How to find cheer on a snowy February day?

Hie thee to a greenhouse, my friends. Lucky for me I have access to a lovely old glass and steel greenhouse built in 1926. It's attached to my favourite library, a large red brick beauty founded in 1897 and just full of charm and character.

I beetled over there with a friend to take some photos because we were both craving some colour and just couldn't face another day photographing snow and ice. Just being around the lush green and the tropical flowers, the trickling water in the fountains and pond, with the sunlight pouring through the glass roof onto our heads.....well, it was like a tonic (the kind mixed with a shot of Tanqueray, a slice of lime and plenty of ice.) If you don't live in a northern climate with dry air and slushy streets and overcast skies and bone-chilling cold, you can't possibly know how much we Canucks need this sort of outing right about now. Cheaper than flying to the tropics, it's an instant fix for the winter blues.




This greenhouse, built to commemorate Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee, has a definite Victorian vibe to it. There are these cool cranks and wheels to control the upper panels, and I found them and the structure itself, to be as interesting as the flowers inside the greenhouse.

I used a fade technique here, to give it a kind of seventies vibe. Not sure if it works, nor why I bothered since I'd just as soon forget the seventies. Some of these photos aren't as sharp as I'd like to see. I actually remembered to bring my tripod with me this time, but then realized once I went to mount the camera that I forgot the little footing thingie that attaches the camera to the tripod. So many pieces of equipment, so many scrambled hormones that have abandoned the brain cells....



There are even little fish who aren't shy about swimming over to say helloooo.

My photo buddy Brenda tells me that water photos turn out so much better with a polarized lens. I don't have one of those. Coincidentally, Valentine's Day and my birthday are coming up this month.

You know what they say? Roses die in a week, but a Nikon Polarizing Filter lasts a lifetime. I read that on a Hallmark card somewhere and it's always stayed with me....