The other morning (well, Saturday morning, in fact…), an eagle landed on the “perch tree” in front of the house. I think it’s a young adult, because its head feathers are not quite all white.
So here is the eagle, straight out of the camera, so to speak.
Then, I decided to play with filters in Photoshop. Really simple play. And below, here is that same eagle, in a neon version. I quite like it.
I think he (or she) looks more serious, don’t you?
Once a week, most weeks, I take the ferry to “town”. In the local parlance, “town” is Victoria, on Vancouver Island. This time of year, that two-hour commute is at the right time for sunrise magic.
This was the view, from the back of the ferry, that morning…
I just zoomed on the wake, and let the reflection of the sunrise do the abstract magic…
Textile artist Pat Pauly visited Saturna during the Thanksgiving long weekend. We wandered all over the island, and I rediscovered one of my favourite “beaches”, with plenty of pebbles and logs that escaped the log rafts pulled by the tug boats around these islands. Floating forests… but that will be the subject of another post.
These pebbles were arranged by the waves, pushing and rolling them into a crevice in the rock. Neat, isn’t it?
And then, there were the abstract lines left by beetles , in this log.
While the tree was alive, the beetles bored these lines under the bark… discreetly. Now that the bark has been stripped, we get to see their graffiti. With a pebble on top.
A few days ago, we went on an excursion to the Belle Chain Islets, near Saturna Island, BC. Toby Snelgrove of Mayne Island Tours took us sightseeing. What a great morning on the water!
And what a show! Hundreds and hundreds of birds, on the water and on the rocks.
But the main act was the sea lions. After their customary summer trip up North, where they have a big party, they’re back, on the rocks next to our island.
Steller sea lions are massive creatures. Noisy, smelly, massive. The males can weigh 450–1,120 kg (990–2,470 lbs)… Big as a cow, and very ornery.
Two bulls (above) bear the bite wounds of a recent fight for territory.
These junior guys look like they are watching the big boys, learning the moves.
And right next to the big boys bellowing and fighting, or basking, depending on their mood… groups of cormorants were also taking in the sun, perched on the rocks. Looks to me like they are waiting for the ferry.
And the tour would not have been complete without the obligatory eagle shot.
A big thank you to Toby Snelgrove, of Mayne Island Tours.
The Point Store Gallery on Saturna Island, BC, is featuring some of my photos this month, until September 25th.
As an experiment, I got some of my pictures printed on aluminum and on acrylic, with very interesting results.
The day I took that picture, I had wandered to East Point, on Saturna Island and I was concentrating on the kelp. The previous night had been windy, and the shoreline is always interesting after a big wind…
When I looked up, there was a gift waiting for me: the sky. And these people by the former fog alarm building obligingly provided scale to this grandiose sky.
Speaking of the shoreline after a big wind: a lot of kelp ends up on the shore at low tide. Bull kelp, in particular, fascinates me.
Wet kelp is very sleek. Its lines are seductive. I tried printing this one on aluminum; in the areas with light pigment, the metal shows through, highlighting the shining effect of the light.
During the opening, last week, I liked watching people interact with this picture. They walked back and forth in front of it, observing the changing light effects.
More experiments to come.