Spring Rivers

Copyright: Heidi I. Koehler

It's been very sunny in Merritt for quite some time with a brief intermission of snow last week but May is now quite warm.

My husband and I walked along the Coldwater River towards the end of April and witnessed a young man tear off his outer wear and run into the swiftly flowing water. There were friends- some of them female- to impress and it carries on a fad that the teenagers were into over the winter. Merritt's idea of polar bear swims and aboriginal spiritual cleansing rituals.

I don't recommend doing this unless you know the water quite well and even then, make sure someone is with you to make sure you get out. I'm a good swimmer myself but I foolishly went into the Coldwater at another location against my better judgement two summers ago and thought I was going to drown- my sister almost did. We did it because 'other people were doing it' so it looked fun. The water actually moves very differently at depth than it does at the surface and creates a turbulence/whirlpool effect that can- and did- pull us under. Only the fact that the current was so swift is what propelled us to the shallows where we could come up for air.

So, with that warning out of the way, I will say that the Coldwater River where it flows through Merritt COULD be an ideal location for summer swimming HOWEVER:

The river needs maintenance desperately....unfortunately the very notion of tampering with a river in BC is akin to butchering a Holy Cow. The lower photograph clearly show the erosion over the Claybanks- as they are called- properties are slowly but inexorably being eaten away by the waters which form a gouging arc. Fish habitat is the usual concern but there are very few salmon coming up this river to start with. I actually think that carving out a new channel to funnel the main stream's current further north would create additional spawning ground not to mention reducing (at least temporarily) the amount of additional clay and soil dropping in which would also slow down erosion of the southern shore.

 

 

 Erosion of the banks is not the only issue; sediment build-up is also occurring especially on the Nicola River as it enters town. There is a yearly expenditure for sandbags to curb the flow from the street and back into the water which is great for the local gravel company. I would love to see this part of the river dredged- oh the horror! and a permanent structure put in place to prevent street flooding.

The panorama below is of the Coldwater River in Merritt.

 Bigger view at DA

Photo Editing Functions in Irfanview Image Viewer

© Heidi I. Koehler

This post is about image management using the image viewer Irfanview. I have been using this program for a long time- more than 10 years starting with version 385 and it is now at version 4.37. It is a free program that is deceptively simple looking and I am still discovering features it probably had for a long time but I wasn't aware of.

 The search function for instance. For almost as long as I've used Irfanview I've also used a search program called AgentRansack which, when I first tried it out, turned out to work better than Windows search and I believe it was because it was accessing what is now commonly called 'Metadata'. Metadata is simply information that is imbedded or encoded into files from the program that created the file or manually added in by the user

With photos and many digital images the user can include information like who took the picture, what the picture shows, etc. under information Fields (you can think of fields as labels or categories of information) such as Copyright, Caption, etc. There are many, many more fields than these two are the most important. In this day and age where most photos are recorded as digital images there has to be some way of identifying the ownership and content since we can't flip the digital file and scribble on the back like in the old days.

But getting back to Irfanview's features here are some of the best:
Drag and Drop. This is new and much appreciated!
Speed. The program opens very quickly and displays thumbnails of images that you can specify a particular size for.
Selective Loading. You can choose to display all images from subfolders- very handy when you have a large folder/directory structure.
Searching. I just discovered this. Images can be searched based on the contents of their meta data. This is an incredibly useful feature when you regularly edit the caption fields of your images.

Using Irfanview-1-Search Files

All of these things are only useful of course if you make a conscious effort to always include the captioning of your images- this isn't simply something journalist do- it's simply the modern equivalent of writing on the back of a hard copy photo.

Using Irfanview-2-Search Criteria

It should also be said that you should always use 'test images' to try out the features of any program including this one. It has resampling, renaming, and converting functions that might differ from systems you may have used before or never used! :)

Using Irfanview-3-Load Thumbnails from subfolders

One thing that might be helpful to know as well: metadata - or rather the fields that hold the metadata- are somewhat standardized but different programs will create different fields. I am used to referring to the metadata fields I use as IPTC but you will encouter EXIF data (which pertains to camera info) and XMP (similar image fields as IPTC). Windows (and probably Macs) have their own proprietary fields as well. This can get confusing and Irfanview keeps it simple.

Using Irfanview-4-Thumnails loaded

My own experience is that Irfanview's IPTC fields of Author (byline), Copyright, Caption (description), and Credits fields are almost universally the same in other programs that handle images. This is important because using software like Adobe- and particularly it's Keywording or whatever metadata editing terms it uses- tends to be proprietary. Proprietary means it's only useful in the program that created it- and IPTC is not proprietary. I can open any of my photos that I've edited IPTC fields with Irfanview in any other program and that data can be found and read.
That's the most important thing.

Boston Bar Heritage Home Photos

© Heidi I. Koehler

I have always been fascinated by old and abandoned buildings...not only their look but their construction as well.
I grew up in a log home back at a time when it was possibly cheaper to have one built rather than buying an existing home. My parents had a company called Panabode construct the house and it was simple to see even as a child how the construction relied mostly on tightly fitted logs to hold together. The other houses in the area were kind of mysterious because their framework was hidden behind drywall or paneling unless you had access to the attic where often you could see what was essentially the skeleton of a home revealed.
I liked new construction sites or the same reason- seeing the concrete foundation with the re-bar sticking out and the 2x4 lumber squared up into walls and potential rooms. As I got older and explored abandoned houses I began to appreciate the design and layout of square homes with more than one level. Most of the homes were a big contrast to my own which was basically a very linear L shape.
It's getting more difficult to find the kind of homes that have interesting forms and history so when it came out recently on the news that 2 old houses in the North Bend of Boston Bar were being sold for 1 dollar each (there will no doubt be a bidding battle) I made it a point to visit the area last weekend on my way to the coast. Part of the stipulation of purchase is the requirement to maintain the exterior character of these heritage homes.
The story is here CBC but I would also like to point out a site called Vanishing B.C. that details some of the history behind these two homes as well as some lovely water colours by artist Michael Kluckner.

Here are a few shots of the exteriors of the homes....

House in Boston Bar North Bend for 1 dollar

House in Boston Bar North Bend for 1 dollar

House in Boston Bar North Bend for 1 dollar

While I took photos of the interior of one of the homes I will not post those unless someone is particularly interested. That means contact me via Facebook  or a DeviantArt account.

Here is a scaled down version of a panorama of the home's location.

A larger view can be found on my DA account here.

And here is a scaled down version of a panorama showing the view immediately in front of the homes.

A larger view can be found on my DA account here.