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.

Big...

...walk!

time for more photographic goodies from the lens in north vancouver.

since we last spoke (read/wrote):

- I've visited another few sets *(thanks to Kevin and Eliah on "Sanctuary", and Eric and Greg on "a mile in his shoes" with a super-special thanks to Eric for finding the end-cap to the small panamic boom-pole I purchased from him last month, which led to the set-visit)

- went to the movies and saw Hanna (interesting) and Rio (in 3D!!! which was ok)

- Skiing at Mt Cypress on the last day of their season (it was snowing pretty heavily, so I didn't pull-out the camera)

- got a chance to use my BC drivers license when pulled over by a local police officer - he was quite nice, and we had a good chat for 20 mins or so about hiking, black-bears, the film-industry, and general differences between Australia and Canada *I think he stopped me out of sheer boredom because it was around midnight, and only 4 degrees; but he was very happy to stand at my door and talk (either way; it was nice not having to resort to the Passport/QLD drivers license, and explain local address etc...)

- I've been watching ALLOT of Hockey - it's currently round 2 of the playoffs, so the number of games has gone down (no longer 2 every-day, mostly one per day) but it's probably the best time to be not working...

- Went to the pub with one of the room-mates to watch UFC (cage-fighting mixed martial-arts). It's exceedingly violent - yet strangely enticing...

- the owner of the house is on a fairly long overseas trip, and one of my room-mates moved back east for the summer school break, so the house is pretty empty.

- on Sunday, I went out to brunch with my remaining room-mate and a bunch of his friends. they continued on to the Granville markets, and I tagged along, before heading off on a photographic journey.

Starting at the markets, I wandered for 27+ kms around "english bay" and "stanley park", over the "lionsgate bridge", and across "north vancouver" to end up at home.

It took around 9 hrs...

photos





rain on my car-windshield upon arrival at mt cypress for the last day of their skiing season




remnants of the olympic stuff from last year (cypress was one of the many venues)




another shot of the lions gate (comparison to the lead-shot from last post)




Canuck-pucks, at the granville markets (mini-cake on a stick with the local hockey teams logo on them)




at least if it sinks the band can play-on




pretty-shot of false creek (*more of a bay than a creek - hence the name?)




the Burrard street bridge, with boats in front, and city/mountains in the back




pretty-flowers out front of the museum of vancouver




weekly WTF (sculpture at entrance to the macmillan space centre)




letter-box




pretty-pretty (sunset beach in english bay)




looking west





English bay





weekly WTF #2 = where did I leave my shoe?





awesome tree on top of a building (I've been told that David Suzuki lives here when on the west coast, hence the tree)




tip of the beach




windsurfer on the bay




Looking at the photos, you'd think it was windy and cold (actually quite warm = 15deg)




photo labelled as second-beach. It's actually Third-beach (sorry for the confusion)




Siwash rock





Mountains to the north




looking back at the "rock"




2nd favorite photo from the expedition





another angle on the ubiquitous traffic-carrier




Sea-plane #10903 for the day.




that's not a boat... This is a boat! or is it?




alternate angle on a boat (when does a boat become a ship? and then a freighter...)




looking back at the city from right under the bridge



time to head up and over the bridge, so I could continue my walk home

into the park, and up the trails I go...


Stanley has a bunch of MASSIVE trees





as you can see, they're really quite thick in the trunk...





top, and look-out at "prospect point"





another sunset-shot looking west





favorite shot = looking down on the seawall bike track (where I was walking a half hour earlier)





Seaplane #140909234





...it's a bridge (cable type prevents climbing sadly...)





golden sunset boats





another angle on the seawall





city-view through the bridge





detail





random processing plant on the north shore





Whistler is still open for winter business until the end of may (well, technically it's Blackcomb Mountain, as whistler mountain has already shut, but you get the general gist)





so apparently the views are this way...



...it got progressively darker, and less pretty as I headed in a straight-line east (to the north of the coastal industrial areas - which should be quite photogenic at night... another time then.)


I packed the camera away...



...till I saw this massive coal-scooper-thingy, loading from the massive piles of coal in the second narrows industrial area.





thought I'd treat myself this afternoon with some early birthday-pancakes





HDR photo re-release of another church in Vienna.

ok that's it for the moment.

it's currently 2220 on the 2nd May, which means that it's 1520 on the 3rd of may in Australia.

Sunrise photos soon (once I've slept, and the earth spins around a bit to reveal a sunrise here; so I can actually take them...)

see ya