Centennial Flame

I sometimes get inspired by things I see on television.  I catch a glimpse of something and think to myself, that might make a pretty cool photo.  If I'm lucky, the idea can be realized rather easily, and sometimes a little travel is necessary.  Such is the case with these photographs you see here today of the Centennial Flame.  The Flame was created back in 1967 to celebrate Canada's 100th anniversary.  It has the shield of all 12 Provinces and Territories (there were only 12 back in 1967) and though it was never meant to be a permanent fixture, it was so loved by people that it ended up never being removed.  I thought it might be cool if I could get a picture of the flame dancing in the air with the Parliament Buildings in the background.  As you can tell, it's a pretty popular place, but I was lucky that there weren't that many people there that day.  One day later we passed the buildings and the area was full of people.  I waited for some people to move away so that I could get the view of the buildings in the background and I then moved in.  I used a fairly large aperture because I wanted the buildings in the back to be blurry, making the flame the focus of my shot.  You can't really tell how the flame will react, so I set my camera to shoot in burst mode and then chose the image that had the most fire in it.  I also wanted to get a similar shot, but with no people in it, so I went to another side of the flame and shot some of the other buildings.  Once again I shot in burst mode and then chose the photograph that had the most fire in it.  I really like the way that the fire dances around the water.  The first photograph was taken at f/4, 1/1600sec, ISO 100 at 24mm.  The second photograph was taken at f/2.8, 1/2500sec, ISO 100 at 28mm.  Some other photographs I took of only the Parliament Buildings can be seen by following the link.  The photographs came out pretty much how I had imagined in my head.  I really enjoy both of these shots.  It's fun to able to follow through with an idea and then see the final product on my screen.