On your marks...

Go!

It makes sense

The day I decided I quite liked Canada was when I walked around the Ontario Science Center in Toronto and saw this:

The caption on the side reads "This lifesize silhouette of a sparrow hawk will discourage small birds from flying into the glass."

This makes loads of sense. Why wasn't this compulsory when people decided they would like to build a whole load of buildings where birds used to live (i.e. trees) and put up glass (i.e. transparent) windows so people can enjoy the "natural light"?

Not that I was scarred by the fact that when I was in the art room in Year 12 and studying at a school that also happened to be in the middle of land that was being "developed" (i.e. massive chunks of rainforest were being cut down to be replaced by shopping centers and houses) I heard a "thunk" that turned out to be a mini sparrow being hunted by a small hawk that had both flew head first into the art room windows to have their heads neatly snapped off.

The Ghetto

On one of our few nights in New York, our lovely guide Nina took us on a whirlwind drive through where she used to live -- Chinatown. As far as I could tell, it had a fairly stereotypical movie feel. You could well imagine the triads having a shady deal on one street, whilst the mafia puff on some cigars in a basement round the corner.

A remembered dream

A room half filled with a wall of water, the other half filled with air and no divide in between. Fishes swimming in the water, around head height. I can seemingly move between the two without difficulty or affecting the division. I can hear the fishes wondering what happens if they swim through the water out into the air. One does. I quickly move it back into the water. It swims away, then another three fling themselves out into the air...

A nice meal

After a surprisingly hot walk from Ottawa to Gatineau across the Alexandra Bridge, it was a pleasant to find that the beeline for the nearest bit of shade was the Café du Musée, part of the Canadian Museum of Civilization.

Lunch consisted of cold white wine, vichyssoise, baked salmon (with a kind of tasty foamy sauce, dauphinoise potatoes, summer veg) and a pretty good view of the Ottawa River and Parliament Hill.

Best Pizza in New York

On a food tour of Greenwich Village, one of our first stops was the "best pizza" in New York. It's all to do with the water, apparently. Oh, and that they cook pizza fresh. Two pizzas max on the counter top. Oh, and it's also where Spiderman is fired from in the second film.

Robin's Egg

Blue Robin's Egg broken,
What happened?
Nature is cruel but beautiful.

The Modern Era

A typical lazy hazy day in Fujian province in the south of China. Jump on the tourist boat!

Sunset at Robin Hood's Bay

A kind of layered HDR shot. Not quite as dramatic as the previous post, trouble with aligning images, probably not a good idea to try and take hand-held shots after a few drinks.

High Dynamic Range - St Mary's Church

Did I blog this before? Or did I just think of blogging it, then decide not to? Anyway, I distinctly remember wanting to say - corpuscular rays.

On a slightly cloudy day, we climbed 199 steps to St. Mary's Church and graveyard to completely miss the last entry for Whitby Abbey. At least the HDR experiment worked out in the end!

Staircase of Wonders - Bugs

This is not that creepy. Not as creepy as say, a drawer full of stuffed birds.

Staircase of Wonders - Skeletal

Strangely eerie but childishly colorful ... jars upon jars of animals without skin. Bones are dyed red, cartilage blue.


What is this? I'm not sure myself.

Staircase of Wonders - Tin Soldiers

Taken at ROM - The Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto in the Staircase of Wonders connecting the different levels.

Whale Watching in Tadoussac

In a series of four pictures - after a rather bumpy Zodiac ride out to sea where we glimpsed some whales (but too wet/bumpy to even contemplate taking camera out), we stopped by the Sanguenay Fjord to enjoy the warmer air and still waters. After about ten minutes, we got a glimpse of this pair of mother and calf feeding.

1 - The first sign of the location of a whale is usually a fin or a more likely a whoosh of air from its blowhole.

2 - As the whale surfaces to get a better angle on muching down on some food, it exposes a bit of ventral fin to help expand its jaws.

3 - Just as its turning over, we notice a little fin (the calf) coming up alongside.

4 - Loads of different species of whale come up to Tadoussac along the St. Lawrence River to feed on krill, capelin and plankton every summer. Quite spectacular to see some of the world's largest mammal a few arms lengths away.

New York Graffiti

Walking back from taking pictures of Manhattan and Brooklyn at sundown...

Hiatus

More exciting pictures by the second week of July.

Rotting Metal

It looks like this photo has been edited with that photoshop function "make into oil painting" or something to that effect. Actually the blotchiness is because it was taken with a 2.0mp cameraphone. This entire street in Penang had really interesting faded painted walls and a sense that there are only remnants of people remaining. Wish I had a better camera back then, Penang is definitely a photogenic city.

Bananas in Hanoi

Helloo

The Green Mangosteen

I quite like this picture. I like that it's fairly sharp, I like the blurriness in the background and I like that there are two twigs, two stems, two mangosteens both with slightly damaged skin, one more than the other. I like that they are green, thus young, unripe but with just a hint of purple creeping down their skins, soon to be juicy fruity goodness.

This mangosteen tree is actually on the corner of my street in the suburbs of Kuala Lumpur. For about 20 years, I never realized it was there until one day at dusk with golden sunlight.

Dentists in Hotan, Xinjiang

Walking around various towns in Xinjiang, there seemed to be quite a high number of dentists in towns. With see through doors, young men and women in white lab coats and various dental equipment in the room, it definitely was not a "shop front" for some other sinister purpose. Conclusion is, rest assured that if you have a toothache in urban Xinjiang, there will be plenty of dental facilities at hand.

Yum yum chilli!

One of those kind of shots














Kashgar Sunday Market

Will you hold my hand?

Suspended in space

Spring in your step

It's bluebell season.
Ducklings come out to play.

An illusion through the window

No posts since March? March!? Oh how I've neglected you, faithful camera! And you too, loyal blog! Fickle, fickle.

Star Trail

25 Minutes, tweaked in Gimp!

Shibden Hall, Halifax

Looks better upside down

Only Slightly Amusing

So, of course it was slightly amusing to return from travels in Xinjiang in the far West of China to see this clip of a video by The Killers, where it looked like they filmed exactly where these ancient city ruins lay.

Top- The Killers "Human", filmed in some desert.
Bottom- Gaochang Ruins, 1 BC oasis city in the Taklamakan desert on the Silk Road.

A story from Kashgar Old Town

Taken in Old Town in Kashgar, we stopped as I noticed fire reflecting off the panels in a dark alleyway and peered in. Looking up, he grinned and gestured for us to enter. At first glance we saw a young man cooking something over a fire. At second glance, we saw a pile of white goat skulls in one corner and a pile of charred goat skulls in another.

Goat Head Soup is sold throughout Xinjiang, but why char them over a fire first?

Catching the Great Bear

A few nights ago before forecasts of strong winds and heavy snow showers, there was a very clear night.


This picture was taken for 120 seconds, resulting in a discernible streak of stars. Cloud cover prevented very long exposures, but I do intend for a longer star trail one night.


The Great Bear, the Plough or Ursa Major is one of the easiest constellations to spot. The bit I recognise looking into the night sky is highlighted in pink. Everything else is drawn using Google Sky.

The Meat Locker

Scarborough Seagulls will SOY

No more posts until next week.

Perseus, Auriga and Pleiades - My first constellation map

In a rare break in cloud cover... I managed to get a few star shots, with dramatic ghostly red clouds approaching. This one was 63 seconds and lightened to actually see the stars!

Pleiades is thumbnailed below the Google copyright notice at the far bottom of the picture. Often mistaken for Ursa Minor or "Little Bear" (at least by us) because of its shape, it is actually an open star cluster and prominent in the winter sky.

Auriga is shaped like a charioteers helmet and following on the same theme, Perseus who also wears a pointy hat was the Greek mythical hero who killed Medusa (using his highly polished bronze shield gifted by Athena) and married Andromeda having saved her from Ceto, escaping with flying sandals.

I'm amazed that we actually managed to identify these stars, thank you Google Sky!

Off for a weekend to visit the patch of England where Dracula landed. Hopefully more dark clear night skies to come.

Nigel Slater's Double Ginger Cake

Absolutely foolproof, even I could make it.

Reverse Lens Macro and Maginifying Glass

Fun and games with reverse lens macro shots (surprisingly harder than it sounds, just stick two lenses facing each other and get real up close to the subject using manual focus right?)

But even more fun with a magnifying glass.

Octopus and Fish

Michael Bosanko's Light Sculptures inspired this octopus and fish. Need to source a second torchlight.