Tag: photography

Writing Retreat 2020: The Numbers

Posted on by Patrick
Cloudy prairie sky

My goals for this past week’s writ­ing retreat were:

  • Fin­ish the last scene in “The Slow Apoc­a­lypse”, first draft
  • 1,500−2,000 words a day in either Trans­la­tions or “Dried Flow­ers”
  • Pho­tos of the Milky Way (pos­si­bly a video) and Comet NEOWISE
  • Pho­tos of the coun­try­side
  • Dai­ly bike ride
  • Some kayak­ing

Let’s see how I did.

  • I fin­ished “The Slow Apoc­a­lypse” on my first evening
  • I wrote 13,000 words between Trans­la­tions, aka Daniel, Daniel, Daniel, and “Dried Flow­ers”
  • I got all kinds of pho­tos of the Milky Way and the comet—even on the nights where clouds were fore­cast, there was usu­al­ly at least some time where the stars were vis­i­ble
  • I also took all kinds of pho­tos in the day­time
  • I rode my bike every day, for a total of over 60 km (which sur­prised me)
  • And I went out in the kayak three times, cov­er­ing about 10 km in the lake

So, on bal­ance, that was a good week.

Con­tin­ue read­ing “Writ­ing Retreat 2020: The Num­bers” →

Series: Bike Ride Photos

The entire series: Down by the riv­er; Bike ride birds; The ex-gar­den and the weir; Snap­shots of a ride; Across Town; Black­bird; North Hill cam­pus; Lilacs and coun­try roads; A pop of colour; Back lane flow­ers; More Breniz­ers; The riv­er is high; A bird and a reflec­tion; Rideau Park; Writ­ing Retreat 2020, Day 7; Writ­ing Retreat 2020: The Num­bers.

Series: Writing Retreat 2020

The entire series: Writ­ing Retreat 2020; Writ­ing Retreat 2020, Day 1 & 2; Writ­ing Retreat 2020, Day 3; Writ­ing Retreat, Day 4; Writ­ing Retreat 2020, day 5; Writ­ing Retreat 2020, Day 6; Writ­ing Retreat 2020, Day 7; Writ­ing Retreat 2020, Day 8; Writ­ing Retreat 2020, Day 9; Writ­ing Retreat 2020: The Num­bers.

Writing Retreat 2020, Day 3

Posted on by Patrick

Mon­day, I:

  • wrote 1,100 words in the morn­ing (even­tu­al­ly)
  • went for a 11 km bike ride (top speed, com­ing down a hill: 48.5 km/h)
  • Morn­ing cof­fee
  • Mason­ry
  • Flow­ers
  • Close­up
  • I heard you like canola fields
  • Leaf and sign
  • Mixed mes­sages

This rein­forces my pre­vi­ous expe­ri­ence with the Lens­ba­by lens: it’s great for macro shots, like the one with the sin­gle stalk of flow­ers against the grass, but in most oth­er uses it reduces most if not all of the frame to an impres­sion­is­tic blur. If that’s your aes­thet­ic, great, but more often than not I’m dis­ap­point­ed in the pho­tos I take with it.

It’s still fun to play with, though.

  • wrote 1,000 more words before sup­per (a lot of con­ver­sa­tion; sto­ries being told)
  • evad­ed clouds and fog (oh my so much fog — I had to change loca­tions 3 times because fog rolled in) to cap­ture shots of Comet NEOWISE and the Milky Way
  • Comet NEOWISE, just as the fog start­ed rolling in
  • Comet NEOWISE
  • Comet NEOWISE
  • Milky Way and a shoot­ing star
  • Also the Milky Way, and also a shoot­ing star

The bluer pho­to of the comet, the close-up, was tak­en with my 50mm f/1.8 lens. Look close­ly, and you’ll find I caught both tails. You might have to view the pho­to at full size.

As always: if you’re inter­est­ed in prints of any of these pho­tos, let me know. We’ll see what we can work out.

Series: Writing Retreat 2020

The entire series: Writ­ing Retreat 2020; Writ­ing Retreat 2020, Day 1 & 2; Writ­ing Retreat 2020, Day 3; Writ­ing Retreat, Day 4; Writ­ing Retreat 2020, day 5; Writ­ing Retreat 2020, Day 6; Writ­ing Retreat 2020, Day 7; Writ­ing Retreat 2020, Day 8; Writ­ing Retreat 2020, Day 9; Writ­ing Retreat 2020: The Num­bers.

Light show

Posted on by Patrick
Lightning

Last night, about 11:30 PM, I set up my cam­era in the spare room upstairs, to try and catch some light­ning dur­ing the storm.

The head­er image above is a com­pos­ite of about 15 frames where I cap­tured light­ning bolts. Below are two of the indi­vid­ual frames.

And here’s a video of the whole show (10s frames at 6 frames a sec­ond means that one sec­ond of video rep­re­sents one minute of real time).

Back lane flowers

Posted on by Patrick

I spot­ted some love­ly flow­ers in a back lane on today’s bike ride. Since I had my cam­era, I stopped and snapped some pho­tos. Enjoy!

  • Lilies
  • A pop­py, per­haps
  • Daisies
  • So many daisies
  • Some love­ly flow­ers

Series: Bike Ride Photos

The entire series: Down by the riv­er; Bike ride birds; The ex-gar­den and the weir; Snap­shots of a ride; Across Town; Black­bird; North Hill cam­pus; Lilacs and coun­try roads; A pop of colour; Back lane flow­ers; More Breniz­ers; The riv­er is high; A bird and a reflec­tion; Rideau Park; Writ­ing Retreat 2020, Day 7; Writ­ing Retreat 2020: The Num­bers.

A pop of colour

Posted on by Patrick
Pink flowers in the greenerry

Anoth­er week­end, anoth­er 27 km on the bike, anoth­er smat­ter­ing of pho­tos.

  • A bend in the Assiniboine River
    Bend of the riv­er
  • Stop sign with "Hammer Time" written on it in chalk
    Ham­mer Time

Got a pref­er­ence on this one? Near, or far?

Series: Bike Ride Photos

The entire series: Down by the riv­er; Bike ride birds; The ex-gar­den and the weir; Snap­shots of a ride; Across Town; Black­bird; North Hill cam­pus; Lilacs and coun­try roads; A pop of colour; Back lane flow­ers; More Breniz­ers; The riv­er is high; A bird and a reflec­tion; Rideau Park; Writ­ing Retreat 2020, Day 7; Writ­ing Retreat 2020: The Num­bers.

Brenizer bike

Posted on by Patrick

I’ve been read­ing late­ly about the Breniz­er method (some­thing I’ve appar­ent­ly been doing already, with­out know­ing that’s what it’s called). Essen­tial­ly, you take a bunch of pho­tos of a still sub­ject, then stitch them togeth­er into one image. The result­ing panora­ma will have the depth-of-field (ie, back­ground blur) of a sin­gle pho­to tak­en with a much, much wider lens.

Con­tin­ue read­ing “Breniz­er bike” →

North Hill campus

Posted on by Patrick
ACC North Campus

I don’t recall ever being on ACC’s North Hill cam­pus since, well, since ACC took it over. On my ride today, I decid­ed to stop in and see the sights.

The main build­ing, pic­tured above, was part of the Bran­don Men­tal Health Cen­tre before the grounds were pur­chased by the Col­lege.

Behind that build­ing I found a love­ly lit­tle park-like space.

A small park behind the main building, with a lilac tree

Also back there was a chim­ney tow­er so tall it took three pho­tos to cap­ture it all, stitched togeth­er using hug­in.

A very tall chimney

I also found a sec­ondary build­ing where a cou­ple small trees appear to have tak­en root in the brick­work.

  • Trees growing on a ledge
  • A tree growing in the brick wall

I was quite enam­oured of the shad­ows in the one pho­to, and I can’t decide if I pre­fer it in colour, or in black and white. What’s your pref­er­ence?

Trees growing on a ledge

Series: Bike Ride Photos

The entire series: Down by the riv­er; Bike ride birds; The ex-gar­den and the weir; Snap­shots of a ride; Across Town; Black­bird; North Hill cam­pus; Lilacs and coun­try roads; A pop of colour; Back lane flow­ers; More Breniz­ers; The riv­er is high; A bird and a reflec­tion; Rideau Park; Writ­ing Retreat 2020, Day 7; Writ­ing Retreat 2020: The Num­bers.

Snapshots of a ride

Posted on by Patrick

I took my cam­era on a 27-km bike ride around town. Here’s what I got.

Panorama of Brandon from the North HIll
Panora­ma of Bran­don from the North HIll
More pho­tos

Series: Bike Ride Photos

The entire series: Down by the riv­er; Bike ride birds; The ex-gar­den and the weir; Snap­shots of a ride; Across Town; Black­bird; North Hill cam­pus; Lilacs and coun­try roads; A pop of colour; Back lane flow­ers; More Breniz­ers; The riv­er is high; A bird and a reflec­tion; Rideau Park; Writ­ing Retreat 2020, Day 7; Writ­ing Retreat 2020: The Num­bers.

Bike ride birds

Posted on by Patrick
Red-winged blackbird

I biked about 12km this after­noon, and I took my cam­era along with me. I saw some geese (so many geese) and what I think was a red-winged black­bird.

  • A red-winged black­bird (I think) singing his lit­tle heart out
  • A goose stretch­ing its wings
  • Some geese on the water

Series: Bike Ride Photos

The entire series: Down by the riv­er; Bike ride birds; The ex-gar­den and the weir; Snap­shots of a ride; Across Town; Black­bird; North Hill cam­pus; Lilacs and coun­try roads; A pop of colour; Back lane flow­ers; More Breniz­ers; The riv­er is high; A bird and a reflec­tion; Rideau Park; Writ­ing Retreat 2020, Day 7; Writ­ing Retreat 2020: The Num­bers.