All My Blogs

Kathryn at Tulum, Mexico. It's funny how a memory can be sparked.  Something, long buried, that exists without a conscious presence, can suddenly come to life in the blink of an eye.  Such recollections are often lit by some sense; a word, a person, a smell, or even a touch is all that is needed to rekindle an experience.  This is one of the reasons I love to look at photographs; so many memories are elicited by the merest of glimpses.   Kathryn had won an all-expenses cruise through a fundraiser she participated in.  It was our first cruise, now some 24 years ago.  We stopped at Tulum, Mexico, where we had our first taste of the country.  The ruins were spectacular; just her and I amongst a throng of tourists.  Me, trying to be where people weren't, and her, trying to be where people were, and my cameras, lenses, flashes, and other paraphernalia that now have passed long into history.  I am so thankful that we both had the opportunity t...

Male Bullock's Oriole.  Photographed May 31, 2022 I discovered a wonderful hiking spot a few kilometers from my home which has a fair amount of wildlife in it.  Munson Pond Park is located just at the edge of the city of Kelowna and has farmland adjacent to it.  The 9.8 ha park (about 25 acres) sports a pond approximately 4 ha (10 acres) in size.  A trail surrounds the lake and provides modest shoreline access.  The trail itself is approximately 1 kilometer in length. Bullock's oriole feeds on both insects and fruit, which is why they are only summer visitors.  They prefer deciduous trees, especially if they are of the fruit-bearing variety, although they may occasionally be found about conifers.  Some have been found feeding on nectar.  The birds may eat bees, being sure to remove the stinger before ingesting them, and have been seen skinning caterpillars as a means to facilitate ingestion.   The birds visit the ground frequently in the...

1.  Two Jack Lake  2.  Charles in kayak  3.  The illusion of Charles at Two Jack Lake. The fact is that we were both at Two Jack Lake in Banff, but my friend, Charles, wanted a picture of himself in frame-1 as opposed to the image I had of him in frame-2 .  And so, I was given the challenge of making it work.  In order to do this a number of steps were required (below).  The result was frame-3; it was made into an 11x14 inch print which he now has hanging on a wall at his house. take the raw image of frame-1 and create an 11x14 @300dpi file of it in Photoshop. take the raw image of frame-2 and select the image of Charles in his kayak.  I used the polygon lasso tool to do this with 0 feathering.  Copy it paste the copied image from frame-2 into frame-1.  Flip the image horizontally using the Edit/Transform menu command and rotate it a few degrees clockwise using the Free-rotate function.   use the eraser tool with a soft e...

A pied hoverfly taking nectar from flowers. It turns out that hoverfly, flower fly, and syrphid fly are all interchangeable terms.  They all refer to the same group of dipterans (true flies).  North America uses the term flower fly while the rest of the world seems to identify them as hoverflies.  Syrphid comes from the family Syrphidea , a specialized group of flies whose adults eat nectar; the larvae feed on different foods depending on the species. I photographed this particular adult in September of last year while we were camping in the Okanagan.  It may very well be  Scaeva pyrastri , a species of flower fly found around much of the world.  The larvae are beneficial insects feeding on aphids.  I read one account that suggested a single larva may consume as many as 500 aphids before reaching maturity.  If you want to see the larva of this species, click here . Female flower flies have a space between the compound eyes while in males they are ...

Hairy woodpecker (left) and downy woodpecker (right) compaired. I had the pleasure of hiking at Telford Lake near Leduc, Alberta yesterday.  I spotted a small black and white bird with a conspicuous red mark on the back of its head flitting from branch to branch, examining each one carefully before moving off to the next one.  I recognized it as a male downy woodpecker.  The small size, mottled black and white back, and relatively small beak made the identification easy. I had lost sight of it temporarily and thought I had found it again when I discovered this one was a female (below).  Females do not have the conspicuous red patch on the back of their heads.  I followed it for a short time when I lost track of it too.  It was then that the oddest thing happened.  A much larger version appeared at the base of a tree; it was, however, a male Hairy woodpecker.  They are about twice the size of the downys and sport a much longer beak.  The two s...

Scale is an important concept in photography.  It can be used to provide precision or to deceive.  The above photo is a good example.  I found the skull on a walk at Pitt Poulder in Maple Ridge last year.  It measured less than two inches from back to front, yet there is the illusion of it being from a large carnivore.  A lot of that comes from the fact that it fills most of the frame vertically, from the large canine teeth it possesses, and from the relative size of the perplexed scientist beside it. I knew it to be from a member of the weasel family when I found it.  In order to facilitate the illusion of it being large, I needed three things.  Any reference to its actual size had to be eliminated.  That meant blurring the background so the grass didn't give away its diminutive nature.  Secondly, the actual image had to fill the frame to make it appear large.  That was just a matter of cropping.  Lastly, there needed to be somethi...

One thing I appreciate about wildlife photographers and birders is that they are often enthusiastic about sharing what they have seen and where it was found.  They do this, not out of the goodness of their hearts, but because they are genuinely excited about their discovery and know that spreading awareness facilitates conservation.   There are a few spots that I like to go birding in.  In the Lower Mainland, these would be Pitt-Poulder ecological reserve, Burnaby Lake, and Rocky Point in Port Moody.  Any place where there are significant undisturbed areas around bodies of water is a good place to look for birds.  I am not talking about robins, chickadees, and house sparrows either.  I am referring to unusual species that are rarely seen in one's daily routine.  Last year alone I have seen and photographed a dozen species I have never seen before. Whenever I come across other wildlife photographers or birders I ask if they have seen anything inter...

The creek draining Two Jack Lake in Banff. Photography to me is about capturing the beauty of what I see.  This often deals with outdoor vistas and creatures great and small.  There is a difference in my mind between seeing something and photographing it.  That difference has to do with taking the time to really look at something. When out for a walk without a camera in hand, my goal is often to get from point A to point B.  I certainly take in the elements in the process and enjoy whatever wildlife encountered as much as anyone.  A camera, though, gives me a certain licence to explore beyond what a stroll would allow.  It makes me look and examine. The above photograph is a good example.  If you look closely, you will notice two people (small round figures just at the bottom of the visible mountain).  Those are friends I was walking with.  As they sat and enjoyed the moment the day offered, I was busy exploring the creek.  It was my hop...

I printed this on a teeshirt for Kathryn for Christmas. The day started out as most others.  No one suspected what was about to happen; there were no dark omens to speak of.  If a black cat had crossed our paths, Murphy would have dismembered it.  All signs pointed to normal. After being awoken by familiar licks and a thorough thrashing by a reverberating tail, we arose to meet the day.  High clouds thinly veiled the sun, whose attempts to illuminate the world were not entirely unsuccessful.  It was time to go for a walk.  Yes, walkies were about to happen. I rarely take Murphy for a walk and bring my camera at the same time, but the planets were in alignment on this and so the unusual union took place.  So, with camera and leash in hand, we left for our stroll.   An erect tail spoke to the dog's status; on alert and ready for anything.  Preferably tummy rubs.  Oh, and a treat too would be nice.  That said, we were off, down th...

Crops of photos I have taken with different lenses, both zooms and primes. Over the years I have owned a number of lenses.  Since I enjoy photographing nature, many of them have been long lenses giving me the ability to zoom in for a shot.  The above photographs represent some of the photos I have taken in the last 20 years or so as they all have been taken on digital cameras.  Previous to these, I used Zenit, Minolta, and finally Nikon film cameras with a collection of long lenses not included here.   The above photographs show a singular truth; prime lenses outperform zooms in terms of picture quality.  The exception is the catadioptric (mirror) lens, which lacks stabilization and autofocus and represented a short period of exploration on my part.  The 200 and 300 mm primes are both autofocus but have no stabilization technology (they are older variants made before such technology existed).  Both are still capable of creating a decent image but ...

Ice-covered pond in Innisfail, Alberta, framed by ice-bound vegetation. Notice the two parallel lines at the bottom left corner of the image?  Those are cross-country ski marks and they serve as a means of leading your eye into the photo.  The shot would not be the same without them as the open area would be vacant from anything to capture the viewer's interest.  Large, bland areas in a picture tend to render the entire thing mundane.  Being too busy is not good, but neither is not busy enough.  The trick is in finding the right balance. One of the great ways to improve a photo with empty areas is to put something there that draws your eye into the shot.  In snow scenes, skis, snowshoes, and even footprints will do the job.  Sandy areas benefit from footprints and vehicle tracks.  Roadways, sidewalks, dirt paths, and train tracks all achieve the same purpose.  Even nature provides eye-leading items; rivers, streams, fallen logs, waves, and co...

A willow tree coated with rime ice in Innisfail, Alberta. I woke up to clear skies and a world encased in rime ice.  I grabbed my polarizer filter and camera and headed out before the sun undid the magic that was gracing all the surfaces.  The mundane had transformed into the extraordinary, and time was not on my side.   I visited half a dozen places, each with its own unique brand of splendour.  The downside of the clear skies was that it was cold and my time outdoors would be limited to only a few minutes at each stop.  On the other hand, the blue skies provided the perfect opportunity to employ my polarizer.  By rotating the ring the filter blocks out polarized light from certain planes.  This has the effect of darkening blue skies and reducing colour casting.  The contrast between foreground and background is enhanced; even more so with the white world before me. I got quite a few photos I liked, but this one has a certain appeal to it....

Framing, rule of thirds, and an interesting subject improves a photo of an otherwise dull railing. As I approached the town of Innisfail, Alberta, the density of the fog continued to increase.  It started out mildly with ghostly images appearing in the distant background; visibility was hardly affected.  I was halfway to my destination when things started to change.  Bridge crossings appeared out of nowhere, road signs were not readable until almost abreast of them, and it was only the headlights of oncoming traffic that betrayed its presence.  How bad could it get? I knew the answer only too well.  I had been driving Highway 17 in Ontario through dense fog and could navigate only by watching the red lights of the vehicle in front of me.  One time a car, coming from the opposite direction, was flashing its headlights with great zeal, often a sign that police cars were on patrol.  Warning taken, we slowed down and soon discovered the reason for the ambi...

A carabid ground beetle with recently dispatched prey. If you see a large, black beetle scurrying somewhere, or inadvertedly uncover one while moving debris, leave it be.  My immediate tendency is to pick it up and have a good look at it.  I always appreciate their robust design.  Strong legs, large jaws, and a shiny black body gives the identification away.  Darkling beetles look similar but typically have a dull luster about them instead of being shiny.  Once my examination and appreciation of it is finished, I return it to where it was found. Ground beetles are important predators of insect pests.  Those big jaws aren't for show; they are used for catching, dispatching, and tearing into prey.  And yes, they can bite you, although I have never been the victim of them.  Even the larvae are predaceous.  They also have strong jaws and ambitiously burrow through substrate or hide under it to hide.  They often come out from their lairs at n...

Nora's 2nd birthday party - My son's family on Chanelle's side. Children.  The joy of our hearts and the bane of our existence.  Every day presents its own blessings and trials.  We all have hopes for our offspring.  But, at the end of each day, ultimately we pray that they would find happiness.   We celebrated Nora's 2nd birthday yesterday with my son, Josh, Chanelle, his wife, and her family.  I had a good opportunity to witness my boy's in-laws and found that he was blessed with people that loved Nora and would be there for her, whatever her needs.  Josh was happy, something I had hoped for throughout his growing years.  I saw the joy that comes with a father and his daughter.  I saw that he was embraced by Chanelle's family.  And I saw contentment; all was good in his life. What more can we ask for our children?  Health, happiness, and well-being.  I believe the future holds more of the same.  There will always be...

Josh (left) and his dad, Eric (right).  Someone is formulating ideas. My daughter, Leanne, once told me she had to write a thousand-word essay.  I quipped back, "Why don't you just send in a picture."  I was joking, of course, but the thought belies the idea that images convey a great deal of information.  The advantage of words is that a singular message can be formulated, sharing a specific thought.  The disadvantage is the risk of being misinterpreted, of not communicating clearly, and of missing innuendo (reading between the lines, so to speak). I think this is why I prefer the use of both.  The written word allows the author to express specific sentiments while the image provides details that would seem prolixic if put in writing.  It takes time and effort to pen a precise concept while an image can convey enormous amounts of information in the literal blink of an eye.   I enjoy writing as it lets me convey thoughts, facts, and ideas, pl...

Hoarfrost on a mountain ash tree, Leduc, Alberta. Deposition is the process of a gaseous vapour turning directly into a solid without the substance ever entering a liquid phase.  A good example of this occurs when a frozen mug is removed from a freezer (the colder, the better) and a frosty coating starts to appear on the surface.  Water vapour in the warm air touches the frozen glass and becomes a solid.  The opposite of deposition is sublimation. Solidification is the process of a liquid turning into a solid.  Forming ice cubes in a freezer relies on the fact that liquid water will freeze when the temperature drops below the freezing point.  The opposite of solidification is melting. Both processes are involved in the crystallization of water on surfaces that are lower than the freezing point.  The difference depends on the original state of the end product.  Hoarfrost occurs when water vapour in the air undergoes deposition on the surface of frozen ...

We were supposed to fly to Edmonton on Tuesday but the flights were cancelled due to foggy conditions.  We arrived there today (Thursday ) and discovered all the trees were decorated with hoar frost.  The photo above was taken soon after we got to my son's house in Leduc.  The tiny needles of ice delicately hung from leaves and branches turning an otherwise nominal scene into something spectacular. It was interesting trying to get the parts of the image in focus that I wanted.  I was using my mirrorless Nikon on manual focus and found that the parts of the image in focus (depth of field) could be modified by altering the focal length, aperture, and point of focus.  The in-focus area had a blue sheen over it and none if it was outside the focus area.  I found it a very effective way to establish focus. At a distance, the whole world was wonderfully edged in frosting as though decorated with care from a giant hand.  On the way from the airport, I was in ...

Leanne with Kiesha (left) and Marble (right) The thing I love most about digital imaging is the convenience of it all.  I have thousands of negatives and slides that I rarely look at because of the time it takes to go through them all, convert any one to a digital format, upload it to whatever device I am using, and then start the process of working with it.  My digital media, on the other hand, is stored electronically, labelled and filed categorically, and easily accessed and used.  The chances are that any shot has already gone through a workflow of cropping and various improvements to enhance it which means little effort beyond finding it is needed. As I was working on a project for a friend, I found myself treading down memory lane as a host of images passed my eyes.  I came upon two photos of my daughter, Leanne, holding our first dachshund, Keisha, and another of her holding her newly acquired dog, Mable.  Each image brought a flood of memories back, visi...

People that Nora has in her life. How does a little one remember you if you are not in their life every day?  The answer deals with repetition.  Screen chats through whatever means possible, pictures, phone calls, cards, gifts, and of course appearances are all important in cementing relationships.  They say familiarity breeds contempt, but it also facilitates awareness.  And so came the idea of a picture book for a two-year-old. I had to collect images from far and wide.  Some were mine and others not.  Then they were resized, organized, printed, and finally collated into a binder with sheet protectors.  The images above represent the first batch.  The idea is to repeat the process each year adding another 16 images or so with people and events for my granddaughter's own personal album.  By the time she is sixteen, she will have an album with 200-300 images of her growing up with people that are close to her. Each image is printed on a lette...

Left:  underexposed image (automatic)   Right:  properly exposed image (+1) I have mixed feelings about mirrorless cameras.  We're not talking about the small, compact cameras mind you.  These are the DSLR cousins that have the ability to change lenses and have all the functions they have.  They typically fall into the same price range but are smaller and take different lenses.  Instead of looking at an optical image through the viewfinder (a DSLR uses a mirror to let you look through the lens directly), mirrorless cameras have an electronic viewfinder that produces a digital image. The advantage of mirrorless cameras is that they are smaller and lighter than their DSLR counterparts.  Although they take different lenses than DSLRs, devices such as Nikon's FTZ adapter allow you to use the standard F-mount lenses instead of buying new ones that do the same thing.  My favourite thing about mirrorless cameras is the ability to display a live...

While hiking trails north of Houston, Texas, I came across a small bird with exuberant amounts of energy.  It stayed deep inside whatever bush it was in and was difficult to track as it fled as fast as it entered.  I like to keep my eye to the camera's eyepiece continuously as I follow the movements of my quarry, but the fleeting bursts from this little bird made that impossible.  It disappeared completely from view many times in my pursuit of an image; I could only reaquire it by searching for the tiniest movements about me. I find there are several ways to determine the whereabouts of small creatures that I want to photograph.  It is obviously easier when they present themselves, full bodies in an unobstructed manner, clearly in front of me.  They are rarely that courteous.  Instead, I have to hunt the little rascals down. Songbirds, being exactly that, will often denote their presence audibly.  My ability to locate them with this alone is tedious at...

House finch on feeder with sunflower seeds.  Edmonton, May, 2022. As an avid birder, I take great pleasure in attracting birds to my backyard to enjoy and photograph.  As many of us "birdos" know only too well, there are problems with the entire process.  Apart from the cost, mess, and effort required to keep the operation going, there is a risk to the birds.  First of all, it attracts predators.  Cats, raccoons, skunks, hawks, and the like line up at the birdie buffet.  The greatest threat, however, comes in the very smallest form. Avian flu, or influenza, is a disease spread by the H5N1 virus and is very contagious and deadly to birds.  There has been an outbreak of the virus in North America, some areas being hit harder than others.  I found a recent map on this website ( click here ) and have put a modified copy of it in the space below. The green dots show areas where wild birds have been affected. I found an excellent article on the All Abou...

 Members of the Silk clan.  Left:  original image    Right:  image after Photoshop There are many people that I owe for who I am today.  If it were not for the kindness of those families and individuals I have great angst over what may have become of me.  I do not say this lightly; members of the Silk family (above) and the Schietzsch family helped me through tumultuous years.  I am forever in their debt. As I was perusing Facebook I came across an all-too-familiar image from my past.  It rekindled memories of the love I was shown by strangers who took me in as one of their own.  Apart from the sentiments aroused by the image, I also noticed that there were a number of deficits in it that I could improve on.  So, I took some time from my day and did just that. The first thing was to crop and straighten the image; I used Photoshop's cropping tool to do this.  Then there was the colour problem; notice the sheers are off-colo...

Man has always looked up to the sky and marvelled at the flight of birds.  Their ability to take to the wing, to loftily apply their gift and cruise above ground, unmolested by things bound to the Earth, has been inspiring.  As early as 850 BC, King Bladud allegedly made wings, he fell to his death after launching from a great height.  You can read about him and other early failed attempts on the How Stuff Works page by clicking here . One of the key factors missing in understanding flight has been the need for a high surface-area-to-weight ratio.  If you were to pick up a domestic rat and a bird of the same relative size, say a robin, you would be amazed at how light one is relative to the other.  Birds have hollow bones and numerous air sacks that reduce body mass.  I have had to capture swallows to move them outdoors; their weight was negligible in my hands.  I caught an injured robin once; it too was seemingly weightless.  Google tells me an ...

We usually don't go camping so late in the year, but 2022 was unique in its own right.  The summer had been spent working on the house and garden instead of enjoying our RV as was our custom.  I was desperate to get away.  Fall was fast approaching and the temperatures were steadily dropping.  It was now or never. With gas prices being so high and our desire to spend more time exploring the interior of BC we headed northwest from Kelowna toward Kamloops.  As we travelled an unfamiliar highway we noticed an increasing number of yellow butterflies in the air.  Soon we spotted thousands of yellow dots littering the road and shoulders, victims of collisions with moving vehicles.  We were not exempt from causing the decimation; our windshield bore the markings of many such impacts. We soon reached our destination and set up camp.  With camera in hand, I went off to discover what the yellow hoard was made of.  I found many on the roadside and selec...

Although there are many North American birds that don the colour yellow, none of them does it quite as splendidly as the yellow warbler.  They are the only native bird on the continent entirely clad in yellow.  The male, as shown above, sports red streaks on his breast and blackish-gray primary feathers on the wings.  Wilson's warblers are a close second but can be identified by the black cap they sport. Yellow warblers are ubiquitous throughout most of the continent during the breeding and rearing seasons.  Voracious insect eaters, they capture their prey both on wing and on foliage.  Their beaks are instruments of precision, not the thick, powerful beaks of sparrows and grossbeaks. These birds have the amazing ability to prevent cowbirds from laying eggs in their nests.  According to The American Bird Conservancy ( click here for reference), yellow warblers produce a warning call to neighbours if brown-headed cowbirds are seen in the area.  Cowbirds...

Possible savannah sparrow. It's difficult to identify this sparrow species given the fact that most of it is obscured by foliage.  However, the point of the photograph isn't so much the bird or the composition but rather the method obtained to achieve a sharp focus on the subject. Long lenses at wide-open apertures have a notoriously short depth of field, especially at close distances.  You can see that in the photo above.  Below is an image copied (and somewhat adjusted for size) from a website hosting a depth of field calculator ( click here ) that gives some empirical parameters to justify that first statement. Depth of field calculator with values used in the sparrow photo above. The numbers verify what was just said.  To simplify, long lenses (500 mm) at wide open apertures (f/5.6) at close distances (450 cm or 4.5 m) have a very narrow depth of field (in this case, the depth of field is only 1.63 cm or just over half an inch).  If you look closely at the p...