Author: chris

Love on a bike

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They were holding hands before

I had a surreal experience the other night on my way home from work. It was below freezing, but I was riding hard enough to feel warm, and wondering whether it’s realistic to believe that I might get hot enough to kill some of the germs that are trying to give me a cold. And whether the winter cycling gloves I got this year are really as much less warm than my old ones as I think they are.

A pair of cyclists ahead were holding me off quite well, which makes them faster than the average in this town. I made sure not to slacken my own pace too much, to test whether they were keeping it up or just having a burst of energy. They kept it up.

Then they reached out and held hands.

I still couldn’t catch up.

Note: I couldn’t get my camera out fast enough to actually catch them doing it, and besides that there are obvious problems with the photos.  You’ll just have to use your imagination.

Squiggles

Road noise

This could be described as, in a way, the opposite of using a tripod.

The sun came out over the snowdrops

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Snowdrops

Here’s what they looked like in the middle of February.  A crowd of intrepid little pods poking out of the soggy carpet of leaves.  I can almost see them shivering.

Snowdrops

Galanthus nivalis. Wikipedia to the rescue again.

Snowdrops

Today, it was like they were having a party on the beach.

Snowdrops

The sun came out over them, and they were just lettin’ it all hang out.

Snowdrops

Dancing to music only flower ears can hear.

Snowdrops

They just look like they’re having fun.

My shadow

Me too.  Here’s a shot of me trying to take a picture of myself.  Must have had too many margaritas at the flower party.  Actually, I thought I’d be clever and take a photo to see if I could locate the bug in my eye.  A sure sign spring cycling is just around the corner!  I couldn’t tell if the camera was going to take a photo or not, and gave up holding it in front of my face.  Turned out it was planning to take one, just taking its time about it.

Green tree in the sun

I took pictures near this spot a week ago.  My eyes were so happy to have all this colour reflected into them.  Turns out when they’re not sodden, these trees are actually green, even without their leaves!

Green tree closer

I don’t know if that’s healthy or not.

New camera, cold day

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leaves

OK, well, I’m not quite ready to talk about it in detail, but I had an epiphany during a particularly frustrating session of taking blurry photos of G, and bought a new camera.  I feel like a bit of a traitor to my Panasonic LX3, I feel like I spent too much money in absolute terms, I feel like I bought the wrong brand (but the right model at the best price point at this point in time).  I’m also getting faster shutter speeds in low light and that means fewer blurry photos of my offspring, who, at a bit over a year old, for some reason often declines to pause what she’s doing and smile for a picture.  She sure knows the word “camera” though.  OK, “camama” most of the time.  That’s from me saying “where’s my camama?” ten times a day.  I do that to throw her off so she won’t get too far ahead of her peers, vocabularily.

leaves2

I’m aware that the reason I can almost justify buying a new camera is essentially that I don’t want to miss those “[Brand name] moments” (that’s not the brand I bought) with my daughter, but I’m having a whole lot of fun with the thing when I’m free to point it at other interesting objects as well.

snow

Take the other day as an example.  I got stuck outside during a bit of a snow…flurry.  I can’t bring myself to call it a snowstorm despite the traffic chaos it caused.  Besides, it was turning to slush as soon as it hit the ground.  It was cool enough to be uncomfortable for just standing around.  Luckily, I had my new camera with me!

snow2

I took pictures of the things in my immediate vicinity until I couldn’t stand the cold wet hands (uh, mine — there wasn’t any sort of horror movie aspect to this episode).

cup

I got the camera out again when I got to work and pointed it at other things, like the cup of hot chocolate I so desperately needed when I finally got there.  I needed something to practice my manual focusing skillz on.

park

This?  Oh, this is just one of those moments.