Hatley Castle

Before we leave Hatley Park National Historic Site here is a photo of the castle. I plan to have a look at Victoria's other castle, Craigdarroch, next week.

Bokeh 2

Here's one more from the Italian Garden that shows the slightly "swirly" kind of bokeh that is characteristic of the Helios 58mm lens.

Bokeh

I mentioned in a previous post the term "bokeh". For the non-photographers among visitors to this site, "bokeh" refers to the out-of-focus areas in a photograph, the blurry areas. I like nice crisp images but lately I've begun to appreciate the blurry parts of the photo as well. Different lenses produce different kinds of blur, some more pleasing than others. One of the reasons I like this Helios lens I've been using lately is because of the bokeh it produces. In today's photo I've thrown caution to the winds and used bokeh to more accurately express the experience of a hot summer afternoon in the Italian Garden at Hatley Castle, the way one is thrust into an overpowering profusion of shapes and colors. Wikipedia has a good article on bokeh HERE.

Hatley Park Italian Garden Flowers 2

Here's a few more blossoms from the Hatley Castle National Historical Site Italian Garden. For those who are interested in the technical side of things, all yesterday's and today's flower shots were taken with the Russian Helios 58mm lens I mentioned a few days ago. It continues to impress me with its sharpness and interesting bokeh.

Hatley Park Italian Garden Flowers

Being in the Italian Garden with a camera is a little like suddenly being transported to a French pâtisserie - such a wealth of delicious things.

Hatley Castle Italian Garden

Here is a glimpse of the Italian Garden at Hatley Castle. The Italian Garden style is very formal with clearly defined beds of flowers laid out symmetrically. Despite the formality there is such a wealth of exotic blooms in this garden it is quite overpowering.

Hatley Park National Historic Site

I went out to Hatley Park National Historic Site yesterday to take a look at the Italian Garden that is adjacent to the castle. It was just as splendid as usual and we'll look at a bit more of it next week. Above is one of the four seasons garden statues that stand around the edges of the garden.

August Choices

As I wrote last week, "Every year I put together a calendar for friends and family, of photos I have published on this blog for the last year or so. However, it's always difficult to make decisions about which photos to use. I am hoping visitors to this blog will help out. Every day for the next few weeks I will publish three or four photos from a given month and hope that comments and choices made by visitors will help me make a final decision which photos to use in this year's calendar. As an incentive, I will offer an online downloadable/printable file of the calendar to anyone who helps me make a choice."

Thanks to everyone who has given me their opinions so far, and it really helps when you give reasons for your preference.

Below are my favorite August 2016 photos. There are four to choose from today. Like July, August is a good time to get out and enjoy the outdoors and these photos reflect the fact that Victoria is like a giant theme park in the summer. Two of these photos are of the Inner Harbour - after all, it's the heart of the city and is where most people hang out in the summer. The other two are both of Hatley Park. Which of these do you prefer?

Sunset on the Inner Harbour

Italian Garden - Hatley Park

Hatley Castle

The Inner Harbour after Dark

Royal Roads University Forest

The grounds of Royal Roads University are bracketed on the east and west with two strips of old growth forest, trees that are hundreds of years old. It is impossible to walk among these ancient giants without feeling inconsequential. I went there looking for mushrooms, some of the most transient of the forest's beauties. I found a few though the season is still just beginning.

Harvest Time

Well, the leaves are turning already - summer's almost gone and it seems like it only started yesterday. There hasn't been much real hot weather here this year, just a few days here and there. Today's photo is one of the statues in the Italian Garden at Hatley Castle. There are four of these, each representing a different season. I think today's is the one representing the autumn harvest because of the sheaves of grain she is holding.

S'AEL

As I was leaving Hatley Park I noticed this strikingly fresh and new totem pole near the entrance to the grounds. Totems are always interesting pieces of art and cultural expressions but I have seldom seen one looking so fresh and new. Like this they are even more stunning. The pole was erected in late 2015 and a nearby plaque reads as below.

S'AEL
(HARMONY)
Commemorates the 75th Anniversary of Royal Roads (A Naval and Military College from 1940 to 1995 and a British Columbia public university since 1995) and honours the indigenous people on whose ancestral land we learn and celebrate together.

Created by
Tom LaFortune assisted by Howard LaFortune Jr.
(Tsawout First Nation)

Commissioned and Donated by
Wayne Strandlund
(Metis)
Chancellor and Chair of the Board of Governors Royal Roads University
September 2015

Hatley Castle 6 - Italian Garden

Before we leave Hatley Castle here's a look at the Italian Garden. I love Victoria City's hanging baskets but in the Italian Garden at Hatley Castle the hanging baskets are so lush and luxurious they make the city's look pretty tame.

Hatley Castle 5

When the castle's owners had died and the children were all grown and had moved out, they decided to sell the castle as the upkeep was very expensive. Unfortunately, the first thing they did was to auction off all the furniture so there is practically none of the original furnishings left. Added to this is the fact that the castle has been used by both the military and the university for a number of different purposes so the rooms are a bit barren looking. Above is the drawing room where Laura Dunsmuir would hold her gala evenings. It is still an impressive room. Below in the games room is one of the original pieces of furniture, a full size pool table that has never left the room. It was built there by a team imported from the UK.

Hatley Castle 4

This is the entrance hall of Hatley Castle. In the photo above we are looking back towards the entrance doors. Apparently in one of the X-Men films, Hugh Jackman (the Wolverine) jumped from this balcony for some reason. In the photo below we are standing in front of those doors and looking up into the gallery that is above the hall.

Hatley Castle 3

Before we go inside the castle, above is the classic postcard view of the main entrance, the porte cochère. Below is the opposite view, taken from inside the porte cochère looking up the hill towards one of the Royal Roads University buildings. The reason I've included the view below is the step-like structure in the center foreground, just beside the trash container. This stone construction was placed there to enable the ladies of the house to mount their horses easily and gracefully when they wished to go riding. It was also used by guests descending from carriages.

A Little Privacy Please

Although James Dunsmuir and his wife had a long and successful marriage (10 children) they clearly had different agendas as they aged. The door above is off to one side of the castle and is a discreet private entrance to the building insisted upon by James Dunsmuir so that he could bypass his wife's penchant for large social gatherings and slip unnoticed into his study, the door of which was directly opposite this outer door. You may also notice that the doorknob is higher on the door than is usual - that was to discourage small children from using this entrance.

Hatley Castle

Before we take a look at the interior of Hatley Castle here is a look at the exterior as seen from one of the gardens. The castle and grounds are a Canadian National Historic Site. The castle was built in 1906 by Lieutenant Governor James Dunsmuir. His father had made the family fortune in Vancouver Island's coal mines and had earlier built Craigdarroch Castle in Victoria. Hatley castle now serves as the administrative center for Royal Roads University, also on the grounds. The castle has also been used for several Hollywood films, most recently, X-Men. It is also a popular venue for weddings, banquets and other social functions.

Another Young Musician

This makes a nice transition from yesterday's photo of a young girl playing a violin - here we have a cherub playing a mandolin. He's perched above the gardens surrounding Hatley Castle. I went out there yesterday to take a look at the interior of the castle since in the past I've always gotten sidetracked in the magnificent gardens. We'll have another look at those and some of the rooms inside the castle in the next few days.

Least Sandpiper (Calidris minutilla)

I recently went out to Royal Roads University to check out some of the forest trails that lie beside the Hatley Park National Historic Site. I've heard there are some huge old growth trees there as much as 500 years old. I had a splendid walk through the forest but did not see the trees.... Anyway, the trail I was on exited from the forest on the northern inland shore of Esquimalt Lagoon. While I often visit this lagoon, which is a bird sanctuary, I have not visited this shore of it before. I was rewarded by sighting two species new to me, the Least Sandpiper (Calidris minutilla) pictured above and to the left, and some Purple Martins we'll see in a day or two. The Least Sandpiper is the smallest North American shorebird (just a little larger than a sparrow)and is almost indistinguishable from its other slightly larger relatives. Its distinguishing characteristic is its yellowish legs. The otherwise unremarkable photo to the left does have the virtue of clearly showing the yellowish legs on a couple of the birds.

Hatley Castle 3 - The Italian Garden

Hatley Park National Historic Site consists of the castle and the adjacent gardens. Directly beside the house is the Italian Garden, pictured above and below. It's a very formal garden with trees in tubs and immaculately trimmed and squared hedges, lawns and beds of flowers.

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Click here to see what the castle looks like from across the lagoon, in the autumn.