Thursday, May 31, 2007

Still Moment at Vaseux Lake


The drive from Kelowna south to Osoyoos is filled with many of my favourite places to photograph. When first travelled to the Okanagan Valley in 2004, I was stunned by the fact that the landscape resembled the south-western US, but was north of the 49th parallel. Vasseux Lake is located along Highway 97, just north of Oliver. It is surrounded by impressive canyon-like cliffs.
When I took this photograph, I was chatting on the phone with my sister-in-law Ilean. We were catching up on family stuff, and suddenly the breeze fell still, creating this wonderful reflection on the lake. Knowing that the air would move again at any moment, I quickly ended the call, promising to send the best photo from the spot I was while talking to her. Well, here it is at last!

Wednesday, May 23, 2007

Reflecting on Louise


I hesitate each time I include personal content on this blog. Its original intent was to keep me motivated to photograph for pleasure on a more regular basis, something that it has definitely helped me with. However, a lot of the traffic on the site is also family and friends, checking in to see what I'm up to. So, today, I am going to use this entry to write about someone I want you to remember - my friend, Louise Gonsalves.

Given that this is a photography blog, I'm going to use the context of one of my favourite images to tell the story.

Louise lost her battle against cancer two years ago today. I remember when I received the call, I was beside myself for missing her last day. I had returned to Toronto from Cambridge to start packing for my relocation to Kelowna. There was so much going on at the time, it was difficult to know what to do, where to be, what was going to happen next. When I hung up the phone, I paced around my apartment in circles, waiting for the train wreck to happen. When it didn't, I sat down at the same laptop I'm writing on now, and wrote Louise a letter. I felt like I was communicating with her directly. When I re-read the letter tonight, I am surprised at how closely I described my feelings, for I now know that I was in shock at the time.

When Louise died, I not only lost a "best friend", I lost the biggest fan of my photography. Six months earlier, I had photographed her wedding and family portraits, a bitter-sweet experience, as that was when we all realized her illness had advanced much further than she had been letting on. Over the course of her funeral, I was reminded by her relatives how much we used to push each other as children - in school and in sports. Looking back I realize that as adults, our support of each other in our respective businesses and creative pursuits was the mature version of our school-yard, sidewalk and bus-stop antics. I know she would have been a regular reader of this blog and been after me when I fall behind my weekly commitment.

I have missed Louise incredibly over the course of the past two years. It has been very difficult to not be able to pick up the phone whenever I please. The moments when I feel somehow connected to her have been few and far between, but they have been important and I hope there will be more of them.

The moment I squeezed the shutter on the image I chose to go with this entry was one of those too rare occasions. I was en route to Kelowna, with my dog and cameras packed in my car. It was my last night on the road and probably the first time I stopped to take a breath in the whirlwind following Louise's death, and selling or packing everything I owned. The irony that I was at Lake Louise was not lost on me then, nor is it now.

Exhausted after four days of driving, I had left Brandy in the hotel room and went for a walk to the village. The sun was obscured by heavy cloud, but I stopped and sat on a bridge railing at the side of the road, facing west. The moment I let my mind go quiet and thought of Louise, the sun burst out from behind the clouds, sending rays of light in all directions. I don't remember whether I had my camera with me or not - that moment was just for me, and it made me feel like everything was going to be all right. I went to bed early, ready for my last day on the road to my new home.

The next morning, my alarm went off before 5 am. I had set it the night before, intending to head up to the lake and see what I could do with my camera before hitting the road for the last day long drive. I was bone tired, and pushed the snooze button at least once before I heard this familiar voice in my head say "Well, you're not much of a photographer if you stay in bed - for God's sake, you've got one morning and you're at Lake
Louise!"

That was all the encouragement I needed. I was out of bed like a shot!

I miss you Lou; we all do.

(I have posted my original letter from May 23, 2005, read at Louise's funeral, and a few pictures here: Friends for Life )

Wednesday, May 16, 2007

A Very Close Encounter


I'm going to start this entry by explaining that my exposure to and experience with wildlife has been minimal - until now, that is. In fact, I was starting to believe that I must have some inherent wildlife repellent, because I haven't seen anything bigger than a mole since moving to British Columbia almost two years ago. (Well, there were those rather docile mountain goats...) All of that changed last Sunday. I took the day to drive Highway 3 all the way through Osoyoos to Vancouver in my new vehicle.

As I rounded a corner on the highway, I saw several cars pulled over to the side - an automatic signal that something is worth seeing in this neck of the woods. I followed suit, and was shocked to see this massive brown bear with a magnificent coat foraging in a clearing adjacent to the road. As it happened, I had the right lens on my camera, laying on the passenger seat. Not knowing how long the opportunity would last, I grabbed it, popped open the sunroof and climbed on up. There was NO WAY I was going to leave the car. The bear was 30 meters away at most. Well Mr Bear was pretty darn comfortable because he wasn't going anywhere. He (or she) put on quite a show, eating buckets full of grass right before our eyes. If these pictures are a little soft, it's because I was shaking like a leaf from both fear and excitement.


In front of me was a family driving a large truck. The father (Chris) was standing on the top of the storage box he had on the flat bed, a full metre or two higher than I could get, even if I stood on the armrest of my new "sissy truck". The bear was on slightly higher ground, and he had the better vantage point, by far. The bear didn't seem to be threatened, so when Chris and his wife (Chrissy) said, "You can climb up here if you want", I left the protective shell of my vehicle and climbed on up. (Chris and Chrissy, If you are reading, thanks so much - all of these images were taken from your truck.)


Ten, fifteen minutes went by, and we were happily chatting about how amazing this was, when the bear became suddenly attentive to something. We turned to look, and a man was APPROACHING THE BEAR!!$%$**!! Grizzly Adams himself had climbed down the ditch at the side of the road, and up the embankment, waving his cell phone camera out in front of him like a protective shield. Proving once again, that many people are dumber than animals, he had spooked the bear. I had never seen a bear run before, and I hope to never again. At least it went in the direction AWAY FROM THE PEOPLE. Perhaps what Mr Adams didn't realize was that the money shot was not going to be his low resolution phone picture of the bear, but my close-up of him being mauled. Honestly!!!


The bear didn't go very far, but he had moved out of good camera range. I stayed around just in case it came back, but had to be satisfied with what I had got. I climbed back into the driver's seat and went along my way. A couple of kilometers later, I saw one of the same vehicles pulled over to the side again, with this darker, smaller bear standing straight up, not even 20 feet from their car. Up through the sunroof I went, camera in hand again. It was all rather surreal. This bear was a lot closer, and a lot more active, so I took my pictures and left fairly quickly.


On Monday morning I sent the pictures to friends in Kelowna to help identify whether or not the first bear was a young grizzly. Here's the feedback I got from Jason who has seen his fair share of bears:

"Saw the pictures of the black bears you took. Very nice pictures and those are very nice (and big) bears. The brown phase black bear sure has a beautiful coat. They are just starting to rub that winter coat off so it’s fortunate to get pictures of them in their full coat.

Some of the tell tale signs that they are black bears (as opposed to grizzlies) is the pointed face, narrow fairly pointed ears, no shoulder hump and white chest blaze. Not all black bears have the white chest blaze but no grizzly bears do. They can be just as dangerous as grizzlies though so stay close to your car!!"

My education continues.....

Sunday, May 13, 2007

Tomson Lake


Last week I went on a drive north of Kelowna to scout for images later in the season. On the way back, I stopped in an area along Highway 97, just south of Vernon that I had wanted to photograph for quite some time. The light was all wrong and I was on a timeline, so I had to pass through with without what I was seeking.

On impulse, I turned off the highway at Predator Ridge, an incredible golf course I'll play without embarassing myself one day. Not too far along the road was this surprise find - Tomson Lake. It's a small lake, but the one "Group of Seven" tree, reaching for the sun was enough to put my foot on the brake and turn the car around.