End of rant – flip tape to side B. In an effort to jump-start this blog and help those interested in furthering their photography skills, I’ll be sharing the techniques used to take specific photos. I won’t bore you too much with where and what, but if you’re interested in that sort of stuff the last paragraph covers the history of the tug.

How?
July 2nd, 2007 at 9:22PM – long after sunset. As with all photos taken at night the first challenge was light; how to compensate for the lack of it or how to add it. The typical approach would simply be a long exposure shot. Using a long exposure leaves the shutter of the camera open for a longer duration allowing light to reach the camera’s sensor. The side effect of having the shutter open for longer periods of time is that any movement in the frame is blurred, this includes any movement of the camera – a tripod is a must! There is no possible way anyone can hand hold a camera perfectly still for a full second or longer.
When photographing water a long exposure can yield great results, leaving the water surface completely blurred looking very much like ice and retaining any subtle reflections. However, the main subject in this photo, the tug, is on the water and is constantly moving, meaning in a long exposure the tug would be blurred and not at all sharp.
Unable to add light through a long exposure the only option was to use a flash, or rather a few of them. Having already decided on the general composition, three Canon 580ex’s were placed to the right of frame on individual stands ten feet off the ground with each flash about ten feet from each other. All three flashes were set to manual, full power 1/1, and 50mm.

Way back in 2007 a camera’s ability to create a noise free photo at high ISO’s was not all too great. Noise is all those unwanted little multi coloured pixels/grain that appear in a photo when using high ISO’s . Using an ISO of 100 should eliminate any chance of noise in a photo. Having no choice in cameras, the trusty Canon EOS 20D would suffice and the Canon 16-35mm 2.8 L would be wide enough to convey the scale of the tug amongst its surroundings. For the final two variables I set the shutter speed to 1/160th of a second to freeze any movement of the boat and set the aperture to f/3.2 as the 16-35mm is not known to be overly sharp wide open at f/2.8.
On a side note – seven months earlier I had tried to capture this photo and did not come away with the results I had envisioned. With the tide significantly lower, numerous dock pilings stood tall out of the water partially obscuring the tug. And 11:00pm in January is considerably darker than 9:30pm in February, at least in the northern hemisphere. Also I only had access to two Canon 420ex’s, which have nowhere near the maximum output capacity of the newer Canon 580ex’s.
2nd Chance
Or third chance in this case. If I could take this photo again I wouldn’t change too much in the way of composition. It would be great to have a clear night and try to incorporate the stars into the shot. And with advances in digital CMOS sensors, cameras can create photos with acceptable amounts of noise at higher ISO’s – so I would be inclined to try using an ISO of 400 or even 800. As for light, it would be great to fire off a few Meggaflash pf300′s with their 6 million lumens of light, which in turn would allow for a much larger depth of field.

Where and What?
Best known as the Seaspan Chinook, this old tug spent the last five years of her life tide up at the docks of Britannia Beach. Unfortunately on May 9th 2008 in the middle of the night she sank, slipping into the depths of Howe Sounds. She began her life in 1944, built at the Wheeler Shipbuilding Corporation in Whitestone, New York and was commissioned as the USS ATR-64. After four years of service in the Asiatic-Pacific Theatre during World War II, she was sold to the Canadian Transport Company Ltd. in Vancouver and was renamed Logmac. The years following saw many names and many owners; Mogul, Island Manarch, La Lumiere, and finally the Seaspan Chinook. However, in the 1990’s she was resold to the Maritime Heritage Society of Vancouver and was again renamed the La Lumiere.

These ‘tips and tricks’ posts will, time willing, become a weekly series and they won’t all begin with rant… hopefully. If you there are photo’s featured on my site you’d like explained, please feel free to make suggestions through the contact page.

Following on the heels of the last post and the countless hiking trails Manning Park offers, I figured a hike closer to home would also be good. And on this hump day I figured Mount Seymour’s first hump/peak seemed appropriate. This is a hike I endured rather often in my childhood and it had been sometime since making the trek. So, it came as a surprise to encounter so many people along the trail; it felt more like the Grouse Grind on a week day. Nevertheless, the hike is totally worth it as the view at the top is spectacular. Looking East you can see a ways up Indian are and out to Port Moody. To the North is Garibaldi Provincial Park, to the South is Burnaby and Vancouver, and to the West is Georgia Straight and Vancouver Island. One suggestion, if you undertake this hike in late August – bring plenty of bug spray unless you’re in need of some extra protein. Even in the heat of summer you’re likely to encounter large patches of snow, so be prepared to get your snow man’ing, snow balling, and snow angel’ing on. If you’re interested in this hike check out VancouverTrails.com for some more great information.

This second photo is of a very unique frog found along the west coast of North America. Listed as endangered, the red legged frog requires still water for breeding and will not travel far distances from a water source. Adult red legged frogs may grow to 8cm in length and are easily identified by the distinct red colouration found on the underside of their hind legs.

Entered the voice of reason, the Vancouver Police Department. They’re all for adding more intersection safety cameras, pedestrian countdown timers, longer walk times, and those annoying speed reader boards. However, at the recent council meeting debating pedestrian safety in the DTES the VPD said ” collision data suggested that the majority of pedestrian fatalities were because of pedestrian error rather than excessive speed.” So really the Vancouver City Council should be more worried about how much it’s going to cost to put all the residents of the DTES through pedestrian traffic school. Or as an alternative they could take a page from their magical bike lane projects and build a ten foot tall chain link fence between the road and side walk.

Councillor Ellen Woodsworth noted the stretch is a dangerous combination of speeding motorists using Hastings as a route into downtown and many pedestrians who are elderly, or struggle with mental health, addiction and drinking issues. That’s like saying you’ve got two choices: either climb Mount Everest or jog around the block. Really I think city council is missing the major issue here, it’s not the speeding motorists who have been given two or three lame options by the city of Vancouver’s aging infrastructure, the issue is why are there such a large number of ‘pedestrians’ with mental health, addiction and drinking issues? Shouldn’t the city council be more worries about how to provide better care for these individuals struggling with countless issue?

The article detailing the traffic mess of the DTES was posted on the Vancouver Sun website at 5:22am and 2½ hours later had 30 comments. One reader wrote “The problem is that intoxicated addicts wander and at times run into the traffic. If you stop and watch the street for about 9 seconds you can see these guys on bikes ride up to addicts. The addicts exchange money for drugs. The dealer rides off. It’s not complicated to figure out who distributes drugs in the area. Where are the police?” The answer to the last bit; VPD Inspector Ted Schinbein stated “We have less resources than we did last year. We`re doing the best we can with the resources we have.” So instead of pouring money down the drain with silly traffic calming crap, maybe Vancouver city council should pony the dough for a few more men and women in blue!

It’s not every day that the sea otters at the Vancouver Aquarium get huge delicious red sea urchins and by not every day, what I really mean is more like once or twice a year! So when they actually get the chance to munch on a couple of massive prickily urchins they go nuts. The otters simply squeeze the urchin until the bottom colapses and they are able to gain access to the tasty urchin insides. If you just can`t get enough of these uber cute otters check out the Otter Cam.

 Update – Another day, another urchin lunch!