Snow-ladden Branches

Thought I'd post this just because I haven't posted anything in over a week. I have a couple of snow shots that aren't too bad, but hey, with all the snow around I just haven't really felt like processing snow pictures...

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Not Exactly the Hot Seat

It's been a while since I did a two-fer Sunday, so here's a shot taken this past Wednesday out at UBC just shortly after the end of the work day.

I've been in a bit of an "embrace the monochromatic" kind of mood lately, as I suppose you can tell...

This shot had a horrid yellow colour from the light shining on the bench. I tried to correct it, but ended up with far too much blue everywhere else (the complementary colour to yellow) and wasn't happy with that. Then I tried the black & white thing, and after a little playing around with the channel mixer I finally got a version that I was happy with. I've actually been meaning to post this for a couple of days now but just don't seem to have gotten around to it, hence the double-shot tonight.

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Ice on the River

This was one of the weirdest shots... Although this is a black & white image (i.e. the colour elements have been removed), it is almost identical to the colour image - it was just that kind of day! There was just a little hint of green algae on the rocks in the foreground, almost unnoticeable.

Taken down at FRP shortly before 3:00 this afternoon.

This is the first time I've ever had a shot that has exhibited this characteristic. It made processing pretty simple - there wasn't much that needed to be done, nor was there much that could be...

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Capilano Gorge

Not quite as dramatic as yesterday's post, but this one is pleasant enough all the same. This is looking downriver at Cable Pool which is located a little below the fish hatchery, which is itself located a kilometre downhill from the dam.

I actually processed two versions of this shot, the other being a black & white with a green overlay. It was a bit of a toss-up which one to post, finally decided on the true-colour version.

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Yep... Part II

Taken standing in the same spot as yesterday's post, facing the downriver this time.

I've posted this for two reasons:

• I thought it'd be a nice companion to yesterdays' shot;
• I used it to do some testing of picture quality before and after upload.

Results of the testing: as suspected/expected, there's a very noticeable loss of colour tone; I presume due to a forced conversion of adobe RGB colourspace to sRGB. I'm sure that are very valid reasons for this, but it's irritating. As I learn more about picture processing and refinement techniques it is disappointing to have all the hard work stripped away.

In the case of this picture, there was a loss of subtle cloud detail in the sky which itself was a much more pronounced blue. Alas, it's just something we'll have to put up with... unless I eventually move on from Blogger to some other blog-hosting site with better image support.

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Yep. It's Winter.

Go over the turquoise coloured wooden bridge to Westham Island and take the first left and you'll find yourself on a very narrow strip of asphalt that runs for maybe ½ a kilometer before dead-ending at this place. This shot was taken about mid-way off the side of the road (which is on a dike) early on Saturday morning. The white stuff was, I think, a mixture of left-over snow from the previous weekend and ice. I was a little surprised to find this snow/ice: although it has been 'cold' (by local standards) for the past week or two I'd have thought that there'd be at least some salt content in the water here (thus preventing it from freezing) so close to where the Fraser mixes with the straight of Georgia.

One thing I noticed when I took a look at the full-resolution shot (not visible in this version) was that some of the homes across the water have docks/boats within feet of their front doors - talk about convenient. Wonder what they do in stormy weather though - some of them look to be extremely vulnerable to flooding.

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Sunrise, with Snow

Vancouver is sure getting hammered this month. Three or four severe storms, any one of which could qualify as a once-in-five-year (10-year?) event. Twelve days of boil-water advisory. A significant dump of snow, resulting in untold numbers of trees toppling and causing significant power outages throughout the area (which I had the misfortune to experience in a very cold office yesterday), followed by falling temperatures. More snow coming tonight and tomorrow, followed by more rain, all before the end of the month.

May sound pretty tame to some, but this is lotus land. We're used to rain, but this was phenomenal. We've dealt with snow, but not usually combined with boil water advisories and power outages. Just try boiling water without power (campfires generally being frowned upon within the city limits).

But it's not all bad. This morning there was an absolutely wicked sunrise, just as I was driving to work. The timing was, for once, just about perfect as I got to a place where I could safetly pull over, actually had the time to do so, and thus managed this shot.

This is the second year in a row that the normally awesome November sunsets have been very hard to find, but this morning almost makes up for that.

Oh, and it snowed for about two hours this morning, starting about 20 minutes after this picture was taken.

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