Wild Drake Photography

Category: Uncategorized

  • A Busy Weekend With Little Time For Photography

    This was a busier than expected weekend and things didn’t work out like I had planned.  The oldest of the family dogs had really been showing his age recently and suddenly took a turn for the worse on Saturday.  This necessitated an emergency trip to the vet’s.  Sadly, he didn’t make it to see his 16th birthday, the next day. 😦  That kind of put me off doing anything else for the rest of the day, other than returning home to play with our other dogs.  Sunday I decided to start a project at home that I’ve been thinking of for a while.  I will be working at it bit by bit and when things get a little further along, I will post some photos to show the progress.  That brings me to the brief break I took this evening, to get out by the water, mostly to relax a bit.  I found an old broken down dock along the water’s edge that looked interesting and the rest of the time I just soaked in a few rays of sunshine and the ocean air.  an old dock in disrepair sits along the shoreline

    I have big plans for next weekend and the weather looks good, so I expect to have a more substantial post.

  • A Picture Perfect Day to See Sooke’s Secret Gardens

    This year is the 7th annual Sooke Secret Garden Tour, and the first time I took the opportunity to check it out.  Not only does the $20 tour fee allow entry to all the different sites, the profit goes towards supporting the Sooke Philharmonic Orchestra.  The weather was spectacular and there were a steady stream of people visiting each of the gardens.

    an old English Tudor style house hosts viewers of its flower garden
    Enjoying One Of The Sooke Secret Garden Sites

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  • Bike Ride To Leechtown

    For more than a month I’ve been telling myself that I should get my bike out and go for a ride.  I only picked it up last year, after not having a bicycle for more than a decade.  Today I decided I would actually take it out on a ride and I would take my camera with me to hopefully get some interesting photos.  In order to do this, I drove up to the top parking area at Sooke Potholes Regional Park and then got on my bike to travel along the Galloping Goose Regional Trail.  My destination was a little over 7 km away and was the old site of Leechtown, a one time gold mining town.  Now there is little left, except for some rusting machinery scattered around the bushes and a marker indicating where the site was.  Nonetheless, I wanted to see it for myself and with my camera in my backpack (which seemed to weigh about 10 kg), I set off on my bike for the first time in about 8 months.

    Leech town Historical Sign
    This Sign Marks The Site Of The Old Gold Mining Town

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  • Neighbourhood Walk

    This weekend was pretty busy for me and I only got out for a short walk around the neighbourhood.  Still, I look my camera along and found a few things worth taking shots of.  I found the pattern of the siding on the new construction to form an interesting pattern.

    A building being framed and sided with the wood forming a angled pattern
    New Condos Under Construction

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  • 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
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  • A Walk On A Cloudy Evening

    I recently wanted to go for a walk near the water to take some sunset photos, but it was overcast and not the best day to do this.  As the location I had planned was a little farther away than I wanted to go that evening, I decided to stick close to home and am pleased that I did.  I was able to catch a little of the setting light on the small waves before I moved closer to the water for some bird photos.

    the setting sunlight casts shadows and an orange glow over the waves

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  • Another Surprise Find on a Local Hike

    This weekend I thought I’d check out some trails I just learned about on an app I recently downloaded (Backpacker – Map Maker).  I’ve only used the app a little, but so far it looks great and has shown me all sorts of new trails that I didn’t know existed.  For this hike, I went to nearby Broom Hill.  There are several trails shown on the map, some fairly well travelled and others that had obviously seen much less use.  As I went along one of the well worn trails, I saw what at first looked like an old, broken, home made ladder… then I saw several others further up the trail.  Some with round “rungs” and some with flat ones.  I realized that these were old, disused, raised bike paths.

    an old, disused, wooden bicycle pathway
    The Old Raised Bike Path

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  • Enjoying Photography on a Walk in the Woods

    I decided on going on a short walk with my dogs at nearby Poirier Lake, where I was hoping to get some interesting photos of the lake. The dogs had other ideas and wanted to go on a much longer walk, which meant my time by the lake was limited.  There was enough time for a few quick photos of some butterflies that were in the lakeshore mud, though.

    several blue butterflies sitting in the mud with one fluttering by
    They seemed to enjoy the mud

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  • Charters Creek

    This weekend I went for a walk in the rain, then sun, then rain… It seemed like the weather was changing every ten minutes, but that’s not unusual for this time of year on Vancouver Island.  Not far away from many of the other sites I’ve been to, there’s The Juan de Fuca Salmon Restoration Society, which is located at Charters Creek.  There is a nice trail that runs nearby on a mini-islan of land surrounded by the creek.  The creek is lined with moss covered trees, like many of the trails are around here.

    green moss covered trees line the river bank
    Charters Creek Lined by Moss Covered Trees

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  • The Glitch

    I apologize if anyone had trouble finding the blog posts earlier today.  There was some sort of glitch that caused the page to be blank.  I believe the issue has been rectified and look forward to a new post soon.  In the mean time, I guess you really do have to crack a few eggs to make an omelette. 😉

    Egg