Long exposure of vehicles moving through the traffic circle

You probably need to look full-screen to see the lights up high from a large panel van that passed through the circle, adding an extra set of lights to the typical trails created by vehicles passing through the circle.

Light trails at our new local traffic circle

I like the way the light trails in the background of this shot formed an arc as the cars entered and travelled around the circle.

Light trails at our new traffic circle

Another in a series of photos taken at our new traffic circle.

Long exposure shot - light trails at a local traffic circle

Vehicles passing around our new traffic circle at night – the circle has greatly improved the safety of this intersection, and I am glad they engineered it well and installed it in spite of some serious idiots in our local area that were vehemently opposed.

Star trails captured with a 6+ minute exposure

In 2001, on May 11, Douglas Adams – only 49 years old – died of a massive heart attack. Beloved the world over, the writer had contributed to the world not only as an author of many Sci-Fi novels, but to environmental activism, technology, music, television and even computer gaming.

Two weeks after his death, fans carried towels in tribute to the brilliant man lost to this earth far too soon… if you have to ask “Why towels?” then you probably aren’t a fan. So, to enlighten you, in the glorious words of the Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy:

A towel, it says, is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have. Partly it has great practical value. You can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapors; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a miniraft down the slow heavy River Moth; wet it for use in hand-to-hand-combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (such a mind-boggingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can’t see it, it can’t see you); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough.

I seriously contemplated going out right now (the eve of Towel Day) and doing everything I could to capture an image of the Milky Way, but the weather is not cooperating. So, instead I post the one thing I have to remind us where we are – a 6.5 minute exposure showing star trails – to remind us how small we are in a huge galaxy of many, many worlds, how quickly we are passing through it, and that it is we that move through the universe – it does not revolve around us.

The tree was included in the frame to give perspective, but I hope the whole picture helps with that.

My daughter at 4 years old, playing with a sparkler on Victoria Day

Not the most classic piece of photography in terms of technicals, but this was using my old Rebel while trying to figure out long-exposure night shots (this would have been the first time we had fireworks since I purchased it in 2004) .

Today in Canada it is Victoria Day. That’s one of two days a year where we set off fireworks, at least in SOME parts of the country (the other is Canada Day). So, in celebration of what many of us will hopefully be doing (or did last night), here’s what we did 4 years ago on this holiday.