Colours of Feburary

More McNeil Bay images
Originally uploaded by Mary Sanseverino

Another evening of beautiful light. The winter months on BC's west coast offer sunsets of blue, pink, and purple. I took this shot from the tombolo on McNeil Bay, in Oak Bay, Victoria BC, on Feb 19, 2009. The view here is west. The mountains in the distance are the Olympics in Washington State. The hump in the middle is Garibaldi Hill (I think) on Rocky Point. And, in the foreground, is Harling Point.

I was trying out a 500 mm lens lent to me by a friend. I was trying to get shots of birds, but that was a failure. I needed a lot more light than the evening provided! So, I turned my hand to the long view. Like any long lens, the 500 mm foreshortens the view. Things in the image look closer together than they really are. For example, when you see a huge mountain looming over a city (e.g. Mt. Baker over Victoria as it sometimes appears in the local paper), you are probably looking at a landscape that has been photographed with one of these big lenses.

The straight line shooting distance covered in this photo is over 80 km: 23 km from where I am shooting to Garibaldi Hill; an additional 50 km from there to the Washington coast; another 10 to 15 to the Olympic Mountains themselves.

This particular 500 mm lens is not very sharp in low light situations. This gives an image that is a bit "soft" (okay, a bit fuzzy), but I love the colours in this shot, especially the blue and pinky-gold on the water. I went home from shooting and could hardly wait to see what the image looked like on my big screen.

I am a bit concerned that the screen is too much of a flickering and fleeting medium for images I love -- the pictures display for a few minutes and then I change the pixels and a new image appears. Sure, we can bring images back, but there is always so much more to see. I think the print is the only constant form. My next big purchase will be a quality photo printer. In the meantime, I better get a few of my best shots committed to paper at Prism Colour, my favourite lab in Victoria.