Picture My World

This YouTube video makes it clear why camera lenses are so expensive.  (ht to daring fireball)

Born December 18 at 1:14am after one of the nicest and driest days in recent memory.

She was a health 8 lbs and 21 inches long at birth (that’s 3.6 kg and 54 cm for the metrically inclined).

We had a home birth for this baby. I can’t tell you how much better this was compared to the hospital birth. Highly recommended if you’re a low-risk pregnancy.

Finally, the new baby experience is significantly different the second time around. I’m finding it harder to fully appreciate this new life when her older sister still requires our attention (and rightfully so). On the plus side, new baby is already getting used to Shula’s noise.

Captured on my recent trip to Vancouver Island. This bus has some handy driving tips stenciled on it. I’m calling it “Suicide Bus”.

As with most “helpful” signage, I have to wonder what prompted them to put that on this particular bus.

Luckily they didn’t have to add the sign “It’s suicidal to take pictures of me on snowy highways.”

Arrived in Tokyo yesterday around 6:30 pm local time. I was exhausted and didn’t stay up much past 7:30 and then, of course, woke up at midnight. I haven’t been able to sleep very well after that and gave it up around 3 am.

I was expecting an utterly foreign land, much stranger than anywhere I’d been in Europe. So are, things are different but not what I expected. Maybe I feel this way because I already knew about the many-buttoned toilets? I suspect things will take on a more alien feel once I leave the confines of the hotel today.

I’m staying at the Tokyo Dome Hotel that shares its location with the Tokyo Dome stadium and a large amusement park (here’s a satellite view from Google). As I was ascending in the elevator, I saw someone descending across from me on one of those faux-parachute drop rides at about the same speed!

The airport (Narita) is about 60 km from Tokyo and I took a shuttle bus in. The surrounding area is quite industrial and, frankly, quite ugly. It didn’t get much better in Tokyo proper as we took an elevated roadway snaking through the dense city and every descent to street level (to get to other stops) led to a collection of dark and dingy viaducts. For some reason I was expecting everything to be shiny and new, but the architecture I’ve seen so far is clearly post-war and not so pleasing. Again, these are first impressions only.

Here’s a night shot from my window (I couldn’t kill the reflections):

The lit curve is one of the elevated roads. It seems every single building has red lights and they form the night horizon. Most of them slowly blink, giving the appearence of a red, roiling sea.

Ron (who still doesn’t have a blog) and I went shooting at Queen Elizabeth Park on Monday. Picture this:

The Bloedel Conservatory. Home of tropical plants and birds.

A close-up of the dome where you can see the trees straining to escape. One day that dome is just going to pop off.

The dome again, but with a funky B&W look.

Finally, there were lots of flowers and a few bees.

I posted some of my UPA photos on flickr. I didn’t take very many pictures at all… That’s the problem with an SLR.

Remember when your parents told you not to let go of the balloon? Remember the feeling in your gut as you watched the balloon float away?

“Dad!”

Captured at Second Beach, Stanley Park. I added motion blur to an already blurry photo but I think the effect works.

I’m not sure why, but I like this one.

Last Sunday, Ron (who needs a blog) and I went to Granville Island to shoot some pictures. Ron was exercising his new Canon 20D. I wasn’t happy with most of my shots, but here are a few.

Seagull

Bolt

Bulrush

iStockPhoto is an excellent source of cheap, high quality royalty-free stock images (I’m slowly uploading more photos to them).  You can get screen resolution photos for about $1 each - great for your web site or next presentation.  They have a referal program, so use this link and go sign up and buy some photos!

Red

Originally uploaded by JZip.

An abstract shot for this morning. The frost on this car’s hood was just starting to melt as the sun peeked over the houses.

lock

Originally uploaded by JZip.

Had 20 minutes on Sunday to take some photos for the first time in an eon. So, I went to this empty lot and took some shots. I wasn’t happy with any of them, but I do like the rust in this picture.

Ball

Originally uploaded by JZip.

I’m not going to get out to shoot tomorrow. So, for your viewing pleasure, here’s an old photo from the summer I had kicking around.

Vancouver Sunrise

Originally uploaded by JZip.

Long time, no blog. I got out early a couple of Sundays ago and the clouds arrived with me for a beautiful sunrise. It coincided with a low tide so I went to Spanish Banks to capture the mud flats.

This is a long post, but day 3 was a long day… There are photos towards the end.

“It’s 12:30, gentlemen!” That was our wakeup call. Too bad I was already awake. The wind had blown continuously all night, sometimes shaking our tent so hard I thought God Himself was trying to get our attention.

Between the wind and noisy neighbours (didn’t they have an alpine start, too?!) I don’t think I got more than 10 minutes of sleep at a stretch. I felt awful. I had a headache and felt even less motivated than the previous evening. My tent companions felt the same way and we considered calling it quits and going back to sleep.

(more…)

A deer wishes us a good climb

Day 2 started at 5 am. I could tell from the light coming through the window that the weather was good. I shot out of bed and got dressed. We then had breakfast and prepared to leave. Our packs felt very light as we started up Skyline trail at 6:30. We started at approximately 5600′ of elevation.
(more…)

Mt. Rainier

Originally uploaded by JZip.

I woke up on Sunday just before 6 am to get ready for my ride at 7. It looked like Vancouver was in for a beautiful, clear day so I had high hopes for our climb.

Our plan was to climb up to 9,000′ or 10,000′ on the first day and camp. The second day would take us over glacier to a second camp at 11,100′. We’d then climb to the summit on the third day followed by a descent all the way back to the parking lot. This three day plan would give us some extra time to acclimate to the altitude.

The drive south was uneventful, but the weather turned overcast as we drove through Seattle. It didn’t improve the rest of the way to Mt. Rainier.

We arrived at the visitors’ centre around 12:30, commented on the poor visibility and rain, had lunch, and looked for our two guides, Brian and Keith. We found them after 15 minutes or so and proceeded to bring all our gear up to the centre to distribute the food and the technical equipment Brian and Keith had brought for us. The centre is ringed by a covered area which was perfect for this sort of activity.

At the same time, the guides checked the forcast and came back with some bad news. It appeared the weather had deteriorated since the morning’s 5:30 am weather report and we were in for a very wet evening. They suggested we spend the night at the nearby lodge since slogging up the mountain and pitching a wet camp wasn’t going to be fun.

This was very disheartening news. I had watched the weather forcast improve over the last few days and I was very disappointed at this delay. It could easily turn into an outright cancellation and the thought left me dejected after all the preparation (in the form of money and time).

We got a room at the Paradise Inn and went for a walk through beautiful sub-alpine meadows. We saw an amazing variety of flowers, water falls (both close and far), and deer. We also got rained on a bit.

Afterwards, we cooked up our first night’s camp-food dinner with the aid of some hot water from the snack bar. After dinner 3 of us went out to daven minchah. God must have heard us because the sky opened up and Rainier showed itself. (OK, OK, so it was either God or an incorrect weather man.)

I went inside to grab my camera, snapped some shots, and headed back to go to bed. We agreed on a 5 am wakeup followed by breakfast and a climb to Camp Muir at 10,000′. My disappointment turned to excitement and I had trouble sleeping.

Stay tuned for part 2.

Pier-1

Originally uploaded by JZip.

Almost 2 weeks since my last post. You know it’s a slow period when you see a post like this.

I don’t feel like writing a lot, so I’ll post a picture instead. Poof! 1000 words.

This was taken at Kits beach on Father’s Day.

IMG_1022

Originally uploaded by JZip.

Here’s the fledgling crow that squirrel was watching. We found it on our deck and our cat, Missy, had it cornered. We didn’t realize it was a baby at first since it was so big. Its wing looked damaged and it clearly couldn’t fly.

A call to the Wildlife Rescue folks cleared things up. Fledgling crows have blue eyes and are big. Too big for their nests. They end up falling out and can take a week to figure out the whole flying thing. However, their parents continue to feed it while it’s stuck on the ground. Fascinating.

He (?) left the deck today, but we hope he comes back. I think we’ll call him Carl. (Get it? Say it slowly.)

IMG_0953

Originally uploaded by JZip.

This guy was checking out the fledgling crow. Sorry about the boring background.