Hotel Europe

Ghosts?

Photos taken and manipulated in phone camera.  Stairs and lobby photographed at the old Hotel Europe in Gastown.  A very cool building - it's called a Flat Iron building with the whole building shaped like a wedge or flat iron.  It was built in 1909 and it used to be a hotel.  Now it's low income housing.  The lobby still has all the original marble stair and brass railings.  The tile mosaic work on the floor was absolutely gorgeous!  Apparently, rumour has it that these may be the haunts of two ghosts!

Brick wall was a photo of a really cool brick wall I saw in Chinatown.  

July 2014 desktop calendar

July 2014 

I skipped June. No real reason other than I was busy and didn't make a calendar. So much was happening in June. Work was insane with our annual recruitment, new members coming into our team, and old members leaving. I've been doing more knitting and spinning lately. Less computer stuff and more real life stuff.

Columbines in Gold

Columbines in gold 

It started with a new cellphone and a thought of what I could do with a then unheard of cellphone camera of 5 whole megapixels. It was a personal challenge to see if I can take decent pictures with a cellphone camera. I've upgraded my cellphone camera a couple of times and now 41 megapixels later, I'm hooked again on photography and all that it offered in digital manipulations. The best part now is seeing what I can do on my iPad and phone. Instant editing and so very portable. Apps are getting so good and so sophisticated that the line between computer editing and editing on the go has almost disappeared. When I see an effect done with Photoshop, I think of how I can duplicate the same effect on just the iPad or phone.

The picture above was editing directly using an editing app in the Lumia 1020. The textured overlay was another photo edited in the phone and blended with the columbines. 

May 2014 Calendar

2014 May calendar

April showers brought May flowers. Lots of May flowers. We had a few days of sunshine and was able to enjoy the full magnificence of the magnolia blooms before they fell and rotted.

Photo taken on the Nokia Lumia 1020 and edited on the iPad.

May is also EDiM (Every Day in May) where you challenge yourself to do a quick sketch a day. I've decided this year to actually draw something in a real sketchbook. So far so good.

I'm also going to keep going with the photo a day as well. I'm pretty impressed with myself that this will be the third month. Commit one month at a time.

Something I learned...

Gastown alley

...through the eyes of a camera to find beauty in my surroundings, no matter where.  I learned this from my dad.

April photo a day

Faux...

I think calling this "Faux" was a bit of a stretch. It's a colour photo edited on the iPad to resemble an old faded photo.  This is the March 31st prompt for A Photo A Day.

I had a lot of fun doing March but I wasn't sure if I wanted to commit for April but decided to go for it.

Purple...

The first photo for April is Purple. A million purple flowers in the city and I do this for purple. What was I thinking?!

Chinatown, Vancouver

Chinatown

Chinatown has always been one of my favourite places in Vancouver. I remember walking around looking at storefronts that you never see open and wondering what kind of business they do, how do they survive and pay rent? Lately, there has been a quiet revitalization of the area. New stores and interesting business have been popping up here and there.  The old rundown storefronts were always interesting but I'm glad to see this area improve. Definitely an area in transition. 

Picture was taken on Nokia Lumia 1020, edited on the iPad using a variety of apps.