From Montreal

Here are some pictures I took while in Montreal, Quebec last week for a convention. The first one was taken from my hotel window using an end table as a substitute tripod. The others were taken while wandering around the underground passages in downtown Montreal.

Victoria Sunset

I took my wife to Victoria, B.C. on Monday so she could fly to Kelowna on Tuesday to help out with the new grandson and his parents and brothers in Vernon.

Of course, I took a bunch of pictures but most of them were taken in bright daytime sunshine and I knew they wouldn't be the best. Good practice though. After we hooked up with my daughter-in-law's parents, who graciously put us up for the night, we went for a drive to a couple of spots along the water front. I'm not real sure just where this was but I like the sky and the sun framed by the tree branch and the silhouettes of the trees and plants.

Painted Sky

I ran out to the car last night to get something we left in it and the sky looked pretty amazing. I went back out with the camera and eventually took this from my back deck. It needed something a bit more than just the photo so I applied a dry brush filter in Photoshop to give it a painting effect. I kind of like how it turned out.

Hope Rest Stop

Lot's has transpired since the last post. Things went well with the new grandson, Lucas and just when it looked like we would bring the other two to our home on Vancouver Island, it sounded like they would be sending Lucas back to the hospital in Vernon, where he was born. So we headed to Vernon instead on Monday with Nathan and Ben. Tuesday, Lucas and his mom flew home while dad drove back.

We stayed until Thursday because my wife had a dentist appointment on Friday. However, she woke up ill and had a tough time traveling. She asked if we could stop at the roadside rest outside of hope for a 15 minute lay down in the back seat. While she slept I walked around a bit without my camera and saw some things I thought might make for a good picture. After 15 minutes I got my camera, told her to sleep for a few more minutes and I took some shots. Because of this we almost missed the 3:00 ferry but we ended up the second last on (after speeding all the way from Hope.

This is an old highway behind the rest stop that is blocked off. A bridge nearby has a 1963 date on it so I'm thinking this may have once been part of the Trans-Canada highway before the current divided highway went in. I converted it to black and white and cropped it to a square format and I kind of like it.

New Grandson

It has been a few hectic days. Wednesday, we were still camping. That night we got word that our daughter-in-law was having some labour pains and they were doing a test and then would try and stop the labour because she wasn't yet at term. Thursday morning the cell phone rang about 6:30 and we were told that our grandson had just been born, about 6 weeks premature. He was doing well but there was a need to send him somewhere better equipped and so he and Mom were flown to BC Children's Hospital in Vancouver that afternoon with Dad and his other two boys following by car.

We packed up the trailer and headed home. Friday, after my wife's dentist app't. we headed to Vancouver to see the little guy and offer our assistance to help take care of the other two grandchildren. My daughter had headed over right away and was a real angel by looking after them while my son Neil was dealing with his wife and new son being admitted.

So now it's late Saturday night, the two grandsons, Nathan and Ben are fast asleep as is Grandma, and I'm heading there soon. The last couple of days seem like a week or more but things are going well. Lucas Jeremy Paul is doing fine, just needed some help with his lungs that were fully developed but still not mature enough to manage fully. He is cute, although I haven't seen him with his eyes open. Mom (Jen) was discharged today and her and Neil are at the Easter Seal house nearer the hospital so they can transport breast milk during the night.

They let me take my camera in when I went to see Lucas and I took several shots of him in the incubator. This is one of them. Life is precious and wonderful and the hospital and workers are fabulous and it is wonderful that Lucas is doing so well.

I Have No Idea

Here is my picture for today. This thing sits in a field near where I'm camping. The field is near a river and there are some old steel pilings along the bank so I assume that there was once some kind of mill here and this is what's left of some piece of machinery.

Interesting, though. At least, I think so.

Abandoned

The skies cleared up today, the sun came out and I thought I would take the camera and tripod out to see what I could see. Actually, since it was midday, not a great time for pics in the open sun, I headed into the forest because I saw this old, abandoned car that I thought would make a good picture. I used a preset in raw that provides an interesting effect and here it is with a few tweaks. I considered converting to black and white but the colors provide more drama in this case. Enjoy.