Hip To Be Square #TBT

August 9, 2018August 9, 2018 / The Urban Nature Enthusiast / 7 Comments

1200px-Kodak_Instamatic_100

This was the first camera I owned. Well not that one exactly, but this type. I received it for my ninth birthday in, gulp, 1963.

I don’t believe it came with a manual as it was so utterly basic. There was no focusing, no exposure settings, certainly no filters. Framing choices were limited to square.

It was case of: point, shoot and hope for the best.

Perfect for an enthusiastic nine year old!

This nine year old me does not look very excited, but I was. Our class went on a thrilling school trip to the Flamingo Park Zoo, in distant and exotic Yorkshire! However, as you can see I was always going to be more comfortable behind the camera, rather than in front of it. Or maybe I was just worried my friend was going to drop my new treasure …

A picture from the first roll of film I ever shot, again at Flamingo Park Zoo. There were also a lot of photos of flamingoes …

Perhaps because of this early viewfinder, I always “see” my images as squares, even when using a rectangular viewfinder. Square format came back into fashion during the Polaroid era, and now Instagram has brought it back. That’s nice — makes it easier to find frames!

However, I do like to think I “invented” the one and only thing you could do to vary my square photographic universe — the “groundbreaking” Diamond Shot.

Me and my first Canadian dog, Finlay, taking a break while tree planting in northern BC — a photo made using the exciting Diamond Shot method.

A pair of cactus-themed diamond shots taken on a road trip to the Mexican desert.

A more conventional square shot of some roadside repairs being done on the car that took us (unbelievably) to Mexico and back to northern BC again.

The good old Instamatic, although technically rather stunted, was super portable. It travelled with me through schooldays, university, and moving to Canada.

It’s portability, in the end, proved to be its downfall. While tree planting in a particularly gorgeous spot near Mount Robson, I decided to bring the camera with me to the top of a “run” so I could get a photo of the view. Sadly, the only place to carry it was in my tree bag, where it got wet from the peat moss meant to keep the trees moist and alive. As I advanced the film for the last shot, the lever made a sort of grinding noise from the particulate matter in there.

Still, the film did come out, and this is the very last photo on the roll. Great view, right?

McBride-4f

It was a sad goodbye to an old companion, but that Instamatic had been a trusty friend for almost twenty years, so I really couldn’t complain. Plus, well … wet peat moss …

After some brief flirtations with Canon and Minolta models, I finally settled on an Olympus OM-1 film camera to replace the old Kodak. No automatic features, but tons of fun to be had playing with f-stops, film speed and exposure length. I’m still using an Olympus — now the digital variety. I’m on my third model after “killing” the first two, both times without the aid of wet peat moss!

Ah, they really do not make ’em like they used to.

Last bit of nostalgia. The little cabin I built and lived in by a creek in northern BC, circa 1978.

www.junehunter.com

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Special Days

April 25, 2018April 26, 2018 / The Urban Nature Enthusiast / 18 Comments

Some days there are ravens.

Some days, there are even mountain bluebirds.

When such things miraculously appear in my own urban neighbourhood I tend to (if at all possible) just drop everything and follow them.

I’ve been ridiculously lucky for the past two weekends.

It was the raven the weekend before last. She hung around for most of Saturday and Sunday and I was able to take several hours each day just to watch and listen.

I became quite convinced that this raven was here specifically to continue my rudimentary language instruction. We were moving on to “Conversational Raven.”

VIDEOS to follow— so remember to go to the BLOG POST ITSELF to see them.

We started our day early when I saw her on the first dog walk of the day. You can see her raven breath in the chilly morning air.

In this next clip, I honestly felt she was trying to get through to a particularly slow student when she making her oh-so-carefully articulated speech.

Sometimes, you know how you choke up for the big performance. Especially when you have an audience …

But, for me, the highlight of the day was when I realized why it’s often so hard, just listening to her calls, to figure out exactly where she is. Sometimes it sounds like two birds calling to each other. Sometimes she sounds close, a second later, really distant.

The mystery was solved on Sunday, when I found her calling in a spot where she was surrounded by walls on three sides. The echo was so amazing that I just stood there for quite a while before I thought to try and video it. Unfortunately, the tiny and uni-directional microphone on my camera doesn’t pick up the echo that well — but you can see her stop and listen to her own voice coming back to her.

I wondered if she thought it was a second raven, or whether she did it to sound as if there were more of her and to generally drive the crows crazy.

Raven with Two Crows

Speaking of driving the crows crazy, I think this is Eric and Clara keeping an eye on her raven shenanigans.

Raven Grooming

Madame Raven completes her morning toilette, heedless of the scolding crows and the clicking cameras.

And then, this last weekend, came the bluebirds.

I only noticed them because I was scouring the area for the raven.

Something darted over an unused piece of grassland that looked, in it’s flight pattern, more like a swift or swallow that the usual small birds I see around here. Upon closer inspection, there was an improbable flash of summer sky blue.

Mountain Bluebird on Fence with Mountain View

Poor Geordie. I’m sure he sighed an enormous doggy sigh as our walk came to an abrupt halt and I started feverishly consulting the Sibley’s Bird app on my iPhone.

Not a Western Bluebird then — they have brown/orange chests. Could it be a Mountain Bluebird? I had never seen one, even though I lived and worked for years in the north and interior of BC, which is more their usual spring/summer range. It seemed so odd that they should make a sudden appearance in East Vancouver. The Sibley’s map shows the coast of BC as part of their migration route, so just passing through.

Mountain Bluebird on Twig

They like open grasslands with some trees for shelter and they had found exactly that for their Vancouver stopover. I guess they did some excellent BirdAirBnB research in advance.

The piece of overgrown grass had small bushes and fences for them to perch on to view their insect prey before diving in to dine.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

I “visited” them several times over the weekend, often pointing them out to neighbours passing by. Some of them went to bring their families to see the amazing sight. None of us had ever seen them before. They reminded me of the little birds that helped Cinderella to do her housework and get ready for the ball in the original Disney animation.

More real … still magical.

Male Mountain Bluebird

Female Bluebird on Fence

The male birds are impossibly vivid. The females are more subtle in the their colouring, but there would still be a spectacular flash of blue from their wings when they took flight.

These appearances were, as they say in the furniture flyers, Limited Time Offer Only!

May many of your days be special, and may the Bluebird of Happiness fly over to your shoulder …

Bluebird Over Shoulder

… and rest there for a while.

Bluebird on Shoulder

Oh, and if you’re wondering, when will their be bluebird cushion covers? … don’t worry, I’m on it!

Coming soon to a couch near you!

See the sequel to this post at: Ordinary Days.

Collecting Hidden Beauty

November 2, 2017November 1, 2017 / The Urban Nature Enthusiast / 17 Comments

Sometimes, on my walks, I like to play a little game.

I call it Alleyway to Art Gallery.

Something catches my eye — a piece of rust, moss on a worn fence, a shattered windshield, even some crumpled paper floating in the gutter.

At that moment, in that light, it is astonishing.

That’s how the game begins.

Part two is imagining that the little piece of beauty has been magically transported from the gutter to a pristine white gallery.

The lighting and ambience are perfect. The exhibited piece is HUGE. Twenty feet high.

Perhaps sparkling wine is being served …

The colours, the textures! It’s stunning.

In some ways, the game can be a little depressing since the imaginary exhibit is far more gorgeous and spontaneous than anything I’m likely to create.

But, therein lies the fun of it. It’s an inspiration. Something to aspire to.

Plus, before you know it, I’ve been on a little fantasy VAG, MoMA, or Tate Modern trip during the course of a dog walk.

It’s my little secret. Until it wears away, blows away, or the light changes, it’s part of my own private collection.

The pictures in this blog are of a treasure I found in a local alleyway around this time last year.

As you can see in the photo above, the alleyway in question did not seem, at first glance, to hold a lot of promise. I can’t remember how exactly I came to notice it. Perhaps Geordie wanted to pee on it.

It was a large painting, done on some sort of wood veneer with thick, swirling sweeps of paint. Hard to say if was acrylic or oil paint, or what the original subject was.

I’m not sure how long it had been languishing in they alley when I found it, but much of the paint had worn off and the wooden base had started to de-laminate. Moss was beginning to colonize parts of the wood, and windy weather had caused brilliant fall leaves to pile up in front of it.

One or two other leaves had become plastered to the old painting and random, yet somehow perfect, intervals.

It was one of those overcast, damp days where the sky is a dull grey, but all terrestrial colours seem extra bright to compensate. Flecks of blue left in the painting, and the touches of red in the autumn leaves, seemed to add little jolts of electricity to the overall composition.

I visited my little secret art show several times over the next few weeks, until it disappeared under the winter snow.

I considered all the the elements that went into the accidental “installation”.

The painter and their original inspiration.

The decisions and/or circumstances that led to the painting being abandoned in the alley.

The wind, the leaves, the moss, the light.

My decision to walk that way that day.

Geordie’s sudden need to pee.

Somehow this little game brings me much joy.

More and more I’m trying to find ways to steer my mind onto calmer pathways and thinking about beauty and serendipity makes a welcome change from too much news or the never-ending “to-do” list.

I recommend it.

If you enjoyed this post, you may also like, The Gift.