rain Archives - Page 3 of 3 - Just Enough Focus

March 21, 2016

Invisible Rain

This is a section of Science World in Vancouver BC near the subway, people walk along here all hours of day or night. I have no idea where they go so early on a weekend. Maybe to work in the shops. More likely they wondered what I was doing out so early with a camera.

When I’m home I don’t go out in the rain, but when I come here I don’t mind. Funny how my brain works. Rain is good for photography and I never regret going out in it with a camera.

More night images from the gallery

Last night I was crossing a bridge back home in Florida and I was behind a big semi rig. The trailer had the name of the company but what I remembered was the city, Vancouver WA. Just north of Portland, that rig was a long way from home. It’s interesting how many cities have the same name. Ontario Canada has a couple of their own, Paris and London. Maybe they started as tributes. If a city did that now would they get sued for copywriter infringement?

The dark Vancouver mornings of January bring rain so regularly that it becomes invisible. I think people pay it little attention. It reminds me of living next to railroad tracks as a teenager, the first night it rattled my bones but after a while the trains just faded into the background. Isn’t it amazing what we become accustom to? Seems we only notice things that we consider unusual, but when they become normal they fade and recede into almost nothing.

February 11, 2016

Rainy Predawn Hours

This is from the rainy predawn hours of a winter day at Science World in Vancouver. It’s one of the more iconic buildings in the downtown core and at this hour seemed to me like something out of Blade Runner. Actually is wasn’t that early, only about 7:30 but the sun only shines for about four minutes in winter. That’s not true, but it feels like it.

I think that Canadians are a productive lot. With so much time to spend indoors they channel their energies into solving all kinds of problems. I think in general that’s true of countries with long dark winters. On the other hand, in places where it’s always warm, people seem less inclined to spend all that time indoors. Of course this is just a generalization and more than likely I’m wrong. There are a lot of productive people in India and it has a warm climate. Anyway…

Actually, this building is known as Telus Science World. Telus is one of the big phone companies in Canada. If you live in Canada or visit there, you will at once recognize Telus advertisements. They use all kinds of little furry cute exotic animals on posters and billboards. As an animal lover I like the ads and when I’m on a subway I spend a lot of time looking at them. I guess that means they work.

February 4, 2016

Post Holiday Colors

The Pacific Centre in Vancouver seems to be into the post holiday colors with a vengeance. There’s an enclosed bridge that goes over the street and it was all lit up in red. Add to that the reflections from the wet street and city lights and its too much for me to pass on. It looked like holiday lights but that was weeks before. I stood in the middle of traffic waiting for someone to cross the setting. Eventually someone did but by that time my camera and I were completely soaked. The things I do for a shot.

This was at the end of a mega-walk day, over 25000 steps according to my watch. But I was stoked nonetheless. By the time I got back to the hotel my camera started complaining and doing a funny things, I’m sure because it was so wet. I laid it down on the desk and went for dinner and by the time I got back it was fine. I suspect perhaps some moisture on the hot shoe. All in all I was pretty impressed that the SonyA7RII put up with the abuse I put it through this day.

I took a lot of photos from this spot, some I intentionally blurred. However this one was not blurred, I added the zoom effect in post production. I did that using both Photoshop and MacPhun Focus 2 Pro. For me the image is all about color and energy. The idea I had I’m my mind when I took this was a cacophony of colors all blurred together. The motion represents the energy of the city. This is just one of the many faces of Vancouver city life.

January 29, 2016January 29, 2016

Approaching Howe

A street scene as I was approaching Howe Street on a Saturday night in Vancouver. I’m waking along Robson which is where a lot happens, it’s the nerve center of shopping in Vancity. The rain is never a reason to stay indoors and from what I can tell people ignore it. That’s a good policy and it will serve you well. If you can’t beat it, join it with a raincoat and umbrella.

It was kind of funny actually. I found myself here with these amazing conditions early in the evening and got pretty excited. This is a street photographers dream because of the lights and rain slicked surfaces. I shifted into the zone as I looked for things to unfold all around. At one point I walked up and down this block several times just taking photos.

To get these street scenes at night it takes a very high ISO, especially if I’m shooting without a tripod. I used my Sony A7RII and set the ISO to 10000. That’s a lot of zeros and up until recently, this just a dream and nighttime photography like this was not even possible. Thanks to the advances from Sony new possibilities have opened up for people like me that like shooting in very low light.

Tech talk aside, just getting out with my camera on a raining day, no matter where, is likely to provide a lot of subject matter to explore. Fortunately for me there is no shortage of rain in Vancouver and, I have both a rain coat and an umbrella.

January 17, 2016

Urbex Rain Day

Saturday was an urbex rain day. Meaning that it was raining and I did a little urban exploration. I would say that pretty much every day is a rain day in Vancouver, but it’s that’s just how it is. For me it’s a perfect excuse to get out and shoot rainy scenes, totally awesome.

I live on the East Coast and I try to stay in that time zone when I travel west. The advantage is I wake up super early and that helps me get a good start on the day. When I come to Vancouver that means photography in the morning. So by the time the sun rises, which by the way it never does, I’ve already been out for a couple of hours. Bonus. The downside of course is I turn into a pumpkin at about seven in the evening. So as long as I do fun stuff in the morning or day, I’m good.

In this case the morning was rainy and as I said, totally awesome. Something about people with umbrellas makes for an interesting picture. I don’t really know what it is but I find it cool. We have umbrellas where I live, but people don’t walk where I live. They walk from the parking lot to the store, that’s most of it. So there are no busy streets with people dressed up carrying umbrellas. So anyway, I got a tonne of umbrella shots, maybe too many but I’ll worry about that later. For now, this is the first of my urbex umbrella shots.

June 15, 2015

Queenstown River Dock

Purchase Print

On a rainy day I walked around the Frankton Arm of Lake Wakatipu in Queenstown. This was in Autumn so the leaves were changing. At the higher elevation it was snowing and this location is at the foot of the Remarkables mountain range. So while it rained here, at higher elevations it snowed such that as the clouds cleared we were treated to pristine snow capped mountains. All in all it was a beautiful introduction to a beautiful country.