Revisiting Monday's Fog

There were two more photos from Monday's foggy morning that I decided to edit a bit later. I converted them both to b&w.

First is the boathouse. It looks a little foreboding to me.

I saw a swan out beyond the dock in the fog. I like minimalism from time to time.

What is your verdict?

JJ's First Ride

JJ and dad stopped by last weekend. I think this was JJ's first ride on dad's new motorcycle mid-life crisis, and he was pleased to show us.

SuperSue

Sue is leaving me today to visit her sister in Toronto: Toronto for most but Ajax for those who know the various municipalities in the region. We've been trying to let her loose on this getaway for months, but life has intervened in most inconsiderate ways. This time, both Sue and I are relatively healthy, and since Shauna is driving across province, she can drop Sue off at Heather's.

On Sunday, Sue led me on a photoshoot, looking to fulfill her prompt that had something to do with her superpower. We brainstormed a little and remembered when she mentioned her capes (she has many) to JJ. The young boy asked if she could fly. She decided to wear the cape and pretend to be flying, at least as best she could while securely nailed to terra firma. 

The first is my fave, the third hers. I like the uncluttered look of the first, and I think she likes the lifted leg against the railing on the third.

I asked her to make a composite; she made two.

So, I will be batching it while she enjoys a little reunion with her dear sister.

Fog in the Park

There was a heavy fog yesterday morning. Shauna reported that she was only going 70kph on the highway to work. The speed limit is 80, and she usually does 100. She could barely see the car ahead even though it was only 3 or 4 lengths in front.

I took the camera out early in the morning for the first time since spring. Off I went to Riverside Park. While I have been there before in the fog, it is still probably the best nearby place to go for a quick photoshoot.

I was not using a tripod and was not taking much care with my compositions but just shooting quickly and by whim.

This ↓ was one of my first photos. You have seen this tree before from various angles but never from this point of view, I think. I wish I had left a little more space to the right of the bench, but I was not being overly fastidious.

There is a boathouse across the river, which I used in a number of photos. I think the middle image is my fave of this series with the other objects serving to form a triangle with it. When I was taking the photo, I thought that I might remove the left object in edit, but I decided that I like it this way. As it happens, I seem to have changed my mind. When I decided which one to post first to Flickr, I chose the first photo.

A lady and her dog walked by. They were almost out of range when I decided to snap a photo. Happily, a gull provided foreground and depth. I decided to warm up this image in edit. As you can see in all of the other photos there was a bluish cast. I was fine with it in the other photos but not with this one.

There is a boat launch at the far end of the park. I took this photo to show how thick the fog was as I could barely see across the river.

I don't always like it when I shoot so randomly and carelessly, for I feel that I should take care to craft deliberately. But it was an outing, and there have been precious few this summer.

Still Here

Meh . . . nothing much to post about lately, so I haven't. Of course, that usually hasn't stopped me. 😁

I am dropping into blogland, so you'll know that I am still here and nothing much has changed in my life. There may be a health update next week, but until then, I will park my bodily issues right here.

Onto a few tidbits.

The photoboys and I met for coffee at the Deadly Grounds last week. They've added a prop since we were last there. I was the first to arrive, so I took some selfies with the latest addition while I waited.

The next morning, We met with Bob and Barb for breakfast. It was a huge plate that I didn't finish. This didn't used to happen to me. I am not the man that I used to be.

That night at 4am, I took a phone photo when I stumbled out of bed and looked out the window. There was something about the clouds that interested me, but whatever it was, it is not evident in the photo. It was a very slow shutter speed, and, evidently, I moved the phone. It's a fun result, or at least I think so.

We have been watching quite a lot of tennis from the US Open, and as far as our personal viewing goes, tennis is all done for the year. I understand that some tournaments will still transpire, but most of the season is over. Tennis players will begin to recuperate before starting up again at the Australian Open in January.

The young American Coco Gauff won the ladies US Open title. She also acquitted herself well in the presentation ceremony. She grabbed the mic and speechified very well. On the men's side, Djokovic won his 24th grand slam title. 

Our Canadians were bounced early in both men's and women's singles, but a Canadian lady won the women's doubles. That's Gabriela on the left. Her partner, Erin, is also Canadian for all intents and purposes. She was born to Canadian parents in New Zealand while they were on a year-long, round-the-world adventure, but I believe that she now lives here, and I couldn't detect a kiwi accent.

That's pretty well a wrap for now, but I expect that I will have more to post soon enough. You can't keep an old blogger down for long.

Lunar Lunacy

You're not going to believe this, but I have another moon photo although I sure didn't intend to do another lunar shoot. 

I went to bed at 10, Monday night and fell right asleep. But I woke up just an hour later at 11 in a furnace-like heat. No sweat but felt like I might blow up. This was most distressing after two nights that didn't total 8 hours combined.

Moving from my bed to my chair didn't help, for even as the heat began to subside, my various aches and pains took the opportunity to increase my misery.

After a time, I went downstairs. If memory serves, I had a piece of toast, for I sometimes notice that eating a little something changes my mindset, or something like that.

I stepped outside, and what did I see?

Behold, I saw the almost crescent moon with Venus off to the right. Venus being the little dot toward the top right of the frame, above.

It was almost midnight, but I started hauling my camera equipment out. Alas, I could capture the moon, but I couldn't see Venus in my photos.

After awhile, I realized that I had to make a composite photo. I photographed the moon at 1/60th of a second, but I couldn't really see Venus in the screen until I had reduced the shutter speed to 0.8th of a second, which is about 6x the light that I required for the moon. I composited the two images in Photoshop. They are the sizes that the camera captured, and they were that far apart.

The result was okay for this unexpected encounter in the middle of a sleepless night. I learned something too, for I had never realized that you couldn't capture the moon and another object like this with one exposure. So, whenever you see a photo like this in future, you'll know that some post production work was necessary. It's not faking it but rather is going to great lengths to capture the scene as it was. Good photography is so often more than a click of a button.

Before I go, I will harken back to the previous lunar photos — the Blue Supermoon ones. One of them got Explored (ie featured) on Flickr and got almost 4000 views and well over  200 faves.

It was this ↓ one, but it was the the first version that I originally showed you – the one before I removed the lampposts and lights: 

The Flickr version didn't have the reflection either, but when Barb bemoaned the lack of a reflection, I decided to do some Photoshopping. You see, although there was no reflection in this original photo, I did have one from a slightly different location, off to the left of this one. So, I grabbed the reflection from that photo and pasted it into this one. I probably should have enlarged the reflection to match the size of the moon better, but I decided to let the project rest. I have learned from both lunar shoots, and that is good enough for now.

Back to School in the Heat

Back to School hereabouts is always the day after Labour Day. Thank goodness Shauna thought to get photos.

According to my recollections. it was fairly typical back to school weather with the temperatures rising to 34C/93F. The kids would be alright because their school is air conditioned.

In my 30 years of teaching I never had such luck. Not only were my rooms not air conditioned, but they were usually extra hot. My first ten years were spent in a room with lots of windows, but we were stuck in a well with a tall gymnasium, brick wall only about 10 feet away.

Later, I had six years with a southern exposure overlooking a roof. The room had windows, but they didn't open very wide. Then, my last seven years were next to a parking lot with only two tiny windows. By then, I had invested in a fan. (I also supplied my own chair because I had to look for ways to spend my huge salary.)

So, that is what I recall about back to school. There always seemed to be a heat wave for at least the first few days. Shortly thereafter, the weather would become pleasant for the rest of September and even until Thanksgiving, mid-October here in Canada.

In other news, Shauna drove us into the city for Sue's follow-up appointment with the surgeon. With marvellous air conditioning everywhere, we were cool kids. Happily, as far as the surgeon is concerned, Sue appears to be on a good track.

Afterward, we stopped at Swiss Chalet for a rotisserie chicken lunch.

Our server looked like he was twelve years old, but he was most pleasant. He is a sophomore who is heading back to university classes today.

I just saw this ↓ photo after I hit publish, but I don't think anybody has read the above yet. Posted by the kids' stepmom, they are with their two stepsisters.