Penmachine

By mid-September, Vancouver weather has usually shifted to the grey and dreary stereotype we live with much of the year. While we've had a bit of that, this month has exhibited an unusual share of full-on hot summer sunshine, with more looking to come next week. Yesterday, with the kids at school and my wife at work, I found a pleasant spot in a park atop Capitol Hill in Burnaby and watched the clouds go by:

The movie is yet another time-lapse video I assembled using my Nikon D90 and Apple's iMovie software. I was in Harbour View Park, but the foliage is thick enough right now that you can't really see the harbour. It is visible from a couple of nearby streets, however.

Labels: park, sunshine, vancouver, weather

Was the now-famous Vancouver fog photo taken by Scott Miller from the Vancouver Sun, or Blair Kent? As I show in this short video, the answer could be... both:

The two images were made at almost the same time, in almost exactly the same location off the Cypress Bowl road above Vancouver. But they are two different photos—the clouds have moved, and the tree in the corner shows a very slightly different perspective.

So, to Scott and Blair both: great pictures. I can't say which is better.

Labels: americas, photography, sunshine, vancouver, video, weather

Thanks to Buzz Bishop for posting this astonishing photo of our lovely city of Vancouver from Cypress Mountain, taken on the morning of Sunday, January 18 from above the fog that has enshrouded us for a couple of weeks now:

This picture was taken with a brand new Canon EOS 5D Mark II camera, taking full advantage of its remarkable resolution and detail in an amazing composition. Check out the large version. Wow. Who took the photo is an interesting question, with an interesting answer I talk about in my next blog post.

The distant peaks are probably Stewart Mountain near Bellingham (left, about 925 m tall) and Mount Constitution on Orcas Island (right, about 730 m) in Georgia Strait, both across the border in the United States.

P.S. Here's a whole set of photos from another photographer.

Labels: americas, photography, sunshine, vancouver, weather

Yeah, we had fun.

Labels: family, oceans, park, sunshine, vancouver

No Zune talk today. It's working, my daughter likes it, and we're all going to the beach.

Labels: family, oceans, park, sunshine, vancouver

I was a bit disturbed this morning when I sat down on the porch with my MacBook and saw a strange bright blob in the middle of the LCD screen. I thought the display might be damaged, but when I moved the laptop the spot went away.

Then I realized that the spot was actually the light of the sun, which is so bright that it is shining through the translucent Apple logo on the back of the lid, and illuminating the centre of the screen from behind. (Normally the logo is lit up the opposite way, by the lamp from the LCD panel.) I guess you could call it a design flaw.

Labels: apple, geekery, macbook, repairs, sunshine