-bang on 0705am the first one has finished taxi-ing and takes off.



They're flying in a close arc to where I'm set-up; nice...



another one takes off


and another...


and another...

eventually get bored with shooting the same scene over and over (every plane is following the same path...) and start packing up to head home and caffeinate/eat pancakes...

I had a hunch that when fully committed to leaving - the sun would burst through

and I was right.

dump the tripod and hand-hold some shots of the remaining seaplanes rising over the freighter ships in sillhouette.

the rain returns, and I'm satisfied with my morning.



What else did I get up to today?

- I made the pancakes = yum

- ordered some in-line skates
exact same model I bought in sydney (2008) for $450 is now worth $250 CAD (only slightly more than shipping my old set from Australia, and when factoring in the hassle of customs/duties/etc, certainly better value)

- watched new episodes of How I Met Your Mother, and Castle (yay for unlimited cable internet)

- spent most of the day however, trying to organise photos, and sort out random program related failures (damn you APP store, why didn't you download Aperture 3 correctly)

off to do some grocery shopping before settling in to watch the canucks again.


remainder of the photos.


photo of the set-up



view-finder-view

Random stuff

- Time for me to ask the ultimate question again, Life the universe and everything (I know the answer is 42, but what is THE question?)

- This will probably sound lame, but I'm really enjoying the feeling of using your right hand to change gears while driving (it's just weird enough to make me strive to improve/perfect)

- in the past few days I've seen: a raccoon, 3 squirrels, and a Bald Eagle (well I saw the bald eagle a few weeks ago, but hadn't figured out how to link it into a blog.)

- it's strange just how many different forms of communication currently exist, I've received emails, facebook posts, skype calls, skype messages, text messages and even regular phone calls. Right now it wouldn't shock me if a half-dead pigeon arrived at my doorstep with a telegram... even though most of you are half a world away, it almost feels like I'm just down the street, and it's certainly appreciated.