Saturday, May 23, 2009

Dual Sporting around Squamish

What an excellent day today.

I met up with a few folks from DualsportBC. Initially we were going to ride up around Cat Lake, north of Squamish, but when we were chatting at the morning meet we thought we'd start by checking out what was going on above Brittania beach.

We scooted up past the first gate with no problem and saw some folks working logging equipment. I chatted with one of the guys and he said there's no problem with us riding through. Cool guy.

Don, on the 1983 Honda, had broken a bolt on his head and was leaking a fair bit of oil onto the engine and exhaust. Luckily Don had brought some extra oil along.

Here you can see the fog that "Ol' Smokie" was creating.


We found snow all too soon and turned back to go to the old mining facility.

Some of us took the tougher shortcut (it's to the left above the bikes).


The old equipment was very cool.




The hole in front of Simon went down ... to where we do not know, we were not set up for spelunking ;)


Some equipment from 1904


We took a fair number of photos


Rural Decay


Too bad there was no beautiful scenery


At the site of the old dam


We always waited at all trail forks & gathered everyone up.


Sign said no entry. Which was no problem as we were exiting ;)


On the way down we ran into a downhill skateboard race that had been set up. But we put on a show on the way down the hill once the skateboarders were off the course.

Don and ... well I forgot the name of the guy riding the KTM, went home. Don posted up a message and he made it home safe despite the engine issue.

Simon, Jiri and I went north to Squamish, gassed up and then went to see if we could ride through to the top of Indian Arm.

Getting around the gate & blocks was a bit tricky, but with 3 guys, determination and no fear of banging and scraping the bikes it was no problem :)

This road was a fair bit tougher. I'd noticed earlier that my shifter was coming lose and I didn't want to be in the back country and have parts falling off.

So when we stopped for a bit of a break I decided to fix it. Turned out that my footpeg was falling off as well. So more loctite all around.





All too soon, snow and lots of it.






Again, if only we'd had some scenery to enjoy.


A couple of shots of Jiri's bike in the snow that he asked for :)




After a fair bit of muscling the bikes we made it back to one of the cross roads and explored up a different mountain.
The path got rough pretty quick, once again, no view to speak of sadly.


Simon went ahead a bit but was back within minutes. I took a few photos of how deep the ditches were that we were crossing at times.


Here I stood inside the ditch.


We cruised back down to the main gravel road and Jiri was tired and turned back toward Vancouver.

So, then there were two. Simon and I decided to go along the main road to check things out. After an hour of riding, some dead ends and a minor "off" for Simon on a steep rocky brush covered descent, we got back to ... snow.


By now it was 3.45 pm and we'd been on the go since 9 am.


We were both getting tired and decided not to try and force the snow issue. Once again we were wishing for some views or something. Bloody BC and it's lack of scenery.


The ride out was not that eventful, we always made sure we kept in touch every few minutes. Here we are back at Hwy 99 under the Chief.


We were both tired and had an amazing day. Great dualsporting and all so close to Vancouver. We'll be back in the area once the snow is gone to get all the way through to Indian Arm.

One final shot.


You can see the slide show here
Hope you had a great day!

Friday, May 22, 2009

Exposure Gallery Opening

We checked out the opening of the Exposure Gallery Street exhibition.



Photographers


Using the light


Ducking fail


Untitled


Lone bike


The exhibit itself wasn't all that interesting.

Bjorn

Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Sometimes you need a 2nd look

I'd dismissed the following image without even bothering to flip it "the way I wanted".

I think that was a mistake.



I think too often reflections are a bit ... weak. I'm hoping that I'll continue to like this one.

Bjorn

Some film goodness

... or not, I guess it's up to you.

These are from some expired Kodak colour film. Some I converted to B&W in post processing.

Part of my in progress "Closed" series


Two shots from dual sporting to 20 mile bay on west Harrison




Track day


Dual sporting in the Elaho




Shot while on the way to some Sunday Beers with Peter R.
"Meaningful"

Friday, May 15, 2009

New Toy

So, I bought the Nikon 35mm f1.8 today. I hadn't really planned on buying it today, but after checking the broadway camera website for a while now, I called them.

They didn't have stock, but put my name on a list. Not 2 hours later I had a message, they'd gotten 2 in stock one was already reserved and I could have the other one.

So off I went. Now, I couldn't go buy a new lens without going for a photo walk.

Some samples.





























I'm glad I picked it up. The low light capabilities are excellent and it's quite sharp.