Farewell to 2006

So it is now New Year's eve. Obviously the original intent of this was to post daily pictures for at least the year. Unfortunately for various reasons, (not least was that this new version of Blogger has issues with photo-posting) it didn't happen. I'm certainly not going to worry about it, though.

2006 has been quite a year for Kathryn and I. We managed to survive Vancouver's storm of the century a couple weeks ago. A week without water the month before, when torrential rains raised the turpidity of the water supply to (almost) unhealthy levels. I survived a month of jury duty. Kathryn and I got a kitten we named Sophie. I sold my first photographs. And most significantly, Kathryn and I learned quite a bit about ourselves and each other after a challenging, yet uniquely productive year.

In my personal history it seems every 4 to 6 years I end up experiencing some sort of significant growth, and my view of myself and my world is somehow altered. Even relatively minor shifts can impact my daily living in some way when this does happen. Looking back, 2006 was one such year.

We're not going anywhere nor doing anything tonight. In fact, Kathryn has already been sleeping for the past hour (and it's only 9:30PM). I doubt I'll stay up to midnight myself at this point. It might seem an anti-climactic way to see out 2006 and welcome in 2007, but it's appropriate in a certain je ne sais quoi sort of way.

Grrr..

So I was trying to update this blog of mine, when I was reminded why I stopped posting for a while in the first place... Blogger seems to have broken how easily you can upload photos. I thought it would have been fixed after 2 months, but unfortunately when I was trying to upload today's photo, Blogger came up with error messages. I tried several photos, and even tried resizing them, in case their size was too big, but it still didn't work. This is a pain, since this problem effectively prevents me from being able to keep the theme of this being a photo blog...

Not gone yet!

A bench facing a frozen Lost Lagoon in Stanley Park


OK, so it's been quite awhile since I updated my blog. I guess you could say I was on a bit of a sabattical. It's been quite an eventful 2 months if I do say so myself. I'm not going to get into that right now. I might decide to make a couple retro posts later to catch up a bit.

Today's post later... again!

The post will be tomorrow now...

again, I'll update tomorrow...

Another Duck In Water

A duck. This photo is a little different in that it's a scan from one of my film prints. It's actually one from the first set of film photographs I've had developed. I've had a digital camera for so long that I never owned a film camera before.

A Swan

Nice swan. I like the lighting too. I'm not big on the dirty, murky water, though.

SFU

Simon Fraser University.

My wife at SFU.

A View From The Bridge

The scene from the Burrard Bridge yesterday.

Happy Autumn!

An example of Stanley Park wildlife. This photo was taken by Kathryn.

So today is officially the first day of Autumn. Being a great, near-cloudless day, Kathryn and I went off to enjoy a walk to and around Stanley Park.

Kathryn waiting for the bus home from downtown:

A Face In The Blanket

I thought the folds in this blanket looked interesting.

Beneath The Bridge

A boat sailing under the Burrard Bridge.

Pulling Out The Heater

Cleaning and preparing the space heater.

It's not nearly cold yet, but when you get up at 4:30 in the morning, it's just starting to be a little chilly. So the time has come to take out the space heater again, and put away the fans.

Curtains!

Venetian blinds, to be more specific.

I had my second Photography class yesterday. The instructor went over what the f-stop, shutter speed, and film speed are and how they affect exposure. Nothing new to me, but next week we'll be having our first studio shoot, so that should be fun.

A New Lens

What goes with a new camera? A new lens, of course! Yesterday I bought a really, really nice 50mm prime lens. The quality is very high, considering it also happens to be one of the cheapest lenses you can get. I've been wanting to get this particular lens for a while, and am extremely pleased with it.

Kathryn and I went to my sister Elaine and Paul's place for dinner last night. Shane and his girlfriend were there as well. Elaine made some extraordinary prawns in a garlic sauce, while Paul made some nice bread by scratch. Good company, good food.

Yet Another Camera

Yesterday while Kathryn and I were out for a coffee, I stopped by Kerrisdale Cameras to see what they had. Specifically I was wanting to check the price of a lens hood for my variable zoom lens. By the time we got home, I had bought a used camera!

I sort of wanted to get one since my photography class is geared for film equipment, so it wasn't completely out of the blue. It's a Canon EOS 3000, which was sold in 1999, apparently meant for the Asian market. A film SLR, it's the body of the camera, and lenses attach to it. It looks relatively full-featured, especially considering the price I paid for it - $99. The nice thing is the lenses are interchangeable with my digital SLR.

I also setup a gallery blog for some of my art images. It's meant to be temporary, as I want to have a proper web gallery later on. It's not nearly finished yet, and Blogger cannot upload some images at the moment, but have a look:
http://www.ericsphotography.blogspot.com/. Feel free to check back later, I'm going to continue uploading more.

Saturday Today!

Light on the light

I saw this interesting sunlight pattern a few days ago. It only lasted about 10 minutes before fading away.

Now Something Completely Different

'Water Fountain I'

I completely updated the look of my blog. I got sort of tired of the template it had before. While I like this new format better, I'm not quite 100% convinced. I'll still keep my eye peeled for a template I'll be completely satisfied with. So don't be too surprised to see it change again soon.

The image you see today is one I had been planning to create for a while, and so was really please when I took this photo. I am quite fond of it.

Art

Apart from taking nice pictures for the blog and my personal collection, I have a few dozen pieces I refer to as 'fine art'. Of course Andy Warhol purposely challenged the concept of what constitutes 'fine art' quite some time ago. To some extent it's simply a matter of what I choose to designate as such. My personal criteria is that it meet a certain aesthetic that is meaningful to me. Further, it should evoke or convey either an emotion or concept that hopefully causes the viewer to think about what is being viewed.

This is the sort of thing that gets me truly excited about photography. It's a means to communicate in a way I've never been able to before. I have already posted a LOT of pictures already, this is the first time I posted one of my 'fine art' photographs. The image you see here is simply titled, 'Lilies'.

Sunset

Sunset after a visit to Costco yesterday. (I'm sure we're about the only Costco customers who took the Skytrain there)

School

Yesterday I started my photography class. The program is potentially 2-2 1/2 years if you go all the way for certification. So as a result, each class has its prerequisites, and I'm beginning at the beginning. This first course is pretty basic, aptly named 'Basic Photography'. There wasn't a lot I didn't already know taught in my first class, but I did learn a couple new things.

To start, the first couple classes will be theory, then there will be some time in the studio, working with objects, then with fashion models. There's going to be darkroom (not sure what I'll be doing in that class, seeing I have a digital SLR). And a couple field trips, wrapping up with the term project - a small portfolio of 8 photographs each being an example of different techniques assigned by the teacher. They'll be graded for composition, technical refinement, aesthetic quality, etc. It'll be fun.

Here's the only thing: I wake at 4:45AM to be at work at 7AM. The class runs 7PM - 10PM. By the last 1/2 - 1 hour of the class, I was having a bit of difficulty paying attention, seeing I was quite sleepy. Fortunately I took today off as a vacation day so I can sleep in a bit and not worry about being wiped at work. Next week I'll not have this little luxury. I think I'll be OK, though.

9/11

5 years ago I was living with my parents, and working retail sales with IBM. I was sleeping in as I had an evening shift (1pm-9pm), and was out and about late the previous night. My mom burst into my room (which she never did since I was 14) exclaiming "they attacked New York!" I was working evenings at the time, and was NOT a morning person, so I was groggy and not entirely happy being awakened so abruptly. I stayed in bed.

5 minutes later she bursts in again saying New York was being attacked, and to get up! Then again she closed my door and left. This time my neurons managed to make the proper connections and have some comprehension what she was saying. I tried to make sense what this could mean, and why she was upset by this. I remember what I was thinking as I was dragging myself out of bed. The Soviet Union was no more. Russia and China were the only countries capable of mounting a credible attack. But they would have no reason to to make a pre-emptive strike that would not have gone unanswered. Completely improbable. So I dismissed that line of thinking and thought it must have been some sort of terrorist attack.

After getting dressed and going into the living room, I was absolutely shocked and flabbergasted by what I saw on TV: all of Manhattan engulfed with smoke, as the Twin Towers had just collapsed.

I worked at an IBM Store in Metrotown mall, and the big projection TVs that normally display advertising located throughout the mall were all tuned into news of what was happening. people were crowded around each of them, quietly watching as the world was changing before their eyes. The thing is, everybody knew it at the time.

At work, and all the display computers were networked and hooked to broadband Internet. We were all glued to them, reading and watching the video clips. It was a surreal day spent in disbelief I'll never forget.

Below are a couple interesting links to news sites cnn.com and canada.com, archived as they appeared. I remember these sites and how they looked quite well. When I found them archived, they were exactly how I remembered them:

http://web.archive.org/web/20010917011835/www.canada.com/national/

http://web.archive.org/web/20010911200318/http://www.cnn.com/

Monday Morning

An extraordinarily ugly building on Broadway

This is a nightmarishly uninspired medical building on Broadway. It's really quite intimidating by it's blatant disregard for any concept of aesthetics. Typically institutional in its overall feel...

Another thing this photo illustrates is the need to get a lens hood for my wide-angle lens to eliminate sunflares. Every photo I took of this building had the pesky things.

Finally Bugfree

Waiting for tea to steep

Today is pretty mellow. Much more so than any other day in weeks. Yesterday Nick (Kathryn's little brother) called her and said there's a surprise birthday party going on for their older brother Michael, arranged by Michael's wife Alicia at their place. So we went, and ended up coming home at midnight - really, really late for both of us considering we're used to being in bed by 9PM!

Also, you can see I managed to finally get the chance to properly update my blog, and install a photo for each day of this past weekend. Previously I just made holding posts to keep the blog's daily continuity, and record my struggle with computer bugs.

I think I finally resolved my computer problems... I disconnected the internet altogether, did a bit of fiddling, then ran both the anti-virus, and anti-spyware software. After spending an inordinate amount of my weekend working on this, it appears there's now nothing bad left on my system. I'm still getting an occassional advertisement popup, so I'll scan again while connected to the internet...

Not Entirely Clean

A tugboat in English Bay...

Today Kathryn and I went to Richmond Centre because a pair of jeans I got last weekend suffered a wardrobe malfunction. One of the buttons on the button fly nearly ripped off after I wore them one time. I got my $40 refund from Old Navy, then promptly went to The Bay to get a very nice pair of Buffalo jeans for $100 after tax to replace the pair I returned. They're possibly the most expensive pair I ever got, but I really like them. They're stretch denim, so I needed to get a size 31 to fit me properly where normally I'm a size 33.

The situation with the spyware continues... I did a couple complete virus and spyware scans, and it turns out my computer was infected with multiple viruses and malware. It looks as if a bad cycle got itself started.. a virus likely infected my computer, which installed a spyware program, which installed other spyware, adware, and viruses with its popups, thus multiplying itself. I managed to largely defeat all the secondary malware programs and viruses today. All but 1 of each, which I suspect are the original, core culprits that got the whole thing started in the first place. I'll see if I can finish this tomorrow...

Bugs!

The place we got our couch from was having a store closing sale. Now 4 months later, the same place is STILL closing! It doesn't bother me all that much, but I would think there's better ways to attract people to their store.

So yesterday my computer got some bugs. A web site that had a couple drink mix recipes I was looking for seems to have autoloaded a -tonne- of adware and probably spyware onto my computer, making it effectively unusable. This morning I was able to track down and disable much of it, enough to make it somewhat usable. There's still a fair bit of work to do to eliminate the more pesky and hard-to remove ones, which I likely won't get a chance to do till tomorrow morning.

A Pigeon, Blogger, And The Weather

A pigeon checking out the dude with the camera.

Using Blogger has been almost painful this past week. I suspect they're working to launch their new revamped version soon. If it means the site will be more stable again, the sooner it's finished the better.

So it looks like summer weather is likely to officially end with today. I think it's sort of interesting to see (and just know) there's going to be a clear seasonal change in weather like what you see in the forcast. I really don't expect the temperatures to break 25 degrees again until maybe May, or more likely June:

Like A Duck In Water

It just so happens this IS a duck in water.

Kathryn And The Ducks

Kathryn and I went off on a walk along Kits Beach this evening after dinner. Along the way we came across a bunch of ducks by a pond after a woman left them a load of food. The waterfowl didn't seem to mind our presence, as they were quite absorbed with their meal.

Here I have an action shot of Kathryn making sure we get the bench:

Here she is on the bench:

Fountain Figures

Figures in a fountain

I have never noticed these figures in a fountain I've passed probably 2000 times. It's interesting what you see when you change how you see...

Lion

Outside the Vancouver Art Gallery

About My Blog

Brockton Point Lighthouse at Stanley Park

This blog has sort of become a bit of a photo-journal of my little world. It really doesn't cover a lot in terms of what a lot of other popular blogs feature, like opinions on current events, or trends. That sort of blog has been done to death, in my books. This isn't really a sounding board, rave/rage board, nor an intimate journal/diary.

I'll agree my posts are usually about as deep as the bathroom sink in terms of content, but then that's on purpose. I really enjoy taking photos, and sharing them, along with mostly positive snippets of my daily life, environment and thoughts. I was in a bit of a funk for a while early in the summer. Doing a daily entry here was quite beneficial. It's also something quiet to do in the early morning before having to go off to work at a most unreasonable hour.

Start Of September

Rails

September has always been an interesting time of year for me. It's a time for endings and beginnings: the end of summer, and the beginning of fall. While I'm a little sad to see summer starting to end, I'm also rather excited about the onset of fall, and its own unique adventures.

End Of August

A dandelion backlit by the sun


I find it hard to believe August is ending already. It's been a very interesting and enlightening summer for both Kathryn and myself. We didn't go on any trips or had a 'vacation' per se, but both of us has had a bit of time to reflect and do some self-discovery. Overall I think it was really quite a positive and fruitful time. Kathryn's plans on pursuing music has been set to a new trajectory: to healthcare/psychology/wellness, which I think would give her a fair bit of personal satisfaction. I'm now considering exploring this photography thing a bit more seriously and have signed into a program that can be an entry to becoming professional.

I don't mind fall at all. It's a great time to get started on making new ideas and plans actually start happening. Besides, it's also a good time to go do some clothes shopping...

Cherries: Revisited

Rainier Cherries

This is from a little photo study I did 2 weeks ago on cherries and lighting. Unfortunately my photos are all that's left of the BC cherry season until next year.

Yesterday we had dinner at my sister Elaine and her boyfriend Paul's place. It was quite a bit of fun, although I may have had a bit more wine and beer than I should have, for a Tuesday night. In the end I managed to get to work on time today and actually be reasonably productive, so it's all good...

Baby Strollers Galore!

A Stroller Thief's Dream

This is the scene at the Pacific Coliseum during the PNE's Superdogs. A large section of the entrance was roped off so parents can take their kids to see the free show while leaving their strollers behind.

Finally!

Bart

So I FINALLY got the time to update this blog a bit better than simply entering holding posts, which is what I've done since Friday. So now there's a photo posted for each day I missed. I don't think it's cheating to update my weekend posts with photos, considering the idea of this blog is more about a daily (or approximation thereabouts) photo, than as a strict journal-type blog.

Anyway, it was a relatively busy weekend, but it was fun. It certainly went by too quickly. On Friday Kathryn got a 2 for 1 coupon for a restaurant we've been to once before called Burger Heaven. Quite good. Saturday we setup a stall to sell some of our excess stuff at a community flea market. It was actually my mom's stall, but we sort of ended up taking it over. She didn't seem to mind too much. Also on Saturday We went out to have dinner at the Curry King restaurant with Kathryn's older brother Michael and his wife Alicia. A good time all around. And on Sunday we took my mom to the PNE, then afterward went to Las Margarita's for dinner.

The PNE

Peter The Great: an exceptionally large bovine hanging around Vancouver's Pacific National Exhibition, aka The PNE.

An annual fair that runs for 3 weeks toward the end of summer, the PNE has a history going back 96 years. It, along with the adjacent sister fair, Playland, is home to all manner of exhibits, shows, markets, food vendors, rides, games, and gimmicks. The agricultural and livestock exhibition is one of the original attractions, although the show barns occupy just a corner of the overall fair, and is easy to be overlooked from the rest of the goings-on.

Sunflower

A sunflower in my parent's backyard.

Outside The Library

Here is my wife just exiting the library.

Pluto

This is a photo of the art-deco entry to the venerable Burrard St Bridge.

Let's feel for Pluto. After 76 years being part of the planetary family, it has been just kicked out. It has just been demoted from being considered a full-out planet, and is now classified as another large object in the Kuiper belt in the outer regions of the solar system. Poor Pluto.

You can read more about Pluto's ignominous fate here:

http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/space/08/24/pluto.ap/index.html

http://www.canada.com/topics/news/story.html?id=c8eaf4c7-557f-451f-9c4c-34911ff53309&k=21787

VPL

The Main Branch of the Vancouver Public Library

This is the central branch for the Vancouver Public Library. Inspired by Rome's Coliseum, the design won out in a public vote as to what the new library would look like. It's rather controversial, with some seeing it simply as an ugly monstrosity and others don't understand how a library and an ancient arena that displayed bloody gladitorial shows can be melded like this. I kind of like it, myself. Sure it's ostentatious, bu it certainly is different.

Duck!

A Duck in flight

Not exactly an exotic photo, but it's about the only picture I have of a duck just taking off. Not a technically great photo, but I sort of like it. The shutter speed was fast enough so the duck's not a blur.

Vikings!

A Viking Dragonboat

I saw this Viking dragonboat sailing back and forth around English Bay. Considering part of my ancestral history is Icelandic, I thought it was very cool to see this thing floating about. Unfortunately it was quite a long way from where I was, so this photo was taken using my ultra-zoom lens, and even at that the photo had to be cropped to highlight the boat. Not my favorite way of doing things, but it still looks ok on a computer screen.

One thing I was thinking about doing is changing the template altogether for this blog. I've been using the same one since starting it in January, but I'm not entirely satisfied with it. The thing is, I'll have to make sure I can save this template in case I decide to make a change and it doesn't work the way I want it to... Then again, I might hold off until the Blogger update is more complete later on.

Yesterday On 4th Ave

An empty West 4th Avenue

This is not something you would see too often: West 4th Avenue bereft of traffic. It's usually a busy street, but it was blocked off yesterday for Kitsilano's annual Hippie Daze street festival. This photo was taken in the morning, before things got started. The event is meant to celebrate the Kitsilano neighborhood's history for being a centre of Vancouver's hippie culture in the 1960's. Of course the neighborhood has changed since then, and is now very much a young middle-class sort of place.

Below is Kathryn enjoying the novelty of walking down the middle of the street.

Vancouver's Inukshuk

Inukshuk

Looking out on English Bay is this Inukshuk. They were used as waypoints in Canada's vast northern areas by the Inuit (aka Eskimos). It really is not something that would have been seen for at least a thousand miles north of Vancouver, though. So it really has no bearing on local culture nor history. Why it's here, I'm not entirely sure. Nevertheless, it is rather dramatic in its impressive stature and stark simplicity.

Below is the Inukshuk with the West End in the background.