More from the Park

Make hay while the sun shines

Make pics while the snow lies

That famous quote will point the way for this blog for another day or three. Today, I take you back to the park, and my theme for this post is Frames. In each photo, I tried to frame an object with surrounding objects. In this case, I am framing trees with other trees, or attempting to. I think the first and third photos work the best, with the third being my favourite, perhaps because I find strong vertical lines appealing for some reason. 

As she often does, Sue snapped a photo of me taking a photo. It may I may possibly have been taking the above photo, for I was pointing toward the general area.

I will have more snow posts to come, but we will be out of the park for those, even if we don't manage to hit it metaphorically outta da park.

About the Woodlands I Will Go

Almost immediately after writing yesterday's post, I was proven wrong about two things. I don't know why it took so long. :)

Unexpectedly, the snow guy showed up toute de suite to clear the driveway. They don't guarantee to clear us out if the snowfall is less than 2"/5cm. But sometimes, they come by anyway, so I wasn't totally shocked.

The other thing was about Sha being back to work and Jonathan being back to school. Both things were true, but I was soon getting messages to see if I might be able to pick up JJ, for he had tossed his cookies, as some might say. This stomach issue seems to be his weak spot, and this was not the first time or even the second time that I been asked to help the boy like this. He once heaved away between the school door and the car. I'm glad he didn't wait a minute longer.

Poor Jonathan, but it was good for me, for when I passed the park, I saw that it would be a good day to make photos, for the snow was on the trees. I've seen it better than this, but this was pretty darn good.

I hurried home and told Sue about the photo opportunity that lay waiting for us. Synchronisticly (not a word, apparently) and serendipitously, her theme for the week is White, so the opportunity suited both of us. Here are three of mine; there will be more in the days to come, but these will suffice for the nonce. The photos reflect the dull but yet soft and pretty day that it was.

 

It's Thataway ===>>

Two Monday photos that you've seen before in different form. The first was rotated on its side; the second was converted to b&w and stands out better this way.

We had a light snowfall overnight but too light for the driveway contractor to come. It's got to be about 2 inches for them to bother. We'll go push it around later this morning. It's light, so it won't be difficult.

Sha and JJ were hit pretty hard by the latest virus. After about a week, with much time off from work for Sha and school for JJ, I think they are just about back to normal. Somehow, Danica escaped, and we did too by avoiding contact and cancelling our planned family dinner last week.

Shauna at Two-ish

I posted many pictures of Shauna around her first Christmas and birthday in 1973, so I know they were taken at the end of 1973. In that batch of negatives, there were others when she was somewhat older, looking more like a little girl rather than a baby. From the look of her and the location of the photos and from when I recall about experimenting with developing b&w, I deduce that this was 1974, a little before her second birthday. However, I could be wrong; they could have been taken in 1975, after her second birthday.

A reminder that these are from recent scans of old b&w negatives. As before, they required editing in modern software to get them looking as good as they do because the original scans were quite rough..

I did go the extra mile in the above photo by replacing the background from that very busy wallpaper. I don't know why we thought at the time that wallpaper would make a good background, but we didn't know much then. Like Scrooge, now we know that we didn't know much then, and we're not too confident about now either.

I will have a few more to post someday, but not many because I didn't shoot b&w often or for very long, and I soon reverted back to colour slide film.

A memory just popped up in my head from those days. Sometimes, we would be invited out after church on Sunday evenings. We could plop Shauna under the table or wherever, and she would play, quietly and amuse herself until late. I remember one woman saying that she had never seen anything like this behaviour: good as gold with no fussing or whinin,g well past her usual bedtime.

Can in Cali

 I really wasn't planning on posting again today, but . . . 

Where We Were

We found the snowy owls, of the previous post, within the large acreage of the Experimental Farm within Ottawa. To reveal the vastness of the empty fields, I should have had a normal or even a wide angle lens, but, of course, it was the telephoto lenses that were the order of the day if we were going to photograph distant owls.

This photo of a very small section of the fields  may give you some idea of the snowfields on a cold day with wooded land beyond the far road.

The birds were always a long way off, and this first sighting was too far to get anything but a blurry speck, even at full telephoto zoom. The owl is in the centre of the photo.

The snow wasn't very deep. so we saw occasional grasses sticking out. Although that wasn't the object of the day, I did grab a few quick snaps.

The occasional tree broke the empty landscape here and there.

A creek ran through one of the fields that we passed. It looked good flowing within the yellow grassy banks — an oasis in a barren land (that would not be barren in summer with crops in the fields). Once again, more time and a wider lens might have yielded better photos, but this day was not about that and these pictures are good enough to suit me.

It was a cold day, but we photographed from within the car, and there were plenty of access roads to navigate our way around the fields in the hunt for the owls. It was good to have this unique experience and not just for the owls although they were the main feature. There were also some photogenic old buildings, mostly sheds, here and there, which would have made interesting subjects, but again, they were not what were were focussing on that day.

Twas an Owling Success

When Daryl posted a photo of a snowy owl in our local group, I posted my appreciation. My comment might have also revealed a wee bit of jealousy. Although I am not a wildlife photographer, there is something about snowy owls that seems special, but I have never seen one let alone take a picture.

Daryl sensed this feeling of mine and offered to take me to them in the somewhat private area that he has access to through his work: an area of many many acres of almost empty, flat fields.

On a cold winter day, he picked me up and took me to the fields. Spotting the owls was not easy, but he managed to find our first bird. It was so far off that it was just a blurry speck in the photos at full zoom. In point of fact, my longest lens wasn't up to the job.

Guess what Daryl did. He handed me his camera and let me shoot with his longer and better lens. The photos that I will post below were all from his equipment but my clicking and developing.

We drove around for quite a long time, spotting a few birds in the distance and seeing a few fly off as our car got too close, but finally there was this shot. 

Keep in mind that this and all of these photos are at full 600mm zoom and even then cropped significantly in the computer. I should also note that they were also taken from the vehicle with the window rolled down on a very cold day.

As you can see, the rock-strewn surroundings were not the prettiest environment, but the owl is reasonably well defined, and I think it was smiling at me. Of course, I am imagining that, but it looks like that, and we do ten to anthropomorphize the critters.

At that point, I had  seen several owls, including seeing two or three fly off and taken this pretty well focused photo. I was satisfied with that, but Daryl kept driving and looking for a better shot.

He found bird in a better location, and it seemed quite content to stay there.

That was even better to me than the first photo, but Daryl was then able to mov the car slightly closer where I also had a better angle and background.

Needless to say, I am right chuffed with these photos.

There are generous people in this world. Although Daryl and I are just acquaintances, he was willing to spend hours driving me to the location and then around the fields. He then gave up his equipment, so I could have this experience. How amazing is that‽

This old guy is pretty happy to have had this howling success of an experience.