Just Across The Street

Back in September I captured a photograph of the Moon passing behind the Montreal Biosphere, and I promised that I would head out the next night to try and take the photograph one more time, using a telephoto lens.  Well, I tried again the next night, and the next few nights as well, but the Moon was on to my plan and never followed that same path.  However, there was this other photograph that I had taken the same night that I kind of liked as much as the one that I posted.  Mostly, it's because of the colour of the buildings that are inside the Biosphere.  I was really hoping that the buildings would be blue while the moon passed through, but it wasn't meant to be as the colour remained green.  Luckily, while I was taking some test shots, I did manage to get the blue that I was looking for, the only difference being that the Moon is free from its cage in this shot.  This photograph was taken at f/16, 19sec, ISO 100 at 68mm.  To be perfectly honest, I think I prefer this photograph to the one that I posted back in September.  I'm still planning on trying it again using a telephoto lens whenever the Moon decides to pass along that path again.

Forgotten Leaf

There was one final photograph from the Boucherville walk that I had yet to post, mostly because it wasn't taken in Boucherville, but rather in Cowansville.  This one dates back to Thanksgiving (the Canadian version for those of you who may be celebrating the American version today) and a little walk around town that I took with My Lovely Assistant after having lunch with my family.  Next to a little bridge, there was an evergreen bush lining the property line of a property.  Sitting on the bush were a bunch of freshly fallen red leaves.  I liked the look of the red on green, so I scanned the bush, searching for the best looking leaf and snapped away.  This photograph was taken at f/10, 1/125sec, ISO 100 at 50mm.  I might have cheated a little bit and positioned the leaf in a different manner than it had originally fallen, but that secret will stay with me.

Autumn Colours

A little over a week ago I put up my Boys of Summer photograph, a photo that I had taken while taking a stroll with My Lovely Assistant in the Îles-de-Boucherville.  I took a few other photographs that day and since it's been a while since my last update, I figured I'd them up here for all to see.  These photographs were taken in early October and the colours were still fairly bright in the trees.  I tried to get as many of the different reds, yellows and greens in the photos as possible.  I think that my favourite photograph in this set is the second one.  I played around with several different apertures and shutter speeds until I found the right combination that got me not only the three different colours of the trees, but also the blue of the sky.  My only concern was that there was a family playing on the nearby swing set.  I was hoping that they would disappear while I was setting up, certainly took long enough, but sadly, they didn't get the message I was sending them telepathically.  In the end, I don't really mind them being there. The first photograph was taken at f/4, 1/500sec, ISO 100 at 24mm.  The second photograph was taken at f/13, 1/80sec, ISO 100 at 27mm.  Here are a few more shot I took over the course of that afternoon.

f/13, 1/50sec, ISO 100 at 59mm

f/5, 1/400sec, ISO 100 at 54mm

I like the final photograph as well.  I'm a sucker for blurred backgrounds and seeing all of those coloured leaves behind those dead weeds caught my eye.  Maybe I'm a little bit biased in my opinion, but I think it's awesome that I took a dead weed and turned it into into a pretty cool photograph.  Or maybe I'm just getting a big head as well.  Hope you like them.

Mixed Tastes

A little while back I was chatting with a friend of mine and mentioned how I liked one of his photos.  He seemed kind of surprised that I liked it and told me that it wasn't one of his favourites, but was happy to hear that I liked it.  So I thought to myself, maybe there's a recent photograph that I've taken that I don't really like, but if I put it on display, maybe someone out there will have the same reaction I did with my that other photograph.  So, here's a photograph that has been on my hard drive for a while, but never made it to the page.  It was one I took a few months back of a fruit salad that My Lovely Assistant had made.  I took this photograph at f/9, 1/250sec, ISO 1600 at 60mm.  I liked all of the colours, I like the strange line of light that branches out just above the clementine and I liked the detail in the slice of the apple.  It just didn't seem to ever rise higher above the rank of 'that fruit salad photograph', though it sure was tasty.

The Boys Of Summer Have Gone

A few weeks back, My Lovely Assistant and I went for an autumn walk in the
Îles-de-Boucherville.  As is the usual case, I had my camera with me as I was hoping to catch some of the bright autumn colours.  I looked around at the scene, and I immediately felt a sense of emptiness.  The picnic tables that had probably hosted many meals over the summer were lined up and empty.  The trees were losing what was left of their leaves, and the ones they had lost were littering the ground.  Next thing I knew, the Don Henley song, from which I borrowed the title for this photograph, was playing in my head and I knew this was going to be a good shot.  I hope that I was right.  This photograph was taken at f/16, 1/25sec, ISO 100 at 40mm.  The sky is a little bit blown-out, but since it wasn't very blue to begin with, this didn't really bother me.  I felt it was more important to capture the colours in the trees and on the ground and sacrifice a bit of the sky.  I took a few more shots during that little walk, I'll try and get some of them up here eventually.

A Moment To Remember

Remembrance Day is a rather important day to me.  Those of you who have been coming here for a while have already heard how my Grandfather served in World War II, so I try to support the cause by buying several Poppies every year and wearing them proudly.  I also try and get them up here on the website in creative ways that I hope please the eye of you, the viewers.  This particular Poppy I photographed during a Remembrance Day ceremony in Montreal.  I kind of got this photograph in an strange way.  Rather than using a large aperture to blur out the background, I actually used a small aperture, but put myself right next to the Poppy, focusing on it, which resulted in blurring the background for me.  Just a little experimentation, it seemed to work out.  This photograph was taken at f/10, 1/200sec, ISO 400 at 52mm.  I hope you like it, and I hope you all take a moment to remember those who served all those many years ago.

Have A Seat

The changing seasons from Summer to Fall are one of my favourite times to take photographs.  The weather is comfortable, there are lots of colours and regular scenes just seem to have a little more character.  Take this photograph for example.  The leaves on the ground, the empty trees and the shadows seem to speak.  Though I must admit to a bit of trickery with this photograph.  I added a bit of colour to it using Photoshop.  I liked the way it looked originally, but I was a little bored one day and thought maybe playing with the colour balance might do something.  So that's what I did.  I added a little bit of red to the Midtones and really liked the final result.  It seemed to add a little more warmth to the image.  This photograph was shot at f/4.5, 1/125sec, ISO 100 at 51mm.  For those of you wondering at home, here is what the photograph looked like before make-up.

For fun, I also added a black and white version of the same photograph.  There's this thing going around the internet called the Black & White challenge and I thought I'd give this photo the B&W treatment as well.  Hopefully there will be one of the three that some of you out there like.

Gone Fishin'

This past July during a quick little cottage visit up North, a feathered friend decided to visit and show off his fishing skills.  Oddly enough, this happened just a little bit after My Lovely Assistant, a skilled fisher in her own right, had just shoved off in a peddle boat to see if she could catch anything on the lake.  There's a bit of a running joke about fish in that lake, mostly because she never seems to find any.  The lake is called Lac Désert, roughly translated to English it becomes Empty Lake.  I always thought it was a rather apt name, but the Heron proved me wrong in about five minutes.  He swooped in and landed on a rock, just across from the dock I was sitting on.  I was trying to take pictures of a dragonfly that was buzzing around so I already had my camera handy.  The bird watched me for a little bit while I took a few photographs while he was perched on a rock.  I tried not to make any quick movements, which isn't really that difficult of a task for me.  After a few moments, he began to slowly walk along the shore, going over and under some branches and past a beaver dam.  Then suddenly, BANG!  He spiked his head into the water and when he came back up I saw that he had speared a fish with his beak.  It was the first time in three years that I had actually seen a fish come out of that lake.  Ever the showman, the Heron took his time to show off his trophy, making sure that I would get a good shot.  He then seemed to play with it in his mouth a little bit before gulping it down, and flying away.  I feel like I got some pretty nice shots of the whole thing, so here they are for you all to see.  The first photograph was taken at f/5.6, 1/640sec, ISO 400 at 300mm.  The second photograph was taken at f/5.6, 1/500sec, ISO 400 at 300mm.  Here are the rest of the photographs from the fishing session.

f/5.6, 1/640sec, ISO 400 at 300mm

f/6.3, 1/500sec, ISO 400 at 300mm

f/6.3, 1/640sec, ISO 400 at 300mm

f/6.3, 1/400sec, ISO 400 at 300mm

I was a little bit disappointed with the final photo.  The head is a little bit blurry.  I probably should have shot with a smaller aperture, but ht bird took off kind of abruptly and I didn't have time to switch.  It was a pretty cool experience, and I got to see a fish come of the Empty Lake.