A Cold Hour at Ogden Point

A couple weeks ago I went to check out the Gingerbread House display at the Laurel Point Hotel. Afterwards I went to Centennial Square to take some shots of the ferris wheel. I got there, and realized they’ve already taken it down!!! The sun was setting and so I decided to go to Ogden Point to catch the sunset.

It was super windy, the waves were pretty rough, and the sunset wasn’t that great so it was a little disappointing…. And cold. I’ve come this far and couldn’t leave without getting a few pictures. So I set up my camera and tripod to play around with long exposure shots. I didn’t get a lot because I didn’t want to be in the cold anymore. Sooo here’s the two pictures (out of a lot of other pictures that I took which looked about the same). Nice and short blog post.

The first picture is an HDR picture. Decided to try that out since I haven’t in a while. I’m surprised at how I’m always learning new things about editing photos. It’s been a great experience!! And the second picture is just a normal 20 second exposure shot. Hope you all enjoy these!

Festival of Trees And Downtown Night Photography

Bethany and I spent the night wandering around downtown taking photos a few weeks back. It’s been a while since I’ve done something like this, so it was definitely a good time. We started out at the Empress Hotel. They have the Festival of Trees every year here. It’s a display of Christmas trees decorated by different businesses.

Which Christmas tree is your favourite?? Drop me a line in the comments!

After looking at all the trees, we wandered around… The city has decorated downtown with Christmas lights, so it was great checking out all the sites.

Setting up for long exposure night shots… I kind of wish I brought my tripod with me (decided to leave it in the car). But oh well, next time!

On top of a parkade.

Next stop, Chinatown.

Centennial Square. I’ll have to come back here because the ferris wheel is now running and there’s even more lights in the area now.

Inner Harbour. See if you can spot the swan in the next picture!

Last stop was the breakwater. I haven’t been here since they put up the railings… And it was really cold at the end. So we didn’t spend much time there.

It was definitely a great night! Will have to do more shooting again sometime soon!

Christmas 2012 in Victoria

Finally getting into the Christmas spirit! My friend and I decided to go for a walk downtown to check out a few Christmasy things that happen in Victoria. It was a beautiful day in Victoria. It wasn’t very cold for a December day. So off we went! I love all the different lights around the place. Victoria definitely puts some effort into it.

First stop was to find free parking…. Soooo we ended up parking at Ogden Point and decided to take a stroll out on the breakwater. The sky was doing awesome things, and there was a pelican around the area which is rare around Victoria.

Next stop, gingerbread houses at the Laurel Point Inn. I wasn’t sure what to expect from this. We got there, and I was blown away! Wasn’t expecting the gingerbread houses to look that amazing! The people must have put so much time in making them. It was awesome! And it smelled amazing there!

The next one was one of my favs.

So much detail!

After the gingerbread houses, we walked over to the Empress Hotel to check out the Festival of Trees that they have every year. Pretty much a company goes in on a tree and they decorate a tree together.

Yes, that’s a really big gingerbread castle!

Mandatory reflection shot.

Afterwards, we just wandered/drove around town for a bit while taking a few pictures here and there.

And there you have it… A glimpse of what Victoria looks like during Christmas! Thought I would post a bunch more pictures because I haven’t been updating very often.. But hope you all have an awesome Christmas and New Years! Feel free to drop me a line any time!

Winter Wonderland In Victoria

It’s definitely been a while since I’ve had the chance to update. First off, I started getting a cough last Thursday, and then got full blown sick on Friday. I’ve been trying to recover every since. I thought I’d be fine on Monday, but I was wrong… Worked 4 hours on Monday, 6 hours on Tuesday, and worked a full 8 hours on Wednesday! Yay! I felt pretty miserable during this sickness. I rarely get sick, and when I do, it seems 100 times worse… I dunno… I’m not sure why, but as the days kept passing, I got more antsy. I HAD to go out, but I knew I needed to rest as well – that was really tough for me to do. I had the whole week filled up with work and hanging out with friends, but one by one they had to be rescheduled until today…

… It snowed! Probably a good foot, and that’s RARE in Victoria. So I woke up this morning feeling a little bit better. I saw the snow and I told myself, “I HAVE TO GO OUTSIDE TODAY!” because I have yet to really shoot with my new Canon 50mm 1.4 lens I just bought. So I spent a good hour or so debating whether to go to work OR go play in the snow. It was stressful!! But I decided to go to work AND go play in the snow! I packed my camera and my work stuff, and off I went!

I was able to rope my friend, Rhiannon to play in the snow with me. We were suppose to check out a concert yesterday, but didn’t due to our sicknesses. But today… Nothing was going to get in our ways! So we met up after lunch and decided to do what we always do… Walk around! So here are some pics!

Rhiannon told me to take a pic of this statue thinger because she said it looked weird.

After the Inner Harbour, we headed straight towards the water to Dallas Rd.

Next stop… Beacon Hill Park!We finally found the bridge… And then… This happened.Random sword fights? Yes please!! … It’s starting to seem like every time Rhiannon and I hang out, something weird happens – not that it’s a bad thing or anything. It makes life a lot more interesting.

Apparently they’re in a band called “The Saints of British Rock”… I think I rather see them fight.

Hi Rhiannon!Hmmmmm…. I didn’t see where it led to, so it will remain a mystery…

What a great day! So beautiful. Thank you Rhiannon and beautiful snowy Victoria. It’s been a blast!

Sorry about the quality of some of the pics. Apparently WordPress isn’t as good as Flickr when it comes to sizing them. Hmmm…. Oh well, I might be able to live with that.

There’s more pics of today on my Flickr site if you want to see more! The link will take you to the first pic of the day. So look through them all! Comment, add me, subscribe, whatever. The more stuff the merrier!