2011 WEEK 46: More November Sunsets!

Think of it as my "Black Friday" special - you get two lots of pictures for the price of one. What do you mean, you just stumbled across this site? Come on, stay awhile. Order a print. Help me fund a new lens!

I accept PayPal. Just sayin'... Okay! Back to sunsets!

Isn't it a beauty?

As well as odd sculptures (scroll down for evidence!), a penchant for bird pictures (also see below!) and generally geeky things (too many examples to mention...), I'm also developing an odd fascination with benches. I don't know if its the shape, the texture, the location or something more metaphysical to do with all those millions of behinds that have sat on them and experienced the view. Benches are interesting. Maybe one day I'll own one of my own. Until then, I'll snap more pictures of them.

I've taken many shots of benches over the course of this years photo adventure. I still don't feel like I've captured the perfect bench but hey, there's still 6 weeks left so who knows...

Weeds are generally not particularly photogenic. However, backlight the crap out of them with some sweet golden rays and "Voila!"

A short distance along the seawall I found a gaggle of Canadian Geese pecking away at the grass.

I love this shot for all kinds of reasons.

This one too turned out great. I suppose it should be titled "Waddling Into The Sunset".

Right beside the geese was... Yup! You guessed it! Another one of Vancouver's fascinating and bizarre  sculptures. I'm told this one is supposed to represent two wedding rings but when it first went up my interpretation of it was a symbolic representation of The Greenhouse Effect...

The shot above was pretty much straight out of the camera or SOC as the camera folks say with no PP (Post-Processing). To complete the geeky side of things, all of these photos for this week were taken with what is still one of my favourite lenses in my arsenal, the Sigma 10-20mm f/3.5. It's a lens that has a natural warmth to the glass. This, combined with the "Cloudy" colour style exposure setting, a low-ish ISO and with the aperture closed down to expose for the brighter areas of the sky, is what made this sunset pictures work so well.

At least, in my humble opinion... Art is as they say "in the eye of the beholder".

Here's a "Thermo-Nuclear" take on the shot above with heavy cross-processing.

I took a picture of this tree with my iPhone just a few months ago and it was a giant mass of green.

That's it for this week (ahem... last week). I'll hopefully catch up again and end this epic photo adventure with a bang AND on schedule!

With only a few weeks left in 2011, I'd love it if you could take a quick scroll through all the many pictures I've taken over the course of the year and let me know in the comment section which ones were your favourites. Otherwise I'll be forced to do my own Top 10 Photos and you know what that'll mean... A whole bunch of birds and weird sculptures!

Until next time...

2011 WEEK 46: November Sunset

I'll skip the usual "I'm behind/I've been busy" malarkey and excuses for being late with the blog... But I did take the following photos last week so technically they are still "WEEK 46"!

I'm trying to get into the habit of taking my camera wherever I go. You know, just in case. On this particular occasion I had some banking to do and took a quick half hour diversion along the seawall - and I'm glad I did because it was a quite lovely winter sunset.

I wish I'd been framed just an inch higher so as not to crop the tip of the seagull's wing. I still have the bad habit of framing through the viewfinder instead of playing it safe and using a slight crop in post-processing to make the photo sing. I've lost count of how many times I've wished I was just a hair wider!

The above picture is right out of the camera. No cropping. No post processing whatsoever. Sometimes it just works :)

The seagull in the first picture was on his way over to these folks...

I love the blackbird flying in on an attack run in the lower right corner.

It was very cold on this day and the windchill made it colder. There was barely a soul on the beach. This guy was perhaps searching for another person who also "loves walks on the beach..."

Lots of washed up driftwood was littering the beach from the storm several days previous.

Winter light is very different to summer light and at sunset you can point your camera in two different directions and its almost like they were taken on different days. Towards the sun...

Away from the sun...

I know I've included a shot of the Inukshuk at English Bay before but these felt different enough to the one taken way back in WEEK 5.

And just for fun, here's a totally over the top, post-processed (and heavily cross-processed) "Thermo-nuclear" view! Where's the bomb shelter when you need one?

Considering I was only out for half an hour, I'm very happy with the shots I managed to grab before my fingers froze up.

I still have a few more to share so check back tomorrow.

Until next time folks, thanks for stopping by!