The British Columbia Parliament Building is the most eye-catching feature of the Victoria, downtown area. Its impressive architecture and beautifully manicured grounds make it impossible to miss.  I took a lot of photos of that building.

The biggest challenge?  Avoiding the masses.  And there are a lot of people on the grounds during the day.  A lot.  I take a certain amount of pride in my ability to (in many situations) take photos in places filled with people and make it look like the husband and I were there all alone.  This is more challenging with the wide-angled lens, but I try my best.

The fact that we’re often up-and-out relatively early helps.  On the morning these photos were taken we were on the grounds by 8:30 am.  There weren’t many people around.  And the light was beautiful.  I set myself up and took this photo:

I began to back up (there were two small trees behind me, one on either side of the path, that I wanted to include), and realized there was another photographer nearby.  Not wanting to step into her shot, I paused.  She took her shot…caught my eye…looked slightly apologetic (I think) and proceeded straight up that sidewalk in the foreground. Are you kidding me? I wanted to yell, “C’mon!!!  You couldn’t let me take my shot???”

When it became obvious that she was going to remain in my frame for some time I moved in closer to capture a few other angles.  Turned out to work quite well.  Very well, in fact.  I think this shot is about my favorite of the weekend:

The clouds, intermixed with blue sky, made for such a great background.  And the lines of the building?  Gorgeous.  Now, originally these were color (and I’ll likely share the color versions in a later post, as I really like them, too).  I prefer color.  For me, nature is best captured in color.  Something about the vibrance and richness of the natural world just lends itself to color.  As I result, I sometimes forget about black and white.  But, something tickled the back of my brain and I converted these.  It was the right thing to do.  The lines, the architecture, the details…totally pop in black and white.

Yum.

Unfortunately, we didn’t get to see the interior architecture.  One day there was a protest/march or sorts on the grounds when we considered going and the next day the line appeared very long.  Maybe next time.

I just wanted to share these on their own…not intermixed with a bunch of other photos. Because I dig them.  A lot.  Hope you do, too.