Pixel Darkroom Photography

The old Portman Bridge, still in use today and shown below, will be taken down after the completion of the New Portman Bridge, still under construction. I cross this bridge over Fraser River at least once a week, when traveling from Coquitlam to Surrey on Trans Canada Highway 1.
I would love to shoot more (mega?) construction photography, and when I got into photography, this was one of my dreams. I’d love to shoot oil rigs, construction of dams, bridges, mines, cranes and other (mighty) machines, you names it.

At 20:59:50 every night, a buzzer and a flashing red light announce the ten seconds remaining until the nine o’clock cannon blast goes off in Stanley Park. Today, in the 21st Century the cannon is fired electrically and is heard at Hastings and Granville five seconds later, in Marpole thirty seconds after that, in New Westminster an entire minute after the blast and in Mission (1h16 minutes and 74.2 km or 46 miles according to Google Maps), where it has been heard every once in a while, more than three minutes passed nine o’clock. The gun has been firing for the passed 107 years, even though it has been on occasion hit by lighting, short-circuited, plugged with rocks and even briefly stolen. An inscription on the gun itself says it was made by H&C King in 1816 (one year after the Waterloo battle, to put it in historical context) and it’s numbered DCLVII, what I assume is the serial number (657) inscribed on it. It is a twelve pound muzzle loader, made at Woolwich, England.

In 1856 the British Government gave 16 cannons to the “provinces of Canada” and it’s been known that at least three of those had made it to the Pacific coast. Two of them were flanking the legislative buildings entrance in Victoria, now the capital of the British Columbia Province, and were melted down in 1940, in an effort to support the World War II – they weighed 1,500 pounds after all.

The third one is the one you see firing here on day 313 of my project, and if you are in Vancouver you can hear it at the times mentioned above at various distances from the blast.

The reasons for firing at 9 o’clock every night are believed to be replacing a dynamite blast set off at the same time in the past “as an aid to navigation” but that is a bit hard to understand how a big blast might be of any navigational help. Some variations to the idea behind this precise blast mention salmon fishing curfew initially set for 6 o’clock. An account from a 1939 interview that city archivist, Major J.S. Matthews had with pioneer Herbert McDonald implies the replacement of four daily fire alarm signals, used for indicating time, and sometimes confused with actual fire alarms, with the 9 pm cannon blast. Apparently, Victoria already had a cannon blast at noon to help ship captains check their times and they apparently asked for a canon blast in Vancouver as well.

You can find more information on the History of Vancouver website.

A big boat passed by today. I shot many beautiful images, but I still liked the big boat the most. Just another day out with the camera. Sixty days left. See you around.

Today we tried some flashes and pocket wizards and water and came up with a swimming pool shot. It’s not what I had imagined but it’s the first one of this nature and I will definitely shoot some more. Sometimes after this project is over I will have the chance to update the other sections of this website with more images created as “outtakes”.

We spent some time in Steveston BC tonight and here is one of the images I got. We saw some pirates as well. I believe they were the kind of pirates who don’t do anything, and they seemed to be nice guys, although they were flying the pirates’ flag.

Steveston is a small fishing town, south of Richmond and if you go there at the right time, you can buy fresh fish, shrimp and prawns directly from the boats. Some of the fish is “flash frozen” at sea – I believe they must have a strong flash gun – and considering that some of them are out at sea three weeks at a time, it only makes sense to freeze the fish with whichever flash you have.

I went with my friend Ugur downtown to shoot fireworks today. We had a great time and grabbed a few good images. The bridges were full of people (both the one we shot and the one we were on) and it may have been a great picture to shoot photograph all the photographers from the other side of the street ["Maybe one day we'll do you too..." - Finucci brothers], but it was impossible to cross. Traffic wasn’t stopped and some of the images even have camera shake (or should I call it “bridge shake”) due to some of the buses driving by in the middle of some longer exposures. It was a great view to see all the trails that the boats would make, the helicopter and it was just a great view. Ugur is a fun guy and a great photographer. Here’s a link to some of his images.
I will post some hdr and other images in a different section of this website. Until then, this image will suffice as the picture of the day. Here’s 285 images so far. God bless you and thank you for stopping by.

Again working on perspective. It took some time to photograph this and I really liked it. You will more than likely see some more images of the same kind as I plan to experiment with this concept. Here’s a not so fresh lime splashing in the water. I picked this image and turned it up side down because I thought it looked like the World Cup in Football. Here’s another blessed day (277).

Here’s a little bit of freshly picked raspberries. I could totally see this image in a calendar or some other place so it is definitely available as stock image. The rain got to the fruit a little bit, but it was only enough to clean them up. It was measured. Another one of my favourites. Our good friend picked these up and a big thank you goes to her and my wife helped with the rain gear so a big thank you goes to her. Shot at 1/60 or so to grab the rain drops. I tried a few shots with on camera flash for fill but I got some reflections from the water flowing down the wood and I liked better the image without the reflections. Here is Day 272.

Two days at the lake. Can’t beat that.

I’ve been working to get different points of view. I’ve had different points of view in the last few images but the ones that I’m thinking about require different “hardware”. This is closer, though, to some aquatic image. I had the camera very close to the water and held my hand underneath so I could feel when the little waves are too close. I did manage to get the camera and the filter wet as well, but not like David Hobby, who dumped it in the water almost entirely. One hundred days left.

Canon Rebel XT with stock lens and circular polarizing filter.

Gone fishing.

I grabbed this shot when going 24 knots over bouncy waters in the Pacific Ocean while going trawling for Salmon. We had a great time, a bunch of friends and I. This was a gift from our wives for Father’s Day. We saw eagles, thousands of seals on barges of wood, we caught crab and prawn and starfish, that we threw back in the water. Definitely a great Day 246.

A man seems to be checking the water level before launching his kayak, parked on a flooded bench, where the Buntzen Lake waters rose, due to BC Hydro’s decision to replace a turbine.

Buntzen Lake in Anmore was definitely full today.

Another shot from White Rock, BC. A beautiful place, which reminds me a very little bit of Étretat in Normandy. Only a bit though, because Étretat has more rocky cliffs and they speak more French.

Today I decided to change the post titles. It was getting way to long to keep typing away those letters when I could just type in 3 numbers.

Here we had the chance to go to White Rock, BC. What you see in the distance is a peninsula of which the south side (left side in the photograph – I am facing West, obviously to those of you who know which way the Earth is turning) belongs to the USA. Look it up on the map. It’s weird. You can only access that part of the USA via water or on land only from Canada. Amazing place. I wonder how it is to have to cross the border on a daily basis, or get the boat out daily to go to your own country.

I shot a few more pictures there which I will add them to other sections of the website. Here goes Day 140 – White Rock, BC.

I like cross lighting things. I like coloring things. And I am so afraid of this sprinkler in my house. Imagine that if this thing breaks open, my TV will get wet and break, and I will no longer be able to play Pac Man.
I dare not even touch it, that’s why it’s so dusty. Never mind…

Strobist info: 580 EX (II) x3 CR with blue gel, CL with blue green gel, and below camera with coroplast snoot and red gel, flagged by my hand, via PW. Setup shot here.

Getting out of the house. Today I felt like going out and shooting some boats, some water, something else. So below is what I came up with. Today is also when I felt like doing a little Photoshop work (nothing major) so the photograph below has seen some more postproduction than what we usually do. Actually far more than what we usually do here at PixelDarkroom, considering that we hardly do any Ps work on the 365 project. Not that we are purists,… it’s just that the 365 is so taxing, that relying on extensive post production work on images would make it more cumbersome. Don’t look below for setup shot or strobist info, there isn’t any. Also, if you are wondering, the post done in Ps was only some unsharp mask, some levels and curves. Lr for a few dust spots in the water and the usual watermark. Enjoy.

No strobist info… just the big fireball in the sky, hidden by some clouds. I don’t even remember the settings of the camera and don’t even feel like looking back to find them for you. What I can tell you is that it was shot on manual mode, approximately 1/3 of a stop underexposed. Go try it, it will make the colors richer.

License image here

Nothing here. Thanks for stopping by. Your constructive comments are always appreciated.
Oh, here’s where you can license this image at full resolution for anything you may need, calendar, postcard, poster, fine art, etc.