Oldies

In the summer of 1970, while working in Ontario as a geology student for the summer, I purchased my first 35 mm camera, a Miranda Sensorex. This morning's photos were among the first photos I made with that camera.

The explosion was on the first roll of slides I took. We were looking for minerals and had to get rid of the soil in order to check the bedrock. I focused on the spot where I thought the explosion would occur and took the photo just as the dynamite was detonated. I was lucky to catch the debris in mid-air, especially since I didn't have a clue what I was doing.

The second image was taken in Red Lake. While waiting for our flight into the bush of Northern Ontario, I photographed a few of the float planes that were flying in and out of the area. I composed the photo with the two docks and waited for the plane to come into the scene. It was just leaving the water as I took the photo. In the "old days" we had to manually advance the film, so that was the only image I captured of this scene.

I have made hundreds of thousands of images since those early days of my photographic journey I used to tell my photography students that photos are "memories captured"; that when I look at a photo it opens a flood of memories that transport me back to the time I made the image. For example, what you can't see in the first image is the loud noise and shaking ground caused by the blast. In the second, you can't really feel the heat of the day or the black flies that were buzzing all around. You see only what I captured when I decided to press the shutter release at what famous photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson called the "decisive moment" - a topic for a future Photo of the Day.

Poem

Lately, I have been creating "photo/poems" using poetry that I wrote years ago and am sharing one of them with you today.

Every winter many birds live in the forest around my home and we feed them sunflower seeds until the weather warms in the spring. We would feed them the rest of the year but with 4 cats living within 300 feet, it is not safe for birds when the cats are "out and about". They tend to stay in during the winter months.

The photo of the chickadee was taken in my yard and to create this image, I cropped out the bright areas in the background leaving enough space on the right to add the poem.

Hope you like the larger image today! Click the image to see a bigger view.

Feel free to check my Creative Impressions site at: http://lanephotography.com/CREATIVE_IMPRESSIONS/creative%20impressions_01.htm

Winter Drive

On my drive home Tuesday evening there were several vehicles stopped on the westbound lane of the Trans Canada Highway. Police were on the scene and two cars were in the median. I took a few photos before arriving at the scene.

Snow blowing across the highway was creating drifts and whiteout conditions causing two drivers to lose control of their vehicles. Fortunately no one was hurt and traffic moved on slowly.

I have driven on this road every nearly weekday since 1990 and have seen hundreds of cars off the road. For several years I kept a tally of vehicles off the road and saw an average of 50 per year. Considering the fact that I am only on the highway for 30 minutes in the morning and the same in the afternoon, that is a lot. I have many stories of driving this highway in winter!

Boats, Grates Cove

Today's photos show a dozen or more boats moored in Grates Cove Harbour. Yesterday's photos showed the wharf with several small boats tied up to it. Fishermen use the smaller boats to get to the larger ones shown in the photos.

The mouth of the harbour opens into the cold, North Atlantic ocean and the winds probably get pretty fierce there. It may be best to moor the boats away from the wharf because of the waves that break over the wharf which is located at the bottom of the harbour.

The second photo was taken from the high cliffs on the north side of the harbour. You will also notice the lack of trees on the shoreline. Apparently, there used to be trees there, but they were destroyed in a forest fire many years ago.

Feel free to view 20 photos on my Grates Cove Gallery at: http://lanephotography.com/tbs/grates_cove/grates_cove.htm

As well, you can view a 9 minutes slide show of Grates Cove created by a member of my Photo of the Day list on You Tube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxzzdjfhI5A

Wharf, Grates Cove

Grates Cove is a small fishing village located at the northerly tip of the Avalon Peninsula. I have visited this community three or four times and am sharing three views of the community wharf taken in August 2003.

You can see from the images that I drove around and photographed the wharf from several different locations. Afterwards, I drove to the wharf and photographed the boats that were tied up as well as those that were moored off shore. I'll share a few of those tomorrow.

Drifting Snow

Yesterday I hiked to the hills for the third time in a week. It was quite windy and cold up there and I photographed the freshly fallen snow blowing across a small lake.

The first photo was taken using a wide angle lens and shows the drifting snow in the distance. The dark clouds cleared for a moment and sunlight illuminated the snow and ice on the lake. I took the photos from a little cove where there was very little snow blowing on my camera. The other images were taken using my zoom lens. It emphasized the snow and made it look worse than it really was. I walked for over an hour and a half on snowshoes to reach this spot. Believe it or not, I wasn't cold and I enjoyed the walk tremendously.

I was hoping to see coyotes up there, but didn't. Last year there were a couple of coyotes in the same area and, while I could hear that they were fairly close, I didn't see them. Their tracks were everywhere and they had followed my snowshoe trail for quite a distance. Yesterday there were no signs of them anywhere.

Boats, Harbour Main

Today's photos were taken in Harbour Main, Conception Bay in July 2001 with my first digital camera, an Olympus C2100UZ. It was only a 1 megapixel camera, but I made many excellent photos with it.

The images show three different views of the same subject. I composed the first one with a little of the rocky shoreline, a net and boats. Next I zoomed in to get rid of the rocks and then I zoomed back to see even more of the shoreline. A seagull flew into the scene just as I was about to make the photo.

Fishing Stages

Yesterday one of you asked me to give more information about "stages" so the photos today have fishing stages as the subject. Since there are many in Little Bay Islands, I am sharing three more images from my visit there in 2003.

Wikipedia defines fishing stage as:
A fishing stage is a wooden vernacular building, typical of the rough traditional buildings associated with the cod fishery in Newfoundland, Canada. Stages are located at the water's edge or "landwash", and consist of an elevated platform on the shore with working tables and sheds at which fish are landed and processed for salting and drying. Traditionally, they are painted with a red ochre paint, though colours other than red are sometimes seen.

As stated yesterday, the fishing stages in Little Bay Islands are in excellent shape (at least they were in 2003) and it was a pleasure to photograph them. There are thousands of photographs of fishing stages in my collection, which has been growing since 1970. From time to time I will share more images of them.

Little Bay Islands

Today's photos were taken in Little Bay Islands, Notre Dame Bay, in July 2003. As you can see it was a beautiful, calm summer day with hardly a ripple on the water.

The images show nearly perfect reflections of the stages. I took over 300 photos during my 3 hour trip to this scenic community. I started at one end of the community and walked all around taking photos as I went.

I was pleased to see that the stages were well-kept and being used. In many communities stages have been neglected and are falling into the ocean.

I would certainly recommend a trip to this area of the province. If you plan to go there you will have to take a 45 minute ferry ride that takes you past beautiful scenery.

Flowers

Flowers are great photographic subjects! Today's images were made on the same day in 2006. I felt that the colourful images might brighten up many of your days, especially those of you living in northern climates. :)

Because of Winter's short days and long nights, photography is difficult, especially considering the fact that I work during the daylight hours! As well, since I have been sending daily photos for over 6 years, I have to dig back into my files quite a bit. I'll apologize in advance if I send images that I have sent on previous occasions.

Oil Rig

In 2006 I photographed the Glomar Grand Banks, a drilling rig that was anchored in Conception Bay.

We photographed the rig as the sun set behind it. The skipper of the boat approached from one direction (we didn't go around it) so you can probably imagine how lucky I felt when I saw the sun descending immediately behind the rig.

The opportunity to photograph this particular rig in a beautiful sunset presented itself and I took over 500 photos to make sure I got a few "good" ones. Maybe I'll share a few more from that trip at another time.

American Anhinga

This is a historical day in the USA and I would like to wish President Obama all the best during his tenure in office.

I have sent images of the American Anhinga a few times in the past. The bird in today's photograph was standing on a river bank drying it's wings. I approached the subject slowly trying not to scare it and was able to get a few great close-up images before it moved away. In the photos you will notice a pink "sac" under its beak. The bird seemed to be able to blow the sac up to make it bigger.

The anhinga dry their wings after hunting and can often be seen near a body of water with wings spread. They probably eat a lot of fish, like most of the other birds hunting in the ponds and canals of Florida.

My Anhinga Gallery has 12 photos: http://lanephotography.com/birds/american_anhinga/american_anhinga_01.htm

Ice - Holyrood

In late April, 2007 a small iceberg floated just off the beach in Holyrood. It had nice shapes and textures and the early morning light was excellent. I made over 100 images before continuing on to work.

As you can see, the shape of the iceberg changed as I walked along the beach. The first and third images are similar, but look closely at the differences!

I have 14 photos of this iceberg at: http://lanephotography.com/holyrood/holyrood_ice/holyrood_ice_01.htm

Carrot in Tree

Have you ever seen a carrot in a tree? That's what I saw as I dumped the compost the other day. It was really weird; a carrot laid gently (approximately 4 feet from the ground) on twigs of a larch tree. It was an unusual sight so I got my camera and captured it.

It is not unusual to see vegetables around my compost heap, but to see one in a tree is highly unusual! I assume a squirrel was trying to carry the carrot into the tree and gave up on it. Of course, the carrot is almost as big as a squirrel so it would be an ambitious undertaking. Feel free to suggest other ways this may have happened.

Today's images show that - Everything's a Picture and while they are not as "beautiful" as many images I share, they do make you wonder how the carrot ended up in a tree.

Houses 2

My apologies for forgetting to send my Photo of the Day yesterday. I am sending another set of photos to compensate. :)

The first photo shows a photographer making an image of the house. The send and third were made using a 15 mm fisheye lens that distorted the edges of the scene. The images certainly are different!!

Houses

Ochre Pit Cove, Conception Bay is another place that I visit often. I have shared photos of the two colourful houses on previous occasions, but those were taken on a different day. You will notice that the sky is white because of the overcast day.

Included as subjects in two of today's photographs are other photographers who accompanied me on the photo trip around the Baccalieu Trail. You can see that they too were taking photos of these houses. It would be interesting to view the photos of the three photographers