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Boundary Bay

Illusions

"Never point your camera at the sun," they say. But rules are made to be broken.

Mid-afternoon, over the White Rock beach.

Why does the horizon sometimes curve upwards? All the explanations I can find say it's an optical illusion, but the camera sees it, and drawing a straight line, edge to edge, leaves a gap in the centre. There must be a better theory!

A Skywatch post.

Of time travellers and horizons

Maybe it is because I grew up with my toes in the ocean, but I love the look of a distant horizon, with nothing but water for miles. I always take too many photos of water and sky. I love them, then I delete them: what's there to share? A blue screen, with a line across, where the colour changes. Slightly.

When I was a kid, I used to draw the scene outside my window. A line. That was the horizon. A wavy line above; the mountains. A few waves. A gull or two. And a boat over by the horizon. Always the same, with the only variation the positions of gulls and boat. I never got tired of it.

Unfortunately, most people are not so monomaniacal. So I shoot, look, delete.

I kept these photos, though, from our last walk on the beach. They at least have something else going on.

Pink boat float, and slightly pink floating Mount Baker.

That's from my camera, but it was wearing the macro lens, so all the others are from Laurie's point and shoot.

Boats off Point Roberts, and what looks like mini-glaciers calving, but is really sea foam.

Backpacker and dog walking on water, heading out to sea as the tide comes in.

I love photos of people out on the horizon, so far away they shimmer. With our wide, shallow bays, they seem to walk, all in a line, on the surface of the ocean, not sinking, not subject to the rules of our universe, as though they were tourists from the next universe over, or maybe time travellers from the 30th century. Everything about them is strange; their postures, their silence, their pursuits. Where are they going? Where did they come from?

See what I mean about "all in a line"?

Zooming in. Walkers and talkers and one ball thrower.

The earth is a hollow sphere

... with us on the inside. Or so I've heard. From people who think they know*.

Now I have positive proof. See:

See that horizon? It's bending upwards, like a bowl. Not downwards, as it would be if we were on the outside of a sphere**.

That was looking north from near Kwomais Point. Here's the view looking south:

Hmmm... It looks as though it were slightly raised in the center.

Maybe the hypothesis needs a little work.

More weirdness:

Why do eagles so often sit on the most uncomfortable and treacherous part of a snag?

Yellowlegs in deep water (for him). Can't wait for the tide to go down to catch a worm.

A normal view of Crescent Beach, with gulls and the North Shore mountains. Just because I always love this scene.

* Filed under Crackpottery.
** Or near-sphere.

Beach amusements

I've been sorting through the last of our recent beach photos. This collection, from Crescent Beach, may not be necessarily colour balanced or even in focus, but I found them interesting. Maybe you will, too.

Light:

Looking southwest, directly into the light, turns the gravel purple. 

Horizons:

I can't figure this out. Why is it that a distant horizon sometimes looks as if it were bending up at both ends ...

and sometimes it bends down, instead?

And then, sometimes it slides off to one side. (Laurie wanted all the sky and all the sand. Greedy.)

Underfoot:

Valleys in the sand. Modernistic figures, in a line-up, maybe.

A crinkly rock.

Flying things:

The ruler of the skies chases away an unwelcome airplane.

Kite above, kitesurfer below, speeding along in a stiff breeze. Heron standing still.

Your petticoats are showing!

 Rust:

Bolts on heavy driftwood planks. Because I like the texture.