Photos from the past 40 years
This is my contribution to the Weekly Prompts Photo Challenge: Display.
A male Yellow-headed Blackbird displaying to attract a female near Punnichy, Saskatchewan, Canada.
Old commercial vehicle display, Queens Park, Crewe, Cheshire, England.
A pair of Great Crested Grebes performing the weed waving part of their courtship display in the spring, Hurleston Reservoir, Cheshire, England.
Canada Day firework display, Wiarton, South Bruce Peninsula, Ontario, Canada.
The new Wits End Weekly Photo Challenge is People.
I had a couple of ideas for the challenge before remembering photographing Wiarton Willie’s funeral 18 months ago.
Wiarton Willie is a white Groundhog used to forecast the end of winter as a tourist attraction for the South Bruce Peninsula area in the winter. The funeral was for the third or fourth white Groundhog to have the job although some locals claim that there has been more than that with some quietly disposed of.
I thought the idea of a funeral for a Groundhog slightly ridiculous so went along with a camera to take photos for my other photoblog.
The funeral procession being led by bagpipes and drums.
The crowd watching the funeral procession. Notice how many smartphones are recording the event.
The only TV cameraman to attend the funeral filming one of the crowd who was taking photos.
The guy in the blue shirt may have been covering the funeral for one of the local newspapers.
Someone in the crowd filming one of the endless speeches by a string of local politicians. The dog was more interested in me.
This week’s Wits End Weekly Photo Challenge is Round Things.
As usual I had a few ideas for the challenge before thinking of something completely unrelated to my original thoughts. I had the post finished before deleting it and reverting to one of my original ideas.
A variety of round fireworks at the Wiarton Village Fair taken from the dock in the village of Colpoy’s Bay. The dock is a couple of miles away from the fireworks across the bay.
A continuation of using telephotos to isolate sections of the landscape.
This shot is from a couple of years ago. I had gone down to the dock at Bluewater Park in Wiarton on the South Bruce Peninsula for the sunrise. There was a good display of autumn colour on the Niagara Escarpment so once the sun was up I put a super telephoto lens on the tripod and started isolating sections.
This allowed me to focus attention on the autumn colour while having a thin strip of water along the bottom of the frame and a small section of sky at the top giving the trees some context.
The rock edge of the Escarpment is visible center left of the frame with a couple of large boulders that have fallen from the rock face at the waters edge.
Sunday morning of week 36 saw me down at Colpoy’s Bay for the sunrise. I was down there about 40 minutes before sunrise and this is one of the first shots I took. It’s a 13 second exposure which has softened the water a little, it was quite rough and choppy at the time.
Although it was taken 30 minutes before sunrise that’s not allowing for the sun having to rise above the Niagara Escarpment. If I recall correctly the sun was about 8 minutes late by the time it had climbed over the Escarpment.
This week’s Cosmic Photo Challenge is “Get your motors running: cool cars that caught your eye.”
I had photo picked for the challenge but changed my mind and went in a completely different direction. I went from a high tech rally car competing in a World Championship Rally to a much older and simpler design of vehicle.
The photo shows a Citroen 2CV taken this summer at the Wiarton Air and Auto Extravaganza at Wiarton Airport, Ontario, Canada. It was one of only three European cars at the show. The 2CV was built by Citroen from 1948 until 1990. This one is from the 1980s I’m guessing. Deux chevaux is the French for two horses, 2CV means two steam horses.
I was living in the U.K. when these were popular with some but a source of amusement for more people. Looking back maybe the owners of the 2CV had a point. It’s a basic vehicle with minimal electrical systems, a simple engine and long travel suspension. A vehicle that probably only require a basic toolkit for most repairs.
I wonder how many French cars from the 1980s are in Canada.
It was the Wiarton Village Fair over the weekend of week 31. So on the Sunday evening I went down to the dock at Colpoy’s Bay for the Village Fair fireworks.
The fireworks are launched from the public dock in the town of Wiarton. According to Google maps the two docks are 2.6 miles apart across Colpoy’s Bay.
For these fireworks I used a telephoto lens I purchased in the very early 1980s. I say very early because I remember using it at the Le Mans 24 hour motorcycle endurance race in April 1982. Between the camera and lens was a 1.4x teleconverter that I wasn’t sure would even fit on the back of the lens until I tried it shortly before the fireworks started.
