Photography

Photos I’ve taken of scenery, interesting objects and other things.

Reifel Bird Sanctuary, September 11, 2022

The smoke haze of yesterday was still present, but eased up a bit, affording us decent light for our bird outing. Here are a few shots.

Greater yellowlegs and friends
Pretty boy.
Chickadee resting for a few moments

Others were out grabbing shots. You can see the smoke haze in this photo.

Big boat, little boat, from Deas Island. Again, the smoke haze has made the sky white instead of blue.

Photo of the day: That darn cat

I am weird in that rather than have items from Amazon (yes, they are evil and terrible, but I do order stuff from them sometimes) delivered to the condo (with attendant condo-specific issues) I have them delivered to an Amazon locker–but not the locker that’s closest, the one that’s next closest, because I get a little extra exercise walking to it (I occasionally regret this when there’s a downpour but in the summer it’s great).

The route to this particular locker takes me down a street that has a resident Calico cat that is often out and about. Tonight was such a night. The cat was sitting on the sidewalk, chilling out and I said hello, but continued on, as I wanted to just grab the package and get home before it got dark and the werewolves came out. At first, the cat seemed to be okay with this. It looked up but made no move. But as I walked further past, it suddenly bolted ahead of me, then flopped directly in my path, demanding attention and affection. I spent a minute or so scratching behind its ears and petting it, and it seemed content to allow me to move on.

If I ever get another cat, I want one that is as friendly and gently demanding as this one.

You shall not pass (without providing cuddles first)
Yep, just gonna chill out right here

Birdtopia: Rocky Point Park, Colony Farm and Burnaby Lake

We did a triple-header today and saw a bunch of birds. Here are a few, from the super common to one I’ve never seen before.

As the crow flies.
Goose, goose, goose, goose.
The best shot of a killdeer I’ve gotten yet. They do not actually kill deer.
This gull went into full “Look at me!” mode and stayed that way for quite a while.
Shine on, you crazy wood duck.
And the new bird, a green heron! It acted very heron-like but is much smaller than the blue herons we normally see here.
Bonus shot of the green heron.

Photo of the day: Sewer cover by the river

Because there is a sewer that runs alongside this part of the Brunette River. Underground, of course, but occasionally you can smell its fragrant odor wafting by.

I was originally going to crop my feet out of the shot, but my feet are almost a meme in my photos at this point, so I kept them in. It was about 30C when I took this shot. I have probably had enough 30C days for this summer. I don’t think Mother Nature is listening, though.

Shot (but not fatally) with iPhone 12

Ducking out

I strolled along Sapperton Landing this afternoon and took photos of birds, boats and bodies of water, among other things. It was peaceful and relaxing.

Here are a pair of ducks on a very brightly-lit log.

Jet overhead, a before and after comparison

The title of this post is very on the nose.

Here’s a comparison of the original photo of a jet flying overhead that I recently took with my Canon EOS M50 camera, and then a version of the photo after I tweaked the contrast and color a bit in Luminar AI:

The changes are pretty obvious:

  • The sky is no longer completely blasted out, allowing the mix of high cloud and blue to show
  • The blue of the aircraft underside has been boosted a bit, not to exaggerate it, but to make it look more as it actually appeared
  • The overall contrast of the jet was adjusted, to better bring out detail in the structure (when looking at a smaller version of the photo, it may simply look darker; the detail is best seen at full or near-full size)

Now, you could argue that the bright, overexposed sky of the original works because it puts the jet in stark contrast to it, effectively highlighting it more than my tweaked version. And I would agree–but it’s also a matter of preference. Overall, I like the tweaked version because to my eye it’s a better representation of what I saw, and does not try to misrepresent the object(s) depicted. For example, Luminar AI lets you add giraffes to the sky (yes, it really does), but I did not add any giraffes! Or hot air balloons, or bald eagles, or any of the other silly things you can put in to spice things up.

Tweaking photos is now something I find almost as enjoyable as the actual shooting of the photos themselves. Maybe I just have a need to fix things.

BC Day 2022 recap: Birds, birds and no parking

We hit four (!) places yesterday. It was still warm, but not quite Africa hot at 28C. Humidity is still weirdly high and gross. The birding went like so:

  • Burnaby Lake. Much busier than usual, but expected on a statutory holiday. A family showed us a photo they had on a phone of some critter they’d seen and asked if we could identify it. In 10+ years of running, walking and taking photos at Burnaby Lake, I had never seen the creature in question. It looked a bit like a ferret or a marmot with a dog’s head. It was weird. We saw a white mallard at Piper Spit, too, so it was a day for odd sightings, apparently.
  • Colony Farm. We did not see much here and the humidity was oppressive, even if the sun was screened a lot by high cloud. We did see an Eastern king bird, but the cedar waxwings that were in abundance last visit were completely gone.
  • Como Lake. We were driving by, and I’d never been, so we stopped by. This is a small urban (though natural) lake with a one km path around it, so it didn’t take long to check out. Got some nice scenery shots, but only saw a few ducks. They had temporary fencing/netting on one side of the lake at entry points into the water to discourage geese from hanging around, due to their “excessive numbers.” It must be working, because we didn’t see a single goose there.
  • Rocky Point in Port Moody. We tried to visit here, but could not find any parking in the available lots or nearby streets. The smart people walked in or took transit. We ended up leaving without even stopping. Sad trombone.

Here’s a shot of the white mallard and its entourage: