[wkteoh] Vancouver

[wkteoh]

Never visited the forum for a long long time... then again I haven't really used my camera seriously for a good half a year. Since I have some free time on my hands at the moment, let me tell you a bit about my (rather passive) exploration of the beautiful city of Vancouver.

(Since I am too lazy to maintain different web galleries I will just take the pictures from Facebook hehe. )

Have just discovered Grouse Mountain recently. There are a lot of things to do up there. Among them is this talk on birds of prey. You get a chance to look at them up close (with your eyes and your lenses). Depicted here is a 5-year-old bald eagle (yes, bald eagle - they are not actually bald but the misleading name may have resulted from an ancient mistranslation). They let the eagle sit there on the perch for a few minutes so you get to snap at them to your heart's delight.

C&C welcome!

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[wkteoh]

Besides that, there is a Lumberjack Show which features some actions on a 60-foot pole (~ 6 storeys) like this:

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[wkteoh]

Having won the gold in Men's Hockey in Winter Olympics '10, there were celebration, cheering, chanting, and high-fiving (not sure if that's a word) in downtown. The roads were so tightly packed (think of Serangoon Road on weekend evening, times 3!) that I spent 10 minutes or so just getting dragged along with the crowd. It was truly a sight to behold. This was taken at some point where the crowd was less dense.

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[wkteoh]

You can find most if not all the ingredients for your South East Asian cooking here. Depicted here is beef-rendang cooked from scratch - the coconut milk wasn't freshly squeezed and the kerisik had the wrong texture, but overall it felt (or taste) like home

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[wkteoh]

South China Seas Trading Co. in Granville Island Public Market in particular has an impressive stock of herbs/ingredients like assam (shown below), turmeric, galangal, and pandan, though the price can be on the higher side.

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[wkteoh]

Stanley Park is the most frequently visited park in Vancouver. Along its 8.8 km scenic seawall, one can see West Vancouver (#6) over the other side of Burrard Inlet. Wild birds such as blue herons (#7), sea gulls, American coots, and mallards can be seen quite often.

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[wkteoh]

Every summer since 1990, a few countries compete in the pyro-musical fireworks competition called Celebration of Light in English Bay, Vancouver. According to the official website, each year it attracts about 1.4 million viewers. In fact there were so many people that a few streets in downtown were closed to traffic. It was quite a sight watching hundreds of people walking for 30 minutes to watch the fireworks.

At a time length of 25 minutes, this is the longest fireworks show I have been to, and it is completely free. Seeing the size of the crowd, I thought that the view is going to be obscured by the sea of standing people and tripods. I was pleasantly surprised that tripod users were minimal, and everyone was sitting down (except for a few drunkards and camwhores). I thought the fireworks were pretty good, saw a few new tricks and patterns. Overall I was quite pleased with the shots, even though it's just my 3rd time photographing fireworks.

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[sfoto100]

Never visited the forum for a long long time... then again I haven't really used my camera seriously for a good half a year. Since I have some free time on my hands at the moment, let me tell you a bit about my (rather passive) exploration of the beautiful city of Vancouver.

(Since I am too lazy to maintain different web galleries I will just take the pictures from Facebook hehe. )

Have just discovered Grouse Mountain recently. There are a lot of things to do up there. Among them is this talk on birds of prey. You get a chance to look at them up close (with your eyes and your lenses). Depicted here is a 5-year-old bald eagle (yes, bald eagle - they are not actually bald but the misleading name may have resulted from an ancient mistranslation). They let the eagle sit there on the perch for a few minutes so you get to snap at them to your heart's delight.

#1

very beautiful eagle... so lovely picture u got here...

i like eagles and owls alot... but i dare not go close to them when i goes to bird park... how good if i can hold them on my hand... haha...

 

[wkteoh]

@sfoto100: I didn't go that close, but I had a telephoto zoom with me. Plus the trainer is around, and the bird did not show any tendency to attack people.

In the first week of July, we went camphiking up to Garibaldi Lake in Vancouver. Keep in mind that it is already 2 months into summer. There was about 2 metres of snow so there were not many fellow hikers around. Sleeping in the tent was not very comfortable but it was a really unique experience.

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On our way down, we saw a few wild deers grazing. They were not wary of humans at all. I had a strong urge to stroke them but eventually decided against it.

 

[wkteoh]

Every year around May to June, there is a food expo called EAT! Vancouver which features stalls from local restaurants covering a wide variety of ethnic cuisine, stage performances, wine tasting, cooking classes etc. I went to the one in 2008 but somehow missed the 2009 and 2010 ones. I found these (relatively) old pictures when I was arranging my pictures

#13
This is my friend helping out with a Malaysian restaurant's stall, grilling satay like how they do it at home.

#14
One of the stage performance was the demonstration of how roti canai is made, which was absolutely excellent and a great way to promote Malaysian culture.

 

[wkteoh]

Here is something you don't see in South-East Asia. Every summer around August, there is a Pride Parade of which the aims are to educate people about what it means to be gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender (GLBT), to promote liberation of societies/communities/countries from anti-homosexuality sentiments and regulations, and to celebrate diversity and differences in sexuality.

The parade was held in downtown spanning a 2.6km route and clocking at about 2.5 hours. Being my first time there, I was quite surprised by the huge crowd. Basically anywhere along the route there are at least 2-3 layers of people. A lot of large corporations as well as smaller organizations participated in the parade, there were splashes of colours (and water, as you will see later) and a wide variety of sizes, shapes, and age. They are flamboyant, quirky, flashy, and funny. Certainly an event not to be missed when you are in Vancouver.

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Water guns afire! Very risky to photogs.

​

 

[wkteoh]

More pictures from the Pride Parade (C&C welcome):

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[wkteoh]

A lot of raccoons around Vancouver because people keep feeding them, or so I heard. I saw 9 of them at the same time once in Stanley Park.

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[wkteoh]

I just realized this is the first city-/land-scape picture I have... others are merely very loosely related to 'travel'.

Anyway it was a wee bit after sunset and realizing that the sky has gone pretty dull on one side, I walked along the Stanley Park seawall to get to the part where there is still some colours in the sky. I took a few shots of the Lion's Gate bridge (the one with the white lights) and found them to be just alright.

As I walked back in downtown's direction to catch a bus, I saw this blue heron catching some fish near the shore. After considering whether to change to telephoto, I decided to stick with kitty and shot a few frames. Would have preferred a longer exposure but given the amount of waves I doubt the heron could have hold still for long.

#25

 

[wkteoh]

A night shot of Vancouver downtown from Stanley Park seawall.

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[Webitect]

VERY NICE, Photos!!! I'm so homesick now!

 

[giantcanopy]

#25

My fav of the lot. would do well in a portrait orientation too, with the lighted bridge and all

ryan

 

[wkteoh]

webitect | hey, good to see a CS-er from Vancouver!

giantcanopy | thanks. this is probably my favourite photo since I got bitten, although I'm still undecided as to whether I have oversaturated the image or not. Not sure if portrait would be as nice, since the landscape mode can capture more of the mountain range, the fading light on the left hand side, and the stretch of city lights (North Vancouver) on the right hand side.

Another shot of Vancouver downtown from the seawall. I tried to include the sailboats in the front here. But I'm still ambivalent as to whether it is cluttering up the shot (the reflections are rather messy).

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[Cyrus1988]

#25

[/QUOTE]

I like this alot! Omg, you are making me excited about my visit to vancouver for an exchange. New to photography but I guess there will be a lot for me to shoot over there. Are most of your animal shots done with a telephoto lens?

 

[wkteoh]

Cyrus1988 | Vancouver is a very photogenic place - it didn't get picked as one of the best places to live on earth for no reason. Yes, my animal shots are done with a telephoto lens, usually in the range of 200mm and above (with a 1.5x crop body)

Night view of the lower mainland + North Vancouver on the far right side (see the bridge) from Burnaby Mountain... too bad there are too many trees. So I chose to include the parking and the (partially drunk) UVic students (I assume) in the picture for foreground interest.

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