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By Troy, December 2, 2010 9:17 am

For years I have been told that I should try to sell some of my photography. Well, I’m doing it.

It has been a busy Fall for me in photography. Not in shooting so much, but in showing my work. I have joined a local artist association, had my first art show and sale at which I sold my first print (and was even honoured with the People’s Choice Award). That led to me being invited to display my work at a new art gallery that just opened in town.

My prints on display.

Chair of Bowlies opened on December 1st and the Grand Opening will be on Saturday, December 4, 2010. I currently have 6 large prints on display and will be adding a number of 8×12 and 8×10 prints in the coming days.

Located at 5009 51st St in Olds, Alberta, Chair of Bowlies art gallery and retail outlet features a variety of different works, from photography to woodwork, hand-blown glass, textiles, and much more.  Please stop by and check it out!

click the image for a larger view.

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By Troy, November 22, 2010 7:26 am

The grand and tall grain elevators of the prairies are iconic icons of a bygone era, with one in each town. This photo is one of the remaining but fast-fading giants of the west…  er…  ?

Ok, on second look, this appears to be a fine example of a themed bus stop along a rural road.

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By Troy, October 19, 2010 9:13 am

This past weekend was a jury event for membership to the Wellspring Visual ArtNetwork Association. I submitted three prints for review and was accepted!

One of the prints I submitted to the jury

The WVANA is a group of visual artists (sculptors, painters, photographers, etc) who live north of Calgary and south of Red Deer. They have a couple shows each year, and the first is coming up this weekend. This will be my first time exhibiting (and selling) my photography publicly, and I have special ordered some large prints for the show this weekend. If you are around the Olds and Didsbury area, please stop by the Mountain View County Office between 10 AM and 5 PM and check out the artwork by local artists. I will be there on Saturday morning and hope to see you there!

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By Troy, September 13, 2010 9:46 am

It’s been a year since we last took a family portrait, so last week when there was a few minutes that it wasn’t raining, we packed up the kids and went out to the field.

“Ethan, where is the camera?”

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By Troy, August 13, 2010 9:46 am

It would seem that our clan has become a train family. Almost three years ago, Ellie got a Thomas the Tank Engine train set for Christmas, which quickly became a favourite toy, and has remained so since then. Enter Ethan stage left, and we have returned to the golden age of trains! A typical day for me now starts with helping Ethan create a new train track before anyone else is up in the house. The girls get up after awhile and join in the engineering and suddenly there are three kids on their hands and knees toot-tooting around the living room floor. Often when I come home from work, the train set is still there, but morphed a few times and they are still playing with it.

Ethan is the biggest rail fan of the family, and also seems to have the keenest hearing. We live within earshot of the train tracks, and several times a day the trains roll by, blowing their horns. Ethan stops whatever he is doing, points to the window and says enthusiastically, “Toot toot!”

(Note: this next video is provided just for Grandmothers and Aunts to get their kid fix)

I myself have a HO scale train set that I inherited from my father that is a work in progress in the basement, so I guess I too have the train bug.

So when we heard about Railfan Day on the August long weekend in Stettler on the Alberta Prairie Railway, how could we resist?

It costs a pretty penny to ride the steam trains, so Naomi decided she would drive from Stettler to Big Valley and meet us there for lunch before our train ride back. Along the way she intercepted the train a few times to get pictures or video of the train going by.

Us on the train.

Naomi getting a picture of us going by.

That day they had Engine No. 6060, an old Canadian National 4-8-2 steam locomotive pulling the train. No. 6060 is a 1944 Mountain Class 4-8-2 steam locomotive and is the largest operating steam engine in Canada. It is a huge train that is more powerful than many of the modern diesels seen on the main lines. It is so big and heavy (93 feet long and 637,540 pounds) that it can’t go very fast on the light-gauge railway we were on. We took two hours for the short distance (including the train robbery), going about 20-28 km/h, but the 6060 is capable of going about 120 km/h on a main line! See www.6060.org for more info.

The drive wheels on this engine are 6 feet tall!

Since it was Railfan Day, there were a few special events. They did a slow photo pass of the Big Valley station with some old diesel engines and the 6060, plus, we could get into the cab of any of the engines there!

On the train there was a singer providing entertainment, a train robbery, a meal in Big Valley, then the ride back. Watch and listen for Ellie, Adelaine and I in the video Naomi got of us of us on the train at around 6:45 in the video.

We had a really great day as a family, one I am sure the kids are going to remember for a long time.

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By Troy, July 28, 2010 9:52 pm

Here in Big Sky Country, you can often see storms building up over several hours as they move in. When I lived in Ontario, storms were usually part of giant weather front that would be hundreds of kilometres long, stretching down into central United States, and sky would often just get darker and darker until the storm was there. But here, close to the mountains, we don’t see those kinds of systems develop. Instead, it can be lots of big, individual clouds, and with fewer trees and open land, you can see them a long way off!

This storm I was able to watch for over an hour until I was in the right place and at the right time, just before the sun dipped behind the mountains. It had the classic anvil shape until just before I took the pictures when the strong updraft punched over the top.

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By Troy, July 17, 2010 10:30 am

Lately our area in Alberta has been experiencing almost nightly thunder storms.  We noticed this rainbow from the house and took the kids out for a look. When we had a better view outside we saw that it was actually a double rainbow. But, on further inspection we noticed that there was something even more special about this rainbow.

(click any image for a larger view)

We observed that the main bow seemed to have multiple levels of refraction where you could see the rainbow colours repeating over and over.

A supernumerary rainbow – also known as a stacker rainbow – is an infrequent phenomenon, consisting of several faint rainbows on the inner side of the primary rainbow, and very rarely also outside the secondary rainbow. Supernumerary rainbows are slightly detached and have pastel colour bands that do not fit the usual pattern. More info:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainbow#Supernumerary_rainbow

I decided to get in the car and see if I could get a better view of the whole rainbow as there are quite a few trees around the house, but once I got out in the fields, the storm was moving off the rainbow was fading. So the chase began!

Racing southeast following the storm I was able to catch up and get some more pictures of the rainbow before it completely faded.

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By Troy, June 29, 2010 6:19 am

Click any image for larger version.

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By Troy, April 12, 2010 9:23 pm

A friend of mine told me about a curious sight he saw on his way to work and suggested that I go and check it out. With his directions I was able to find this silly goose, up a tree.

Having commandeered a hawk’s nest from last year, this little lady has made herself quite at home. And quite high.

I had seen geese nesting on top of a stack of hay bales, but I had never seen them nest in a tree before. Having thought I had found the one bird-brained bird that all the other geese must laugh at, I made my way home… only to discover another such nest just down the road. This time there were two up the tree, and very annoyed with me!

After some research I discovered that it isn’t that unusual for Canada Geese to nest high up. Apparently the goslings are light enough to drop down from a height without injury. Who knew?

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By Troy, March 20, 2010 10:31 am

Last fall we travelled back to my home town in Sackville, New Brunswick for some vacation time and support raising. This provided an opportunity to continue my photographic essay of the Tantramar Marshes. I once read in a photography book that you should pick a subject and try to photograph it in a way no one else has. I decided I wanted to do this with the old salt-water marshes next to my home town. In a area where you are always surrounded by trees and going either up or downhill, the marshes are a quiet, flat, open area that makes you pause. On the marsh you can find a covered bridge and a few remaining hay barns. Notice each of them, because they  may be gone next time you go by. Seventy years ago there were more than 400 of these barns, now there are less than 20. As a kid I remember there being many more, but now each time I go back to New Brunswick there are one or two less, and I wanted to photograph them before they are all gone.

Wheaton Covered Bridge in Sackville, New Brunswick

After several months of poking away at these pictures after the kids go to bed, I have finally finished putting together a gallery of my favourite images from our trip to Sackville last fall. Please check it out at www.tantramarmarsh.com or more photos of this remarkable place.

Ducks Unlimited waterfowl preserve at sunrise.

Old barn that is falling down on the Tantramar Marsh

Barn on the Tantramar Marsh, surrounded by hay.

Sackville Waterfowl Park Boardwalk