Vancouver in the fall

acer, English Bay, Vancouver

I am just returned from a trip to vancouver.

Visiting my family who choose to live somewhere that offers so mny opportunities for outdoor enthusiasts.

I spent the week doing very ordinary things, which gave more pleasure than you can imagine. Family beats everything in my book.

It happened to be fall..... and now I feel that this is a much more appropriate name than autumn.

For fall it was.

acer leaves, Stanley park

leaves on Beaver lake

autumn colours at Beaver lake

fallen leaves, Stanley park

The advantage of visiting in autumn is that dawn is long after a jetlaggged person wakes up. Cool pinks and blues on offer.

Dawn, Vancouver

dawn, Vancouver sea wall

Gingko trees had almost finished shedding their leaves.

gingko fall

But it was the variations in shapes and colours that really interested me.

autumn leaves, Stanley park

As the week progressed, the weather turned colder, and snow arrived on the mountains.

A tiny bit landed in the city, and highlighted this spider's web.

Beaver Lake on a cold, grey day

lillies, Beaver lake

autumn colours, Beaver lake

I spent happy hour around Beaver lake in the cold, playing with multiple exposure and then some regular images of the bare and dead trees.

Stark contrast to the colours down below , photographed agaisnt a leaden grey sky.

treetops, Beaver lake

treetops

I made my way back through the forest and out into the city.

last leaves

autumn leaves, Stanley park

I am home now, and back to reality. OH ( my other half) has had a tooth out, so I am feeding him with vegetarian meals on the pretext that it is 'soft' food.

I'll probably get away with it for no more than a couple of days.....

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For more images from Beaver Lake see here

polar bears and pandas, dolphins and poodles, meercats and monkeys

'simples'

I have decided to become a wildlife photographer.

Having been to the zoo in San Diego and then seen the moon set and the sun rise over the ocean whilst dolphins frolic near the shore it is clear that animals are the way to go.

No more of this fancy grass stuff.

shades of grey © caroline fraser 

No more empty horizons.

dawn 

Just polar bears and pandas, dolphins and poodles ( well the poodles were in palm springs, which figures).

Here are the polar bears.

They weren't doing much.

polar bears in san diego zoo

Here are their carrots.

carrots for polar bears

And here is their swimming pool

pool for polar bears

As you can see I have paid good attention to their habits and habitat.

But carrots?

Are you serious?

As you can see I really didn't have the right zoom lens with me to capture the animals , and the glass walls were a problem………….

Bonobo watching the tourists

I really don't like seeing animals in captivity, however much the preservation of the species is at stake

cute or not,

rare as a giant panda or common as hens teeth

So back to nature then.





Back at the beach I really did enjoy the dawn flight of pelicans over the ocean

pelicans

I watched them from the shore, sitting on a beach chair, so could never have passed as a wildlife photographer as I had no telephoto lens with me on this trip and was wearing a dressing gown.

Best of all was an hour spent watching a pod of dolphins swim around the bay, stopping the surfers in this tracks, taking their minds off the waves that bring them out at 6am before breakfast.

dolphin dawn;  it's not about the picture ( which clearly doesn't cut the mustard)

This magical way to see the day commence more than compensated for the complete failure to capture the dolphins as a photographer.

These images are memory joggers for special moments spent in the quiet of the day before the rest of the world appeared; of no interest to anyone who wasn't there



photos are not the only fruit.





it's all about the memories


whether they be the smell of the guano and the cacophony of sound from seals, pelicans and sealions

David Attenborough where were you?

or the tranquillity of the early dawning day.

moons at dawn