"My favourite 2010 VT Images" Personal Page by GrumpyDiver

Sometimes you get some of your best pictures very close to home.

This little frog lives in a peat bog, called Mer Bleue, which is about a 30 minute drive from where I live. Mer Bleue is a protected wetlands area and is listed under the Ramsar Convention (The Convention on Wetlands of International Importance).

One can frequently hear the frogs croaking as one wanders through the bog, but they hide well and are rarely seen. I happened to be at the right place at the right time and had pretty good composition when I did this shot.

It's the one image I've posted that has received the most comments.

Female Silverbacked Grizzly - Khutzeymateen

Our visit to the Kutzeymateen Grizzly Bear Sanctuary was part of our goal to visit some remote and very special placess in our oun country, Canada, rather than heading out to some remote part of the world. The Sanctuary is for the bears and it is very difficult to actually get there and visit. It is located in North-Western British Columbia, just a few kilometers (miles) south of Alaska.

Visitors are discouraged and there are only two tour operators with permits to enter the sanctuary, and then for only a few weeks a year. You either have to take a boat trip in or fly in on a bush plane.

This female has not been out of hibrination all that long, so she cannot digest heavier foods like fish yet. Instead, she is eating sedge grass growing on the banks of the estuary.

This image was taken from a small inflatable boat.

Bald Eagle - Khutzeymateen

Grizzly's are not the only inhabitants of the Khutzeymateen. There are all kinds of wildlife here. This Bald Eagle was kind enough to pose for us as we approached in an inflatable boat. It might be hard to see on this reduced image, but the streaks of rain falling are clearly visible in the original.

S'gang Gwaay - Anthony Island, British Columbia

A former park warden of Gwaii Hanaas National Park Reserve told us this park is one of the most special ones in the Canadian National Parks system. She warned us that it rains a lot, because after all we were visiting a temperate rain forest, but also told us if we were lucky enough and the sun poked through, the place would take on a magical quality.

Located on the southern tip of Haida Gwaii, which were known as the Queen Charlotte Islands until late last year, it is another place that is very difficult to get to. There are no roads here, so you either need to take a boat or fly in on a sea plane. Parks Canada restricts the number of people that are allowed to visit in a year to 3000, in order to preserve the pristine natural beauty of the place. In 2005, National Geographic ranked it as the top National Park in North America.

Well the sun did more than poke through, it was out if force for the entire three days of our visit. This picture reveals some of that magic. This is S'gang Gwaay, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, located on Anthony Island, British Columbia. In the picture we see the remains of a Haida longhouse, with totem poles in the foreground, overlooking the water.

Island in the Hecate Strait, British Columbia

It's hard to believe that on the previous day we were trapped at Raspberry Cove, on Moresby Island, British Columbia, by 2m - 3m (6 ft - 10 ft) waves. We were using an old logging camp supply boat to explore Gwaay Hanass National Park.

The water was still and had an almost mirror-like look as we headed up the east coast of Moresby Island. This is the way the picture came out of the camera - no need to Photoshop here, with just a little help from a polarizing filter.

Mennonite boy - St Jacob's Market

One of the drawing points of the area just to the north-east of Waterloo, Canada are the traditional Mennonites that still farm in the area and can be seen driving their carriages pulled by horse and buggy.

I caught this young Mennonite boy, working at the family stand, selling maple syrup at the St Jacob's Market. Other family members and their horse and buffy are in the background and cannot be seen.

Mennonites tend to be photo shy and the market was particularly crowded on the Saturday before Easter. In spite of the difficult conditions, I caught the mood perfectly in this picture.

The Lady & the Unicorn - Cluny Museum, Paris

This image shows the famous "The Lady and the Unicorn" tapestries in the Cluny Museum (National Museum of the Middle Ages), in Paris, France.

The tapestries themselves are hung in a large room, with very dim lighting to protect the fabric from further deterioration. The colours and workmanship of the tapestries are gorgeous.

I managed to capture the mood perfectly - the modern room and benches, with the medieval tapestries in this shot.

Ceiling - Ste Chapelle, Paris

Ste Chapelle in Paris, in my opiniion is the most beautiful church in Paris, bar none. This 13th century church, located on the Île de la Cité, has the most fantastic stained glass.

Lying on my back (with people looking at me rather strangely), with even my wife claiming she didn't know me... I took this picture with an ultra-wide angle lens. The stained glass in this image was heavily reworked in Photoshop, to try to balance the light and show the beauty of the glasswork. I think I have succeeded here and in spite of at least 100 other visitors in the chapel at the time, not one of them got into this image.