Altering life by holding it still

Vancouver Dyke March

Sun, 09 Aug 2009 02:59:16 GMT

The day before the Pride Parade is the day of the Dyke March in Vancouver. It's smaller, more informal, and fun! Unlike the Parade which happens downtown near Davie St, this one takes place in Commercial Drive, which is known for being the more lesbian of the two gay neighborhoods. Hence the last two photos that refer to "The Drive". I didn't take a whole lot of photos because I was busy talking as we marched, but I did catch a few. No topless women, sorry...!

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Vancouver Pride - Misc

Sun, 09 Aug 2009 02:53:05 GMT

Last weekend was Pride weekend in Vancouver. It was my first Pride in the city and while it wasn't quite as epic as Paris Pride, it was a lot of fun and I got a lot of cool shots out of it. Here are some of the photos I took just before the parade started, and as we walked along the streets of downtown Vancouver

(I have edited these in Gimp, and I don't know if it's the software/my own ignorance/my computer, but the pictures seem low quality here, and the colors also don't seem quite right. Oh, digital photography. So annoying sometimes.)


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UBC @ Vancouver Pride (2 of 2)

Sun, 09 Aug 2009 00:12:27 GMT

Last weekend was Pride weekend in Vancouver. It was my first Pride in the city and while it wasn't quite as epic as Paris Pride, it was a lot of fun and I got a lot of fun shots out of it. I marched with Pride UBC and AMS, so I mostly have pictures of this particular group: here is the second batch.

(I have edited these in Gimp, and I don't know if it's the software/my own ignorance/my computer, but the pictures seem low quality here, and the colors also don't seem quite right. Oh, digital photography. So annoying sometimes.)


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UBC @ Vancouver Pride (1 of 2)

Sun, 09 Aug 2009 00:01:24 GMT


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Vancouver Island

Mon, 20 Jul 2009 05:58:27 GMT

I am just back from visiting a friend in Nanaimo on Vancouver Island, and I figured for once I would work on the photos from the weekend right away so I could post them before 6 months has gone by, like has happened for way too much recently. Most of the photos are from the day we spent at Rathtrevor Beach, and the bright light didn't even make it too difficult to get good shots of people.

I tried to keep landscape photos to a minimum since I've taken a number of these last year when we were traveling around BC, but nature around here never ceases to amaze me. I just love all the green and blue that surrounds you pretty much everywhere you go.

Horseshoe Bay

Vancouver Island dolphins

Jumping the flowerbed

Mexico on the island

On the pier

Pedestrian bridge

Sharing the road

Presqu'île

Island coast

Nanaimo Wildlife

More Nanaimo wildlife

Canadian geese

Canadian goose

Veggie spaghetti

Running to the water

Temp lake

Kite

Stay off

Yellow tee on the beach

Labyrinth

Walking the labyrinth

Walking the labyrinth 2

Rathtrevor - tide rising

Stone path

Tide rising

Summer time

Climbing the tree

Goats!

On the ferry

The Year of Cat

Sat, 04 Jul 2009 20:33:45 GMT

A year ago, a black and white little kitty was born and almost immediately abandoned to VOKRA, a cat rescue organization. The tiny kitten - along with her mom and four siblings - found her way to our foster home when she was just 3 weeks old. It's easy to fall in love with kittens, but this little one was special - she was small and cuddly and playful and required lots of attention because, as we soon found out, she had a developmental problem that meant she had terrible balance and could barely walk on her own at first.

Little kitten never left our foster home, she got herself a name instead - MeiMei (little sister in Chinese, for those of you who are not fans of Firefly) Chloe - and a permanent family - that's me - that is so so grateful to have her.

Enough of the syrupy intro :), here are some photos I took of MeiMei today, along with a few photos of my dog taken last month. My dog, who resides thousands of miles away from me in France, is nearly 14 and spends most of his time sleeping, so the photos are pretty accurate.

(Photo originally taken by Peewai)

Protest: No on H8

Sun, 16 Nov 2008 04:06:43 GMT

No On H8

Today was a day of protest across North America against the passage of Proposition 8 in California on November 4. There weren't a whole lot of people in Vancouver, which makes sense, but a small crowd did gather, and there were a number of Americans there for whom this is a very personal issue - one of the couples had even gotten a marriage license in California before same-sex marriage was banned. Anyway. As usual, protests are a great playground for photography, so here is a sample.

On a technical note, I worked on these photos with Gimp instead of Photoshop (I'm also running a Linux operating system instead of Windows), and it looks to me like they don't look as good, like the job's sloppier, and I can't figure out why... I don't usually do anything but resize, work with levels and add a black border, so I don't know why Gimp couldn't do as good a job as Photoshop. Maybe it's just my impression.

Love is stronger than hate

Eli photographer

Love is Love

Str8 against H8

United by Love, Divided by Law

Rainbow Power

From the crowd

No on H8

No we can't

Fri, 29 Aug 2008 03:19:16 GMT

A pretty traditional trick which consists in highlighting a single element of a photo by keeping it in color when you turn everything else into black and white. I would have liked to do a longer series with the sunglasses - that was the original idea - but then I didn't shoot enough sunglasses shot (it's always a little awkward for my friends, I think, when I focus on a random detail and tell them to hold still).

It's something I might continue in the future, though... I find sunglasses that reflect the world clearly fascinating, one of my favorite shots from the WGA strike is that shot where you can see the picket line reflected in the sunglasses.

Colors

Unaware

Tree and sky

Chris

Mexico: Desaturated color

Fri, 29 Aug 2008 03:04:16 GMT

I discovered that effect while I was playing around with desaturation (which makes photos black and white) and layers. Basically I duplicate the original colored layer, desaturate the copy and then set the desaturated layer to "soft light". The final effect is a photo that looks a little older, more in grey tones, and I think it works so well for some of these though I can't quite explain while yet. The effect is not as obvious on all of them (I've twitched things around a little from photo to photo, too), but it's there.

This batch has no particular theme, it's photos I took throughout our trip, but you might recognize subjects and places from some of the other Mexico posts.

Reading signs

Chevelle

Bow and arrows

Red cross

Up to the sky

Monte Alban

Spices

By the road

Plane and ocean

http://pics.livejournal.com/greenie_breizh/pic/0032ar4d

Mexico: Playa Mazunte

Tue, 26 Aug 2008 05:48:05 GMT

Last stop of my trip (my friends keep going). We took the bus to a pretty insignificant city called Pochutla that's near four well-known beaches, and so we spent a day in Mazunte, by the Pacific Ocean. The beach was absolutely gorgeous and reminded me of just how much I love the sea. I almost left my camera back at the hotel because I was afraid of it being stolen and boy, am I glad I kept it with me.

White and blue (and door)

Plane wreck

Digging

Crab

Footprint

Riding by the sea

Seashore

Facing the ocean

Mexico: Oaxaca & Monte Albán

Mon, 25 Aug 2008 16:28:56 GMT

Then we stop in Oaxaca, which is a city known for its chocolate and its nearby pre-columbian site, Monte Albán, which was the most powerful city in the region a long, long, long time ago. It's on top of a mountain and there's an amazing view on the valley of Oaxaca. Something I loved about the archeological sites that we visited is that none of them were similar, there was always something so specific about the site that it never became this attitude of 'oh, another ruin. GREAT.'

The city of Oaxaca itself charmed me more than any other place we went to. It has a lively city center and a whole section of that is reserved for pedestrians which is amazing. We strolled around and into little shops and through markets until we got to a plaza with the Church of Santo Domingo de Guzmán, and then we watched the sun set from the rooftop of a bar. It was basically a charming place, full of colors like the rest of the country.

Color chicks

Lonely tree

View from Monte Alban

Monte Alban

Ruins

Book lovers

Oaxaca

Bookstore

Art and color

Monte Alban Gold

In the late day sun

Cloud light

Sky at dusk

Colors

Coca cola and the virgin

Mexico: Puebla & Cholula

Sun, 24 Aug 2008 06:58:04 GMT

After an overnight bus ride, our next stop is Puebla. The city is supposed to have kept the most European influences and it's very busy (with cars and pedestrians alike!). Nearby is the city of Cholula, which has the largest man-made pyramid and monument by volume in the world. Yep, larger than Keops. The thing is it's all be covered with vegetation by now and Spanish settlers built a church on top (...) so you don't really get the impression of standing at the bottom of a huge monument.

Colorful houses

Orange patio

Sitting

House of the writer

Glance

Bus stop

Wall advertisment

Posing

Silhouettes

The photographer

Grey ski, orange church

Raining over the city

Say a prayer

Mexico: Papantla & El Tajin

Sun, 24 Aug 2008 06:39:04 GMT

We left Mexico and after a 6-hour bus ride, we found ourselves in Papantla, a small city whose only interest is to be close by El Tajin, another site with pyramids and ruins from a pre-colombian city, but this time covered in vegetation. It was hot and humid there, and I was astonished to find the landscapes so green.

Driving by

A home

Papantla

Pemex

Jess

El Tajin

Flying

Flower

Along the path

Pyramid

Thousand of years ago

Bio 101

Flute-playing

Outline

Mexico: Teotihuacan

Sun, 24 Aug 2008 00:29:20 GMT

1 hour out of Mexico, our first pyramids.

Tourist shop

Beads

Kid

Teen

Pyramid of the sun

View

Restaurant

Going up

On top

We were there

Making memories

In the bus

Mexico: Xochilmico

Sat, 23 Aug 2008 05:45:00 GMT

Small series but I thought it deserved to stand on its own.

Xochilmico is a small city in the south suburbs of Mexico City. It's well-known for its canals and it's a popular weekend destination for Mexican families... it was actually refreshing to see it wasn't just tourists on the boats, but a wide variety of people, from small family to big parties celebrating something. I wish I had a photo of the way the main canal looked - it was all full of colored boats, a traffic jam of bright colors, it looked amazing.

Embarcaderos

Dog

Dolls

Under the rain

Kid riding horse

Blue and sun

Mexico: Mexico City

Sat, 23 Aug 2008 05:32:51 GMT

We flew to Mexico City and spent the first few days discovering the city by walking around, and visiting a few museums. It's a big city, not all that different from other capitals I've had the chance to visit, but there are still a lot of things (apart from the Spanish) to remind you this isn't a European capital. Mostly the vendors trying to sell you everything and anything for 10 pesos. Kidding aside, visiting a new place is always heaven for photography, though it's always so difficult to try and capture some of the essence of that city... I'm obviously drawn to some of the things that everybody's photographed before, so then it becomes about trying to take a different photo. It's not easy, and not always successful, but I try!

Touristic confusion

Magazine stand

Guide and shadows

Rivera wall

Palacio Nacional

The eye of God

Statue and crowd

Humanity in a nutshell

Mexico from above

Words and nature

Reflection

Small people

Forbidden

Angel

Words

Battle

Public kiss

Suburbs

Mexico: Black & White

Sat, 23 Aug 2008 05:13:00 GMT

I came back recently from a trip I took to Mexico. I'm going to post several entries, this time based on the different locations we went to, plus a couple of themed entries. This is one of them - these are all the shots that I thought worked best in B&W. I can't usually explain why, except I usually know pretty fast when looking at a photo if I want to switch it to monochromes tones. Sometimes it's got to do with contrast but not always - for some reason I think snapshots of people taken in the street often work well in B&W.

No flash

Chess

Pasteur

Under a tree

Sunglasses

Police and bike

Bus stop

Stela

Beach nap

Animals: Foster kittens

Mon, 18 Aug 2008 05:42:50 GMT

My roommate and I have been fostering cats for 7 months, and we're currently providing a foster home to a mommy Lily and her five kittens Zoe, Chloe, Billy, Maddy and Maxxie. They are, of course, cuteness personified, since they are 6 week old kittens, and I suspect this might not be the only post I will dedicate to them... especially as I am considering keeping one of them.

Photographically speaking, it's frustrating because I'm unable to take good photos of them without the flash. Not only because it's a little dark inside but because they're black and white and their features don't come out unless I use the flash. I'm guessing I don't have to, but I haven't figured out how not to yet. I don't like the feel of some of these photos as much because of using the flash, but it actually worked pretty well for some of them.

Chloe is tiny!

Chloe snoozes

Billy is watching you from under the futon

Chloe likes to lie on her side and swats at things

Billy rules the world from the top of the scratching post

Maxxie or Maddy is teaching evil cardboard a lesson

Maddy or Maxxie thinks the foamy is comfy

Zoe poses for the camera

Nothing like a box under a bed for an afternoon nap

Zoe has a big belly!

Zoe is adorable when she's asleep, too

Maxxie or Maddy trying to look loooong

More napping on cardboard

Maddy or Maxxie likes to sleep on their back

Trip in B.C.: Vancouver and UBC

Mon, 18 Aug 2008 01:25:06 GMT

Last series for this trip in B.C.

Construction site

Future Canada Line

The Province

Water ball

Vineland

Buildings reflected

Orcas

Beyond the water

Pedestrian crossing

Crystal clear

Bright light for purple

Bowl of oranges

Piles of cherries

Urban butterfly

100

UBC spring

Koerner library

Japanese touch

This way

Stela

Pink flowers, blue sky

Nitobe Gardens

</b>Old and new

Trip in B.C.: People, places and details

Sun, 17 Aug 2008 23:56:24 GMT

Crossing Horseshoe Bay

Out into the sea

Waves over tree trunk

Pebbles and water

Upper Deck Guesthouse

Up the rocks

Limited parking

Totem

Flower bed

Church

House

Symbols

Bike trip

Driving

Keep up the good work

Right track

Together, we're better

Building in blue

On the rocks

Moon

Heading back

On the rocks

This big!

Crossing to the islands

Sunset crossing

Flowers

B&B

The Wardrobe

Bakery

Trips in B.C.: Family

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 21:33:06 GMT

Independents Matter

Over to the horizon

Facing the sea

Like father like son

Late in the day

Golf course

Drinking by the sunset
Vancouver Island

Mom and Dad

Skins
Nitobe Gardens

Taking photos

Trip in B.C.: Animals

Fri, 11 Jul 2008 13:38:21 GMT

Ground squirrels, deer, ducks, geese, chipmunks, miniature horses, dogs... we encountered a lot of critters throughout our trip. Nothing particularly exciting or that out of the ordinary for North America, but I've always had a soft spot for animals and I think some of these shots came out really nice.

taken by peewai

Up on the roof

Adult and young

Young eyes

Through the fence

Blue eyes

Across the pond

Trip in B.C.: Landscapes

Thu, 10 Jul 2008 19:42:32 GMT

Un peu de couleur salée

One of the things that makes British Columbia such a wonderful place is the breathtaking sceneries that you can easily stumble across as you travel through the province. Some of those pictures are more impressive than others, but none can really express the real beauty of B.C.'s nature - partly because it's the size, the infinite mountains and endless stretches of water, that make it so stunning.

Island (Horseshoe Bay)

Roberts Creek

Creek

Private creek

Clouds in mountains

Wood washed away

Route 5

Dusk
Osooyoos, BC

Lake

Focus and blur

Natural mirrors

Reflections and rivers

Clouds

Through trees

Gulf Islands

Sunset on the island

Trip in B.C.: Canada in Black and White

Thu, 10 Jul 2008 19:25:23 GMT

Finally, I'm taking time to post pictures from the time that I spent with my family visiting Vancouver and British Columbia. We stopped by UBC and Granville Island, drove up to Seachelt along the Sunshine Coast, drove into the country to the Okanagan Valley, and finally spent a little time in the Southern Gulf Islands.

Posting by theme seems most appropriate but I'm going to start off with a series of shots that worked better in black & white.

Crossing Horseshoe Bay

Gibsons

Guesthouse cat

Rafting in currents

Out of the water

Quiet

Breeze

Caution: desert

By the clif

Tunnel

Chipmunk on rock

Sheep Island Fuels

Inside Irving K.

Animals: Horses (eventing)

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 11:42:56 GMT

The sound of strength and focus

This batch is a mix of horses from the club where I ride and other horses that were competiting that day. I was smart enough to pack my zoom - without it, I couldn't have gotten a third of my shots.

It was an interesting experience because I don't shoot movement all that often and it wasn't easy to get the exact right shot. It's hard to get a close shot where you don't cut part of the rider's head or the horse's hooves; and real close-up even tougher because everything changes so fast in the action that you don't have much time to frame or correct your setting. Lack of time is the key - especially during the show jumping and cross-country, because usually I was well located for a couple of jumps but not more so you have to make sure these you get right. And even shooting continuously at 2.5 fps is no good because a jump doesn't even last a second - so I found it quickly I would be better off watching for the moment I wanted to capture than just shooting at the jump hoping to get one shot right.

Lots to learn and work on, so that was really good, and I was suprised by how many photos I shot that day! The whole batch contains 156 but I'm only going to post a preview here. You can view the whole batch here on Photobucket (I was really annoyed to find out Flickr limits free accounts to 200 shots, btw).

See the rest of the photos here.