Me and the Dirty Dish Drop

It was finally time to go to the café and take down my winter photos. I replaced them with spring flowers. Somehow, as other displays at the cafe come and go, my photos have become nestled right over the dirty dish drop. It's all good, though; I don't pay for the display, only sharing some off any sale.

I know it's crazy to take the trouble to photograph, print, frame, and display photos only to then record the display with my phone, but that's what I do.

Two photos have been sold recently, so I will need to purchase a few more frames and print a few more photos.

Sue thinks that I need a pinkish one to take the place of the red and white tulips at the top of the first column. The tulips can, perhaps, be moved to the centre over the purple crocuses.

Perhaps this photo of heather will work in that spot.

This photo of a single peony will work better in terms of colour palette, but it is not really a spring flower. Perhaps it wouldn't bother anyone, though.

There is also this wildflower, but I don't think the colour quite works for this display, and it is also more of a summer flower.

Sue wants another blue flower for the right column. I think I found one in the neighbours' garden — Chinodoxa aka Glory-of-the-Snow. The plant is only 3 or 4 inches tall, so I had to lie down to get this shot. Good thing I am limber and my joints are all in pristine condition. Or not. Anyway, I did it.

I haven't printed it yet, but I think it will work.

Or this one of crocuses is a possibility. I think purple is close enough to blue.

I also have this trillium that I quite like, but once again, I don't think it fits with this particular display.

Finally, I also like this forget-me-not photo but maybe not as much as the one that's already hanging; I'm just not sure. I do have another venue where I display some photos. Perhaps what I don't use in this display can go in that one.

Serendipity

You never know what you're going to get . . . or not get for that matter.

I went out this morning to try some photos of a flooded tree — a different one from that which I have previously posted — but nothing was right and certainly not the light. But in the same location, I stumbled across some backlit seed pods that made it through the winter. I grabbed my macro lens and did what I could. I couldn't get a sharp focus in the breeze, which I find difficult enough on a calm day, but I like the colour and light.

From there, I drove a friend to the warehouse where he overwinters his vintage vehicle. Most cars have already been removed, but lo and behold, I found the General Lee in the shed.

Two unexpected photos. Hurrah for serendipity.

First Spring Flowers

Another dull day yesterday, but our neighbour has some spring flowers in bloom, so I ventured across the street with my macro lens to see what I could see.

But first, I photographed the potted tulips in the dining room, which are just beginning to open. I did this sans tripod.

Only then did I head across the street. I was hoping to photograph some crocuses, but those few blooms were closed pretty tightly. Then I spied some scillia in amongst the heather, so I decided to give it a shot . . . so to speak.

Spring flowers are so low, that I couldn't get low enough to suit with the tripod, but I wasn't about to try to lay my old body down on the cold ground — maybe on another day, but not yesterday. It was quite windy, and even those low plants were blowing about, but I set a fairly high shutter speed and clicked away regardless.

Upon returning home, I took a few more exposures but using the tripod this time. I may actually like the handheld photo better, but it's all fun.

Meanwhile, our water levels remain high, and some evacuations have been necessary. With various municipalities and organizations involved, sandbagging and other efforts have been very hit and miss. What I mean is that there is no one umbrella organization to oversee relief efforts.

Dam It All

When I photographed the rushing water on Sunday, there was one location that I missed — the dam. You can see it in this photo that I posted previously, but I was at a fair distance. (Actually, you only see the edge of the dam to the extreme right.)

Thursday morning was overcast, so it seemed like a good day to try some more smooth water shots. I think they would be more difficult on a sunny and high contrast day.

Here are 3 shots that I liked well enough, and I really liked the third, which I converted to mono. I like the way the lines came out. They were all taken at 1/4 to 1/6 of a second.

I did take one other shot which I don't mind. I shot all of the way across the river to try to capture the water action in front of the building. After cropping a fiddling a bit, this 0.3 second exposure seemed to be acceptable.

Flooding

We are being flooded. You have seen this in a few of my recent posts, and there are all sorts of pics on FB. Most people are safe, but some have had to leave their homes, and one area by the lake has been hit quite hard.

There are many pics in our local FB groups, but few have been from near our neighbourhood, so I decided to remedy that.

The park just around the corner has a permanent runoff pond, but it has more than doubled its size. The flooded tree in to the left normally stands on a little dry peninsula.

Across the little footbridge, the path on which we normally tread has been obliterated.

Since I could access the Riverwalk Trail from the park. I decided to try from two other points. I didn't get very far.

There are sandbags by the seniors' residence although I think they are just an ounce or prevention as I don't think the water level will rise that much. Better to be safe, though.

Further along the path, the boardwalk, which is normally easily high and dry, is partly flooded.

As I write this on Thursday, I see that more heavy rain is in the forecast. Hopefully, most homes will remain well protected.

Sleepover and Hair

As you already now, Danica's birthday was on Good Friday, which was to be continued the next day, Saturday, with a sleepover with 4 friends. It therefore seemed like a good idea for JJ to have a sleepover with us. This time, he chose not to watch a movie but preferred to play UNO — on both Saturday and Sunday.

It is becoming a tradition with both kids to go to McD's for breakfast, and that's where we smartphoned these pics. In the second one, Sue triggered the photo from her watch so was able to get herself into the second photo. (Sue tends to be the phonographer while I leave the big camera at home or in the car for these sorts of events.)

Then, we drove to the boat launch to check out the flooding. It is even worse these several days later as I write this, and the road (shown in the second photo below) has been closed.

Ordinarily, cars back their boats down the ramp past the far sign.

A very short clip of JJ skipping stones.

Finally, it was time for the hair treatment. Danica wanted some colour — blue/purple — applied to the ends of her hair as part of her birthday. I left it to the ladies and went out with my camera.

When I returned, I found that the kids were happy just with the bleaching job and decided against adding the colour.

I think they made a good choice, for now at least. I can well imagine, however, that colour will make an appearance some day.

JJ at the Party

JJ was a presence at Danica's birthday party — at least the one attended by us. Later, he joined us for a sleepover the night of Danica's girl party and sleepover.

There was also another guest, Dylan the basset hound, from the kids' other house.

He also got to the traditional porting of the cake.

Then he did what JJ does, and climbed the wall — so to speak.

From the Bedroom Window and Elsewhere

When I stumbled out of bed sometime before 6AM on Monday morning. I saw through the bedroom that it was foggy and that this created a ring around the almost full moon.

I grabbed my camera, fiddled with the settings as best I could through bleary an blurry eyes, and snapped a photo. In b&w with some adjusting of exposure, this was the result.

Several hours later, Sue called me back to the same window to see the dramatic wall of cloud which most likely indicates the passing of a weather front.

As the morning progressed, I edited a few more whitewater photos from the previous day.

Contrary to common thought, part of the reason for working with time exposures on moving water is to actually capture a photo that is more or less like what the eyes see. When you capture the water in one still photo with a fast shutter speed, you freeze the action, which is not the way that we actually perceive the moving water when we are there.

In the above photo, I'd say that the fall over the rock edge is close to what I saw (except for the blue processing which is my artistic choice which I probably overdid) although the rushing water below the rock face is possibly a little more blurry than what I saw. It's a trick to get everything right, and then you don't always want to because there is also such a thing as creative licence.

I would say that the shutter speed that I used for the photo below produced a pretty faithful rendition of the sight that I beheld.

To repeat: we don't see rushing water freeze-framed with our naked eyes, but we can make an effort at depicting the scene accurately (or artistically if we prefer) in camera with time exposures. Usually something just a little under or over a second will get you close.

I quite enjoyed my morning, both taking and editing photos.

Whitewater at Easter

I had some fun for about an hour yesterday afternoon (Easter Sunday) roaming around by the river and taking shots of whitewater. The water is running very high and fast right now, and I wasn't the only one out there with a camera trying to capture the wild river.

I used my neutral density so that I could slow down the shutter speed to try to capture the movement of the water. Most photos were around 1/2 second exposure, which seemed to be enough to capture the movement but still maintain structure in the water.

From just behind townhall looking north across the river toward the dam

Moving downstream a little to photograph the same dam

By the old McArthur Mill, which is to be converted into condos

Gillies Bridge from the west side

Also from the west side but a different composition

From the same spot as above but zoomed in

Looking down from the old railway bridge. Gillies bridge would be a little to the left.

I had fun, and I reserve the right to post more at a later time if I feel so moved. 😀

Caturday 2

Lacey is an aloof puss although you wouldn't think that from these pics.

She loves her treats, and I have used them to get her comfortable to be with me on my recliner. This remains the only spot where she will visit a lap, but I get protracted visits both morning and evening.

She accepts petting here and even seems to enjoy it. But pretty well only here although I can get away with little petting in a few other spots.

But in this chair, she will snuggle down for quite a long time.

The main problem with this is that she pins down my right arm each and every time, which is limiting. In the first pic below, you can see my right hand, for I am right-handed, struggling to access the keyboard of my tablet. It's a recurring theme. You can't see it in the photo, but there is a little table on the right where I can keep my coffee among other things. But, oh no, I can't get to it and must revert to putting it on the floor to my left.

When I was first taming her, I would put a treat on my shoulder, and she would retrieve it. It remains a goto spot.