Everything Is Frozen

Every once in a while I decide on a whim to toss up a photograph that I'm maybe not 100% about.  Sometimes there is very little public reaction to it, and sometimes all of you out there surprise me by taking to the image that I present.  So, after hearing in the news that we have just gone through the coldest month of February since 1904, I figured this was the right time to toss out a photograph that I was feeling a little bit frosty about.  These two photographs were taken while I was also taking my ice fog photographs near the Victoria Bridge.  In that moment where I was wandering around just before the sun finally came out, I stumbled upon theses little staghorn sumac leaves.  Don't worry, I had to look that up as well.  This isn't the first time I've stumbled upon these leaves, and I always end up taking photographs of them because I really like their bright red colour.  On this day, it was kind of hard to find some red as it was rather cloudy outside, and as you can see, it was rather covered in ice and snow.  I might have gotten some better shots after the sun had finally come out, but once that happened I was quickly on my way back to the bridge.  So, I got home, looked at my photos and these two found their way to my 'to be ignored' pile, where they have been sitting patiently for the last several weeks.  I finally came around to giving them another look the other day and played around with them a little bit and thought, why not, let us put them on the site and see if they sink or swim.  My only real complaint about the photographs was that I didn't properly capture the colour.  So, using Photoshop and the Colour Balance tool, I delicately began to add a little bit of red back into my image. I'm willing to admit that it's still not perfect in my eyes, but I also like them enough to get them off of the 'ignored' pile and onto the site.  The first photograph was taken at f/4, 1/250sec, ISO 400 at 70mm and the second photograph was taken at f/4, 1/400sec, ISO 400 at 63mm.  Trying to end things on a positive note since I've already said what I didn't like, I really liked the definition of the snowflakes on the right hand side of the photographs and I'm always a fan of a good blurred background.  These guys should be thawing out soon enough, hopefully those of you who have had enough of this winter will be as well.

The Poster Says It All

A Hair Raising Save

As we get deeper into hockey season, I gave my good friend Manny a call to find out if his daughter Florence had any games coming up and if I could show up to take some photographs of the action.  Longtime visitors to the site know that this isn't the first time that I shot some photographs of my favourite young lady goaltender.  However, if you're new here, and because I always love providing links to my other photographs, you can see some of those other shots by clicking here or by clicking here.  This particular evening saw me taking my gear to the Olympia Arena in Longueuil.  It was far from a packed house, as there were only and handful of parents in the house so I had free reign to move around.  I've always believed that the best action shots take place around the goaltender, so it's fortunate for me that it's the position that Florence plays.  The one major problem I had to deal with was the lighting in the arena.  The previous time I got to photograph the action, I was at the Bell Sports Complex in Brossard, practice home of the Montreal Canadiens.  Suffice to say that the lighting isn't the same in an NHL level practice facility and a local arena, though it ended up being better than I thought it would be.  I still ended up having to boost my ISO all the way up to 3200 which resulted in my photographs having a bit more grain in them then I would have liked.  Best of all though, Florence's team won!  That's right, it was the first time that her team got a win while I was in the building, which had me breathing a sigh of relief as I was beginning to feel like my presence at the games might have been becoming an omen of impending bad luck.  The first photograph on the page was taken at  f/6.3, 1/200sec, ISO 3200 at 90mm and the second photograph was taken at f/5.6, 1/200sec, ISO 3200 at 85mm.  Here is some more of the action.

 f/5.6, 1/320sec, ISO 3200 at 85mm

f/6.3, 1/200sec, ISO 3200 at 85mm

f/6.3, 1/200sec, ISO 3200 at 90mm

f/6.3, 1/200sec, ISO 3200 at 180mm

f/6.3, 1/200sec, ISO 3200 at 70mm

There's a brief taste for the time being.  I've got a couple more photographs of some cannonading shots and scintillating saves that I'll share with you in before the season comes to an end.

CTV Weather Pix - January 14th, 2015

Okay, I've made you wait long enough.  It's time to bring an end to this little series.  If it makes you all feel a little better, I managed to beat the two week deadline I had imposed on myself after the last batch of ice fog photographs.  When last we visited the Victoria Bridge I believe I mentioned that I was up to my ankles in snow while dealing with the minus 20something temperature.  Ah yes, good times.  I though that I had gotten my fill of shots of the bridge and began to wander around a little bit.  I found some little staghorn sumac leaves to photograph.  At this pace, they should find their way to this page by Winter 2018.  I was ready to head for the car when suddenly the clouds began to part a little bit and a ray of sunshine suddenly came down from the heavens and landed on the nearside of the bridge.  I couldn't believe my luck.  That ray of light completely changed the what I was looking at.  I usually like to sum up these instances of good luck to getting a little helpful hand from my Grandmother.  Thanks Grammie.  The drab and grey sky suddenly had some blue.  The ice fog coming off of the river became much clearer thanks to the added light and even the bridge itself seemed to have a little more life to it.  I got home and watched the noon news, and during the weather segment I was reminded that CTV liked to show viewer submitted photographs during the evening newscast.  My parents had been telling me that I should send some of my photographs to them sometime, so I figured that this was as good of a time as any.  I got an email back from CTV News around 3:00PM thanking me for my photograph, but without any confirmation that it would actually be used.  I turned on the evening news and there it was, photograph #3 on the evening weather.  Fittingly, it's also the third photograph you see here n the page.  The first photograph was taken at f/18, 1/30sec, ISO 400 at 27mm.  The second photograph was taken at f/18, 1/80sec, ISO 400 at 38mm and the third photograph was taken at f/18, 1/200sec, ISO 400 at 24mm.  It was real fun to see my photograph on the television and I hope you all enjoy this much clearer version than the one that aired that night.

Little Red Valentine

Those of you who have been visiting this blog over the last few years may be showing up here this morning with the expectations of seeing floral arrangements or an assortment of coloured chocolates.  I don't really blame you because that has been the trend around here, but I decided to shake things up a little bit this year.  As a Valentine's Day treat to all of you out there, here are some photographs of My Lovely Assistant's little niece.  I actually took these photographs almost a year ago, and was given permission from My Lovely Assistant's sister to put them up here on the blog, but I guess I was a little bit shy about posting them.  So, in the spirit of Valentine's Day, I'm going to put my heart on my sleeve and finally share these photographs with you.  They should be sure to put a smile on your face, as they certainly do for me, as well as Belle Mom, who I hope has a big smile on her face as she looks at these photographs of her first Granddaughter.  This first photograph was taken at f/8, 1/250sec, ISO 100 at 38mm.  I took these while I was still going through my 'struggling with flash' phase, a phase that truthfully I am still dealing with. 

f/8, 1/250sec, ISO 100 at 34mm

If I could do these again, I'd certainly take the time to make sure that I hadn't cut off my model's fingers.  We were having fun trying to get her attention so she'd look at the camera and that little bit of inattention on my part ended up costing me her fingers.  I'm more than happy to tell you that they grew back properly.

Only A Month Away

Time is going by rather quickly and 'Mr. Last Minute' is starting to feel like the days are going by very fast.  We're now one month away from my exhibition at Bibliothèque Claude-Henri-Grignon.  Stay tuned here, and of course over at Eric Mahannah Photography on Facebook, to make sure you don't miss any information.  The exhibition begins March10th and the vernissage will be on March 13th.  I hope that you'll enjoy the show.

Never Too Cold For A Swim

As I slowly make my way through the ice fog photographs, I wanted to share another photograph that I took the same day.  After finishing up at the Victoria Bridge, I thought I would take a quick ride down Highway 10 to a little spot I like to visit on the Richelieu River.  The water flows pretty fast past a tree that is growing on a a little island in the river and I thought it would look nice with the ice fog rising off of the river.  However, the ice fog was so thick over there that it completely blocked the tree from view.  I figured I had made the trip for nothing, but then I noticed a goose sitting on the ice near the shore as I made my way down to the river.  I tried to walk as slowly and quietly as possible so as to not spook the goose, but I wasn't quiet enough to not spook a couple of ducks that were nearby.  The ducks taking off tipped off the goose, and it quickly left its spot on the ice and began to swim away.  With nothing left to lose, I sped up a little but and managed to take a few photographs as it swam away.  I think this photograph properly shows how cold it was at the moment.  I took this photograph at f/18, 1/125sec, ISO 400 at 70mm.  The pieces of ice on the water and the ice fog at the top of the photo should be enough to give you the chills, if you don't have them already after looking out your own window. 

A Little More Steam

I know this seems to be a constant theme of mine, but it really doesn't feel like two weeks have passed since my first ice fog photograph back on the 20th of January.  At the time I promised more to come, so I guess I had better get moving before I end up finishing this series of photographs in July.  As previously mentioned, I was a little bit disappointed with the lack of steam coming off of the river that first morning, so I had decided to go back the next morning and try my luck.  It was even colder than the previous morning, I believe it was something like -21 Celsius.  The biggest problem I had to deal with, other than the cold I suppose, would be having to cross the Victoria Bridge into Montreal during morning rush hour traffic.  I knew that I had to be at my site for sunrise as my 10:00AM arrival the previous morning was really late.  I hit the road around 7:30AM and was met with a long line of cars waiting to get onto the bridge.  I was immediately disappointed as I feared I would be stuck in line wasting gas as I missed sunrise.  Luckily, the traffic ended up being far less long than I thought it would be.  It only ended up taking about 20 minutes to get onto and then cross the bridge.  After arriving, I was very happy to see that I had guessed right, there was lots of steam coming off of the river, some of it even sticking to the bridge, leaving a little layer of ice over the metal structure.  The only thing that bothered me was that it was really cloudy and very little sun.  So, I decided to play around with different shutter speeds  to try and get some different style photographs.  The wind kicked up a little bit while I was there and I got some blowing snow into the third shot. The first photograph was shot at f/22, 1/20sec, ISO 400 at 34mm.  The second photograph was taken at f/7.1, 1/320sec, ISO 400 at 70mm and the third photograph was taken at f/9, 1/200sec, ISO 400 at 70mm.  I know it doesn't sound very interesting, but I enjoy standing in the snow and trying out different camera settings in -20 degree weather.  I guess we all have different definitions of fun.  After getting these shots, I was about to head home when something happened, but I'm going to make you wait a little bit longer.  Hopefully less than two weeks, and before the snow melts.

Very Soon

It's always nice to see your name in print.

Don't forget, the Vernissage is Friday, March 13 (yes, Friday the 13th).  The address of the library is 1660, rue Bourassa, Longueuil.

Super Sunday

Being a North American male, today is probably one of the most important days of the year.  There's Christmas Day, your birthday and right after that is Super Bowl Sunday!  Okay, I may be exaggerating just a little bit, but I'm pretty sure that the previous statement rings true for some of you out there, and that even the order of those days may need to be rearranged  for a few people.  So, before I do like all of you and sit down in front of my television and fill myself with nachos, hot dogs and pizza while watching the game, I thought I'd head back into the archives and see if I couldn't pull out of a few unused photographs from my visit to Seaway Park to see the Champlain Cavaliers in action.  I had hoped to go back before their season came to an end for another visit, but sadly the 'Day Job' once again got in the way.  Fortunately, I did manage to find a couple of unused shots.  The first one you see at the top of the page of the Quarterback getting ready to throw a pass was shot at f/10, 1/500sec, ISO 400 at 175mm.  I also found another cool shot of the offensive and defensive lines in action which I stretched out into a 12" x 4" shot which can be seen below.

f/14, 1/200sec, ISO 400 at 115mm

I had a great time that afternoon, and whether you're pulling for the Seahawks or the Patriots, I hope that we all get to enjoy a good game later this evening.