Back-lit water

Out for a stroll, I noticed how the early evening sun back-lit the lawn sprinklers. I thought it would make a picture, and it did.

And that really is it for London Daily Photo until sometime in July. The hiatus is on!

Cheers!

What are these flowers?

Shot with my new Canon PowerShot S90.

I know, I know, this blog is on hiatus. But, trimming a yew at my front entry, I noticed this flowering plant hiding under the dense, green foliage. It wasn't there last year and neither my wife nor I planted it. So, what is it? It sure is pretty.

Note how the reds and greens really pop. This is because they are complementary colours which means they are opposite each other on the colour wheel. The use of complementary colours is intrinsically a high-contrast approach.

A splash of colour, a drop of rain

This blog is on hiatus. See my previous post for an explanation on why I won't be posting again until sometime in July.

But today I took Fiona out to inspect the garden foliage and flowers after the rain stopped. I had to return with my camera to share some of the images.

Now, what was I saying about taking a much needed break?

--- All shots taken with my new Canon S90. I am very happy with my new camera but it takes some getting used to. ---

New people, an important part of town

Shot with my Canon PowerShot S90. An excellent little camera.

I've run Fiona before, and I'll probably run her again. Allow me to explain why.

Bloggers who post daily photos from cities and towns around the world often show urban sites --- or should I say sights? I find the images of cityscapes from around the globe very interesting. Often the pictures show new buildings of which the blogger is extremely proud. But cities enjoy more than just a constant stream of new buildings; They enjoy a constant stream of new people.

Fiona belongs to the London stream. She is a new resident of Southwestern Ontario. As young as she is, she is most certainly not the the newest resident. This stream of people is large and fast moving. Of course, Fiona is still moving through headwater territory; Me, her grandfather, I'm moving rather quickly to the end of this river.

Fiona may be only a little more than eight months old but she has quite the sense of humour. She loves to giggle with the baby in the hallway mirror. Once, while I was holding her, she grasped the mirror on the our antique umbrella stand and pulled herself forward in order to peek behind the mirror. Discovering that there was no one there, she looked back at me with a puzzled expression.

The baby in the framed photo looks a lot like the baby in the mirror, except this tyke doesn't move. This baby is frozen in time and trapped immobile in a frame. Fiona can hold this picture in her two hands and rotate it and turn it and whenever she glances the actual image, the baby is always there.

For Fiona the picture is a constant delight. I hope today's picture is a delight for you.

À bientôt!

And now I must say, "À bientôt!" In a little more than a week, my wife and I are heading off for a 40 day adventure. We're driving across the United States and Canada in my aging Morgan. The car and I got old together. It is question which one of us will break down first.

I have bought a Canon PowerShot S90 and a Fuji HS10, complete with spare batteries, for documenting our trip and I am bringing a Dell Studio XPS with an SSD drive for filing the occasional story from the road. And I finally got a cell phone and a GPS.

My daughter, her husband and Fiona are keeping the home fires burning, the lawn cut and weeds pulled, by living in our home while we are gone. This is wonderful. Fiona will think of our home as her home and she will be even more comfortable when visiting us in the future.

I'll be filing stories and pictures to Rockinon: Travel when I get the opportunity.

Hope to see you all back here sometime in July,
Cheers,
Rockinon (Ken Wightman)

Some of my favourite pictures from London Daily Photo.

Northern Walking Stick
Evening Mist
Captain Rex --- possibly my most frequently hit image. Even Lucusfilm in California has visited.
London Lobster --- this is another frequently hit picture. I shot this right at the dinner table.
A Drop of Rain

I hope you had some favourites, too. Cheers!

Jogging

It seems to me that I'm often confronted by articles claiming that folk today are in very poor shape compared to their counterparts in the 1950s. I wondered what was being said about fitness sixty years ago.

Surprise! Surprise! Word back then was that American kids were out of shape --- especially when compared to European children. In December 1953, Dr. Hans Kraus, M.D., associate professor of physical medicine and rehabilitation at New York University, claimed the United States was becoming soft.

He said that 56 percent of  U.S. students failed at least one component of a comprehensive fitness test while 92 percent of European children passed the same test. A few years after this Canadians were being told that some mythical Swede outperformed them. I say mythical because later the government admitted that the whole Swede story was made up to embarrass Canadians into exercising. (It worked, and the myth is still repeated.)

One thing I am sure has changed over the intervening sixty years: many seniors are in better physical condition today than their counterparts from the 1950s.

Fishing on the Maitland River

The South Maitland River is a stream located about an hour and a half north of London, Ontario. Fishermen take a variety of fish from the Maitland, including small mouth bass, rainbow trout and white perch. According to Hook and Bullet, "If all goes well, the white perch will be hooked by your crickets, the small mouth will be biting your maggots and the rainbow will be grabbing your wax worms."

Maggots?

Known 'em since hatching

Shot with my new Fuji HS10. The lens is everything I hoped.

Another shot from my Fuji HS10.

The ducks and geese at Springbank Park are used to being fed, but they do like to keep a little distance. But with this lady the birds literally eat right out of her hand --- and slowly, gently, with confidence steeped in trust. It appeared this lady and the birds were friends.

When asked, she said that she had been feeding these birds since the day they hatched. These birds now come not at the sight of a handout but at the sound of this woman's voice.

Like I said, these birds and this lady are friends.