Monthly Archives: October 2019

A Vancouver photography Adventure  

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Our “Vancouver Adventure” is weeks in the past and Jo and I are still talking about the fun we had.

In last week’s article I said that my dictionary defines Adventure as “excitement, thrill, and stimulation”

Two weeks ago I wrote about the great time we had photographing the Bloedel conservatory and the birds in the aviary on our first morning. And last week my article was about the exciting time we had doing long exposures from Stanley Park across the water of the city lights after dark.

What an enjoyable way to spend the day before the Vancouver Used Camera Sale and Swap Meet.

That first night Laurie, Jo and I knew had to get up early to set up our tables in the morning, but we were having too much fun and instead were up late talking about photography. Nevertheless, we did get up to the sound of the early morning seagulls, ate breakfast, and after packing everything into our vehicles were off to the Croatian Community center for the third part of our adventure. We carried equipment through a light Vancouver rain to have our tables ready for the onslaught of excited photographers when they entered the large hall and started searching for great deals.

That event was, as always, a hodgepodge of different people with different interests. The crowd seemed to have grown a lot younger, but that might be my personal impression. After all, I have been attending the Vancouver Camera Sale and Swap since the 1980s and I’ve gotten a bit older.

Actually, the people attending are photographers of every age group; from experienced elders to teenagers accompanied by their patient parents. It is a diverse fellowship that includes all kinds of lifestyles, interests, and photographic specialties. There are those that are dedicated to film, vintage cameras, and processes of the past, walking alongside others carrying and looking for the latest in modern photographic technology.

Jo and I had a grand weekend photographing inspiring subjects, and the frosting on the cake was attending a gathering like the Vancouver Camera Sale and Swap where we got to meet and exchange information with other photographers and check out the many kinds of photographic equipment that would not be so available anywhere else. 

We spent the day selling the camera equipment I had gathered, had fun wandering the sale and, of course, talking with other photographers.

This was Jo’s second Vancouver camera show. When I turned to her and said, “Hey I just sold that neat old camera you bought last summer. What are you going to do with the $40.00 I got for it?”   I realized just how silly that question was when she said, “I’ll be right back” and about fifteen minutes later she returned with three little digital Canon Powershot cameras. A black one for her Husband, a blue one for her 5 year old son and a red one for her 4 year old daughter.

In my opinion it doesn’t get much better than spending the day surrounded by a huge selection of cameras and other photography equipment. Gosh, it is just invigorating and even after all these years I always learn something. We are already planning for next spring’s sale. Hmmm, I wonder if we can go two days early and search out more fun locations to photograph.

Night photography from Stanley Park  

Posted by enmanscamera on

 

 

 

After the great time we had at the Bloedel Conservatory and the aviary we wandered the city for a fun place to eat and then spent the rest of the day photographing the crowds of people on Vancouver’s Granville Island.

We then drove around Stanley Park to make sure the place we wanted to set up to photograph the lights across the Burrard Inlet after dark would still be ok.  Stanley Park is a 405-hectare public park that borders downtown Vancouver and is mostly surrounded by water.

We returned to our motel to pickup my friend Laurie that had just arrived from Kamloops, and our tripods and drove back through the city to Stanley Park as the light was going down. We took a meandering coastal route in case there were other opportunities – that had me continually getting lost as I drove the darkened streets.

However, as luck would have it we happened on an empty parking lot directly across from the iconic Canada Place with it’s brilliantly lit fabric roof that resembled five sails.

During the day that location would be packed with cars and, I have no doubt, securely guarded against those without an expensive parking pass. But except for a lonely pickup the lot was empty and there wasn’t even the usual chain link fence to block our view of Canada place.

We jumped out with our tripods and excitedly started taking long exposures. Both Jo and I had 10 stop ND filters on our cameras.

After making as many exposures as we wanted of that colourful building we turned our cameras on the skyscrapers across the street then jumped back in the car and drove on to Stanley Park where we would be looking across the water from the other side of Canada place at the city and shipping terminals.

Our chosen location was across from a dark parking lot along the ocean. There was only occasional lights were from cars quickly passing on the park’s ring road and bicyclists that had to be watched out for as they zoomed out of the unlit forest with only tiny lights warning us to stay out of their way.

We wandered along the dark sea wall taking pictures across the inlet of the many bright city lights. I think both Jo and I were making mostly 30 second exposures of the bright lights, calm ocean and the moon high in the black night sky.

What a great way to end the day. We began in the bright morning light at the highest location in the city and ended in the dark night at it’s lowest location, and today as I write over a week later we are still talking about the fun photography adventure we had in Vancouver.

I suppose many might use the words, “trip to Vancouver” instead of a “Vancouver photography adventure”. But my dictionary defines adventure as “excitement, thrill, and stimulation”. So Adventure is the description the fits the best for that day and the next at the exhilarating Vancouver Camera sale and swap meet.

Photography at the Bloedel conservatory

Posted by enmanscamera on

 

The Vancouver used camera sale was last weekend and I always attend.

This time I thought it would be fun to go a day early to do some night photos of the city.

We had chosen the locations that we wanted to go at day’s end. But we would have a whole day to do photography and the first daunting question we faced was, what to do with our morning?

Jo was looking at “places to visit” as we sat at a seafood restaurant the evening we arrived. It was overcast and raining so we decided stay out of the weather. She found an advertisement for the Bloedel Floral Conservatory. The info said that the conservatory is “a lush, domed tropical paradise at the top of Queen Elizabeth Park — the highest point in the city of Vancouver”.

The next morning we ate breakfast at our hotel, (I always try to find hotels that include breakfast) jumped in my car and followed the GPS through Vancouver’s busy traffic to what I assumed would be just a big garden overlooking the city.

We arrived at Queen Elisabeth Park, that park was so much more than what I thought, wandered around the photographing the city below, the narrow winding paths, the beautiful ponds, fountains, and rock bridges that were spread out around the grounds. What a photogenic place.

What I had missed reading in the advert was, “Bloedel Floral Conservatory is a conservatory and aviary at the top of Queen Elizabeth Park.” So after nearly an hour wandering the grounds we walked over to the large dome that sat at the top of the park, paid the admission and entered into “the lush, domed tropical paradise” described in the advertisement.

There were birds everywhere in the exotic greenhouse. Flying high in the air, zooming past our heads and hopping everywhere at our feet. Then I saw a colourful parrot, and then another and another and another.

We photographed the plants, colourful small birds, and big parrots in the humid dome.

I had fun talking with other photographers and people sitting with their dogs as we roamed around the park. I am pretty sure we were at the park for over three hours.

How had I missed that place in all my visits to Vancouver? It seemed to be made for those of us that like to carrying cameras.

That was part one of our October Vancouver adventure. We were yet to photograph the crowds of Granville Island, take long night exposures of the lights across the bay and spend Sunday at the Vancouver Camera Sale and Swap.