Porteau Cove

Sometimes I just want to be by the ocean, especially when it's sunny. Last weekend Matt and I drove up the Sea-to-Sky highway to Porteau Cove, a provincial park located right on the water of Howe Sound. There's a small campground and the area is very popular for diving. When I was younger we stopped here on the way home from a family trip to Whistler and saw Tommy Lee Jones filming Double Jeopardy at the old ferry terminal. Unfortunately, they weren't filming the scene where Ashley Judd drives a car off the ferry which would have been a lot more exciting to watch.

If you're not into scuba diving or ready to brave the wind out on the water in a kayak, the perfect thing to do there is just enjoy the scenery. Though it was still quite cool it was a beautiful day, great for soaking in the fresh air and taking a lot of pictures. Matt decided to be an experimental photographer and take a lot of one-handed shots without looking at the LCD screen. A few of the non-blurry ones and the ones that weren't super zoomed in on my face turned out kind of cool.

Since the park is only a couple hours away it's the perfect little road trip in a day, but it's too bad there isn't a cafe to stop and eat at around the area. We drove into Squamish for something to eat but most of the little cafes and restaurants were closed, even though it was Saturday. Of course, Porteau Cove has plenty of picnic tables, so maybe next time we'll have to plan better and be the smart people that bring a picnic or maybe even one of those little disposable barbeques. Though it's often used as a pit stop on the drive to and from Whistler, it's a nice, scenic place to spend an afternoon.

Photos taken with a Panasonic GF1. Photos of me by Matt Gauthier.

What I Wore Exploring

I think I have too many work clothes and not enough casual day clothes. When I look at my closet on the weekend I see a gaping void between work dresses and the stuff I throw on to go grocery shopping. It is somewhat embarrassing to say that it took me like an hour of trying stuff on to finally settle on this outfit. I think it might be time to invest in more jeans and tops combinations, although that just might be an excuse to give up my budget.

These pictures are from our recent adventure day/road trip up to Porteau Cove. I'll be posting more pictures from the day soon.

What I wore: Toque & earrings, Ruche | Sunglasses, Von Zipper | Coat, Simons | Sweater, Kersh | Top, Ruche | Jeans, American Eagle | Boots, Sam Edelman | Purse, Vintage (Originally from Corfu, Greece, "borrowed" from my mother)

Better Late Than Never

What's that? I signed up for an e-course on lighting? OH... right. I did do that. And just like I said back in August, if I didn't finish before September, I might not finish until Christmas. Now Christmas has come and gone, it's March and I'm only working on my second assignment. But here it is none the less.

The task for this assignment was to experiment with white balance using a regular bulb and a daylight bulb. I was familiar with white balance and I'll admit I've been guilty of purposely using the wrong white balance to get a "cool", blue effect on my photos (that was a long time ago I swear), but daylight bulbs were news to me (hardware stores intimidate me, I don't like to spend time there). Since buying a couple we have actually used them quite a few times for small projects around our very dimly lit apartment and until we can finally move somewhere with more than two windows, I'm happy to have daylight bulbs around. They definitely have an effect on the colour of the photo as you can see in the photos above.

This photo did not turn out very well, but I like the contrast of the daylight bulb in the lamp on the right and the light on the left coming from the normal bulbs in our kitchen. My poor aloe plant probably just wants some real sunlight, come on spring!