These images were all shot in and around Vancouver, after my return from the southwest. They were all taken with a digital point & shoot, the Fuji FinePix F30. This tiny little camera has an excellent lens and superb image quality, even at higher ISO settings. Its small size means I can always have it along, thereby not missing out on spur-of-the-moment photo opportunities, and its quality allows for sharp 8x10 prints, if not larger. These images were taken on walks to lunch, while wandering around town, walking home from work and so on - generally times when I don't have my "big" camera with me.

After many months of taking very few photos, being tied up with family, the holidays, and being very busy sorting and organizing a lot of old scans on CD-R and DVD-R discs, I finally got the camera gear outside again. A bonus was that it was a wonderfully warm day for the first time in ages!

Once again, at one of my favorite spots, Lighthouse Park. I spent most of the day doing infrared work, only switching to colour for the warm sunset light. Accompanying me was my friend Kathy, who was busy using several homemade pinhole cameras to photograph the park in a totally different perspective. One of her cameras uses five pinholes in a row to make one long panoramic image - cool!

A small gallery of images showing Fort Casey, on Whidbey Island in Washington State. This abandoned military fort, now converted to a wonderfully scenic park, features some amazing old concrete structures and several well preserved long-range "disappearing" guns. This fort was built to guard against marine invasions, defending Admiralty Inlet at a strategic location during the first and second World Wars.

No... these are not next year's 2007 calendars, rather they are for 2006. Huh? It's already October! Well... at the end of 2005, due to time constraints, I decided not to market my 2006 calendars and only produced enough copies to satisfy friends and family. However, after looking over my website just now, I realized that I hadn't even put the calendars up on display, so... after a bit of thought, I decided they might actually warrant a gallery of their own, even this late in the year. So here they are... in all their web-sized glory!

I am still undecided on whether or not I will be selling copies of my upcoming 2007 calendar...

I photographed the final day of fireworks at the 2006 HSBC Celebration of Light from the Burrard Street bridge. The first three fireworks shots were "teasers" that happened before the main event started. Early on, the tiny little passenger ferries of the Vancouver Aquabus fleet put on a great show of synchronized boating! The final shot in the gallery is about 10min after the last fireworks, when all the boats started making their way back up False Creek. With all the smoke covering the city and a police helicopter patrolling, beaming its spotlight around, it resembled some sort of disaster area!

(The fireworks are far more impressive seen large, so click the to zoom!)

In July, I visited Oregon for a week and this was my first "real" shooting trip with my infrared converted EOS-20D as well as my new EOS-30D. I had simply wonderful skies and perfect weather while I was there. An abundance of wildlife and wildflowers greeted my friend Bill and I, and apart from an intentional but generally unspectacular detour along BLM Route 6104 (Argh!... see "Area Info" for details), it was enjoyable and quite successful photographically. There are three separate galleries and more, so enjoy!

This time, I have left the images as colour infrared which gives a lovely deep blue sky. The first page of images was taken at Minnekhada Park on June 25th and the second page was in the Pitt Poulder area and almost right to Pitt Lake itself on July 1st, 2006.

Some more black & white infrared at the Cecil Green House, outside The Museum of Anthropology and in the Botanical Gardens, all at UBC.

A little bit out of order, I know... however I thought I should post this as there are a few nice macro shots in here.

What is notable is my unusual macro setup: a 50mm f/1.8 Canon lens, mounted on a short extension tube, mounted on a 1.4x teleconverter. This odd combination is quite sharp and what make it unusual is that normally one doesn't fit an etension tube between a lens and a teleconverter and as well, the 50mm lens would not actually fit on the teleconverter without it!

These are the first tests with my infrared converted Canon EOS-20D. The colour image was processed using a red-blue channel swap from the original colour infrared capture. All the other images were also captured as colour infrared but converted to black&white in post-processing.

My camera was converted by www.lifepixel.com which provided prompt service and excellent workmanship. With the converted camera, handheld shutter speeds are possible and no additional lens-mounted infrared filter is required.

 Puppies. Need I say more?

 (Admit it... you want one!)

Amazing flocks of shore-birds abound this time of year around the Boundary Bay area, with numbers likely in the tens of thousands. These birds put on the most amazing display that evening, with what seemed liked boundless energy. They swooped around for hours on end almost as though they were conscious of the show they were putting on! More than likely, they were just having a good time! Zoom in on the gallery images with the magnifier button to get a better impression of the astounding numbers of birds there were... and don't forget to check out the flyby movie!

Some more camera testing was in order this evening, with this gallery featuring the first images taken with my new EOS-30D in and around Stanley Park on April 4, 2006.

What do you get when you take my friend Julia, her competitive fencing talents, some tree climbing (in heels!), a brand new bride's maid dress and mix them together at the wonderfully scenic Lighthouse Park? Enter the gallery to find out! Needless to say, this um... unconventional combination drew some puzzled yet intrigued looks from several fellow park visitors...

- Updated March 30, 2006

The afternoon of March 11th, I spent several hours at the Reifel Island Migratory Bird Sanctuary. This time around, I saw quite a few interesting birds, including several beautiful and very colorful species of duck, sandhill cranes, a hawk, a large number of snow geese and finally, to top it all off, a very nice sunset. An afternoon well spent and much more successful than the last time I visited the sanctuary. Enjoy!

Despite the cold weather, I finally decided to motivate my butt outside and shoot my first gallery of the new year. These images were taken in the evening after sunset, along the False Creek seawall east of Granville Island.

While I'm on the topic of 2006, hope you all have a wonderful and successful New Year!

- Updated February 25, 2006

Gallery: Images of 2005

In here you will find galleries of photographs taken in 2005, including:

New Mexico 2005 - Main Gallery
Death Valley Bloom - Main Gallery
Florida 2005 - Everglades National Park & The Keys
Hannah and Christopher
Julia, Janina (and Luna too)
Brackendale Bald Eagles

Note that there are many more galleries than listed here, so follow the Images of 2005 link above to see them all!

Gallery: Images of 2004

In here you will find galleries of photographs taken in 2004, including:

Lower Mainland and Washington State
Oregon & California - June 2004
Oregon, Nevada & Utah - October 2004
Lunar Eclipse - October 27, 2004
Fiber-Optic Christmas Tree Abstracts

Calendars

Since 2001, I have designed and produced a yearly wall calendar with images from the previous year's travels. This gallery presents an archive of the 2001-2005 calendars. For the moment, the 2006 calendar galleries are linked near the top of this page.