I very much enjoy featuring images sent to me by my friends on Madang - Ples Bilong Mi.  Unfortunately, few friends send me samples of their work. I’m pestering a few of them to do so, but shyness seems to interfere. If you are a regular reader of this journal and you have images that you think will be appreciated by our audience, then please feel free to email them to me. Work them over until you are happy with them and send 1600 pixel (longest dimension) JPG images that are between 200 and 300 Kilobytes. Include some text describing the images and I will include that also. I’ve featured Trevor Hattersley’s images before here and here. Heidi Majano has also had a guest appearance.

Don’t be shy. Have a try.

We’ll start with a couple of shots from Trevor Hattersley. He’s been a keen amateur as long as I’ve known him, probably about twenty years. He recently purchased from me a spare (ordered two by mistake from Amazon) Olympus SP-590UZ superzoom camera and has been diligently learning to use it feature-by-feature. Up at Blueblood a couple of weeks ago he was playing with macro shots and came up with two very nice fungi:This one of Bracket Fungi has very accurate colours, perfect focus and nice composition. A shot that anyone should be proud to display.

Here’s another fungi shot by Trevor:Again, we have interesting and accurate colours, good composition, fine focus (click to enlarge) and a generally interesting and aesthetic image. Well done, mate! I was happy to see that Trevor resisted the urge to use flash on these shots. They are very natural looking – just the way that your eyes see them.

Now let’s move to another friend a world away. Ron Barrons hails from Hamilton, Ontario in Canada. He’s a very experienced and knowledgeable photographer with a good pair of hiking boots. Since Hamilton is the Waterfall Capital of the World, it’s not surprising that Ron has a plethora of beautiful images of water tumbling over rocks. The Niagara Escarpment is responsible for this cornucopia of waterfalls, something for which local photographers are eternally grateful.

Here is a beautiful shot of Grindstone Falls:

This one is of the cascade below the falls:Ron has the “silky water” technique down pat. This requires a tripod, a neutral density filter to cut down the amount of light coming in through the lens, and long exposure times. The result is that the water takes on a very fluid and smooth look which intensifies the appearance of flow. You can see some of my Hamilton Waterfalls and our adventures in waterfall country here, here and here.

Ron is not a one-trick-pony. He sent several gorgeous Canadian Autumn shots taken from the heights around the Niagara Escarpment. This one is a beaut:

Here is another, looking up at the escarpment itself:

I could not resist the urge to try making a watercolour of one of Ron’s beautiful shots. This one is of Rattlesnake Ridge:You will need to click to enlarge to see the full watercolour effect. Ron was kind enough to allow me to modify his work and publish it here.

I know that many of my readers must be serious hobby photographers. Please send me images that move you and allow me to showcase your work here.

I’m not fooling around. I mean it.

Hamilton has the healthiest looking flying rats that I’ve ever seen:

Eunie and I took a short stroll around the city centre on Sunday afternoon accompanied by my new Olympus SP-590. The 26x optical zoom on this baby is as sweet as candy. More about that later. We’re staying at a place called Staybridge Suites for the next three weeks. I know it sounds swanky, but it’s actually reasonably priced, especially since our kids offered to spring for half  the cost. We also get a sweet ‘Seniors’ discount. I think it was a mutual understanding that, while we all love each other, having grandma and grandpa living in the house for nearly a month might strain family relations a mite.

Anyway, back to the pigeons. My theory concerning their uncommon vitality is twofold. First, I think the winters are just so unkind to anything living that the sick ones simply don’t make it. It’s the survival of the fittest. Broken feather, forget it, you’re dead. Twisty beak, a goner. A few cooties, sorry Cooie, you’re frozen toast. The other thing is that, despite signs everywhere sternly warning, “Don’t Feed the (######) Pigeons!”, everybody and their brother feeds them. The image above was grabbed from about 20 metres at about half zoom. The little flock was pecking away furiously at a big pile of illicit grain.

A long zoom is just the ticket for candid shots. You are so far away that people don’t have a clue that you are shooting them. It’s a bit like hunting, except nobody gets holes punched in them. I like it much better that way. The holes are so messy. I fell in love with this shot the instant I punched the shutter release:

It’s not National Geographic, but it’s got a moodiness that I really dig. I love images that speak to me. Please take note of the Tim Hortons coffee cup. In honour of my recently initiated love affair with Canada, I’m going to attempt to include a Tim Horton product in one image of each day’s post as long as I’m in Hamilton. It will be fun. You can play “Spot the Horton.”

I really like Hamilton. It’s chock-full of people who so obviously don’t care what you think of the way they look. People dress as goofy as they like. It’s a very in-your-face place. I feel very comfy in Hamilton. Nobody gives me strange looks. I walk down the street with my wild Cherokee hair flipping in the breeze under by black fedora and people just grin at me and wink. It’s like I was born to be here. I shot this guy carrying a grandfather clock from about a city block away. Nobody even noticed him. It was like he just had an unusually large wristwatch: (Hey, dude, nice Rolex.)

Hamilton is full of interesting signs. I’ll be showing you some of the more amusing ones over the next few weeks. Here is today’s interesting sign:I see several problems with this sign. First, I can’t imagine that this sleaze oozing joint is Canada Largest ANYTHING. What happened to Truth in Advertising? (Okay, okay, that’s an oxymoron.) Next, where’s the apostrophe? I hate this. It should be Canada’s Largest and Best blah blah blah. Can’t these porn people spell? Didn’t they go to school? Finally, I think that if you are going to offer the largest and best TERTAINMENT to the public you should at least offer some explanation of what it is, as most of us probably are not familiar with the product.

Apparently, this of varitey of Tertainment is tailored to adults. Ah, Hamilton, you’re a wild and crazy place.

After the frenzy of anxious activity and fretfulness of a month spent wrapping up affairs in the USA as tightly as we might, coming to Canada has mesmerized me into a blissful state of leisure and an aimless pursuit of pleasure, amusements, and relaxation.

On pondering this amazing transformation, it came to me as in a vision: I need to do something radical to celebrate this passage. Something like a big exclamation point at the end of a chapter! As frequently results when this brain-gut connection begins to emit tiny purple sparks from my fingertips and toes, my reaction was: GET A TAT!

My bemused but loving daughter-in-law, Tamara, was easily persuaded to provide her always excellent artistic talent to promote my lunacy. It is so very sweet – the way she humors me. Her tasteful designs have already permanently illuminated three locations on my leathery old frame.

As with all of my tattoos, this one tangles many meanings and levels of emotion into a concise dermatological statement. As I am fond of saying, “My body is my journal.”

Probably the most significant impetus is the recent onset of a spectacular manifestation of Canadaphilia.

Though I’ve always been distantly intrigued by the vast unknown to the north – mysterious coins in a handful of change, the engrossing radio adventures of the courageous and oh-so-ethical Sergeant Preston of the Yukon and his faithful, longsuffering sled dog – “On, King! On, you huskies!”, Canada has, nonetheless, been little visited my me.

I suppose, though I know better, I have always been influenced by the sad American view of Canada as, “Just like America, only with strange money and colder.”

Hmmm . . . raving again. Let’s get on with it.

I asked Tamara for, “Something that screams CANADA, but in a sweet, mellow contralto.” (Okay, that’s not what I said, but she got the idea anyway.) She presented me with three delightful maple leaf designs in a Japanese water colour style.

Here’s my tattoo artist (Steve from Wylde Tattoos in Hamilton) with the original artwork. Eunie’s remark on meeting Steve was, “That’s just the guy who should do it.”

Here’s Steve picking out the colours (Note the Tim Hortons coffee cup):

Here’s the finished outline:

LOOK AWAY NOW, IF YOU’RE SQUEAMISH ABOUT TATTOOS. Now the colours are applied.

And here’s the finished piece the next day:

I’m calling it O Canada. 

Thank you, Tamara, for your love and forbearance. And, thank you, Canada, for restoring me. Cold as I am on the outside, my heart is once again warm and serene.