Photography

Winner in Canadian Geographic Photo Competition

Posted by Eden

My photograph, “Lake Louise Magic”, has won first place in The Canadian Geographic Magazine annual photo competition in the category of Canadian Landscapes.  This shot was taken last fall when 7 of us went to Lake Louise to visit my sons Jordan and Tyler who both live and work there.  The young man is my nephew, Jasper.  He is in a constant state of motion but he actually sat down and stared when he noticed the majestic beauty before him.  His magic wand/globe had just been given to him by the concierge.

First Encounter

Doritos Commercial

Posted by Eden

This short video was produced for the Doritos Crash the Superbowl competition.  My son Perry and nephew Jasper are the stars.

We are out of the competition now but it was fun pulling it together and I think the young men did a fabulous job.

 

The Hungry Heron

Posted by Eden

Hungry-Heron I finally took the plunge and bought a telephoto lens (Canon EF 100 – 400mm f4.5-5.6).  This series of shots of the Blue Heron at McKenzie Marsh catching and eating a fish is the first return on that rather extravagant investment.  The lens is quite heavy so I have limited ability to hand hold it and it’s probably not practical to travel with it.  For this shot, I had it on a monopod.

Roadtrip to Pelee Island

Posted by Eden

Lake EriePelee Island, located in Lake Erie, the southern-most town in Canada (at the same latitude as N. Pelee IslandCalifornia), has long been a place of curiousity for me.  It started with the tales of butterflies by the thousands passing through on their migration journey although, perhaps the notion of visiting the winery helped as well.  Or maybe it was the picture of the monarch butterfly on the Pelee Island wine bottles… anyway, I really wanted to check this place out – and so we did.

The roadtrip to Pelee Island involved an overnight stay at the Windsor Casino so that we could get to the ferry in Kingsville early in the morning.  An hour and a half ferry ride and we arrived to a scorching hot day on the Island.

I have to confess to some disappointment at not being swarmed by butterflies upon my arrival. (No doubt,  a naive expectation). Certainly, over the course of our visit, I did see a number of butterflies, mostly Monarchs, a couple of yellow Swallowtails, and lots of smaller ones in gardens and around the island but we were early for the migration.  And apparently Point Pelee (the conservation area on the mainland) actually gets the larger swarms during the migration period in later September.

Pelee Island is a quaint little island without a town centre.  There are smatterings of inns and restaurants, one gift shop, and of course, the Pelee Island Winery.  We did the obligatory tour which was most interesting when we got out of the heat and into the cellar to sample the wine.  I quite enjoyed the Pinot Gris and Gamay Noir, both of which were purchased and since enjoyed at home.

As we were on the Island mid-week and there were limited restaurants and especially gluten-free options, we left early on our day of departure to check out Point Pelee Conservation Area.  Not enough time, too much to see.  I definitely want to return there for a visit when the butterflies are passing through in either fall or spring.  One of the highlights of the trip was the Point Pelee Marsh and Boardwalk as you will see in one of the photos below.  Absolutely breathtakingly beautiful!

Clifton Screening in York Region

Posted by Eden

A “Best of” collage from some of the Clifton short films, along with some new footage, was submitted to the Multimedia Film Festival of York Region (http://www.yorkregionfilmfestival.com/).  Selected films are shown at various venues around the region.

I just found out that on May 7th, “Clifton” has been selected to screen at the Aurora Cultural Centre along with 16 other short films.

I must confess to being a touch squeamish about this showing as, for the first time, I put myself on camera to pull the various stories together, playing Clifton’s frustrated neighbour “Janet”.  I have preferred to hide behind the camera up until now.  ðŸ™‚

Here is the film that will be showing:

https://vimeo.com/85310688

March 2014 News

Posted by Eden

Everywhere I go, I’m hearing people grumbling, like an echo of my inner voice.  “When is this winter going to end?”  The snowbanks have been higher than I’ve seen here in years.  Shovelling was particularly challenging because there was just no where to put the snow with the snow along the driveway as tall as I am.  Today, we have above zero temperatures and rain is coming so hopefully we will experience spring in the next couple of weeks.  It will be such a joy when the weather is more hospitable, the birds are singing and the snow is gone.

Here are a few photographs in a series I call “Nature’s Etchings” of a log with some intricate scratchings on it as a result of travelling down Silver Creek until it got lodged across the creek behind our Collingwood house.

Vision Speak News

A lot of people have been asking me lately about my novel.  Until recently, I have to admit that I have been neglecting “Vision Speak” and have not been involved with any activities related to promoting it.  Two small announcements in this area:

1) I have decided to pull the podcast of “Vision Speak”.  Although there were steady downloads, I’ve not had any evidence that it’s really helping to drive sales or interest and, as I never finished with the podcast, it seemed time to move on.  I am so busy in so many different areas, that it’s time to focus.

2) I am working with a small script-writing group and my project is to create a bible for a TV series for “Vision Speak” along with the pilot script.  I hope to have this done before summer and then will look into selling it.

I’ve also been very busy with my IT/business pursuits – more on this on my Future Day site.

Dummy Downhill Race 2014

Posted by Eden

Alpine’s annual dummy downhill race on Festival Day was on March 15th this year and the theme was ‘Jungle’.  Some years, we’ve had warm weather for this event but true to form for this winter, it was cold and snowy which is why a lot of video was shot from a window in the upper floors.  Also there is a bit of footage taken by our dummy. He had a camera mounted on his base as he made his way to the bottom.  Again this year, due to my brother Randy’s engineering, our Jungle Fury Power Ranger was the fastest down the hill.  My nephew, Jasper, is a big fan of the Power Rangers so he and his mother Rebecca designed the dummy.

https://vimeo.com/89330769