We spent a few days in Whistler having a break. The town hosted many of the Winter Olympic events when Vancouver was the host city. There is an Olympic Park in the middle of the town and the Olympic rings are on display. No surprise that everyone is taking a picture of them. I was surprised that they were the only really obvious sign of the Olympics having been here. The weather changed a lot while we were there and the rings looked very different in the different lighting conditions.
Mum and I drove along the shore of Sandown Bay while I was visiting. The rain was blowing through and the result was a rainbow that was hanging over the cliffs up on Culver. I had a long lens on at the time so my only option was to try and shoot a bunch of images and create a panorama. I didn’t do a good job of it because I missed some areas and the software struggled to align the images because there was so much sky so I ended up sorting it out by hand. This shot was the result.
The Sikorsky S-76 is not a new design any more although it does continue to be upgraded. When I first saw the type in the 80s, I was taken with the elegance of the airframe and also the size of it. It can carry a substantial number of people. This is the reason the HeliJet chose it to operate their service from the waterfront in Vancouver to Victoria I imagine. I have seen them in service a number of times but I have never gone down to their heliport by the water to try and shoot them.
While I was at Brockton Point, a couple of their departures and arrivals came by. These were a bit far away but still worthy of a shot. This wasn’t my only chance though. When we were at Vancouver International, one of the S-76s arrived at the HeliJet facility there. It flew low and slow past where I was standing so I was able to grab a few extra shots of these sleek type. I would love to take a ride in one sometime to see whether it is as smooth as it looks.
We took a trip up to Whistler for a long weekend. On the drive up there, we went past Brandywine Falls Provincial Park. The falls themselves were actually pretty close to the highway so this did not involve a particularly strenuous hike. However, after being in the car for a long drive, it was nice to get out and stretch the legs. Besides, it was a lovely day.
I was not anticipating the falls being very full given the time of year but it turns out they must have a reasonably good source of water and they were flowing strongly. The park has built a viewing deck that allows visitors to get out to the edge in safety and get a good view of the falls themselves. The trail continues on for a way as well so you can look back at the falls from a variety of angles. While it was later in the day, the light was still a bit tricky. The falls were in deep shade while the sun was shining on the surrounding forest. The contrast was harsh which meant the exposure was a compromise. Modern sensors do have considerable latitude to accommodate this variation though. It was possible to pull out details from both the highlights and the shadows within Lightroom.
Over 20 years ago we took a trip to Toronto. While we were up the CN Tower, I took a photo of Toronto City Centre Airport, located on the island just offshore from the city. It wasn’t a busy looking airport at that time. Since then, things have moved on a bit. Now it is a busy hub for Porter Airlines, flying their Bombardier Q400s across Canada and into the US. (Depending on a planning approval, they may add C Series jets to this location.)
I recently had to fly from Toronto to Chicago and, with Midway as the better airport for me, Billy Bishop Airport as it is known, provided the better option. A tunnel has been built between the land and the airport which means you don’t need to take a ferry anymore. It is a compact airport but pretty neat. The tunnel provides good access and, as you come up from there on the escalators, you get some displays of the aircraft Billy Bishop flew. There is also a statue of him on the land side of the tunnel. If you get to fly through there, it is definitely a fun place to transit through as it is far smaller than the average city airport.
This is the cruise ship that our family had been traveling on when they arrived in Vancouver. It was heading back out the same day and we watched it leave port and head out. As it was turning to head back to the open sea, one of the local Otter floatplanes was making its approach to land (or whatever the correct word is when it is water rather than land). It passed in front of the ship. Both vessels are comfortable in the water but one is on a rather different scale than the other.
Aside from the suspension bridge at Capilano, there is a treetop walk. This is on the opposite side of the bridge and is an interesting attraction. They have built a number of walkways that run through the treetops. These are old growth trees that are really substantial. Without cutting in to the trees, they have mounted platforms around the trunks and strung walkways between them. You get to walk along these walkways from tree to tree.
You are up in the higher parts off the tree so you have a different perspective to that which you would normally get walking along the ground. Indeed, you can get so used to being up there that you forget you are off the ground. Every once in a while, it is a good idea to look down to see just how far you are from the base of some of the trees.
There are so many people up there with you that it is easy to become a bit fixated on keeping going. The walkways are one way so you are all moving along in the same direction. You can start following the person in front and lose perspective on where you are. However, at each tree there is space to step aside and let people pass. Then you can take a moment to look around and embrace your surroundings. I highly recommend you do this if you visit. Look up and look down and see exactly where you are – up with the squirrels in the treetops.
Everything I have posted about the eclipse so far is about us and what we saw. However, we weren’t alone. There were lots of people watching in the same place as us. During the initial stages of the eclipse, I wandered around the site to get a few pictures of people enjoying the experience. I didn’t have another camera other than my phone so that had to make do but these are some of the shots of everyone enjoying a rare experience that I got.
When totality occurred during the eclipse, I was literally and figuratively in the dark. I had practiced shots of the sun prior to the day to get the exposure right and, while the eclipse covered up the sun, the remaining section was unaffected so the exposures were right. Besides, I bracketed each shot because, we, why not? At totality, I removed the solar filter and switched to program mode because I didn’t want to have to work anything other than the shutter. I still bracketed the shots.
I got shots that I really liked but, I didn’t get anything that showed any detail around the edge of the eclipse. Everything was bright. Even with wide bracketing, the shots were quite blown out. I was a little disappointed by this but it was a minor thing. Seeing the eclipse had proved to be far more satisfying than any shot I got. However, it turns out an error of mine had a lucky side effect.
I had been shooting a time lapse sequence on the other camera. When I removed the solar filter (eventually) during totality, I didn’t change the exposure. Consequently, the shots were a lot more underexposed than the shots on the other camera. While the subject was a lot smaller in the frame because of the framing for the time lapse progression, I still had some detail of the eclipse and I realized some solar flares were visible on the side of the eclipse. I hadn’t planned this – it just happened by luck and I am happy to take all the luck I can get. As they say, “Better to be lucky than good!”
When thinking about the eclipse and what photos I wanted to get, I did contemplate running a video of the transition. However, since the start to finish was going to be over two hours, I figured that would be a lot of video that would never get used or would only be seen speeded up. Therefore, a time lapse seemed like the best option. I set up a camera with the 100-400 lens on it can’t at an angle to, hopefully, align with the direction the sun progressed across the sky. I didn’t know how much time it would take to cross the viewfinder so I planned on taking a number of sequences with re-positioning after each pass.
This ran just fine during the eclipse itself. My only problems came at totality when I really lost the plot on what I was supposed to do, so overcome was I by the sight of the corona. I initially forgot to remove the solar filter so everything was just dark. When I did take it off, I had not adjusted from the manual exposure I had been running up to that time. However, in the scheme of the eclipse, the totality moment was fleeting so is not a big part of the time lapse anyway.
I have edited together the sequences I shot and here is the resulting video.