Last night was Mexico’s turn at keeping the hundreds and thousands of spectators entertained for 30 minutes in Vancouver. If you didn’t now it was Wednesday, you would have been fooled by the amount of loud noise and debauchery that was happening around the West End. It seemed like a Saturday night anyway. There were numerous sirens, various Police incidents and more. According to the CBC website this morning, the fireworks were a “Quiet Night”. I don’t think anyone working for CBC was down in English Bay.

On to the photos! Robyn, her mum and I headed down to the beach area to get a better view of the fireworks. We were glad we did go down to the beach too as Mexico’s fireworks display seemed to have been a bit lower than the previous competition.

I uploaded 21 new Fireworks photos to my Flickr Photostream. The URL to the right should be the ones I just uploaded as I’ve made the URL search for ‘Fireworks’ and ‘Mexico’.

I find that the hardest fireworks to capture on camera are the amber/gold type. They are typically the largest bursts, but they also don’t give off enough light to capture properly on a long exposure (1-5secs were attempted). I wonder the what the trick would be to be able to properly capture them digitally. I can keep trying I suppose!

Did you partake in watching the Fireworks last night? Out of the 3 Firework displays, which one do you like the most so far? This Saturday (July 31st) will be the Tribute to China and Finale for this year’s competition. It will be INSANELY busy!

On a side note, I also took photos of English Bay this morning. Pretty ugly to look at, but then a mass crowd can be particular lazy and inconsiderate. Rebecca also has a post about the aftermath of the Fireworks last night.

This past Sunday Robyn, her mum and myself headed up to Whistler for a little bit of siteseeing. The plan was to head up to the Peak of Whistler and wander back down to the Roundhouse Lodge, jump on the Peak 2 Peak to Blackcomb and head back down to the Village. So we did just that.

One thing I would like to remind people is that the Day Lots in Whistler are now Paid usage and the daily fee is $12 per car. It is also tracked by license plate, so you can’t just pass your ‘ticket’ to someone when you’re leaving either. Yes, we do like the paved lots, but it just makes a Whistler trip that more expensive. For a Siteseeing Gondola Ticket, they sell for $43.95 and for the 3 of us it would have cost a total of $143.85 (includes the parking). The great thing about having an EDGE card is that we had free siteseeing tickets since we reloaded are cards with Winter time before a certain date. Add the price of food on top of that, and it can get a bit expensive.

If you have NEVER gone up to the Peak of Whistler or Blackcomb during the Summer season, I do HIGHLY recommend you do it at least once. The views and scenery are breathtaking and you might get a chance of seeing some unexpectant wildlife too!

On to the photos!

It does feel different going up a chairlift without all your snowgear on. It is easier to move around on the chair and check out the scenery though.

Once you get to the top of the Peak, you are presented with 360 degree view of the near by mountain ranges. Did I mention how clean the air is up at Whistler too?

I believe the High-Note trail might be partially closed, so we decided to stick to the track road that leads back down towards Harmony Bowl.

They still have so much snow up on Whistler for being July. I hope it all sticks around to use as a base for this upcoming Winter season though.

Do you think there is enough snow still? Look at that height of that snow wall! The great thing about so much snow, was that it kept you cool with the cloudless sky. It must of been like 35 Celcius (95F) up there.

We got back to the Roundhouse Lodge for a quick dehydration break, pick up a couple things at the gift shop and then headed off on the Peak 2 Peak across to Blackcomb Mountain. Does anyone else find it a bit odd to try and grow grass up there (as in the photo) where in a couple of months the snows will come again? I’m sure it would look nice with green grass as opposed to dry dirt, but… Oh well.

A couple of tourists on the gondola with us were talking about how there had been some bear sightings on Blackcomb. As we approached Blackcomb they got up to the glass of the gondola with their cameras ready. I too have seen bears from the gondola before, perhaps we’ll get to see them again?

Tourists, Skiers and Snowboarders were loading up into the Mountain Express buses. These buses take people to 7th Heaven for which you can access the Blackcomb Glacier for Spring/Summer ski/riding. That day was the last day for the season too. Robyn and I want to get up to the Glacier one year, perhaps next year will be the year. I haven’t done a t-bar before so I am a bit hestiant to try it out.

The patio at the Rendezvous Lodge was busy with people eating great good and enjoying the great view. We headed back down to the Upper Village via Solar Coaster, I was on the look out for bears though.

Behold, a black bear foraging on the dandylions underneith of feet as we went down the chairlift. I don’t think it was an adult because it wasn’t as large as other black bears I have seen. He (or she) never did look up though, must be used to the human traffic overhead.

Once we got down to the Upper Village, we stopped off at Merlin’s for lunch. The food there (as with most places in Whistler/Blackcomb) was good. The patio had a nice breeze going through it which helped with the sun shinning down on us too.

After lunch we checked out the Farmer’s Market too. Busy with people checking out all the vendors and their wares. Lot’s of great things to see and buy too.

It was another great day trip up to Whistler/Blackcomb and we look forward to doing it again soon later this summer.

Have you been up to Whistler during the Summer? What are your favourite Whistler Summer activities to do? If you haven’t gotten up to Whistler in the Summer, what would you like to do if you could go?

Robyn and I decided to have a quiet night and watch the fireworks unfold from out balcony. Here are a few of my photos from Spain’s firework display:

Granted there are buildings in the way but nonetheless it is pretty cool to watch them from our place. Hearing the echos as the large bursts soundwaves bounce between the buildings is pretty cool too.

A lot of you have probably seen the photo above by now. It was picked to be on the official Flickr Blog about the Celebration of Light in Vancouver. That’s pretty excited (for me anyway) to see happen with a photo of mine. I checked out the Explore section of flickr and low and behold it was featured on the main page of Explore too!

Which is also pretty cool to have happen with one’s photo.

It’s a neat thing to watch though, a photo not only being mentioned in a Flickr blog post, but also seeing it on the main Explore page. It is similar to the Digg effect; you get a sudden HUGE surge of views to a particular photo. It’s pretty cool to see and you also get a lot more contact requests too

Next up this Wednesday is Mexico and we’ll probably be down on the beach for that one. I always try to get at least one night down along the water for some photos. We’ll see if that happens and how they turn out.

Have you seen any of the fireworks this year? Where have you been watching them from if so?

**Update – Forgot to add a photo of the crowd going past our place:

Bob using his super-portible softbox which was triggered via a CyberSync. The softbox folded up smaller than I expected something like that would actually. Highly impressed with the photos that were the result of his work too.

I’ll just have to assume that it’s a Canon 5D MkI with a EF 50mm f1.4 in his hands. Ah, a full-frame camera would be a beautiful tool to use! Not to mention that the 50mm f1.4 is constructed with metal as opposed to the f1.8 I have which is all plastic. Oh well, a $400 lens vs a $100 lens eh?

Alright now on to some of my other portriature type photos that I took that evening. I’m fairly proud of them actually!

Alright, I think the post-processing of this one might be a bit too soft. I’m typically an as-is-shot type of guy and don’t like mucking around much with photoshop. I’ll tweak light levels, colours, but I don’t get too artsy (probably because I don’t know what filters to use to achieve a particular look?).

I like the oclours in this photo. Bob had her stand in a small alcove in the alley. Again this shot and the one above are naturally lit.

For this shot, it seems I might have soft-focus on her eyes. Bob actually let me try out his CyberSync remote to trigger his flash through the softbox. Though using a 70-200mm on a cropped sensor camera, I had to stand a fair distance back just to get her head into the frame. Not a bad job, perhaps a reflector to her let would of lessned the shadow on that side. I have much to learn when it comes to using a flash or external light source (other than the sun).

A learning experience nonetheless, I just gotta get out and do this sort of photography more often I think.

The above photo is of my workspace here at home. Since aquiring my new laptop I have been able to create a little extra room on my desk. Though the above photo looks a bit cluttered the items don’t typically stay there. Before my setup had 2x 19″ monitors and my 5-disc RAID array which took up a lot of space. I thought I would update the photo I had floating around on Flickr of my previous setup.

Telecommuting; My Thoughts.

Many of you know I work from home and have been for quite some time now. Some people out there would say how awesome it is to work for home and for the majority of the time it’s true. There are sometimes where working from home isn’t all the great. I’ll try and list some Pros and Cons for telecommuting, or working from home.

Pros:

• Work in your pajamas (if you’re doing video conferencing, ensure your camera is pointed at least shoulders and up).
• Listen to the music you want to listen to as loud as you like.
• Your workspace is yours, no one else can touch it.
• Your view might be better at home (like mine) that at an office.
• Depending on your employment/employer you can write off percentages of things such as Rent/Mortgage, Hydro, Cable (internet purposes), Work Furniture, Gas, Insurance etc etc
• Lunch is easier to make/obtain and can be better/more healthier.
• Less driving/gas.

Cons:

• Very little human interaction. If you’re a social butterfly, chances are working at home won’t be for you. Skype, Messenger, gTalk etc can only go so far.
• Can’t really escape work as it’s always near by. So much for the 9-5 mentallity (in most cases).
• Typically you have to supply your own equipment such as Computer, Printer, Desk, Chair etc (some companies might be more giving than others). Companies might supply consumables such as pens, paper though.
• Distractions – Television, Kids, going outside in good weather
• No Physical Supervision – Some people need that physical supervision to get work done. If you procrastinate a lot, chances are you probably will do even less work at home.
• Your type of job might not fit with working at home. Are you a cabinet-maker? Chances are you don’t have a tablesaw for your apartment, let along the neighbours might get upset if you use a router too often.

Anyway, those are some of the Pros and Cons I find about working at home. I personally love being able to work from home and have been enjoying it ever since I started a couple years ago. I have everything I need to do work from right here and have set it up to be pretty efficient too.

Most people tell me that they couldn’t do what I do and would probably head to the beach all day. I for one, (surprisingly too) rarely leave my desk when I’m working on things, in fact I tend to forget to eat too. If I get bogged down mentally and need a break, I will stretch my legs and go for a short walk down to the water (10mins at most) to help clear the head. I do come back and hunker down for more computer work, I don’t lallygag when I get home.

Also the great thing of switching from a desktop to a laptop allows me to remotely work. I don’t have to be tied to a desk, I can work from the balcony, I can work from the couch, I can even head down to the local coffeeshop for a couple hours and work. It’s great not being tied to a desk, and I honestly think going back to a desk in an office would be a really hard thing to do.

What are your thoughts and experiences with telecommuting or working at home? Have you ever had the oppourtunity to do it? Would your type of work even allow for it?

I have always enjoyed the large sun-burst type fireworks, especially when the soundwave of the explosion richochets off the surrounding buildings.

This coming Saturday (July 24th) will be Spain’s turn at wowing all the spectators. You can also expect to see much larger crowds too.

You can check out my other firework photos including more from last night’s event over on my Fireworks Photoset.

I set up my Canon 7D (along with my EF 50mm f1.8) on a tripod (I need a new tripod, the $30 Velbon can’t handle the weight of my Canon 7D). Used one of my (many) USB cables and plugged it into my new Asus G51J laptop. Pretty simple actually. You then (in Lightroom) select File -> Tether Capture -> Start Tethered Capture… That’s about it. The great thing about this is you don’t need to have a memory card inserted into the camera! Granted, using a memory card would allow what you are shooting to be stored on them as well as the computer your camera is attached to.

I switched into Live View, manually set my settings, manually focused on the item in the light-tent and voila! Images were being recorded and transfered to the laptop via Lightroom and stored in the location I specified. Instead of seeing the result on a 3″ screen, I could review/edit/delete on the laptop’s 15.6″ screen instead. Definitely a great way to shoot in a studio type setup.

I’m pretty excited to shoot more things like this as it is much more efficient than taking a series of photos, dumping the card to the computer/server, importing into Lightroom, reviewing and then editing. I skip a bunch of steps and streamline the product photo process. This would also be great for studio work, granted I am using a USB cable with an extension, I do know both Nikon and Canon have Wireless Transmitting grips for remote tethering. This sort of setup is a bit more budget friendly than remote WiFi transmitters.

I am not sure if all cameras support this tether capture feature of Lightroom 3, but I am sure the larger manufactures and their dSLRs should be able to.

It’s been a while since I took this photo, but I finally was able to get some decent photos of the local Cedar Waxwings. I have always found them to be interesting to look at, especially their gradiant colouring. Their little black masks are pretty cool too. It seems there is a few of them that have been hanging around the western side of Beaver Lake in Stanley Park. They (like the one above) snack on the various berries scattered about the forest. Did I mention the huckleberries are out too? Yum, I love eating those little pink berries when I’m out and about in the various woodland areas of Vancouver.

Last night I tagged along with Bob (Tawcan) on a portrait shoot of a local actress by the name of April. Bob said I could bring my camera along, though I was just expecting to help him position his flash. While watching Bob do his thing, which is pretty fun and cool to watch, I took a few shots of April with the natural light that was available (ie the photo above).

Bob was using his Canon 5D that would trigger his remote flash through a softbox via a CyberSync remote trigger. The photos that Bob took looked awesome on the camera’s display so I can’t wait to see how they turned out on the computer. It was also interesting to see how Bob would direct April as well as get her input on what she wanted. He is definitely a good photographer to work with, not that I didn’t think he was in the first place. It was cool to see how he worked, now I gotta get more into it myself.

There are some pretty cool places around Gastown to shoot portraits, especially some of the alleys. Where would you shoot portraits? Do you have a favourite spot to shoot?

When I do get the opportunity to watch Osprey, it makes me happy. Not that I am not happy, but I’ve always enjoyed watching Osprey do their thing. The best place (I find) to watch Osprey is in Pitt Polder, otherwise known as Grant Narrows Regional Park in Pitt Meadows. It’s also the beginning of Pitt Lake.

While walking along the dyke in the 30+ degree weather (at least there was a breeze coming off of the marshes behind) there was a total of 4 adult osprey. One pair had a nest with 2 chicks too. Unfortunately 200mm isn’t enough to get a good photo of the nest and its inhabitants; 400mm would of been good though.

Do you have a favourite Bird of Prey? Eagle, Hawk, or perhaps an Owl?