The Causeway

Although the curvature caused by the fish-eye lens is quite pronounced in this photo I like this view of the Empress Hotel from the small square at the northern end of the causeway.

Empress Update

A striking addition to the Empress Hotel is the Porte-cochere they have built to shelter the new entrance to the hotel at the front of the north wing. I like it mostly for how it frames the Legislative Assembly Building (see below).

Where's Roger?

Hard to believe this "bee-loud glade" is on one of the busiest corners in the whole city. It's where the Empress Hotel keeps its bees and is also home to Roger, the resident Yellow-bellied Marmot. How Roger arrived on the island (there are no native yellow-bellied Marmots here) and why he chose to live in the garden of the Empress Hotel are mysteries that are unlikely to be solved but he has been there on the corner of Government and Humboldt Streets since 2008. However, when I went there today he was not in evidence, no doubt napping during the heat of the day in his burrow. Click HERE to see some pics of him I took a few years ago.

April Choices!

As I wrote yesterday, "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 two or three 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 April 2016 photos. There are four to choose from today - Victoria in April is like a giant garden, especially my favorite little jewel, Highrock Park. Which one do you prefer?

Victoria from Christmas Hill

Camas Lilies - Highrock Park 1

Bengal Lounge - Empress Hotel (This would be a slightly out of place photo except that three of the recipients of the annual calendar are visible in this photo. It also has historical significance because the Bengal Lounge - a venerable Victoria watering place - is no more, having been deleted in the Empress Hotel's recent renovations. The photo was taken shortly before the room was closed forever.)

Camas Lilies - Highrock Park 2 (I know this is not much different from the other Highrock Park photo but in the spring this park has such an unearthly beauty I spend hours up there wandering around.)

Busy Sunday

Sunday saw the final day of the Victoria International Buskers Festival and of the humongous car show, Northwest Deuce Days. Between the two festivals the Inner Harbour and most of the downtown area became one giant party area. Though there were lots of people it seldom felt really crowded because many events were taking place in a dozen different locations. Above is where the crowds were thickest, along Government Street in front of the Empress Hotel and directly in front of the Legislature, from the steps of which the above photo was taken. We'll have a look at some of the performances and events over the next few days.

After & Before

I mentioned that the new owners have been refurbishing the Empress Hotel. Above is what it looked like this weekend. Below is what it looked like seven years ago.

The Bengal Lounge

As part of the makeover of Victoria's iconic Empress Hotel, they are retiring the Bengal Lounge. It will only be open for a short while longer so I was happy when family members suggested we have lunch there yesterday. I am sad to see the lounge disappear as it reflected an historical period well and was a great place to relax with friends and have a few drinks and some good food. The ambience was the colonial period known as "The Raj" when the British Empire was at its peak and the Queen Victoria was empress in fact, one of her titles being Empress of India. The Bengal lounge had some nice authentic touches, from the tiger skin over the fireplace to the punkah on the ceiling (visible in the photo - it's the odd shaped object hanging from the ceiling on the right side of the photo.)

Post-pluvial

Lots of rain these days but when it stops and the sky clears the light is splendid.

Victoria is Gay

Here's a quick snap of today's Pride Parade taken only a few hours ago. For many years the city's Victoria Day Parade was the big parade of the year but there is no doubt it has been eclipsed by the Pride Parade which must have drawn tens of thousands out this year. Macdonald Park where the parade ended was jammed with thousands more who came out to celebrate many kinds of diversity. Now if we can just keep up that spirit of tolerance and acceptance for the rest of the year!

The weird colored sky is the result of the many forest fires that are burning in BC and neighboring Washington State. They cast a very strange yellow-orange light over everything.

Causeway Panorama

Here's a Causeway panorama all the way from the Bateman Centre (white building on the far left) to the Empress Hotel (on the right). This was taken on Thursday, April 2, 2015. I didn't shrink it for the web as much as usual - click it once or twice to see in larger sizes.

Empress Hotel

Francis Rattenbury was the architect responsible for the British Columbia Legislative Assembly Buildings pictured yesterday and was also responsible for centrepiece of today's photo, the Empress Hotel. This view was taken from where a tourist amusement called Undersea Gardens used to be. The floating Undersea Gardens building has been towed away and what now occupies the location is a small wharf where the Harbour Ferry stops to pick up and drop off passengers. The low white structure in front of the hotel on the right side of the photo is a small skating rink erected so that children here can have a taste of what the rest of this country enjoys at this time of year.

Lens Distortion 3

Stefan Jansson suggested in a comment on yesterday's post that a good experiment would be to shoot a panorama using a standard lens and that was precisely the thought that occurred to me as the next step. The photo above of the Empress Hotel was shot using a 35-70mm zoom at 35mm. The panorama consists of 9 shots altogether - 5 across the bottom and four on top. I wish I had included a bit more foreground but most of the foreground was Government Street with busy traffic and wouldn't have improved the photo. Also I would probably have needed a third strip of photos across the top if I had aimed lower for the bottom strip of photos. Aside from that, the distortion in the above photo certainly is less than in the single 10mm wide shot below, although the latter (shot several years ago) is much more dramatic. However, when all is said and done, it seems to me that some level of distortion is inevitable because of the nature of lenses. Even our eyes distort reality. In fact, we probably never know what anything really looks like. However, it behooves a photographer to at least have some awareness of how his or her equipment is affecting the image being created. This series has helped me to understand a bit of what happens when you point a lens at something.

The Hands of Time 9 - Raising a Teacup

Here's another in the Hands of Time sculpture series by Crystal Przybille, this one entitled "Raising a Teacup". It is installed on a lamp standard on the corner of Government and Humboldt Streets with the Empress Hotel and its world famous afternoon tea service providing the perfect backdrop. "This sculpture references Victoria's traditional customary and historical connections to Britain."

Roger

Here is a Victoria resident who is very special for a several reasons. First, he's got what is arguably the classiest address in the city. He lives in a small rock garden on one corner of the block occupied by the Fairmont Empress Hotel on Victoria's Inner Harbour Causeway. He's been living there for four years. Secondly, like most of us, he's not a native of the city. In fact, he's probably the only Yellow-bellied Marmot on Vancouver Island. There are other marmots on the island but they are a different species. It's thought he may have hitched a ride here on a car or truck coming from the interior of the province or from Alberta. I've looked for Roger a number of times since I first heard about him but was only lucky enough to catch these photos on Sunday. Thanks to regular visitors Dean and Cheryl for alerting me to Roger's presence in our fair city and to Roger for posing so nicely.

Fairmont Empress Hotel

It recently occurred to me that though I have often included the Fairmont Empress Hotel in the background to shots of the Inner Harbour, I have not featured it on its own. Like two other landmark buildings that face the Inner Harbour, the Legislative Assembly and the Royal London Wax Museum, this hotel was designed by Francis Rattenbury and opened in 1908. As can be seen, it's an imposing monument of that chateau style of hotel built by the large railway/steamship corporations a hundred years ago. I've called it the Fairmont Empress Hotel in deference to the new owners but to those of us who live here, it will always be just "The Empress."

Deux Magnifiques Vieilles Dames

The title of this post is in French because it sounds better than "two lovely old ladies." The two are The Fairmont Empress Hotel and The North Star of Herschel Island. The Empress is the elder of the two and has occupied her commanding situation at the head of Victoria's Inner Harbour since 1908, making her just over 100 years old. However, millions of dollars have been poured into restorations over the years and she is now probably even more beautiful and hospitable than when she was first erected. If you come to Victoria, even if you don't stay in the Empress, do stop in for a visit. Relax in colonial splendor in the Bengal Bar or take afternoon tea in style in the glorious tea room. Some of Victoria's finest shops and galleries are also located in the Empress.

The second grand old lady is The North Star of Herschel Island. "North Star of Herschel Island is the last of the sailing Arctic cargo ships. She is the only fully rigged ship in Canada, meaning that she crosses square sails on each of her three masts." She was built in 1935 in San Francisco and then transported to the arctic circle to begin her life in the fur trade. She is no longer in commercial use and graces Victoria's waterways as the residence of her current owners. You can find out more about her fascinating history from the North Star website by clicking here.

Victoria's Hanging Baskets

About this time of year Victoria's downtown core blossoms with these beautiful hanging flower baskets, about a thousand of them. While not unique to Victoria, these baskets are a symbol of the city for many visitors, and have been a summertime tradition since 1937 when they were introduced to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the city's incorporation.

In the background to the baskets above is the roof of the Empress Hotel. This hotel as well as the adjacent Legislative Assembly Buildings and the nearby Crystal Gardens, the three most impressive buildings in the downtown core, were all designed by Francis Rattenbury. You can read a little about Rattenbury's tragic life by clicking here. In succeeding posts I hope to look a little more closely at these prominent buildings.

Queen Victoria

No blog about Victoria would be complete without some reference to the Queen for whom the city was named, so here is a photo of the statue of Queen Victoria that stands in front of the Legislative Assembly Buildings. This is a young Queen Victoria, quite different from the aged queen we are more used to seeing (below), but when the city was founded in 1843, Victoria had only been 6 years on the throne and, at 24 years old, may have been very like this statue.Below is a photo of the statue overlooking the Inner Harbour with the Empress Hotel on the right. The Empress Hotel, built shortly after her death, was named after the Queen in her role as Empress of India.