Week 13

We stayed around Calgary this last week.  It was the weekend to move Wade's Office, which raised the stress level some.  There was great opportunities to take pictures of the Chaos of moving.  All the boxes, the furniture stack up, etc.  Did I take any pictures of that.  No.  I need to learn to take my camera along with me more often and take more shots.  I am doing better than previous years, but still could improve the variety.  Back to pets and kid shots this week.

We went over to my inlaws for coffee on Saturday and I had promised to take some pitures of the two new Bichon dogs that they have.  The dogs are a bit scared of people and were a good challenge to photograph.  I did get them to sit on the deck outside and occasionally glance in my direction for a picture.

Picture #1 - Bichon 1

Picture #2 - Bichon 2

Picture #3 - Zuma the cat.  Giving my Dog Carson the stare down, I managed to get between Zuma and Carson for this shot.

Picture #4 - Don't pet the cat.

Picture #5 - I was out barbaque shopping and they had these great colored chairs outside that Cyndy and Carolyn were sitting in.  No color adjustment on this shot.

Picture #6 - Carolyn is growing like crazy.  This may be one of the last times she wears a sleeper, since the weather is getting warmer and she is getting too tall.

Picture #7 - This may be one of the final bed time bottles.  She can make it her self now, which may be a sign that it is time for it to go away.

Week 12

Over the past week, all the pictures that I took were on a weekend trip to Fernie.  My friends from Houston were up for a ski holiday and invited friends to come and visit for the weekend.  3 of us managed to make the trip from Calgary down to Fernie for the weekend.  It was a great road trip.  I even dusted off my old straight skis and skied for part of one day.  No pictures from the ski hill though, it looks like my Canon G9 compact camera is broken.

Picture #1 - Some irrigation wheels stacked up, this is shot on Highway 22, South of Longview.

Picture #2 - The Burmis Tree in the Crowsnest Pass.

Picture #3 - My friends Jason and Miles visiting after dinner at the Central Hotel in Fernie.

Picture #4 - A picture of the band playing at the Brick House Bar in Fernie.

Picture #5 - A picture of the Fernie Ski Hill taken at dusk.

Picture #6 -  I saw this ski with 4 shot glasses attached to it, leaning against the wall.  I wondered to myself, "What the hell is that for?".  It turns out, that a little later, the question was answered more than once.  4 shot glasses attached to one ski means four people have to take a shot at exactly the same time.  Scott, our gracious host for the evening can be seen loading up the ski.

"Shotski"

Picture #7 - We were also introduced to a new game called "Tumbling Dice".  It is a combination of Yahtzee, Bocci Ball, and Curling.  Lots of Fun. 

The Fernie trip made it easy to take a lot of pictures.  All the pictures this week were natural lighting.  The indoor pictures were taken at 1600-2500  ISO with out much noise.  The 28mm lens and Mark II work well to take low light pictures.

Week 11

Back from Holidays and work this last week. 

Picture #1 - Daddy and Carolyn went to Coffee n Scream on Sunday morning to let Cyndy sleep in.  Static electricity makes your hair stand on end, and apparently makes you cross eyed as well.

Picture #2 - More static electricity but it looks like the eye thing is straightened out.

Picture #3 - Helping Mom bake again.

Picture #4 - The snow has mostly melted in Calgary and I saw my first real sign of Spring while on a family walk yesterday.  Pussy willows are starting to come out.

Picture #5 - The sunsets in Calgary aren't quite the same behind the house as they are in Hawaii, but still light up the sky nicely.  The next 3 pictures were taken over about 20 minutes of sunset.

Picture #6 - Sunset 2

Picture #7 - Sunset 3

Week 10

Week 10 and it looks like I'm caught up on pictures again.  We are back from Kona, and back to work.  The 10 days in Hawaii was a good break.  Took some pictures every day, but didn't use my flash until the last day.  I forgot to get a picture of the air raid siren that was 5 houses away from the beach house that we stayed in.  When it went off at 6 a.m. of the Tsunami it definitely caused some excitement.  Thankfully there was no damage or people hurt, and it just meant that everyone had to spend about 4 hours away from the shore line.

Picture #1 - A sunset from the beach in Kona.  A mixture of volcanic rock and beach sand.

Picture #2 - Beach house that we rented in Kona.  It held 9 of us comfortably and had a great patio for viewing the ocean.  The tiki torches in the foreground were lit every night.

 

Picture #3 - We took a submarine tour of the harbor off of Kona.  It was better than I anticipated with the Submarine going to a depth of 110 feet.  We saw some coral and two ship wrecks.  The picture below is of a ship called the "Naked Lady".  Some lady was a little unbalanced and decided that her sailboat was infested with termites.  Her solution was to fire off a flare gun in to the boat to get of the termites.  Her strategy was very succesful, the boat is termite free and she ended up naked on the beach.  The boat was mostly steel and landed upright.

Picture #4 - Yellow Fin Surgeon Fish, with one of the ship wrecks in the back ground.

 

Picture #5 - Another yellow fin surgeon fish in front of the ship wreck.  It turns out that the seaweed growing on the outside of the sub is good eating if you are a yellow fin surgeon fish.  The sub marines motors sound like an ice cream truck bell, and these fish come swimming right up to the sub.

 

Picture #6 - Carolyn at one of the great playgrounds.  Swinging hard in her new dress.

 

Picture #7 - Whale watching is nothing, try riding one!!

Picture #8 - I was up early one morning taking some pictures on the beach.  The sunrise on the ocean was not much to look at but the palm trees reflected in the tide pools between the lava rock look good.

Picture #9- Tide pool 2.

 

Picture #10 - Tide pool 3.

 

Picture #11- Sunsets did not typically have a lot of clouds, but did glow a little orange or pink depending on how much ash was in the air from the Volcano. 

 

Picture #12 - Same sunset shot in the vertical.  A slow shutter speed smoothed out the water a little.

Hawaii was made taking pictures fairly easy.  A new environment makes things easier.  Now that I'm back in Calgary, the challenge is to take pictures around the area that are good and interesting.  Only 7 more days to see how I'll do.

Week 9

What the heck happened to Week 8.  I am asking myself that as well.  Work got busy, and getting ready for holidays seemed to get in the way.  No excuse though, so I am back posting pictures while on holidays.

Picture #1 - The ocean at sunset.  This is just outside of the place that we are staying and is an area that turtles like to hang out.

Picture #2 - A turtle hanging out in the shallow water, close to shore, eating the seaweed off of the rocks.

Picture #3 - Swimming turtle.

Picture #4 -  An earthquake in Chile caused a Tsunami warning in Hawaii and everyone had to leave the beach area for 5 hours.  After the event, which was less than expected (thankfully), this guy crawled up on the beach and had a big rest.

Picture #5 - View from offshore on the big island of Hawaii, the cloud hanging over the mainland is kind of like fog, but it is named VOG by the locals.   The Volcano has been more active the last 2 years and spits out this smoke/haze that hangs over Kona.

Picture #6 - Dolphins were surfing and jumping in the waves behind the boat that we were fishing from.

Picture #7 - A few Ahi Tuna from the fishing trip.

Picture #8 - Ahi being fileted. 

Picture #9 - Carolyn loves walking on the lava rocks and checking out the turtles and other stuff in the tide pools.

Picture #10 - Frisbee!!!!!!

Well I'm still down 4 pictures, so need to work on getting caught up by the posting next week.  My friend Dave says "Turtles are like Cows in Alberta" so I will have to find some more things to photograph.