Just one more Wakestock 2008 shot

I love how this guy seems to be jettisoning fuel from his board prior to a rough landing :)

Get me outta here!

Ruby shows her displeasure with veterinary science's lack of creativity in keeping her from her stitches..

The hood came off today, seconds after this shot was taken; the stitches about 30 minutes later. A very ugly scar -- she has already asked about canine plastic surgery...

More Wakestock

Smokin' Crack at Wakestock 2008

Ahem...

Anatomy of a Fall

Wakestock 2008. Toronto Island

(Just a reminder that a click will give you a larger image)

Kid, board, levitation

At the exit from the Island ferry terminal.

Duck Spin Cycle

by popular demand -- okay I got one email -- the sculpture in colour

"River God"
myles lowry
cast and painted cotton fibre

Celtic river god

The first bit of "fine art" I ever purchased. Rendered here a bit more mysterious than usual with depth of field choices and high contrast b&w.

Spider water storage?

Cruised!

From the file marked, "dang, shame I'm taken!" :)

Street shot from Toronto Gay Pride 2008

Painted Cement Wall

Bits of a mural, east side of Mt. Pleasant Blv on cement wall of Bloor St. underpass

Hail, hail the Nikon 50 mm 1.4 lens. Hail!

Cheap (in price) little lens. 50 mm used to be the standard length most SLR cameras would come with, or most started with; many famous photographers shot nothing but 50 mm during their careers. The 50 mm length is called a "normal" lens as (wrongly from a strictly technical standpoint) it is said to mirror the human field of vision. At 1.4 it is very fast (meaning it can shoot in low light) too. But the wonderful thing is because 50 mm used to be so ubiquitous the optical work is all but perfected by people such as Nikon and so for the price of a medium priced pair of shoes (which I had my eye on at Holt's) you get this kind of crispness.

This blogger in no way endorses Pears shampoo :)

It just happened my favourite camera shop (but not where I bought the lens, for while my favourite they are also the most expensive camera shop) had a light box set up (white walls lit from outside the box to provide profoundly even, shadowless light) with this shampoo bottle in it. As I waited to be served, I fired off this shot to test the sharpness of the lens. WAH! Keep in mind this is a pretty low res copy, as well, so blogger won't throw up and prevent me from posting.

50 is also apparently a superb full length portrait lens; plan to FINALLY do some formal work with a model while on holiday in early August. I also owe the Markham family with grand patience a family portrait.

Monday Approaches (or The Hostas are Nervous!)

With the weekend ending this profoundly annoying and anger making rain is surely about to clear into a stifling hot and sunny Monday. Stuck inside with the recuperating dog I slipped outside with camera between assholishly long and heavy downpours to capture a snail on a small retaining wall (curb, really) in our courtyard.

We have:

1) A snail veering at the last moment to avoid a precipice
2) A sharp left turn for the thrill of it
3) A snail unfurling from its house after being plucked from another location so as to be in front of someone's camera

From a Sunnier Day

A bee fly (apparently -- as I suck at bug identification) cruises a very yellow flower.

Post-op waterdog

Heightening my guilt and my dog daddy worry, Ruby flashes her fresh stitches lineup... This effectively keeps her from any show ring, as well. Which I'm okay with, but several Portie owners have told me she's the cutest they've ever seen with her facial markings... And who am I to disagree :)

A bug, and pretty blue sutures

These insects were thick thick in number all over these flowers. Windy as hell -- the whole bud and bug waved in and out of the viewfinder so I gave up trying to get the shot I wanted, but this single speciman was close enough to crisp focus to share.

Given my luck with the one spider photo, see earlier posting, when I found a spider on my shirt while sitting on my balcony earlier this week I carefully dragged my finger behind it and sure enough it came away with a string of web. I let it down gently on the balcony floor and ran to get my camera -- it was TINY and a brilliant red/orange and very shiny and I hoped to identify it with a good macro shot. As I was setting up the shot the spider moved, catching Ruby's attention who then promptly ate the itsie bitty spider before it could ever again go up the water spout.

Ruby was spayed today. Gawd, my worry levels! -- I got all weepy taking her to the vet this morning. She's drugged asleep on the floor at the moment so I took the opportunity to snap a shot of her surgical wound and pretty blue threat holding her feminine viscera in place. Here's hoping she doesn't bother the sutures forcing the need for the stupid cone-over-head solution. I apologize to Ruby for showing one of her nipples here!

A couple of Toronto Gay Pride shots

1) Cellphone pouch
2) Fishnet

Bite me

This guy is about the size of a dime. Hanging out in the nooks and crannies of a cedar rail fence at the brick works marsh ponds.

PS -- you really do have to click on this shot to see the larger version.

Exposed Sexual Bits

Calm amidst the (photographic) noise

This gorgeous bronze, with gold gilding, Tibetan Buddha sits just north of my television.

On Stepping on a Snail

Morning

light the tone
a child paints the sun

a charm of finches
flit a sharper cowardice still

and a small black dog
ambushes through long grass
lolling tongue bumped with grass seeds and hay bugs.

underfoot are sluggish flights to dew
glistening exhaust graduating the way
then porcelain fractures
with a crisp retort

and here at this spot
the day ends before
the sun clears the hills.

breach

Ooops, almost over someone's head on first run into the lake.

Happy Dominion Day

We spent some of it at/in the lake.