Photography

Costa Rican Adventure

Posted by Eden

An escape to the Central American country of Costa Rica was the perfect cure for a long, cold, white winter in the Toronto area.  We went to an all-inclusive resort on the Pacific side, near Liberia (the Riu).  Iguanas roamed the property and beaches and howler monkeys lived in the forest behind the resort.  Looking for monkeys and trying to photograph them were one of my challenges on this trip. http://robertrobb.com/2015/07/ cialis from india If men have acute prostatitis, due to the inflammation, men can also experience dreaminess, hypomnesis and other psychasthenia symptoms. Anxiety bargain prices tab viagra and pressure of performing often discourages erection. Most of the health the buy cialis professionals recommend for 100mg dosage as a superior one for the people facing erectile dysfunction is Sildenafil citrate. It is for this reason that the developing industries are not expending much on investigation and brand endorsement activities for these pills. cialis india price is a recently expanded category of generic medicines.  Very dark, moving creatures, high up in the trees in the shadows with bright light behind make it very difficult to capture the details.  So, in searching for  monkeys between the back of the resort, the forest near the ‘monkey bar’ and an excursion to the Borinquen retreat for ziplining and mudbaths in the spa, I tried desperately to catch their faces.  Out of about 50 pictures, a few are worthy of posting here.  I also have video of various wildlife and ziplining (which absolutely terrified me!) so a video collage will be posted soon.

Clifton Wins Again

Posted by Eden

Last night was the Awards Gala for the Wasaga Beach Short Film Festival.

My short film – “Clifton Finds a Party” – won the Platinum (first place) Award for the Drama/Comedy category.

I want to thank all of the talented actors who participated in this film, some of whom were performing in front of the camera for the first time.  Producing/Directing/Writing/Editing these short films has been a great educational journey for me.  As I said in my acceptance speech last night, I am really a writer first.  This emerging film festival has been a great opportunity for me to explore story telling with this medium.  The next step forward will involve finding some partners to produce better quality films for my stories in future but wearing all the hats in this first stage has been a great way to start.

Some pictures from the afternoon showings of the films and the evening event:

Ice Storm

Posted by Eden

With Christmas only 3 days away, ice is wreaking havoc on many family gatherings.  We were to host 20 for Christmas dinner today and only a couple were able to make it with the dangerous driving conditions in southern Ontario in addition to widespread power outages from the ice storm.  Our own power in Aurora went off at 8:30am and came back online at around 2:30pm.  The 21 pound turkey needed to be cooked so we had to barbecue it.

But while the ice was not a friend to travellers, it was beautiful.

 

Garage Graffiti Clean-Up

Posted by Eden

After 10 years of letting kids, teenagers, and now young adults write all over the walls with chalk in this ski tuning/storage/dart room in our garage in Collingwood, we had to clean it up as we are renting our weekend retreat for the ski season, for the first time ever.  It’s been an unbelievable amount of work getting it ready, removing personal belongings, purging, cleaning, etc…and this video shows just one of the milestones in this month long effort.  It was definitely not as quick as this timelapse video makes it appear! :0

Western Adventure

Posted by Eden

With two sons – Jordan and Tyler – both living and working in Lake Louise, Alberta, we made another trip west with plans for a roadtrip  to see Jasper.  Doug and I were joined by extended family – my parents Ola and Camille and my sister Rebecca, her husband Mike and adorable little rascal, Jasper.  (Yes we went to Jasper with Jasper).

It was a busy trip and I was still recovering from surgery with a raspy whisper of a voice but everyone put up with me.  In Lake Louise, we had beautiful rooms with amazing views of Lake Louise thanks to Jordan’s help with the reservations.  The first night we had a gourmet meal at the Fairview which is the restaurant where Jordan works.  Then, at the urging of both Jordan and Tyler, we took a rather strenuous trip up the mountain to the Tea House, a couple of hour hike uphill with me struggling for breath, a 3 year old who did very well but had to be carried at times (and was actually sound asleep by about half the way down), two 70 year olds and everyone else in between who didn’t struggle as much… but I think we were all sore the next day.

Our second meal at the Fairmont, Lake Louise was the fondu restaurant which is always amazing.

Then we were off on our road trip to Jasper with a car and van.  Little Jasper had the TV in the mini-van going with Cars 2 on repeat.  We made some stops along the way to see Lake Peyto and the Columbia Icefields, finally arriving at our cabins in Jasper in the late afternoon.

The accommodations at Jasper House Bungalows were a little different than at the Fairmont Lake Louise (to put it mildly) and our reunion with Jordan and Tyler, sharing our little cabin, was cozy but it was all good… and it went by fast.  We did manage to film a scene for the next Clifton short film with them but I wish we’d had more time.  We had some exciting Elk sightings, of most interest was a bull elk who was anxiously sniffing and spreading urine around and calling for a mate, as it is rutting season.  This large Elk was right outside our cabin window at one point and made his way to the beach on the property.  Got lots of great pictures and some video which I put together for a Vimeo weekend challenge (included below).

The other highlight of the trip was my mother’s 70th birthday on September 22nd.  Rebecca booked a lovely restaurant on Patricia Lake where a couple of more Elk came by the lake for a visit during our meal.

On our way home, we stayed in Calgary for a night at the Fairmont Palliser along with Jordan.

Here is the 25 second video with some of the Elk footage for the Vimeo Weekend Challenge: