Calvin Binnema
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jcbinnema.bsky.social
Calvin Binnema
@jcbinnema.bsky.social
78 followers 96 following 80 posts
YEG; cycling; grandpa; abstract/minimal photography (sometimes birds & landscapes too); gardening; travel; retired
Recently, award winning photographer
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jcbinnema.bsky.social
#ArtAdventCalendar day 15
Taken in a downtown alley in Edmonton. The building on the left is about a block farther away than the one on the right.

#photography #BlueskyArtists #abstractphotography
A somewhat abstract photograph. On the left about one third of the image is of a red skyscraper with rows of adjacent square windows. On the right is a building much closer by with a tall rectangular window reflecting a blue sky with clouds. The window has whitish stone slabs on either side of it and a strip of green ones at the bottom. The camera angle selected is such that the 2 buildings appear to have no gap between them.
December 15, 2025 at 4:24 PM
Reposted by Calvin Binnema
russvanderleer.bsky.social
#artadventcalendar Day 14 - night passes by at the old Wonderland ranch in Joshua Tree NP. This is a composite photo of over 170 exposures of the stars plus the foreground which I lit.
A star trail image with the stars rotating around Polaris above a an old broken down stone ranch home which was lit with some warm light.
December 14, 2025 at 2:38 PM
jcbinnema.bsky.social
#ArtAdventCalendar day 14
A somewhat spooky image of pumpkins reflected in a dirty glass tabletop on my deck. I added my hand print before taking the picture. I softened the image thus giving it a more painterly look.
A photograph of a tabletop made of smoked glass which in the sunlight has a bluish hue. It is covered by rings of a whitish residue created after a rainfall was left to dry over a few days. In the top left third of the photograph the tabletop is reflecting 2 orange pumpkins on a deck railing. A hand print of a man's right hand fills the bottom right third of the image. The image appears to be softened to make it look painterly.
December 14, 2025 at 6:00 PM
jcbinnema.bsky.social
#ArtAdventCalendar day 13
In July I witnessed my first ever circumzenithal arc.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circumz...
#weatherphenomena #rainbow #camping #BlueskyArtists
A view of the sky looking almost straight up. There are a few wispy clouds and a rainbow coloured arc with its ends turned up. This is called a circumzenithal arc. Tops of different trees are in each of the 4 corners.
December 13, 2025 at 4:07 PM
Reposted by Calvin Binnema
paulboultbee.bsky.social
December 12: "Rip Off" (2013) mixed media on canvas, 8 in. x 8 in. #ArtAdventCalendar
A triangular piece of paper ripped from a spiral notebook covers the bottom left-hand corner of the canvas. It is mottled blue while the rest of the canvas is mottled grey and blue.
December 12, 2025 at 1:12 PM
Reposted by Calvin Binnema
artbyemilytull.bsky.social
Day 12 if #ArtAdventCalendar
"Corvid 19 - Bird Brain"
Hand embroidery thread painting artwork
#PortraitArt #embroidery
A cream background with a hair silhouette cut out of black fabric coming down the right hand side and has a hand embroidered black feather on it in the lower half. The silhouette is framing a hand embroidered black line drawing of a female face looking down and across to the right. To the left of the face is parts of the same face but in different poses overlapped with six hand embroidered black feathers floating down between them.
December 12, 2025 at 2:31 PM
Reposted by Calvin Binnema
knightwriter.bsky.social
#ArtAdventCalendar Day 12: a sultry portrait.
Digital portrait of Judit Guerra
December 12, 2025 at 4:22 PM
jcbinnema.bsky.social
#ArtAdventCalendar day 12. A shot taken from Rice Howard Way in Edmonton, Alberta.
#architecture #photography #yegdt #colours
Three different skyscrapers fill the frame so that they appear to be touching. All 3 are glass each with a different pattern of panes and each a different colour: blue, teal, and pale yellow
December 12, 2025 at 5:55 PM
Reposted by Calvin Binnema
secondnaturemb.bsky.social
I had a fun time working on this wood duck drake's head. There are so many different colours blended into the feathers and I wasn't sure they were all going to work together for a while there, but I'm happy with the final result. #Art #Birds #ArtAdventCalendar
A digital painting of a wood duck male's head looking to the right. It's green feathers are interspersed with different blues and purples contrasting against the white forehead and chin stripes. The orange bill and eye stand out sharply.
December 11, 2025 at 1:45 AM
jcbinnema.bsky.social
Day 11 of #ArtAdventCalendar. A rainbow created in the mist of Niagara Falls while gulls fly across it.
#birds #rainbow #NiagaraFalls
Part of an the arc of a rainbow cuts through the middle of this picture while gulls seem to be flying through it. The entire background is a bluish river with some white foam nearest to the viewer. Mist slightly obscures the view and is also the prism through which the sun created the rainbow.
December 11, 2025 at 10:33 PM
Reposted by Calvin Binnema
billmckibben.bsky.social
Just noting that no one is ever going to seize a tanker full of solar energy
www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/1...
U.S. seizes ‘very large’ oil tanker off Venezuelan coast, Trump says
The seizure was a significant escalation in the U.S. pressure campaign against Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his country’s oil-dependent economy.
www.washingtonpost.com
December 10, 2025 at 11:29 PM
jcbinnema.bsky.social
#ArtAdventCalendar day 10. A common grackle sits in the reeds at Telford Lake, Alberta.
A picture of a common grackle sitting on a reed. It is shown from the back with its head turned so that its right eye appears to be looking directly at the camera. The iridescent plumage on the back is reflecting the sunlight.
December 10, 2025 at 5:16 PM
Reposted by Calvin Binnema
glengrambo.bsky.social
#ArtAdventCalendar
Dec. 9
They are around virtually every marsh and their calls are part of our summer soundtrack.
This male Red-winged Blackbird was hanging out on the reeds surveying his kingdom!
#Birds #photography #wildlife
🪶
A male red-winged blackbird perches among many vertical, brilliantly green reeds. His red shoulder patches are prominent and he has one foot on two different reeds.
December 10, 2025 at 1:33 AM
Reposted by Calvin Binnema
earthlingnoreally.bsky.social
My very first #NatureIsArt image I posted on January 7th this year. Focusing on a single flower or plant, & most often closeup.

Pointing parrot tulip - 2018

#Phonetography
#ArtAdventCalendar #TulipTuesday #flowers #bloomscrolling #onlybeautifulthings #florist'sdarling #nature'sbrushstroke #springy
A single parrot tulip stem in front of a white wall. The flower is textured, blending from pink to yellow, with a black brush mark on the outer tip. It has three large green leaves.
December 10, 2025 at 2:12 AM
jcbinnema.bsky.social
I call this one The Dancer. It was taken in a auto salvage yard a couple of months ago. I loved how the perfectly placed scratch interacted with the immovable rusty plates screwed into the back of the vehicle.
#ArtAdventCalendar day 9 (day 2 for me)
A close-up of the back of a junkyard car with rusted mounts screwed into it. There is a scratch that looks like an upside down checkmark between the mounts
December 10, 2025 at 2:44 AM
jcbinnema.bsky.social
I've been slow to start on this #ArtAdventCalendar. I thought I'd start with this one. My photography is mostly focused on the formal aspects of a subject: shapes, lines, textures, colours or tonal variations. This one recently won an award in an Architectural Photography competition. Link below.
Close-up of a utility building that has various types of cladding with lined patterns both vertical and horizontal.
December 8, 2025 at 6:22 PM
Reposted by Calvin Binnema
troypavlek.ca
It's a two-way race for mayor.

Polls from today either put Knack and Cartmell in a dead heat, or Cartmell slightly ahead.

The UCP has changed donor rules, created unpopular parties, all to stack the deck for Tim, their preferred candidate.

And it might work, unless we show up
October 3, 2025 at 10:23 PM
Reposted by Calvin Binnema
mefletcher54.bsky.social
Harsh but fair. It also lines up with what I've learned studying the dynamics of collapse over the years.

www.theguardian.com/environment/...
‘Self-termination is most likely’: the history and future of societal collapse
An epic analysis of 5,000 years of civilisation argues that a global collapse is coming unless inequality is vanquished
www.theguardian.com
August 2, 2025 at 5:35 PM
jcbinnema.bsky.social
I caught a fish! No, a pied-billed grebe caught a minnow and I caught it catching it. Well, OK, I got a before and after of a successful dive by a pied-billed grebe.
#grebe #birdphotography #fishing
A pied-billed grebe swims in the water with the evening sun shining on it. A wake trails the grebe as it swims The same pied-billed grebe as in the first image, but now it holds a minnow in its beak after a successful dive.
July 18, 2025 at 1:53 AM
Reposted by Calvin Binnema
self.agency
a billion times this
Discrediting genocide scholars who call out Israel’s genocide in Gaza as antisemitic threatens to erode the foundation of genocide studies: the ongoing need to define, prevent, punish and reconstruct the history of genocide. Suggesting that this endeavor is motivated instead by malign interests and sentiments — that it is driven by the very hatred and prejudice that was at the root of the Holocaust — is not only morally scandalous, it provides an opening for a politics of denialism and impunity as well. By the same token, when those who have dedicated their careers to teaching and commemorating the Holocaust insist on ignoring or denying Israel’s genocidal actions in Gaza, they threaten to undermine everything that Holocaust scholarship and commemoration have stood for in the past several decades. That is, the dignity of every human being, respect for the rule of law and the urgent need never to let inhumanity take over the hearts of people and steer the actions of nations in the name of security, national interest and sheer vengeance.
July 15, 2025 at 12:50 PM
jcbinnema.bsky.social
I was lucky to get such a good view of a common grackle at Telford Lake about a month ago.
#telfordlake #commongrackle #birdphotography
Picture of a common grackle with its blue, purple, and yellow iridescent feathers reflecting the sunlight; the grackle is perched on a bullrush stalk.
June 16, 2025 at 10:33 PM
jcbinnema.bsky.social
One from each day in Paris. Doesn’t do it justice, I know but I keep forgetting to post. Home on Sunday just in time to vote.
April 25, 2025 at 8:09 PM
jcbinnema.bsky.social
Arrived in Paris.
April 21, 2025 at 5:08 PM
jcbinnema.bsky.social
Happy Easter. Frolijke paasdag. Today a walk in sunny Haarlem and a visit to sunny Utrecht. Tallest church tower in the Netherlands. Canals with cafes below street level.
A rose and a tulip in a vase and reflected in a window. A box with a selection of teabags also sits on the table A 19th century stone church is seen from across a canal and framed with leaves of nearby trees A very tall gothic church tower is in the distance with nearer by3 story buildings on either side of and people walking about in the foreground A long view of a tree-lined canal with a bridge crossing it in the distance and two red kayaks in the middle distance. A tall church tower is in the distance
April 20, 2025 at 8:21 PM
jcbinnema.bsky.social
Things I’ve done in the past 2 weeks: stood in the room where I was born, seen big churches, looked at lots of art, visited old windmills, rode bikes, ate apple pie with whipped cream, rode a fabulous public transit system, spoke some Dutch though it wasn’t necessary, and more…
April 20, 2025 at 6:46 AM