A Photo Club Outing to Victoria

Every year in Victoria there is the Victoria Camera Swap Meet and this was the first time I made it out.  In fact, several members of the Camera Club I am part of headed out there to check it out.  It was an interesting mix of mostly older 35 mm, medium and large format film cameras, as well as movie cameras, accessories and some dSLR’s.  I could easily have spent enough to put me into debt, but in the end common sense won out and I only picked up one filter.

4x5 format film camera on a tripod
An Old Large Format camera at the Victoria Camera Swap Meet

After spending some time and money at the swap meet, we briefly stopped for tea and then made our way back towards our vehicle.  On the way we encountered all sorts of people on the streets and in the alleys.  Some people were sitting outside the pubs, enjoying a pint, while many were busy popping in and out of stores doing their Sunday shopping.  Others were just trying to scrape by and make a living.

ca one man band standing on the street
A busker plays guitar and harmonica on the streets of Victoria
From there we decided to make a stop at Hatley Park, the home of Royal Roads University.  Besides Hatley Castle, the grounds have numerous statues, flowers and birds.  In short, it’s fantastic place to visit with a camera.

Royal Roads University grounds are the home of Hatley Park
The Hatley Castle looms in the background
As you approach the castle from the seaward side, there is a pond filled with water lilies.

reflections of flowers and lily pads
Water Lilies reflecting on a pond infront of the castle
Of the many statues and sculptures about the grounds, are a couple of lions.  A closer inspection of the face of one reveals some interesting details.

stone lion
A rather ferocious looking lion guards one side of a stairway leading away from the castle

honeycomb structure of a wasp nest on a stone lion
A wasp has made a nest on this lion’s face
There was so much to see that we didn’t have time to walt through the garden area, but, on the way through the grounds there were many flowers, plants and trees to look at and photograph.  I liked the way the leaves on one were backlit and the photo I took had the hoped for bokeh look.  What surprised me, though, was in the upper right corner there was a spiderweb that was catching the sunlight.  Sometime in the not too distant future, I will have to return and check out the gardens.

a spiderweb graces the upper corner of this photo of bright leaves
While the leaves are the focus of this image, a spider had a chance to show off his handiwork

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s