The Opening Notes

As I continue to work my way through all of the photographs I took during the concerts at Saint-Lambert en fête we now come back to the beginning.  The name of the concert was Sylvain Cossette and Andrée Watters All-Stars, so it only makes sense that the evening would begin with them up on the stage.  At this point I had switched from my wide-angle lens to my telephoto lens.  The sun had gone down and I was hoping that the Image Stabilizing function might help in the low light.  I'd never used it under such conditions before, so I was taking a bit of a shot in the dark.  But, I still had the wide-angle with me in case I didn't like the results.  After looking at a few of my early shots, I figured I'd stick with the telephoto and my other lens stayed in my bag for the rest of the night.  This is the third set of photographs that I upload from this concert, and as such, I guess you could say that I'm running out of things to say.  So in this case, we really will let the pictures do the talking.  The first photograph was taken at f/5, 1/250sec, ISO 3200 at 100mm.  The second photograph was taken at f/6.3, 1/80sec, ISO 3200 at 120mm.  Here are several more photographs that I took during the opening few songs.

f/6.3, 1/80sec, ISO 3200 at 90mm

f/6.3, 1/125sec, ISO 3200 at 105mm

f/6.3, 1/125sec, ISO 3200 at 175mm

f/6.3, 1/400sec, ISO 3200 at 145mm

f/6.3, 1/200sec, ISO 3200 at 135mm

f/6.3, 1/125sec, ISO 3200 at 123mm

One thing I learned while shooting this beginning part of the concert is that I need to better pace myself.  I think that by the end of the first song I had already taken over 100 photographs.  Over the rest I tried better compose my shots, taking less but trying to have better composed shots.  I think I pulled it off, and you can judge for yourselves by going back and looking at the other photographs that I took later in the show, and in the photographs yet to come.

Stefi Shock & Andrée Watters

Music week continues here on the blog, with the possibility growing stronger that a second week will be in the offering as well.  Today, we're back to the All-Star portion of the concert in Saint-Lambert last Saturday night.  This series of photographs come from the third portion of the concert that featured a few solo songs by Stefi Shock before he was joined on stage by Andrée Watters.  I had some difficulty getting some nice shots of Stefi Shock as he was wearing a baseball cap that often caused shadows so dark around his face that we couldn't see his eyes.  Maybe it's not that important in the greater scheme of things, but I like to see the eyes of a performer when they're performing.  For me, it adds a little something to the shot.  Be they open or closed, the eyes just seem to add an extra piece of emotion to the photograph.  Bonus points go out to My Lovely Assistant who actually pointed Stefi Shock out to me during the soundcheck.  We were on the site in the afternoon to take in the other Saint-Lambert en fête activities while the soundcheck for the evening concert was taking place.  She told me that Stefi Shock was currently on stage when I, in my infinite wisdom, said it was impossible since the stars of the night don't usually take part in the afternoon sound check like that, it was usually roadies and technicians.  Score one for My Lovely Assistant.  The first photograph was taken at f/5, 1/60sec, ISO 3200 at 125mm and the second photograph was taken at f/6.3, 1/125sec, ISO 3200 at 115mm.  Here are a couple more.

f/6.3, 1/60sec, ISO 3200 at 115mm

f/7.1, 1/100sec, ISO 3200 at 115mm

f/5.6, 1/125sec, ISO 3200 at 150mm

I hope that you're all enjoying these out there.  I had great fun that night and there are still a few more updates to go before I get through all of the photographs that I took.

Million Dollar Band

As previously mentioned when last we spoke earlier this week, last Saturday night was spent in Saint-Lambert listening to some live music.  The main event was the Sylvain Cossette All-Star Band, but I was most looking forward to seeing the band that was playing just before them, the Million Dollar Band.  The main reason being that one of the members of the band is an old neighbour.  It was My Lovely Assistant who first spotted his name in the local newspaper as the promotional material for the event had named the band after him.  A small gaffe that his band mates and friends haven't let him forget.  The show began at 7:00PM and we got on the site nice and early, about forty minutes before the show was to begin.  We got there so early that I ended up getting way closer to the stage than I thought I would be.  It was so unexpected that I never even bothered to bring my wide-angle lens with me, thinking I'd be behind a large group of people and thus limited to using my telephoto.  Cue the kind heart of My Lovely Assistant who jumped back onto her bicycle and raced back home to get my missing lens, and managing to make it back before the show began.  Which brings me to a bit of a moral question I'd like to ask.  Since we arrived so early, and this was a free show given in the middle of the street without any assigned seating, I staked claim to a spot about 15 feet from the stage, in the middle of the street.  As we got closer to show time, more and more people began to show up, but rather than stand for the show, they mostly began to set up lawn chairs on the street so they could sit and watch.  Enter this couple who decided the ideal spot to watch the show while sitting down would be directly behind me.  Those of you who know me are well aware that I am a six-foot plus mountain of a photographer, thus making it rather easy to see that it might be difficult to see if you are sitting down directly behind me.  Sure enough, the music starts and I hear a whistling sound.  I see it's the same couple whistling at me, telling me to move because they can't see.  Now, I didn't really appreciate their manner, so I half felt like telling them that I had been standing in that spot for over a half hour and then ask what they were thinking when they chose to sit down directly behind me.  But, it was still early, and there was a little space to the right of the stage that I planned on using anyway, so I turned, gave them a long look and moved.  Did I do the right thing?  I didn't feel like causing a scene, but I also don't feel that I was in the wrong.  Oddly enough, the same thing happened later that night, but this time the offending party got told exacly where they could go by My Lovely Assistant.  Okay, that ends my little rant.  Getting back to the main subject, the Million Dollar Band play some old classic rock and roll songs, as well as some of their own original songs as well.  One of my favourite moments as a photographer was being able to grab a shot of the drummer with his drum stick in the air.  Not something that is always easy to do when you're stuck using slow shutter speeds due to the lack of available light.  I really enjoyed their set and I think that all of the others who came out that night did as well.  The first photograph of this group was taken at f/11, 1/60sec, ISO 800 at 145mm.  The second photograph was taken at f/7.1, 1/125sec, ISO 800 at 63mm.  The third photograph was taken at f/9, 1/125sec, ISO 800 at 70mm and the fourth photograph was taken at f/9, 1/100sec, ISO 800 at 70mm.  Here are several more photographs that I took during the show.

f/9, 1/80sec, ISO 800 at 70mm

f/8, 1/80sec, ISO 800 at 70mm

f/8, 1/60sec, ISO 800 at 70mm

f/6.3, 1/60sec, ISO 800 at 70mm

 

f/9, 1/100sec, ISO 800 at 70mm

 

f/5, 1/125sec, ISO 1000 at 67mm

f/6.3, 1/60sec, ISO 800 at 68mm

f/5, 1/125sec, ISO 1000 at 65mm

f/5, 1/125sec, ISO 1000 at 65mm

Phew, that was a lot of photographs.  I guess I kind of got carried away.  If I managed to get fourteen photographs out of the opening act, plus all of the others that didn't make the cut, you may now understand why I decided to split up the headliners into several different groups.  What can I say, I was having a good time and got a little carried away with my trigger finger.  I'm sure that it happens to the best of  us.

Musical Family

Two things that I enjoy the most are music and photography.  It doesn't happen very often, but when ever I get the chance to combine the two those are the times when you are likely to find me with a large smile on my face.  Such was the case this past Saturday when My Lovely Assistant and I hit Victoria Avenue for Saint-Lambert En Fête.  There's often a special musical guests over the course of the three day event, and Saturday night saw Sylvain Cossette and Andrée Watters with their All-Star Band.  The concert was broken into several sets as various combinations of artists would hit the stage.  I managed to snap some shots from all of them.  Rather than load this update with all of the photos, I figured it would be best to try and break the photographs down by segment in the hope of not trying to overload both the page, and your eyes.  After all, isn't several little treats bigger than one large one?  I guess we'll soon find out.  This first group of photographs feature the show headliner, Sylvain Cossette on stage with his daughter, Beth Cossette and also Félix-Antoine Couturier.  I believe this was the third act of the show, but it gets first billing here because after breaking down all of the photographs I took by group, this one was the easiest to go through.  We'll get into that a little more at another time.  The first photograph was taken at f/6.3, 1/125sec, ISO 3200 at 125mm.  The second photograph was taken at f/6.3, 1/250sec, ISO 3200 at 125mm.  Here are a few more photographs that I took.

f/6.3, 1/80sec, ISO 3200 at 100mm

f/6.3, 1/60sec, ISO 3200 at 135mm

f/4, 1/80sec, ISO 3200 at 130mm

I've broken down all of the photographs I took into four groups, plus another group of photographs that I took of the band that played just before the All-Stars hit the stage.  They'll all be up here in due time.

Daisy Day

I was about to open this little session by mentioning that August 21st  was about to be renamed Daisy Day on the old blog, but then I realized that we're already on the 22nd, so I guess Daisy Day will be a two-day celebration instead.  Those of you who have been around for the last few years know that Daisy Day originates as a way of remembering my Grandmother, who passed away on August 22nd 2011.  This is the third 'Daisy Day' that I've had here on the site and I almost didn't make it.  In past years, I have been able to rely on the gardens of either my mother or cousin to provide the necessary flower to make Daisy Day a success, but this year I've had less success finding some nice ones.  This particualar photograph, taken at f/7.1, 1/3200sec, ISO 3200 at 200mm, was found in Val Morin during a visit with My Lovely Assistant's family.  So, in a sense I guess that I'm still keeping the flowers in the family.  I had a little visitor for the session in the form of a fly who seemed quite comfortable on his seat.  If I was a little bit better with Photoshop, I would have probably made that little daisy bud at the bottom of the screen disappear, but by framing the final image as I did, it bothers me less than it did in my original shot.  It's probably for the best as I don't think that Grammie would appreciate me playing around and altering the work of Mother Nature.

Casting A Large Shadow

I believe that it's already been said here before, but I am fascinated by small insects.  Not all of them mind you, but some of the bugs that I've classified as being harmless and friendly in my mind.  On that list is the lovely Ladybug.  Although to be honest, this one wasn't really that friendly.  I discovered it on a picnic table last fall while on an outing picking apples.  I tried to get it to pose for my camera, but the bug was not interested at all.  Not interested until I shared some icing sugar with it.  I was enjoying a fine snack of freshly cooked apple donuts when I thought that my little friend would might enjoy a sweet snack.  I put some on the table and suddely my model was more than happy to sit still while I took my photographs.  This photograph was taken at f/4, 1/80sec, ISO 100 at 70mm.  I just hope that the sugar rush it must have experienced afterwards didn't send it flying wildly into a car windshield.

Looking For A Lake To Jump Into

Ahh, Summertime.  Nothing like a good dose of heat and humidity to make a guy like me miss -20C weather and 30cm's of snow.  I know that there are probably not that many of you out there that share my views on the weather, but I won't hold it against you.  However, if you're looking for a way to escape the summer heat, what's better than a nice cool lake to jump into. I took this photograph earlier this summer during a little get-together with My Lovely Assistants family.  Yep, I'm the guy who takes photographs of empty docks at family gatherings.  Well, we've all got to be known for something.  This photograph was taken at f/10, 1/200sec, ISO 100 at 35mm.  I composed my shot with the idea that you'd get the feeling of standing at the end of the dock, waiting to take off and jump in.  Is that the feeling you get from seeing it?  Hope the thought of a little dunk helps you all cool off a bit.

L’International des Feux Loto-Québec Recap

It's been almost two weeks since the 2015 L’International des Feux Loto-Québec came to an end and I'm already about a week behind where I wanted to be with this final recap.  It's time to get these photographs out the door before they end up getting jumbled together with all of the other photographs that are spinning around my hard drive, just waiting to see the light of day.  In addition to the six photographs I published from each show, I tried to save an extra photograph from each for this little end of exhibition recap.  If you'd like to see more photographs from the shows, click on the little link below the photograph to be taken to the page with other shots I took that night.  Except for the show by China which was smoked out from my position so I didn't have any extra photographs to add.  So, let's get on with the show.

 Opening Show (Canada)

f/13, 8sec, ISO 100 at 70mm

 England

f/16, 19sec, ISO 100 at 70mm

Italy

f/16, 18sec, ISO 100 at 27mm

 

 Canada

f/16, 8sec, ISO 100 at 38mm

United States of America

f/16, 8sec, ISO 100 at 43mm

France

f/16, 9sec, ISO 100 at 63mm

Madonna Tribute

f/16, 10sec, ISO 100 at 48mm

For those of you who are curious, England won the Golden Jupiter this year, followed with France winning the Silver Jupiter and China won the Bronze.  That brings an end to what I consider to be a rather successful month of photography.  I'm old enough to be able to say that I've been going to these fireworks competitions since the very beginning, and I've been photographing them for the last several years.  This was the first time that I was not only able to photograph every show this summer, but I also photographed them all from different locations.  Maybe it's just me, but I think that's rather cool.  I've spent years trying different locations and I think I managed to hit the best ones this year.  A special thanks goes out to My Lovely Assistant who accompanied me to six of these shows despite the fact that she is far from being the biggest fireworks fan in the world.  I hope all of you out there have enjoyed them.

Booming And Zooming

As I begin to put the finishing touches on the 2105 summer fireworks season, here's an extra focus-zoom shot that I took.  I started to play with the focus-zoom technique during the fireworks display by China because smoke had ended up blocking the view of the explosions.  As a quick reminder, focus-zooming happens when  you focus on a certain spot, and turn the zoom ring in and out as the photograph is being taken.  I decided to continue using the technique the next week during the fireworks display by the USA.  My little experiment never made it to a third week though as after taking this shot I failed to properly recompose and scrapped several photos before noticing my mistake.  Still, despite the lost photographs, I still came home with several good ones, and I really like this one as well.  This photograph was taken at f/16, 14sec, ISO 100 at 35mm.  I thought it was cool how the top of the firework explosion didn't seem to be very disturbed by the pulling and pushing of the light, while the cool designs happened near the bottom.  It's a fun technique to try, but make sure to pay attention to what you're doing so that you don't ruin the shots you were originally there to take.

I'm Gonna Need A Bigger Plate

Though I generally enjoy photography and taking pictures, there is one aspect that still frustrates me and causes me headaches.  Food photography.  It's doubly frustrating for me when I come home to find that My Lovely Assistant has gone and created something as cool as this watermelon shark and I can't seem to find a way to make it look as awesome as it is.  In this case, I was trying to find an angle where the melon would look like the head of the shark was coming out of the water, hence the extra pieces of melon around the base of the melon around the plate.  I tried bouncing my flash off of several things, I tried to reflect the natural light onto the melon and several other little tricks of the trade.  So much so, that the melon actually began to sweat from being out in the heat for so long after having had spent much of the day in the fridge.  Although, I actually like that it was sweating, the water kind of added to the whole shark illusion.  The first photograph was taken at f/10, 1/250sec, ISO 100 at 34mm and the second photograph was taken at f/10, 1/125sec, ISO 100 at 24mm.  I've been looking at some food blogs and doing some reading on food photography in an attempt to try and get better at this so that my photographs will hopefully be as cool as the creative food work being done by My Lovely Assistant.

Lucky Star

Well, it's been a fun month.  The 2015 L’International des Feux Loto-Québec came to an end on Saturday night, and if you'll allow me a moment of bad joke telling, the competition ended with a bang!  The final night of fireworks was handled by the staff at La Ronde, as well as PyroSpectaculars by Souza, a company out of California.  The theme for the evening was 'A Tribute To Madonna'.  A new competition closing theme that began a few years ago where the musical works of selected artists are paired with fireworks.  To continue with the musical theme of the evening, Parc Jean Drapeau was also hosting the Osheaga Music & Arts Festival over the weekend which made for a bit of a scheduling problem.  Not thinking ahead, I had decided to chose Saturday as the day that I would try and shoot the fireworks from the deck of the Pont de la Concorde which connects Île Sainte-Hélène to Montreal.  I wanted to shoot from this spot because it was very close to a spot I used last year at Parc de la Cité-du-Havre, but with the added bonus of being able to get the Olympic Stadium into my photographs.  The original plan was to head to the site on bicycle, but that plan got washed out by some serious rain showers that hit about three hours before the show, and risked returning over the course of the evening.  That meant I'd have to get to the site by Metro and run the risk of getting trapped with all of the departing Osheagers at the end of the evening.  A quick look at the schedule told me that the final act was scheduled to finish around 10:50PM.  I'm not the fastest mover in the world, but I figured that would give me enough time to make it to the Metro before the concert site emptied.  I arrived a little after 8:00PM because that same quick glance at the concert schedule told me that a group I like, Weezer, was playing from 8:20PM - 9:20PM so I hung out on the bridge for an hour listening to some good rock 'n' roll while keeping an eye on the sky hoping that the rain would stay away.  After the music ended, I walked a little further across the bridge until I found the exact spot I was looking for and then waited for the show to start so I could shoot away.  The first photograph was taken at f/16, 17sec, ISO 100 at 48mm.  The second photograph was taken at f/13, ISO 100 at 48mm and the third photograph was taken at f/16, 12sec, ISO 100 at 48mm.  Here are a few more photographs that I took over the course of the evening.

f/16, 6sec, ISO 100 at 48mm

f/16, 17sec, ISO 100 at 48mm

f/16, 13sec, ISO 100 at 48mm

I actually stopped shooting about five minutes before the show ended in the hopes that the extra time would allow me to get to the Metro before everyone else, but my hopes were quickly dashed with I saw the lights on the main stage go dark at 10:36.  There was an encore, but the concert still ended about 10 minutes early, and those 10 minutes were enough to find me caught in a traffic jam of humanity.  I and about 20,000 others tried to make our way through the six doors of the Metro station.  Luckily, I was near the front of the massive crowd so I wasn't stuck very long.  Quite the way to end the summer fireworks season.