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20/365 : St Mary’s Cement at Night.

This is quite noticeable when driving past Darlington at night. It’s the St Mary Cement plant and I’m sure it can be seen from space. The photo is taken from Waverly Road, as there was a bridge over the rail line that let me get a clear view from a distance – minus the hydro lines, trees and rail line that would otherwise clutter the view. The photo is taken with my Nikon zoomed out to about 150mm and then I took 4 different exposed images that I ran through the HDR treatment, at F/11. 

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19/365 : Badlands Snow.

Today we got a taste of winter here. Snow squalls and such. Since the snow hit mid afternoon on a work day, I figured I might have a small chance of getting some undisturbed snow drifts at the Cheltenham Badlands. Normally a hundred people make it here before I do and the photos are full of trampled snow footprints. Not tonight, I seem to be here first. I tossed the Nikon on the tripod with my timer and set it to one minute while I ran around with a flashlight highlighting bits of snow from the side. You could call this off camera lighting. The snow whipped up into high gear after this photo so I called it a night before I had too much snow inside the camera. You’ll definitely see more photos from this location as my 365 project moves forward … I love this spot. The photo is a composite from two exposures as the light changed in the background between one shot and another in a way I didn’t like. 

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18/365 : SOPA Blackout

Today many Internet sites like Wikipedia and Reddit are “blacking out” removing content to protest a bad law proposed in the USA that could break the Internet as we know it. This is my take on the blackouts today.

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17/365 : Still Empty

The local Blockbuster went bust with the rest of the chain a few months back. It looks like the store hasn’t got a new tenant yet. I was nearby for some errands tonight, so I grabbed this photo with my iPhone. Bit windy for a long exposure photo with the Nikon so I will leave that for another night.

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16/365 : Speed River Bridge

Well, I’m back in Canada, and back at work. That means it’s gonna be a lot more challenging to keep the project photos interesting. Fortunately, today I had the opportunity to be in Guelph for a meeting after work. All the way there I was visualizing different things I could shoot while in town and I settled on the Speed River Bridge. The bridge is interesting, in that it’s covered, has a lovely lattice pattern and … was built using techniques from the 1800s, like no metal nails to hold it together. The image itself is a 9 shot HDR image with my Nikon D200. The lighting made the white balance horrible, even though I balanced it with a Photodisc that didn’t help at all. 

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15/365 : Local Customs

The joys of travel. Yesterday I spent 12 hours total getting from the door of the condo in Cancun to the door of my home in Georgetown. Now, that was for 3.5 hours flying time. The issue was that our plane had some sort of mechanical problem that they decided to fix in Cancun. This was discovered as the plane flew from Calgary to Cancun to pick us up. The maintenance staff were flown in from Vancouver to do it. What does that have to do with my 365 day photo project? Well, it meant I was in an area with limited photo opportunities for most of the day – Cancun’s Airport Terminal, or inside a Boeing 737 … two places I’d rather not upset the locals by pressing too much with the camera. I DID take some photos in both places but I wasn’t very happy with what I got. We landed at midnight – that meant time was up for the day and I went with the Cactus Juice I had at breakfast for my photo yesterday … where there was a problem, there was also an opportunity – I was still in the airport when the timer reset and a new day begun. Here, I’ve stopped to grab a photo on the way to Canada Customs in Pearson’s Terminal 3. It’s one of those photos that’s hard to get on a day to day basis, since it requires me to book an international flight to get back here. The conversion to Black and White was done in Aperture. 

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14/365 : Cactus Juice

Today was a travel day, and a long one at that with a 4 hour departure delay. That meant most of the day was spent hanging out by Gate A3 in Cancun Airport. Before the airport though we went out for a fantastic breakfast in downtown Cancun. Here is a treat from that outing – Orange Cactus Juice. Try finding THAT in Toronto … it is good stuff BTW

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13/365 : Putting the Puerto in Puerto Morelos

Traveled to a smaller village just south of Cancun for dinner tonight. Here are some of the boats that brought our dinner (grouper) to us. You would be hard pressed to find a fresher seafood meal anywhere.

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12/365 : Jellyfish at XCARET

Today we took a trip to XCARET, an “eco” park outside Playa del Carmen. This photo is taken inside the site’s coral reef aquarium.

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11/365 : Just Hop on the Bus, Gus

The best way to get around Cancun is the 7.5 peso bus. There are two bus companies that compete for passengers in the Zona Hotelera. Here I am riding the bus to the downtown from the Hotel Zone in a rainstorm.