Autumn on The Gorge 3

In the last couple of photos of the Gorge we have been looking south towards the city. Here we are looking in the opposite direction, up the Gorge towards the Tillicum Bridge.

Autumn on the Gorge 2

Like yesterday's photo, today's was taken from the Selkirk Trestle, but looking south towards the city.

Autumn on the Gorge

Many of the trees along the water's edge of the Gorge are turning now. I took this photo near the center of the Selkirk Trestle, an old railroad bridge that has been repurposed as part of the Galloping Goose trail for walkers and cyclists.

Autumn

Mount Douglas Beach

Mount Douglas Park the only park I can think of that includes both a mountain and an ocean beach within its borders. This is part of the beach, looking northeast. The park's trees are such a mix of evergreen and deciduous that although autumn is well advanced now, the foliage still looks quite green.

Elk Lake Trails

Between watching the races on the lake we went for a little walk around the lake which is quite pretty but also quite muddy at this time of year. The trail goes all the way around Elk and Beaver Lake and is about 10 km in total. Quite popular with runners and walkers even on a wet day. - Fern

Mushrooming Part 2

Benjamin and I were discussing our recent outing to Mount Doug Park and how it is that we can go out together to the same place with very similar equipment and yet our photos are very, very different. It's an interesting meditation on the creative process. He would say this for more eloquently as well. I enjoy his perspective as much as my own so I feel it's a win-win situation. Happy Birthday Dad, thanks for taking me out on so many great adventures. xo Fern

Autumn

We're still having lovely warm, sunny days but there's a nip in the air in the mornings and as this photo of the Gorge shows, autumn colors are tinting the landscape.

Second Spring

Around this time of year, though autumn's colors are beginning to take over, it seems as though Victoria is entering a second spring. The browns and yellows of summer's heat and drought have been replaced by the rich green re-growth of grass and moss and spring's wild flowers are being mimicked by autumn's sprouting mushrooms. I noticed the one above in our back lawn this morning so I'm heading out to Mount Douglas (Pkols) Park this afternoon to see what is happening out there.

Archival

Usually I try to post photos that are current but sometimes, like today, I am forced to post something archival because I have nothing current. Here are a couple of photos I noticed recently when I was archiving photos I took last November. They were taken during the blustery dramatic days of late autumn on the West Bay Walkway and seem to capture that season well. The panorama below is BIG - click on it once or twice to see it full size.

Old West Saanich Road

I'm a city dweller through and through but whenever I get a chance to drive these back roads I can't help but contemplate how magical it would be to live surrounded by the silence of the woods. - Fern

Autumn Colour

As I rode along the Gorge to enjoy the leaves turning red I stopped at this place to take a photo. After parking I found that I wasn't the only photographer out to capture the rich contrast of the reds of the leaves against the blues of the sky and water.

Time Marches On

On yet another lovely September afternoon I took a walk through Vic West and couldn't deny any longer that the leaves are beginning to change, the air is cooler and the days shorter. We have been enjoying such a fantastic September that I have been firmly in denial. Anyone else? - Fern

Blustery Days

I began to express my love of this season, and declare it "my favorite" but I believe I did the same thing in the summer and before that in the spring etc. This was taken on a late afternoon walk in Cairn Park. - Fern

West Bay Walkway Itself

Since it has become my favourite morning walk these days I've been posting a lot of photos taken from the West Bay Walkway. Here are a couple of photos of the West Bay Walkway. The photo above is near the western end of the walkway. Here it crosses a little stretch of shallow water where one can look down into the intertidal zone. To the left you can see the same stretch of the walkway from further east.

Beacon Hill Autumn

Autumn

Autumn Sunset

Though it has yet to freeze here the nights are cold enough to turn the leaves on these trees on the banks of the Gorge. Here we are looking towards downtown from the vicinity of the Railyards in Vic West. The nearest bridge is the Bay Street (or Point Ellice) Bridge and just visible beneath it in the distance is the bright blue Johnson Street Bridge.

That Time of Year

It's starting to get a little crisp in the evenings and the atmosphere seems thinner, so even when the sun shines it's like the air can't hold as much warmth as in summer. It's a relief for those who suffer from the heat but for people like myself that first warm spring day seems a long way off.

Dallas Road November

While autumn definitely brings some brownish hues to the shoreline, things are still pretty green in this photo taken this afternoon. It looks warm and lots of people were out enjoying the sunshine and dramatic cloudscapes, but the wind was cold.

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Awards Part 2

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The Kreativ Blogging Award (see yesterday's post below) requires me to list "six things that make me happy." In my contrary fashion I instead am going to list 5 reasons why the City Daily Photo Blog World makes me happy.

• Nice Talk
  In an internet that is constantly cruised by trolls and foul-mouthed cruelies, somehow the City Daily Photo Blog world remains a network marked by truly civil discourse. Its members one and all seem to work consciously at keeping it nice, friendly, and supportive, both in the text of their posts and in their comments when visiting one another's sites. This is quite remarkable: an online community of people from all over the planet, representing many different cultures, political persuasions and religions somehow managing consistently to be nice to one another. The City Daily Photo Blog world is a shining example of Global Village consciousness being realized on a day to day basis.


• Entertaining
  The photographs that people post are often beautiful and always interesting.The accompanying text is generally informative, usually good-natured and often witty or downright funny. These City Daily Photo Blogs are quite addictive. I'd rather browse them for an hour than watch anything on TV.


• Photojournalism
  The mix of a photograph and some text is just right for me, both as an online browser and as a blogger. A photograph may be worth a thousand words but a photograph and a hundred words is probably equivalent to about three photos or three thousand words. That metaphor's a bit overextended but you get the idea. That complementary mix of text and graphic information is what made magazines so popular and it works in the blog world too.


• Discipline and Freedom
  I like the discipline. To post a photo and say something about it every day is not as easy as one initially considers it to be. Yet the supportive, interested atmosphere of the City Daily Photo Blog world makes it a pleasant task to work on improving one's communication skills every day. And while there is that discipline, there is also the freedom to post pretty much anything one wants.


• Learning
  I learn a lot. Particularly I learn that the world is modernizing rapidly. When I was growing up we thought North America and Europe to be the most technologically advanced societies on earth, the only really modern cultures. This mindset continues for many, as if we constantly move into the future while the rest of the world slumbers in their grass shack colonial past. It's the same kind of jolt I got when I travelled to South Korea a few years ago, expecting to find a somewhat backward Asian country yearning to be modernized. Instead I found a culture more plugged in and online than my own Canadian culture. Thus, it is salutary to see the fantastic malls and skyscrapers of Kuala Lumpur, Singapore and Tokyo and to learn that the people there are meeting the same types of challenges and problems as I am and share many of the same joys and sorrows.

Well, that's more than enough for today. More, tomorrow! In the meantime, I'm interested to hear what you have to say about this.