Archive For The “Photography” Category
An American robin eats a mountain ash berry in my backyard. (Robin Rowland)
This October was a great month to shoot birds in Kitimat, not only in my backyard, but on the ocean at Kitamaat Village and MK Bay Marina.
Dark-eyed junco, also enjoying the mountain ash berries among fall colours in early morning light. (Robin Rowland)
Three green winged teals in flight at the Kitamaat Village waterfront. (Robin Rowland)
A Great Blue Heron foraging at the Kitamaat Village waterfront. (Robin Rowland)
A Great Blue Heron foraging at the Kitamaat Village waterfront. (Robin Rowland)
A Great Blue Heron flies over Kitimat harbour. (Robin Rowland)
Ducks in a row. Widgeons and Mallards on the Kitamaat Village waterfront. (Robin Rowland)
Widgeons and Mallards on the Kitamaat Village waterfront. (Robin Rowland)
A murder of crows over Kitamaat harbour. (Robin Rowland)
A bald eagle over Kitimat harbour. (Robin Rowland)
Herring gull in a rainy Wahtl Creek. (Robin Rowland)
A northern flicker on the wires overlooking my backyard. (Robin Rowland)
The moon, October 28. (Robin Rowland)
The weather was cold and clear in Kitimat at the end of October, which give me three days of opportunity to photograph the full Hunter’s Moon that was also close to the planet Jupiter.
The close shots of the Moon and Jupiter were shot with my Sony Alpha 7II and a Sigma 100-499mm lens (not a telescope). Wider shots with a couple of other Sony cameras.
Moon rise October 27
The moon rises over my front yard, with Jupiter the small white dot to the left.
Jupiter through a telephoto lens. (Robin Rowland)
A closer image of Jupiter (Robin Rowland)
Moonrise October 28
The moon rising over Albatross Ave, Kitimat, with Jupiter a faint dot to the lower left. (Robin Rowland)
The moon and Jupiter exposed so the details of the moon are visible. Jupiter is faint dot to the lower centre left. (Robin Rowland)
The moon and Jupiter exposed so that Jupiter is more visible (Robin Rowland)
Moonset October 29
Jupiter is about to set in the mountains overlooking Kitimat. (Robin Rowland)
The moon over the mountains later that morning. (Robin Rowland)
The Hunter’s Moon about to set. (Robin Rowland)
American Kestrel (falco sparverius)
I’m starting to go through my archives looking for bird photographs that I took casually before I became a more enthusiastic bird photographer. These are from my visit to the Caribbean island of Montserrat where I went in March 2007 to shoot the volcano.
American Kestrel (falco sparverius)
Gray kingbird (tyrannus dominicenis)
Gray kingbird (tyrannus dominicenis)
Juvenile cattle egret (bubulcus ibis)
Zenaida Dove (zenaida aurita)
A chicken.
A couple of roosters.
The 99.9% waning super blue moon is seen over Kitimat on the morning of Sept. 1, 2023 at 6:38 am. (Robin Rowland)
August 2023’s super blue moon was full on August 31, but in Kitimat the sky was heavily overcast with rain up until the moon rise that evening when the moon was 99.9% warning
Early on the morning of September 1, the sky was partly cloudy and the dawn allowed me to photograph the moon over Kitimat and Douglas Channel.
The moon is seen over Kitimat and the Channel at 5:42 am (Robin Rowland)
The super moon at 6:28 am (Robin Rowland)
A wider view of Douglas Channel at 6:34 a.m. (Robin Rowland)
The moon at 6:37 am (Robin Rowland)
The moon at 6:37 am (Robin Rowland)
Douglas Channel at 7:32 am, after the moon had set. (Robin Rowland)
The 99.9% blue super moon rises over Albatross Ave, August 31. (Robin Rowland)
The moon rises over Albatross Ave. (Robin Rowland)
And earlier
The moon on August 27. (Robin Rowland)
There was so much smoke on August 25 that the moon was barely visible. (Robin Rowland)
A selection of some of my bird photographs so far for the summer of 2023
Steller’s jay on my backdeck on a sunny afternoon, August 24, 2023 (Robin Rowland)
On August 24, there was a three hour power failure in Kitimat. With not much else to do and because it was a sunny and warm afternoon I sat out on my back deck. One of the steller’s jays that lives in the cedar trees beside my deck decided to join me.
On August 25, a flock of cedar waxwings, most of them juveniles, descended on the trees in my backyard to sample the berries.
Cedar waxwings sampling the berries in my backyard. (Robin Rowland)
Canada geese over Minette Bay,
Canada geese crossing Kitimat’s Minette Bay, photographed from Minette Bay West Park, August 18. (Robin Rowland)
On August 2, I drove to the old Eurocan pulp mill site, where there is an osprey nest, and then drove a few kilometres on where luckily at Kitimat harbour I captured one of the ospreys hunting.
Osprey nest, old Eurocan site, Kitimat, August 2, 2023 (Robin Rowland)
Osprey hunting over Kitmat harbour, August 2, 2023 (Robin Rowland)
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Super moon over Kitimat BC at 5:15 am, August 2, 2023. Most of the lights are from the LNG Canada construction project. (Robin Rowland)
Black and white version of the same super moon shot (Robin Rowland)
August sturgeon super moon over Kitimat, 5:13 a.m. August 2, 2023. (Robin Rowland)
The supermoon over Kitimat and the LNG project earlier at 4:30 a.m. (Robin Rowland)
Waxing 97 per cent super moon rising over Kitimat, July 31 (Robin Rowland)
Sunset over Kitimat and Douglas Channel, July 31, 2023 (Robin Rowland)
A week or so ago, I was going through box and box of old photos in the collection of my late mother, Catherine Rowland (nee Hill). Almost all of the images are people photos, my mother, her brother, parents and friends from 1914, when she was born, until the Second World.
I was surprised to find among all those photos two small shots of the Canadian War Memorial at Vimy Ridge in France.
It commemorates the battle where the Canadian Corps assaulted German lines at Vimy Ridge during the offensive of the Battles of Arras in 1917.
The memorial was planned in the early 1920s to mark the Canadian contribution in the horrors of the First World War. It was built on a foundation 11,000 tonnes of steel reinforced concrete with 6,000 tonnes of Seget limestone brought from Crotia to create the twin pylons.
Now here is the mystery, as far as I know my mother had no known connection to Canada until our family moved to Canada in 1951. It is likely that either my mother, or her brother, John Hill, took the photos on a trip to France, perhaps soon after the memorial’s completion in late 1935 and before the official opening by King Edward VIII, French President Albert Lebrun and Prince Arthur of Connaught on July 26, 1936 (which also would have been my mother’s 22nd birthday).
The original photos were small, probably direct prints from the (lost?) original negatives, about two inches on the longest side. The original prints were enlarged, enhanced and restored in PhotoShop. Restoration copyright 2023 by Robin Rowland.
The cloudy day creates an interesting atmopshere to the shots of the twin pylons.
The twin pylons at Vimy Ridge. (Catherine or John HIll, restored by Robin Rowland)
A 1930s image of Vimy Ridge. (Catherine or John Hill, restored by Robin Rowland)
The original photo (Robin Rowland)