Burnaby Rookery (16/52)

Last year I 'discovered' a rookery of great blue heron just 10 minutes from our place. The birds roost high up in cottonwood trees and there is just a short window to observe nest building and courtship before leaves obscure everything (this year the window closed in early April). With increased tele-power of my newly acquired 400 lens I got some nice shots of the interactions of one heron couple. Interesting feather costume the birds display during courtship time.

Its been hit and miss to get sufficiently sharp images with the lens but looks like I'm finally getting the hang of it. Fast shutter speed and correct exposure seem to do the trick (or maybe I'm just building more muscle to hold the lens steady?).

Great grey heron at rookery. 70D, 400 mm, ISO 800, f8, 1/800

Fraser Valley Tulips (15/52)

Every April when photos of the tulip fields in the Fraser and Skagit Valleys show up in the news I plan to visit but for some reason or other I never get around doing it. Not so this year! At the end of March and in early April (couple of weeks ahead compared to average years) I took time for a couple of photo sessions. In the Fraser Valley the weather was rather gloomy but the clouds made for nice contrast with the many rows of bright colors.

Near La Conner, WA. 70D, 55 mm, ISO 200, f14, 1/250

Fraser Valley Tulips with Mt. Cheam. 70D, 18 mm, ISO 200, f11, 1/320

Fraser Valley Tulips. 70D, 33 mm, ISO 200, f18, 1/100

Back to Cypress Creek (14/52)

On my last trip to Cypress Falls Park I had planned to visit a scenic little falls just below the parking area. But water was running high, I wasn't sure if the area would be accessible and decided to explore the creek farther upstream.

This time I made it to my photographic objective and took shots from various points. I liked the one below best. It was dark in the canyon and just using a polarize filter allowed a long enough exposure to get a blurring effect on the water. Just as on my last visit the water was brown with tannins and I resisted the temptation to adjust the color to get it clean and white.

Cypress Creek. 70D, f/16, 3s, ISO100, -0.7, 10mm, CP filter

Slow down time at Trout Lake Creek (13/52)

I have been looking for a small stream surrounded by moss covered rocks for long exposure photography and found Trout Lake Creek in Sasquatch Provincial Park. Despite the weather forecast promising a cloudy day it was bright sunshine on my first visit, which doesn't help for long exposure. Low light works much better. On my second trip I had more luck and the promised high clouds arrived in the afternoon.My Big Stopper filter has been giving me some problems with a blue color cast, but today I realized that this is much more manageable when under exposure is avoided. I still did some selective masking in pp to reduce the blue tint of the water. May have to have another go at the color balance, but here is the result for now.

Trout Lake Creek. 70D, f/11, 120s, ISO320, 18mm, ND3.0

Bowen Island (12/52)

Last week we explored Tunnel Bluffs just north of Lions Bay. A 'rustic' trail leads to this nice view point overlooking Howe Sound and Bowen Island. Although from the road the bluffs don't appear far up it still took one and a half hour to reach them. The view is well worth the effort. The 16-50 on my Sony stopped working, so I had to get creative with the long lens and got some nice shots of Bowen Island (and our friend launching). Good challenge to just take one lens and work with it.

Bowen Island in Howe Sound. NEX-6, f/9, 1/800, ISO100, +0.3, 55-210 at 55

Black&White Flows (11/52)

Looking for more waterfalls to photograph I came across a picture of Rolley Creek near Stave Lake. It looked worthy a side trip. Although the flow in the creek was down to a trickle I went up the steep trail from the main logging road along Stave Lake following Rolley Creek to a wooden bridge just below a small cascade. Although I somehow expected a bigger falls it always surprises me how just a small volume of water can make cascades look very pretty.

70D, 18-55 at 52, f/16, 4 sec, ISO 100, CP filter

Panta Rei (10/52)

More long exposures. I took this photo in January on the outing to Cypress Creek. Lately I have become rather fascinated with the details of stationary objects in a moving environment. With long exposures one can never be quite sure what will show up when viewing the images on the computer monitor. Always a surprise! And with the long time an exposures takes I end up with fewer images so the selecting and editing process is much quicker and I get to spend more time outside and less in front of the computer.

Cypress Creek: 70D, 10-22@22, f16, 1.3s, ISO100, -0.3, 0.9 ND