Follow that wave

Tags

ambleside, beach, city, cloud, log, logs, mountain, ocean, rock, sand, sea, sky, wave

Once again, I have used lines to draw the viewer into the photo to the subject. The waves are powerful and draw one’s eye along the beach to the buildings. But are the buildings really the subject? Look at the size of the boulders in the forefront. They seem to be competing with the buildings. Both are actually man-made. But wait, the waves and the beach also compete. They say, look at me, while taking the eye to the buildings and the mountains with the housing subdivisions. Even the sky seems to be pointing to the mountains.

Notice the depth of field. Everything is in focus giving opportunity for many subjects to be studied. I could have blurred the background, or the foreground and, thus, change the whole photo. The rocks at the bottom take up about as much space as the beach, city and mountains, while the water and sky hold a similar balance with each other. However, the two that match are, in reality, so different in size. A photo can be deceiving. As for colour, the bottom of the photo is somewhat duller than the top, as if to say, follow the wave and see more colour. The path of the wave provides a feeling of life and power, that seems to diminish as one moves away from the strong, powerful rocks.

This photo was taken at Ambleside Beach in West Vancouver looking west. You can see the neighbourhoods of housing up on the mountain. This beach is all man-made, as are the buildings and the houses, of course.

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The master log

Tags

ambleside, beach, bridge, cloud, logs, ocean, sand, sea, sky, tree, wave

This photo was shot at Ambleside Beach in West Vancouver, looking toward the Lions Gate Bridge, the port and city of Vancouver and Stanley Park.

Sometimes I like to use lines to draw the viewer’s eye into the subject. Here we see logs, water, waves and even the land on the other side of the water drawing the eye to the bridge. Look at the sky; even the clouds are pointing to the bridge and the city. But, instead of the bridge showing its immensity of size and strength, the first log is the largest subject. This first log competes with the bridge and steals the thunder from the bridge. The angle, along with the lens, makes this log look so much larger than the bridge. Just as interesting, the log seems like it might even be longer than the bridge and, it has a hole in it, indicating that it was used for something. Perhaps a log boom. The log has some history and some stories to tell. But it has been on this beach, lifeless, for a long time—long enough for grass to grow under it in barren sand. How many people does it know? What stories could it tell?

In this otherwise dead scene, the water brings life to this greyish brown beach and the very old log, actually a dead tree that once rose high into the sky. Is it looking at the trees across the water? While the beach seems to be deserted, even on this sunny day, the bridge, trees across the water and city in the background, speak of life. Even the footprints in the sand would seem to indicate that people have recently walked there. If one looks closely, cars can be found in the parking lot on the left and boats on the right. I am reminded of the footprints on the moon with the blue Earth in the background.

Another interesting aspect here is that public beaches are manicured. The logs are moved around to create a somewhat organized seating arrangement for people and providing a hint of privacy by being spaced out. But, there is a contrast here. You can see the well placed logs in the background, yet, this huge old log, has not been moved. It may have washed up in a very high tide or a storm and has remained untouched, commanding it’s final resting place. Look down near the water. Here you can see logs that are running the same direction as the big log, parallel to the water. They all washed up on the beach. The smaller logs near the water seem to be lined up like kids in school with the big old log the master or teacher.

A log is an interesting subject. Day by day, it captures stories, but keeps them to itself. It attempts to battle the weather and holds scars. Each log, has been keeping a record. Once a tree, its rings recording history, now in death it lives on in another life.

A grey day at the beach

Tags

ambleside, beach, dark, dull, grey, ocean, rock, sand, sea, sky, tree

This photo is a bit haunting. I like it, not because it is grey, dull and haunting, but because of what it reminds me of. Let’s take a trip in the semi-circle of this little bay. This is a public beach in a well populated place. On a warm summer day, there would be many boats. A small yacht club is just to the left. There would also be scores of people on the beach, many would be swimming. Even more amazing is that this was taken at Ambleside beach in West Vancouver looking toward the Lions Gate suspension bridge and the port and city of Vancouver. None of this is visible, but hidden deep in the mist.

The composition of this shot is interesting, beginning at the bottom with the rocky sea wall, moving to a sandy beach protected and interrupted by some breakwaters to hold the man-placed sand. These are also storm drains to take rain water into the sea. The curve of the beach take one eye around, exploring the various items, along a very nice looking beach with trees in the background, ending on a rocky point with something sticking up on it. It is an native carving. Most of the shot is grey, dull water and sky. The sand has a hint of brown and with it some warmth. I find the overall colour interesting. The whole photo is the colour of sand.

The scene looks still, lifeless, even dead. No wind, no waves. But wait, there are signs of life. As I said, this is a very busy place and if one looks closely, there are people on the beach. Along where the trees are is a parking lot. Beyond the point is a dog park. So, one’s eye is taken from rocks to sand to rocks again and, left in the grey mist, and one must wonder what the place is like on a nice sunny day.

Poodle doodles

Tags

accident, alarm, ambleside, angry, attention, ball, bank, barrier, bathroom, beach, blog, blogging, break, breakfast, breaths, brewin', business, buy, candidates, Capilano River Regional Park, car, carpet, chase, chased, checking, cheesecake, chore, christmas, cleaners, collar, community, concrete, confused, confusing, cure, curled, curling, darts, daycare, daylight, daylight savings time, deposited, dinner, dish, disorder, dog, dog park, doggie, doggies, doldrums, drink, driveway, easonal affect disorder, eat, efforts, email, energy, escape, explore, face, family, family day, favourite, feast, feet, flinger, floor, food, freezer, friday, fridge, fun, future, games, gang, garage, garden, grabbed, gravel, Gryph, gryphie, gryphon, hall, handful, hawaii, head, hear, Helen Keller, holiday, home, house, hug, invigorated, irish, Irish-doodles, jacket, job, john, jumped, jumping, kyla, lady, lazy, le mis, leash, lighthouse park, log, malcolm, manners, marriage, message, morning, movies, mud, muddy, mysteries, neighborhood, nervous, newspaper, night, ocean, okay, orange, palm springs, park, pasta, path, patti, paula, paw, pee, perky, pet, piddled, piddles, play, played, pooches, poodle, poop, promised, property, puppies, puppy, rain, rainforest, rascal, reference, relaxing, remover, resistance, respect, road, rodney fagerfeild, rubbing, rugged, run, running, rushing, sad, safe, saturday, savings, scallywag, sea wall, search, see, selling, sensitized, setter, sick, sink, sister, sitting, skype, sleeping, sleeps, sleeve, snob, snoring, soap, soccer, sprawled, spring, squeaky, stain, stairs, stealing, street, stroll, sunny, telephone, tessie, thingies, think, tonight, topic, towel, tricks, trotting, trouble, trowing, tuckered, update, upsetting, vacation, veggies, vigilant, voice, wades, walk, wanders, water, week, weekend, wife, winter, woke, wondering, work, worry, yard, yesterday

As you can see my blogging efforts dropped off a bit. Is this due to the winter doldrums of no holiday break? After all, this is the longest stretch of the year without a holiday. There are efforts at hand to add a family day, but, that is met with resistance from the business community. I’m not going to let this blog entry get carried off on the topic of adding a new holiday. Daylight Savings Time started last weekend and this weekend holds the first day of Spring, thus, it seem the stretch is over. My sister, however, finds that she gets SAD in the winter, that is ‘seasonal affect disorder’ and any disorder deserves special attention in search for a cure. So it is, that we have not had Christmas together for a few years as they are always vacationing in Hawaii. In the old days, Christmas morning often included a long distance telephone call, these days, it is Skype. Now, I am getting closer to the topic of this blog entry.

It seems that Hawaii at Christmas is not enough, now they are looking for property in Palm Springs and with just over a week away on the search, I was offered the doggie sitting chore. I guess this passes through a few candidates and my turn came up. “You can stay at the house and I will stock the fridge.” My wife agreed for me to take the job, even though it would mean the longest time we have been apart in our nearly 20-year marriage.

Whew, I finally got through the preliminaries for this blog, the balance is taken from my responses to my sister’s message ‘…checking in…’:

Check out the toe nails – pretty Tessie

HI Bob,

Hope all is well and Gryphie and Tessie weren’t too much trouble this weekend Everything okay? Are you finding what you need?

Let me know if you have any mysteries or dilemmas to be solved, otherwise, hope you have fun and give them a hug for us!

Paula
🙂
PS – Very sunny here, half of Vancouver is here!

I ended up getting sick again, not as bad as before, but enough to slow me down a bit Saturday night and all of yesterday. I’m not sure yet about today. I watched curling and movies and Le Mis 25th.

The first couple of days were a bit confusing as I figured out where everything was. I had to get out to work, so I was in a rush. Tessie piddled a couple of times, once at her food dish and the next day in the upper hall. Now there is a stain, because I could not find what to use to clean it up, so I did the best I could with soap and water. If you have something, I could try to get more of the stain out. Often it is hard to get Tessie up from sleeping, so on that day, I was rushing to go to work and I woke her up, but, she just rolled around rubbing her face, so I went to get the food ready. When I went back a few minutes later, she was standing in the hall with her mess. I took them to daycare, because I was going to be gone all day. On Saturday, I watched about half an hour of one of Malcolm’s soccer games at Ambleside and then took the doggies to run in the park. Gryph got a bit muddy, so I used a towel in the garage to wipe his feet.

Patti and Malcolm came for dinner on Friday and Saturday nights, so I have been making it through quite a bit of the food you left, but, will have to buy a few things like veggies, etc. today.

Thus, things seem to be in some sort of order, or whatever. At least we are all carrying on.

B

Just out for a trot at Ambleside

Hi

Don’t worry too much about the carpet… I will get the cleaners in when I get home… (the pet stain remover is in the closet in John’s bathroom, on the floor, across from the sink)…

For future reference… Tessie needs to go out as soon as you are going to leave the room I always carry her from the bed to the front door and make sure she has a pee before she comes in for breakfast… (remember she is OLD….)

Give Gryph and Tessie lots of hugs…..

Glad you had fun with Patti and Malcolm

Made it to the dog park at Ambleside and are now back getting ready to start dinner. Tessie is snoring somewhere across the room and Gryph is sprawled out at the bottom of the stairs.

When we went out, all the neighborhood poop was collected and deposited on newspaper at the foot of the driveway. Surely I did not miss that much poop. I don’t know who it was, but, I hope they are not angry.

I guess it’s more pasta tonight, so, I should start thinking about getting that ready. A feast is a brewin’ in my mind, I think.

That is upsetting, particularly because all our immediate neighbours are away – so don’t know who it might have been, can you be extra vigilant and not let them out on their own…

Enjoy pasta! Thanks for the update….

Tessie likes the beach

Hi,

Hope everything is okay?

Just wanted to remind you to check out the contents of the Freezer in the garage and also the freezer compartment in the fridge (their are some individually wrapped cheesecakes!)

Hope the puppies are curled up next to you… don’t forget to pet and talk to them!!!

These are lazy doggies! I have had Tessie out three time this morning and I think she has yet to do her morning little business. At least she can really eat, sometimes she goes for Gryph’s food when he is not interested. She eats all the soft food she can get. I guess it gives her energy for those occasional times she gets perky and darts off down the street. Yesterday, she stood in the the garden down the street, tilted her head a bit and looked at me as if to say, “come and get me, I dare ya,” or, “you can’t get me in here now, can ya?” I’m never really sure what is going on in her head.

We made it to Ambleside again the other day and to Lighthouse Park yesterday. Got back into the car just as the rain started. We were sure glad about that. When we were at Ambleside, we stopped to visit and the next thing I knew Tessie was high tailin’ it down the sea wall, back in the direction we had just come, trotting along side another fellow with exactly the same orange jacket as mine. What are the chances of that, only Tessie could find such an opportunity to get confused. I thought she would never stop and they were long gone so fast, I could hardly believe it! Gryphon goes to get muddy, Tessie just does her own thing, whatever that is and wherever she is. What a scallywag.

What time are you back on Saturday?

Oh well, it’s a dog’s life.

Gryphon likes the beach too!

Ha ha!
Sounds like you are learning all of Helen Keller’s tricks… She really can’t see or hear, but if she wanders off, try sending Gryphon to go get her you have to make it sound like a fun game)

Back late Friday night, I will email you the exact time

Thanks for update and have fun!

Tessie enjoys the scenery

I don’t completely buy what she is selling, I think she is more with it than she leads us to think. She just likes to be a rascal, a real handful at times. Sleeps all morning, won’t go out, makes me nervous that she might have another accident (see she sensitized me with fear by having two piddles already), gets out finally, then follows me around until we go out to the car for a walk, takes off down the street to poop in someone’s garden, gets back in the house, because I left the door open so I could get my stuff and set the alarm, won’t come back out, wants to play chase, I have to get the leash, finally we get to Ambleside and she runs everywhere, before pooping more and then deciding to settle down. Gryphon gets fed up with all the miss focused attention and decides to try an escape over the bank into the neighbor’s yard.

OLD, my foot, she still has lots of puppy in her and plenty of tricks up her paw sleeve.

Oh ya, I forgot, Gryphon is acting up too. On the way back to the car at Ambleside, I had them go by way of the beach, so that running on sand and gravel might clean some of the mud off his feet. He gets wrapped up with a gang of dogs on the beach, wades in the water (OK that helped wash his feet) and tried to drink the ocean. Then he saw a lady with one of those flinger thingies, throwing a ball for another dog, yup, Gryph stole the ball, found that it was squeaky, decided to keep it and take it back home in the car. The other dogs just looked wondering, ‘who is this snob stealing our ball?’ Everyone tried to get it from him and, of course, this was just more fun than he could think of by himself, then I got stern with him, he stopped, I grabbed him by the collar and another lady got the ball from him. Humf, no manners! The both of them!

Now give back that ball!

Ha ha ha Rodney Fangerfeild, you have to make them respect you!

 

 

 

A bit more…

 

 

Well! I decided that we really needed to get to the Capilano River Regional Park where I used to walk Kyla. I was able to park in the first small parking lot, where I always used to park. I hoped the doggies would be alright with the short walk along the path next to the road, there is a concrete barrier. Gryph seemed to know exactly where to go and jumped over the log into my favorite part of the park. I assisted Tessie and then we were there. What a place!! I sure have missed it. A few deep breaths and we were all invigorated.

So, we followed some paths on a slow stroll so as to let the pooches explore everything they could. So relaxing.

Then, it happened. I heard a voice asking me where the path leads. This lady had two black Irish-doodles (Irish Setter Poodle mix). Well, you never saw such fun. Gryphon ran and chased, and just played, jumping over logs and everything in the rainforest–a pretty rugged place. Tessie watched to make sure the games were safe, ref-ing as best she could. Gryph sure got tuckered. I promised we would go back tomorrow and both agreed it would be a great idea.