Gabriola Island

I spent the weekend exploring Gabriola Island with a few friends.  It's a beautiful little spot just off of Vancouver Island near Nanaimo.  Despite it being the beginning of December, we had fantastic weather.  Here are a couple shots I took on our explorations.

Low tide and low skies.

"Slug tree" growing on a fallen sandstone boulder

Entrance Island lighthouse from the beach in Sandwell Provincial Park

The Bright Side of the Moon

It's a little depressing when it's already dark before you leave work (thanks winter), and it makes it that much harder to head to class afterwards.  But on the bright side, I got to see the beautiful moon that was out on Thursday night as I drove home from class.  It was a clear and cold night, and I was without a tripod, but I managed to snap this shot before I was shivering too much to hold the camera steady.

Cat-ography

Black pets can be extremely challenging to photograph, especially on dark furniture.  So when Steve laid down on a white blanket on the couch, I took the opportunity to take a few photos of him.  I also discovered that a feather is an excellent tool when photographing a cat.  I used it to get him to look in whatever direction I needed, and to prevent this sleepy guy from falling asleep on me.

Didn't stop him from yawning though.

Dong his best panther impression.

Adopt-aversery

Three years ago today we adopted our little dude, Steve. He's not so little anymore. You can check out my first post about him here to see just how much he's grown.

A Little More Sooke

Here are a few more photos from the trip to Sooke.

Murphy

I wanted to share a couple portraits I shot of a friend's dog, Murphy.  She's a gorgeous German shepherd cross they adopted as a puppy from the SPCA.  She's got a great temperament, is well behaved, and who couldn't love those ears?

 

Sooke Sunset

I'm really excited about this shot that I took a couple of weeks ago in Sooke as the sun was setting after a day full of sun and rain.  Take a close look at the horizon line, and you can see the Olympic mountains just coming through the clouds and fog.

This Guy

Anna's Hummingbird

We are fairly certain this little guy lives in our plum tree.  He's an Anna's Hummingbird, and a big fan of our feeder.  Anna's are actually able to stay in Victoria year round, so it looks like we'll be seeing lots of him.

Little Cat, Big Bed

I recently re-covered a big bean-bag for our dog who is recovering from a major leg surgery... apparently Steve has other plans for the bean-bag.

Think that bed is big enough for him?

Observations

Play Time

I was playing around with my camera this afternoon, and tried out a couple new techniques.  The first one is shown in the first two photos; it is called Free Lensing.  You actually remove the lens from your camera and hold it in front of the camera, you can then tilt the lens to cause distortion in the image.  You usually end up with a diagonal plane of focus running through the photo depending on which way you tilt the lens.  All of the examples I have seen are usually done with a wider angle lens than the 50mm I was using.  I'll definitely have to play around with this technique some more.

The second technique I tried is a sort of cheater macro, for those who don't have an actual macro lens.  For this you remove the lens from your camera and turn it backwards and hold it in front of the camera. Finding the focus can be difficult as it involves moving closer and further from the subject until you find the focal point, and its a small focal point.

Mount Tolmie

The wild flowers are out on Mount Tolmie near our house, so I took the opportunity to play around a little.  The first photo is a composite of several photos (as you can see from the bottom right, photoshop had some trouble with the grass).

Ocean Discovery

We had family visiting for Easter weekend, including our little nephew Ben.  We decided to take him to the Ocean Discovery Center in Sydney to see the "Uncle Puss" (Octopus).  His favorite part by far was petting the Sea Stars in the tidal pool.

Port Renfrew Pics

I spent another beautiful weekend in Port Renfrew this weekend, once the monsoon let up anyway.

Morning fog on the San Juan River

Sun set after the rain.

A sunset HDR.

May 2012

These shots were from my kayak camping trip to Discovery Island last spring.

March 2012

Our handsome little panther.

February 2012

I finally went back through all of my photos for 2012 and did some editing.  The following posts are going to be month by month catching up on photos that I havent posted.

Here are s few of my parents labradors, Quita and Brio.

And one of my handsome boy Steve.

China Beach