My Best 'Feel Good' Story of 2017

    Pete from Dunster puts out an email every day with notices and things to sell.  In the middle of June there was an urgent message on the email about a missing horse, who apparently bolted from the owner and ran off into the bush.  The horse was wearing a bridle and saddle when it disappeared.  This can be dangerous since those things can be snagged by branches and can trap a horse in the bush.

    The owner was asking people to be on the lookout, but she also requested help searching through the bush for the horse.  After a week, the daily emails continued to be posted, so on a Saturday, I thought I would join in on the search for the horse.  Searchers had scoured the bush, looked from airplanes and drones, but were never able to spot the missing horse in the thick bush.

    I arrived at the gravel pit where about 7 others had gathered to help look for the horse.  I had a compass so I took a group of 4 others and we ran a couple of probes through the bush down toward the Holmes River.  That area had been searched days before, as had most of the other areas surrounding the point where the horse disappeared.  Our two searches turned  up nothing.

    We were about to start a third probe, when a local came by with his van and told us the day before he had done a search across the highway and thought he smelled a horse, but didn’t find anything.  I suggested we try over there since we were not accomplishing anything where we were.

    We walked across to the bush across Hwy. 16.  We found an old grown-in skid trail and went down it.  I finally suggested, without any reason, that we stop and run another probe from this point, down to the river.  My group spread out and we started making our way through the thick brush.  After about 15 minutes, one of my group called out, “There she is,” and sure enough the lost horse was there, walking toward us, happy to be found.

    It warmed the heart to see the the reunion of the missing horse with its worried owner.  I was happy that I had taken the time to help out and that our group had been successful in finding the lost horse.

As always, you can see my paintings at:  davidmarchant.ca

My Stupidest Move of 2017

    Rather than write the whole thing out again, I will just repeat my blog of May 5, 2017:

    A couple of weeks ago the FHA (Fraser Headwaters Alliance), our local environmental group, got a request saying that some film makers were going to make a movie about major Canadian Rivers to celebrate Canada’s 150th Anniversary.  They were looking for some people to be in canoes on the upper part of the Fraser River singing “Oh, Canada.”

    FHA looked around, but it seemed that singing canoeist were not in great supply in the Robson Valley.  Yesterday was the date set for filming, and luckily we finally found 14 or so willing participants (and a dog) to paddle and sing.  Knowing the need, I volunteered even though I don’t have a great deal of canoeing experience.  

    I assumed I would be positioned in the canoe with an experienced canoeist who would be doing the main work of steering.  Unfortunately things didn’t really work out that way.  As it turned out I was put in the position where I would be doing all the maneuvering with Bruce, the film sound guy as the passenger.

    The flotilla set off near the old Tete Jaune bridge, and canoed a short distance downstream, where Ian, the cameraman decided to stop and do the filming.  I managed to maneuver Bruce onto the shore so he could do his sound recording from there.  I sat alone in the partially banked canoe and watched.

   A fancy big camera tripod was sitting upright in the middle of our canoe.   Earlier on, there had been some talk about laying it down and tying it so it wouldn’t get wet, but it then had been transferred back and forth between several canoes and somehow ended up in the standing position in my canoe.

    After sitting there in the canoe for a while, I decided I should maybe back the canoe out into the river and paddle a bit closer to where Bruce stood.  I pushed off the bank then started to turn the canoe with the paddle.   As I did so, the canoe leaned to one side, and the upright tripod started to tilt and fall toward the water.  I panicked, not wanting to see it get wet, so I lurched sideways over the canoe in a futile attempt to catch it before it hit the water.

    My quick thinking action was a mistake.  When I leaned over the side of the canoe to try to catch the tripod, the canoe leaned over with me, and over everything went.  I was dunked and found myself sideways in the cold waters of the Fraser.  I was still near the shore, the water was shallow and very clear, so I was able to see and grab the submerged tripod and put it back into the now uprighted and partially water-filled canoe.

    I was wet and embarrassed, but fine, and the tripod didn’t really come to any harm by the dunking, but there was a major  victim in this whole affair--my camcorder, the camera I use every day for this blog.  It had been in its holster on my hip and it had been submerged along with me.  It is now deader than a door nail.

    When I got back home, I put it in a bag of rice.  I heard that is one way to dry out iPhones that get wet.  Time will tell.  

    The film people seemed quite amazed at our local scenery   They filmed several takes of the canoeist paddling toward the camera singing the first two lines of “Oh, Canada.”  It will be the opening scene of their film and they were happy with the shots they got of the singing canoeist on the Fraser.  Now they will be traveling eastward to other major Canadian Rivers to film other people singing the rest of Oh, Canada.  

    I did have my old iPhone along with me and fortunately it was in a water-proof holder.  I took the photo above with that.

You can view my paintings at:  davidmarchant.ca

Our Biggest Weather Related Story of 2017

    July 7th was the first sign we got of something that was to predominate our summer--smoke from forest fires.  We have experienced the orangish skies in past years, so we knew that there must be a forest fires somewhere, but never have I experienced the day after day effect of them that lasted for more than a month and a half.  

    Fortunately for us the forest fires were not local, but a hundred mile south in B.C’s drier interior that had experience drier than normal weather.  During the summer, BC was to experience its worse-ever forest fire season, and we were doomed to breathe the smoke from those fires week after week.  The smoke was unbelievably thick, at times totally obscuring the mountains and even our house from the end of the pond.

    Other parts of the world experienced weather related disasters far worse than us--massive hurricanes, droughts, forest fires, and floods.  It for us, even at a distance, it was scary to experience first hand, just how helpless one is in the face of such weather disasters.

My paintings can be seen at:  davidmarchant.ca

What's The Temperature?

    If you have one thermometer, you know what the temperature is.  If you have more than one, you don’t.  That was the situation this morning when I went to look.  The new “weather station” I got for Christmas told me it was -30C (-22F).  My old weather station had the temperature at -28C (-18F).  When I went to the old style thermometer outside the kitchen window the reading was -27C (-17F)and the window thermometer upstairs gave me -28C.  

    The two window thermometers are just a few inches from the windows which probably radiate a bit of heat outside.  My old weather station gets its information from a unit upstairs on the balcony, so that may be somewhat warmer than my new weather station that registers from a fence post by the open pasture so that may be why it shows the coldest temperature.

    I guess knowing the exact temperature is not that important, its enough to know that it is damn cold outside.

You can see my paintings at:  davidmarchant.ca

2017: Photo of the Year

    It seems all of the media is presently doing retrospectives of 2017 as they attempt fill the time between Christmas and New Years when all of their staff is away for the holidays.  I figured I could use  the same trick since nothing much is happening around here.  

    The other night we had friends over for a Christmas Eve party.  As we sat around in the living room I had music from my computer playing on the TV and as a screen saver I had some of my photos from 2017 randomly showing on the television.  

    The one that everyone seemed to like the best was this photo of our cat Lucifer standing behind some tulips.  Because of the positive reaction, I have chosen it as my “2017 Photo of the Year”.

You can view my paintings at: davidmarchant.ca

Frigid

    Mother Nature gave us a cold Christmas.  We woke up to -29C (-20F).  The fact that it was clear and sunny wasn’t enough to motivate us to do much outside.  Instead of taking the dog on a big walk in the afternoon, we opted for just doing a walk around the pond.  (Skye didn’t complain about the brevity of the walk.)  Here is a photo of the afternoon sun, low on the horizon, silhouetting some cattails.  

    I am always very appreciative of the fact that when it does get really cold in the Robson Valley it is very still.  It is wind that really makes one suffer in the cold.  

You can view my paintings:  davidmarchant.ca

Where Does Di Find These Things?

    Our friend Di, always makes our Christmas a fun event.  She showers both Joan and I with multitudes of totally unique gifts.  She always writes clues to what the gifts are on tags on the wrapping paper, but the gifts inside are so unusual that we are never able to guess what is inside.  In the photo above you can see the gifts that Di gave me.  Joan got about the same number of equally strange gifts.

    On the left is a shopping bag depicting protest buttons from the 1960’s, the white booklet above it consists of multiple stickIt note pads.  Below that is an idea pad for the rare instance when I get an idea.  The little pale blue box contains custard and rhubarb sweets.

    Do you see the nose?  That is a cleverly designed pencil sharpener.  Besides it are two pens in the shape of walking canes.  Above the pens and pencil sharpener is a totally white jigsaw puzzle.  Its hard to make out the pair of black socks beside it, but one sock has fried eggs on it and its mate had strips of bacon. On the far right is a banana-shaped pencil case.

    Di really does her research, she always manages to give us things that we don’t have.  Below is one of Joan’s gifts from Di--a carrot sharpener.  Joan can’t wait to sharpen some carrots.

You can see my paintings at:  davidmarchant.ca

Clear Skies, Cold Temperatures

    It was -25C (-14F) this morning, so we have our wood stove stacked with birch firewood.  The only saving graces on these frigid days are the fact that there are no clouds to block out what small amount of heat there is in the low Sun and that there is no wind.  

    It is Christmas Eve so we are going to have friends over for a get together.  Having extra body heat in the house is always a good way to warm up a cold evening.

You can view my paintings at:  davidmarchant.ca

A Brown Creeper, But A Week Late.

    Last Sunday I participated in Robson Valley’s Christmas Bird Count.  It was a snowy day so not the best conditions to see birds, but I came up with most of the usual suspects around my bird feeder.  I had my Chickadees, Red Breasted Nuthatches, some Pine Grosbeaks (a bit unusual for me), Downy Woodpeckers, and Hairy Woodpeckers.  I called in my findings and was done.

    Today when I went out to fill up my peanut butter log for the birds, what did I see but a Brown Creeper. clinging and walking around, often upside down, on the bark of one of my willow trees.  Brown Creepers are a pretty rare sight around here.  I maybe see a Creeper, maybe once every year or three.  They are unassuming little brown birds that don’t stand out.  They work their way up and down the bark of trees, cleaning out the crevasses for their food.

    I left a message on Elaine’s phone about the creeper.  She is the organizer of the Christmas Bird Count, but I suspect she has already turned in our local count.  Too bad, a Brown Creeper would be a notable addition.

    I wish birds would be a bit more reliable and show up on the day they are supposed to.

You can see my paintings:  davidmarchant.ca

Slim Creekj

    Yesterday we participated in one of those scary winter activities--we drove the 217km (135 miles) up to Prince George.  Driving to PG in the winter is not something we do lightly.  It is dangerous, but sometimes if you have an appointment, you have to go.

      There isn’t a lot of traffic on Highway 16, most of what you encounter are freight trucks.  It is a two lane highway, and whenever a big truck comes at you and goes by, if it is snowing, you find yourself driving temporarily through a total whiteout.  As you drive blind, you keep your fingers crossed that you are staying on the road and there is nothing in front of you.  Another problem with a winter trip is the shortness of daylight, and yesterday was the shortest day of the year, so we left home in the dark and returned home in the dark.

    It was snowing on the way up,  The surface of Highway 16 was hardpack snow, fortunately there was not enough snow buildup on the highway to pull your car around.  On our trip coming home from Prince George, the snow had stopped, but we still encountered three vehicles (one overturned) who had slid off of the highway and into the snowy ditch.

    Luckily we made the trip without incident.  We always stop halfway at the Slim Creek Rest Area to use the facilities and walk Skye.  The photo shows what Slim Creek looked like.

    

      View my paintings at:  davidmarchant.ca

Early Sunset

    If you look closely at the photo, you will notice that the Sun is setting behind the mountains.  When I took the picture it was just 1:50 in the afternoon.  The official time of the sunset this time of year for the Robson Valley is 3:45, but that is assuming that we were on a flat plain and there weren’t any mountains around.  The mountains noticeably shorten the already short winter days.

    How much they shorten the day depends on where you are in the Valley.  If you were tucked at the base of the mountains you see, the Sun would have already disappeared.  If you were watching from the Park Range on the opposite side of the Valley you would still have some time to go before you saw the Sun sink below the peaks.

    Tomorrow marks the Winter Solstice, when the days will begin to lengthen again.  I think it is one of the most significant days of the year, because the hardest part about winter for me is the lack of daylight and the long periods of darkness.   In a logical world, tomorrow would mark the beginning of the new year.

You can view my paintings at:  davidmarchant.ca

Winter Dress, Circa 1975

    When we first moved to Canada we were totally unprepared for the Canadian winter.  We had the winter clothes that we had brought with us from the midwest United States and that is what we wore.  We were living in an isolated fly-in logging camp in the Interior of BC and there was no place to buy other winter gear and so we wore what we had.

    I especially remember our footwear.  We wore rubber boots, (“gum” boots, or “Wellingtons” as they were called here).  We ordered some hiking boots through the mail, but they weren’t insulated and so we suffered from cold feet throughout that winter.  It several times got down to -40 (the same temperature in both Fahrenheit and Celsius) during that winter.  

     I had an old leather bomber jacket I had gotten at the Goodwill Store when I worked there.   Joan wore her felt duffle coat and underneath we both wore sweaters.  

     We kept our eyes open as to what other people in the camp wore, and the first time we had an opportunity to get Canadian winter gear, we did.

    We bought down coats with hoods.  The BC Interior has what is called a “Dry” cold which is much more benign that a damp cold and down coats were perfect.  They are light and very warm. 

    For footwear, we bought ourselves “feltpacks”, boots that have a thick removable felt insert that goes up to the top of the boot.  The first time I wore mine outside in the cold, I couldn’t believe it--my feet stayed the same temperature.

    The reason I am telling you all this is because the other day when I was walking around outside, I realized I was wearing exactly the same thing as I wore back in the 1970’s and 80’s.  I mean “exactly.”  

    I found an old Pioneer down coat, (the same old brand as my original) in the McBride Thrift Shop.  I’m pretty sure the company no longer exists, but I always loved my old coat.

    The feltpacks I am wearing are exactly the same type I wore 40 years ago, leather uppers with the fake-fur border around the top.  I’m not sure if they make them like that any more either.   I found this  practically brand new pair at a yard sale several years ago.  

    Joan will probably tell me that wearing the same clothes that I wore 40 years ago is nothing to brag about, but obviously I am not a “clothes horse” or “A Dedicated Follower of Fashion” (to quote the old song by the Kinks), but these clothes work, they were cheap, are comfortable, and keep me warm, so why change.

Yy=ou can view my paintings:  davidmarchant.ca

Snowmobiling

    The other afternoon I took Skye out to the community pasture for a walk.  Where I parked is just across the road from where all of the “sledders” park when they are going up to the Renshaw alpine, to tear around on their loud machines.  If you note some distaste in my mouth you are right.  I am not a big fan of snowmobiling, but unfortunately the boys love their toys and McBride has become a destination for their activity.

    Even though there isn’t much snow on the valley bottom, there is plenty up on the mountain tops.  McBride was recently given some kind of “platinum” designation for snowmobiling, so I suspect there will be an increase in the number of sledders in the future.  Already they come from as far away as Saskatchewan, and Alberta.  Every weekend the motels and restaurants are full of snowmobilers.

    You might wonder why I am not so keen.  The main reason is that they have so little regard for the environment.  They roar around in the alpine, so any animal that spends any time up there during the winter is displaced.  When the snows melt, the place is littered with beer cans and other trash.  A friend on a hike once found whole abandoned snowmobile.  

    Unfortunately our road is the route to the snowmobiling area and so every morning and evening we are confronted with speeding trucks hauling their trailers, hogging the road.  Snowmobiling can be such a dangerous activity, a few years ago McBride made the international news when five sledders were killed by an avalanche.  Years before my neighbor’s husband was killed by an avalanche , but just yesterday I heard the loud sound of a snowmobile coming from her yard. 

    When I worked for the BC Forest Service, we often had to use snowmobiles to get to some areas in the bush.  I found the machines noisy, smelly, and they were always getting stuck in the loose snow so we were constantly digging them out so I never became a fan.  I admit I never was a “motorhead”  and I would rather exert some energy on snowshoes exploring the silent winter snow.

My paintings can be seen at:  davidmarchant.ca

Cows In A Nest

    Yesterday when I drove down the road, I spotted these cows all nestled down in their hay.  I don’t think that is what the farmer had in mind when he put the hay out there, but it probably felt good to the cows to have a nice warm spot to lay down in.

You can view my paintings:  davidmarchant.ca

Handy Microwave Bowl Pads

    I fix and eat a lot of soup.  The day I make some there is no problem, the soup is hot and I dip some into the bowl and eat it.  For the next few days, I put the cold soup into a bowl and put the bowl into the microwave to heat it up.  When it is hot, it has always been a problematic thing for me to extract the hot bowl from the microwave.  I used to awkwardly try to get a grip on the edge of the bowl with a thick hot pad to remove it from the microwave without burning my fingers, or tipping and spilling the soup.

    Joan made me a solution to the problem.  I don’t know what they are called and maybe they have been around for a while, but I was unaware of them.  She sewed up a contoured hot pad that fits the bowl and has protruding corners, giving me something that is easy to grab for pulling the bowl out of the microwave.  So now I just put the bowl of cold soup in the contoured hot pad, put it into the microwave and easily get it out when it is hot.

    

You can see my paintings at:  davidmarchant.ca

It's Friday?

    I don’t think it is too unusual for people to forget what day it is, it would happen sometimes even when I had a regular working schedule, but since I have retired and all the days are pretty much the same, it is easy to forget what day it is.  It has been especially true this week when we had people over for an event in the middle of the week.  Since then the days have all been feeling mixed up.

    All day today it has been feeling like Saturday, and I have been several times jolted back to the fact that it is actually Friday.  

    Friday is usually more special than other days of the week.   Joan and I always used to, and continue to, celebrate Fridays (the end of the working week) by making a pizza Friday night.  Friday is also the day I send cartoons off to the local newspapers.  The pink dots on the calendar above are Fridays when I need to send off two cartoons instead of one.  (I’ve got to do that when I get done with this blog.) 

    There will be no pizza tonight, since Joan got on the train to Jasper yesterday to visit a friend and a pizza is too big of a project to fix if it is just going to be me to eat it.  

    Anyway hopefully by writing this blog about it being Friday, will reset my inner calendar and get me on the right day for a while.

Check out my paintings:  davidmarchant.ca

Mid-December--Where's the Snow?

    At this time of year, the Robson Valley normally has about a foot (30cm) of snow on the ground.  As you can see from the photo I took yesterday, this is not a normal year.  Our temperatures have been hanging around the freezing mark, and what little snow had fallen earlier in the fall has melted away, so we are left with these bare fields.  

    This just isn’t right, Canadians are meant to suffer in the winter.  

You can see my paintings at:  davidmarchant.ca

Christmas Shopping

    I’ve just spent most of my morning trying to deal with my mobile service provider.  I am too frustrated to do a regular blog so I will just give you this cartoon.

You can view my paintings at:  davidmarchant.ca

Old Theatrical Costumes

    Last week I was in the Thrift Store and ran into Bob Thompson, a local actor.  I asked him if he was looking for interesting clothes for future plays.  He told me he always keeps an eye out for clothes that might be used in a drama.  The exchange made me think back on the old theatrical costumes that I have had in storage for decades.

    During the Vietnam War I spent two years working in the Indianapolis Goodwill store as a conscientious objector.  A Goodwill Store is an interesting place to work, because every day a new load of items come in and among them one can find some really unique things.  One day a load of old Shakespearian-type costumes arrived.

    They were amazing to see.  They were made of heavy velvet, very colorful and intricate, although quite worn.  The fact that they were so well made and fancy made me think they were old and professional.  I couldn’t help but wonder where and how they were used.

    I was so fascinated with them I bought two, and although I never have had an opportunity to use them, I have kept them for over 45 years, and even brought them with me when we moved up to Canada. 

    The photo above shows a cape.  Below is a photo of a jacket with cape attached.  

You can check out my paintings at:  davidmarchant.ca

A Double Dose of Sunlight

    It was the way the sunshine lit up portions of the Hosta leaves that first made me paint the images you see on the two paintings above.  They are hanging at the top of our staircase.  Yesterday as I was walking up the stairs, bright and mottled sunlight was streaming through the windows and falling on the paintings, intensifying some sections and shading others.  This present layer of sunshine really enlivened the paintings.

    It brought out the colors and contrasts even more and that blast of colors made me go back downstairs and get my camera to record the results.  This has happened before on some of my other paintings, making me  wonder if I should start a new painting, repainting the image the way it looked with the mottled sunlight falling upon the original painting.

You can take a look at all of my other paintings at:  davidmarchant.ca

I've Got Another Pair At Home Just Like Them

    In my defense; they do look a lot alike.  

    We fix ourselves a pizza every Friday.  Last Friday when we were just set to make our pizza, we discovered that we didn’t have a green pepper.  Our pizzas have to have green pepper so I volunteered to make a quick trip into the grocery store.

    I hurriedly put on my coat, then sat down on the bench by the door and put on my shoes, and out the door I went.  I drove into McBride, got the green pepper at the grocery and headed back home.  

    As I sat back on the bench to take my shoes off I noticed something--I was wearing two different shoes.   I had a walking shoe on one foot, and a hiking boot on the other.  I hadn’t even been aware of  it.  I guess I was having what they call a “senior’s moment.”  No harm done, I doubt anyone in town had noticed my footwear.

    The combination; shoe and boot, reminded me of some trivia I once read.  When B.B. King was young his family was very poor and there for a while for footwear he wore one boot and one shoe.  As a result he got the nickname “ShoeBootie.”  He was probably happy after later getting the job playing music on a radio show advertising biscuits to have that nickname replaced with “Biscuit Boy”.   “Biscuit Boy” was soon shortened to “B.B.” which probably made him even happier.

You can view my paintings:  davidmarchant.ca

What Happened to the Wood Ducks?

    Yesterday as Skye and I were walking around the pond, I happened to look up and I noticed one of my five wood duck houses, which are now more noticeable with the leaves off of the trees.  Wood ducks nest up in hollow trees (or wood duck boxes, if available).  Of course this time of year the ducks have migrated south, but seeing the nesting box made me again wonder what had happened to the wood duck population that used to mate and nest in the Robson Valley.

    Every spring I used to have lots of wood ducks come to my pond (I once took a photo showing 40 of them), most would fly off to nest elsewhere, but I generally had one of two that would hatch their young in my nesting boxes.  One spring I was fortunate enough to watch the little fluffy ducklings leap out of their lofty home, down to the earth below where their mother was calling.

    For a few years now, I have had no wood ducks at all coming to my pond, and I have heard no one else in the area that had seen any.  I can’t help but wonder what happened to them.  Did something happen in their southern winter homes, or did they just find someplace better to nest?  

    It’s a mystery, and I sure miss see those brilliantly colored male ducks and the brown mother duck with her ducklings in a row paddling across my pond.

   

You can view my paintings at:  davidmarchant.ca

Oxbow Lakes

    Readers of this blog will have heard me mention Horseshoe Lake many times, since we often walk our dog there.  The lake sits just outside of McBride, BC.  (That triangular settlement in the photo is McBride, and the dark “U”-shaped thing below it is Horseshoe Lake.)  Horseshoe Lake is one of many oxbow lakes in the Robson Valley.

    Oxbow Lakes are formed beside meandering rivers, and our Fraser River is certainly meandering.  When you are canoeing down it, one minute you are facing north, the next minute, east,  then maybe south, or west.  It twists and turns back and forth throughout the valley.  Over time it will eat through many of it’s curves and they will be left isolated becoming an oxbow lake.  (Notice the way the Fraser is eating toward itself just right of Horseshoe Lake.)   Sometime in the future it will totally eat through its bank and cut off the curve, thus creating a new oxbow lake.

    Below are a couple of other local oxbow lakes.  Crescent Spur, and below that, Crescent Lake.  I got all of the photos off of Google Earth.

Check out my paintings:  davidmarchant.ca

Pine Grosbeak

    I love color, and in the winter when everything is grey, white, brown, or black, I really crave it.  So it was a nice treat to see a flock of Pine Grosbeaks in the yard yesterday.  The females are kind of grey and brown so they weren’t that exciting to see, but the males are a bright red and grey.  

    While Pine Grosbeaks are around here they must spend most of their time in the woods, because we don’t see much of them.  I was happy they put in an appearance.

You can view my paintings at:  davidmarchant.ca

Standing in the Middle of the Fraser River

    The blue dot you see in the middle of the river shows where I was standing yesterday.  

    I was out walking Skye on the large sandbar beside the Fraser River and I pulled out my phone, suspecting it would show me in the middle of the river and I was right.

    The Google Earth photo was taken during the summer.  That’s when the precipitation falls in the form of rain, allowing the water to slowly make its way into streams and creeks that drain into the Fraser.  It is also the season when the mountain glaciers are melting and their melt water also engorges the river and fills it to it’s banks.

    In the winter the Fraser shrinks.  The precipitation falls as snow, which doesn’t melt for months, and the glaciers don’t do any melting, so the volume of the Fraser diminishes tremendously.  This leaves numerous sand and gravel beaches along the edge of the river and that is where I was standing yesterday.  

    Below is what it looked like around me when I checked Google Earth.

You can view my paintings:  davidmarchant.ca

Narrowing Your Focus

    Most of the photos I put up here were taken when we go out to walk the dog.  Here is another one.  I really like this one because of the way the brightly lit foreground and trees are silhouetted against the dark blue shadowed mountains.  

    I don’t think most people that were standing where I was would have picked out this scene for a photo because there was so much more sky above and more land and lane in the foreground to see when they looked at it.  Off to the right side there were other distractions.  I just noticed a small section of the entirety that showed the darkened slopes and trees and I was able to zoom into that small bit that I found interesting.

    If you are out taking photos, don’t just look at the total scene, remember that you often need to scan around the total view to try to find a small section of it that might be interesting.  In the photo, the clouds above what you can see were lighter in color, I just liked the dark part of the clouds so when I took the shot I excluded the lighter clouds and that made the darker ones more dramatic and emphasized the light on the trees.

Check out my paintings at:  davidmarchant.ca