ummm...?

Yesterday I was driving in Altadore (Marda Loop specifically) and as I was pulling up to an intersection to turn right at the stop sign, I saw this:

I swear I stared at it for awhile before realizing how ludicrous it was. It made me laugh & I took a photo with my iPhone (yes, after putting the car in park). It's certainly one way to use a pylon!

comparison

It has been nearly a month since my 365 project was complete. Clearly I needed time away from it since I haven't drawn anything since; I have done some photography, as the posts have shown.

I haven't done the review of my year yet & may do that tomorrow, we'll see. For now, I am posting the original drawing of the last drawing I did in my 365 project. It was completed in 1988.

This drawing has my signature on it but I cut it off in the photo I took since it wasn't important to see in the photo. I'm happy to report that the drawing was dated ('88). So I was 18 when I drew it the first time. There certainly has been improvements.
Below is the image from September 11, 2011. The drawing from 1988 has yellowed & the photograph isn't the greatest (my flash was too close then too far).

The eye is better by far - if I want the eye to look like a true to life eye. I drew hands lots back then so the hand is quite good & not as 'sketchy' as the one I did in September - I knew that difference would be there. The hand (in the 1988 drawing) or mostly the thumb looks like my actual hand. The main difference in the hand itself to my actual hand in the 1988 drawing is the nails on the fingers. The drawing from September has elongated fingers which is what I wanted since I did want slight differences between the two drawings and I knew I had drawn my hand as my hand's actual size when I drew it the first time. I hadn't seen the drawing before I drew it again so when I dug it out, it was a bit of a surprise how I did it the first time.

I like them both. They're good in their own ways.

sweet potato

As we were driving to Yamnuska today, one friend of mine was commenting about my short form for the hike - Yam. When I texted him about hiking Sunday, all I said was "Yam Sunday?" and he thought I meant "yes, Sunday" referring to hiking happening in general. He wondered what "Yam" meant. (: So we hiked Yamnuska. It's a great hike. Close to Calgary & a quick hike. Only 40 minutes from Calgary and the hike took us only 4.25 hours with an elevation gain apparently of 900m. I have two favourite parts on that hike - the chain around a dodgy corner (which used to be a cord) - and the scree. The scree is fun. It's a gentle 'float' down the mountain. It does not get you to the bottom but it certainly cuts down the descent time hiking down.

view from lunch stop

wheeeeeeeeee......

oh ya

We saw a moose in the parking lot at Ribbon Creek yesterday when we were heading back for the second vehicle. He was huge (as they typically are). The silly thing was, I had my phone in my hand & could have taken a decent photo of him but I was too focused on my other camera which was in the back of the car.

Can you see the moose? This is the only shot I got. Sad photo. I've seen a moose before (being from Ontario & all) but it had been awhile. Too bad I didn't have my 7d with the 70-200mm IS lens!

If you can't see him, I understand. The S95 can only do so much.

playing hooky

Friday (yesterday) was to be 26C in Calgary & 22C in Kananaskis. What better way to spend your work day but in the mountains! I was supposed to hike today as well but it was calling for cold & rain so we passed unless there was sunshine this morning (which there wasn't but it was before 7 o'clock in the morning). At the end of it all, there was very little rain today. That's likely ok, I'm hiking tomorrow & could use a day of rest.

Back to yesterday's hike. I have done 2/3 of the hike before. We started at Ribbon Creek heading up to Ribbon Falls (this part I'd done) then up some chains to get to see Ribbon Lake and hike Guinns Pass (this I had not done) which connects to Galatea Creek trail that I hiked just last weekend. Whew! I had NO idea how long this was going to take & we did start late (I did not go with my regular crew). The hike was 7.5 hours including all stops for photos, lunch & rests. The gain was also higher than I thought - I did not do the math ahead of time - 920m. This hike is not a difficult hike, just long. There was one spot where we lost the trail & were bush whacking which I do NOT like (I was yelling 'this sucks' when we were there). That part was short lived. Thankfully, I've hiked many times before when we have had to do that & I knew which way to direct the lead guy - down! I knew we would run into the trail sooner than later.

I always like trees that appear to be growing out of rocks like the one below.

I took this so the length of the root was showing. Very cool how things grow!

Here is Ribbon Falls - not the normal angle that everyone takes.

The chains that we climbed up to get up to Ribbon Lake. Very fun! I loved that.

Where we stopped for lunch after the climb.

Ribbon Lake

These shots are up Guinns Pass. Sometimes I want my 7d - in this case so I could shoot at f22 to get a starburst effect in the shot below. The last image is at the top of Guinns Pass.

first autumn hike

Last Sunday we finally hiked Galatea Creek up to lower Galatea Lake. Since it was Sunday, we did not continue to upper Galatea Lake due to time restraints. Along the way we passed Lillian Lake also. It is a gorgeous hike and yes, I feel like I sound like a broken record. What hike in the mountains is not gorgeous?
As I have mentioned before, I have stopped taking my 7d with me when hike; at least I have lately. I have enjoyed getting to practice with my S95 and it really does take great shots. I actually considered taking the 7d last week and only bring my 100mm macro lens just for fun - I've hike that way before. Instead, I opted to use the macro on the S95 and it performed well. I also took a few wide angle shots, of course. I played with the aspect ratio on the camera so these are all shot at 16:9 format. I cropped the last shot on this post in Photoshop™. I really should have paid more attention to changing the image when I was taking each shot since some did not suit the 16:9 ratio. I'm not used to having that ability in the camera I'm using.

This is a view from the trail on the way back to the trailhead. I did take a few at the lake but since it was overcast, the sky was too white for my liking.

I love red in autumn colours & Alberta is really lacking red. I don't know what plant this is but it's red so I took a photo. I also like the green leaves which were turning red.

The bee in this image was VERY busy. It was on that flower so long that I was watching it thinking I could take a photo yet thinking again that it would move if I got my camera out. I just kept watching it & even when I did take the camera out, it left and came right back. Good of it to pose for me. (: