I find this picture just so delightfully damp and sticky looking.  It has a look of being tropical, but it’s actually still in Vancouver.  This shot was taken in the Capilano Dam Park.  I guess you could say it’s a mini version of the real thing.

I composed it, but a certain someone wanted to try out my schnazzy looking camera so I told him to take this shot as we were walking through Myrtle Park in Seattle on our day trip down there over the past few weeks.  Half the credit goes to Alex then.

The fun thing about America is that there are bright flashing signs everywhere.  The land of the free sure likes to get your attention.  Even in their public parks their contemporary art is electrically fueled.  Being from Vancouver, I am no stranger to random public art.  But electrically powered art seems to be an American specialty.  Some of the favourite signs I saw there were all of the ones in the public market basically, and this one for a car wash that had an elephant taking a bubble bath!  There was also a strange one of a giant globe that would light up, and on it there was some sort of spinning message that said something about stuff being inside……….. it was on top of a very average looking building, I have no idea what it was for.  But for visiting Seattle for the first time in my life, I was impressed.

Unfortunately, my scanner is a little shit.  The quality is grainy when I scan them through, although the image quality of the original prints is great (thank you fuji film!)  So use a little clarity imagination……………. my difficulties with archaic technology has had me salivating over digital versions of my dinosaur…… perhaps if I win the lottery

This is my favourite from all the ones I took.  Technically, its not great – there is a spot of sun in the corner and all.  But I love the fern, just the single fern itself.  I thought about saving this one for later, showing some other shots first before whipping out this one out (a sort of saving the “best” for last) but I decided to start off with this.  Why not?

The photo was taken around Rice Lake (in the Seymour Demonstration Forest.  A very nice walk for an afternoon) and I’m sure for the next little while photos from there will keep cropping up, including a few shots from Seattle (ooooh suspense!!!)

By the way, some people have occasionally left comments that wordpress has deemed spam.  I would approve them, but because they are associated with other websites (which is why wordpress deems them as spam) I do not want to (I have my issues with promoting mystery websites…. I’ve had some virus issues lately, can never be too safe)  so please do not leave a web address if it is not related to wordpress and leave appropriate names.  Sorry to be picky.  I really do appreciate the positive comments that have been left to me

These are the horses that hang out near my cabin.  Real beauties, and don’t they know it (kind of look like they’re striking a pose……….. coincidence?)

This is the last of the pictures I will post from my digital camera!  I got my prints from my slr, and I have a few good shots to post (and a lot of bad ones, but its a learning process)  I won’t be able to put them up until I have my scanner again though…….  Probably on Wednesday I’ll put up a new one (the mystery!  what could it be?!)

This was taken in the summer at Lighthouse Park.  Yes, its an oldy, but I have run out of recent photos so I am dipping into the archives, so to speak.  Hopefully soon I will not need to keep recycling my pictures because *drumroll* I got my Dad’s old camera!  Yes yes yes, I am now in possession of a Minolta Maxxum 7000.  It’s not digital (crazy, I know), so I am learning how to use it first (yes, I know reading the manual is for losers, but I don’t care) before I go snap crazy with my first roll of film.  So pictures from my new friend will take a while to materialize here.  Until then, I will continue to put up photos from over the year.

Just off to the left of the main beach were all these shipping tankers (who knows why they were there, and they be useful at Wreck Beach away from any shipping port?)  I just so happened to be staring at them when a plan flew overhead.  I really like this shot – especially with the birds sitting in the water and the plane up above.  Strangely poetic?

However, I’ve decided revive it.  Things will be different this time – the focus will not be poetry, most importantly.  I originally started this blog to force myself to pump out two poems a week.  That clearly didn’t happen, although I am still writing and hope to major, I decided this was slightly unrealistic, and too much pressure.  Writing on that schedule, at least half of those poems would be merely exercise worthy, but not publish worthy.  I should be allowed to throw out the crap that I produce, forcing to put it up online will not really help me too much, I think.  There will be poems every so often, when I get a good one or think an old one I wrote goes well with a picture.

Speaking of which… this is now a photo blog.  Part of this decision is that with my old posts, my favourites were the ones where I included my own photos.  I was most proud of those, and actually tended to do those the most.  Now, if you are a friend of mine who has come across this blog you may find yourself thinking “Christine doesn’t take pictures of things!”  To which you would largely be right.  But sometimes I do.  And sometimes they are very very nice.  And this weekend I am going home to visit my parents and my Dad is passing down to me his old Minolta SLR.  My plan is to take up photography.  So, this blog will be a place to document by progress of learning how to be a photographer.  Of course, the photos I take on the SLR will take forever to get here, having to go through an entire role of film and then scan the best ones.  Until then I will put up the collection of old photos from my little digital camera.  They will be accompanied by written works too, as I said before.

Although this could be a huge cop out.  There’s something much more distant with photos.  Poetry directly expresses (despite your English teacher insistence that the speaker is never the poet) if at least not in exact words, a feeling they were feeling that day.  Photos are indirect.  They are something that happened apart from the photographer that she happened to capture.  This is probably largely related to my decision.  But maybe poems will start popping up more as I get more comfortable with the photo aspect.

Now since I rambled enough, a brief description of the photo.  This was taken on a canoe ride at Sheridan Lake, where my cabin is.  I think I made my boyfriend circle that dock at least seven times, I wanted a picture of this so bad!  The point of the plastic owl on the dock (the wooden structure you see) is to scare off ducks that just love to poop over everything, especially incredibly useful places such as docks.  I love how this cheeky little water fowl has plopped himself down right beside this menacing plastic bird.  I think they look like good friends.

Feel free to browse old posts, I have left only the ones where I had posted pictures before.  There are some good photos back there, but you can largely ignore the text, it is mostly geared toward my vacant thoughts on poetry.