Shelter From The Rain

During a summer visit with the family of My Lovely Assistant the sky suddenly opened and the rain began to fall to the ground.  We all made our ways inside, but we weren't alone in trying to find a little shelter from the storm.  Upon taking a quick glimpse out the patio door, I noticed this soaked robin standing on a stone underneath one of the trees in the backyard.  I grabbed my gear and crept as quietly as I could to the patio door and snapped a couple of photographs.  This one was taken at f/5.6, 1/125sec, ISO 3200 at 300mm.  I can't explain why, but I just really like how disheveled the poor thing looks.  The little gleam in his eye is another of the little things I like.  Soon after, the rain let up, away he flew and back to the Out-Laws, err I mean In-Laws, I went.

Whatchoo Lookin' At

This past weekend, My Lovely Assistant and I made the trek into Montreal to take in the annual World Press Photo Exposition, which takes place every year in the Old Port of Montreal at the Marché Bonsecours.  Afterwards, we usually take a leisurely stroll through the Old Port and this year we came upon a flock of geese who I assume were resting before making their flight South for the winter.  We ended up taking a seat on a bench just behind this guy who was trying to take a nap, but was obviously keeping an eye on us at the same time.  It took me a little longer than I should have, but I eventually pulled out my camera and took a few photographs.  This one was taken at f/5.6, 1/2000sec, ISO 400 at 70mm.  The sun was falling just right on his feathers, showing off the nice pattern across his back, and I waited for his eye to be open before taking my photograph.  I hope he has a nice flight.

Looking Forward To 2017 - Bonnes nouvelles pour 2017

Some good news to start the weekend. I just found out that my photographs have been selected for what will be my third solo photography exhibition. The exhibition will be taking place from March 23rd to April 23rd 2017 at the Greenfield Park Library. There will be more information as the big date gets closer.

Des bonnes nouvelles pour commencer le week-end. Je viens d'apprendre que mes photos ont été sélectionnées pour ma troisième exposition de photographies. L'exposition commencera le 23 mars et durera jusqu'au 23 avril à la bibliothèque de Greenfield Park. Il y aura plus d'informations ici prochainement.

Sailing The Seas Of Blue

After all of the excitement of the loud guitars and bright lights, I felt like it was a good time to take a step back, relax and take it easy.  A quick little trip through the archives found this forgotten photograph from a summer vacation a few years back.  It was a clear blue sky and this boat was sailing away over the horizon, floating on an equally blue sea.  Blue has always been my favourite colour, and all of the blue immediately interested me.  The little splash of white provided by the sailboat give you something to focus on before you end up succumbing to the seasickness caused by my crooked framing.  Yes, it was done on purpose, I thought it would look different.  The photograph was taken at f/9, 1/1250sec, ISO 400 at 180mm.

Slayer At The Metropolis

Time for the Main Event.  As mentioned in the previous update, I attended a concert last week by legendary thrash metal groups Death Angel, Anthrax and headlined by one of the biggest bands of the genre, Slayer at the Montreal Metropolis.  I was a little bit torn before the concert because I wasn't sure if I would even bring my camera with me at all.  Seeing as how this was going to be a thrash metal show, I though security would be extra tight and that there would be no way that I'd be able to get my camera in the door.  On the other hand, I really wanted to get some photographs of these bands for my collection as I have been listening to them since I was a teenager.  With the show being in a club like the Metropolis as opposed to the Bell Center, I knew that this would probably be my best chance to get those photographs.  My hard head won out in the end, and though security was very tight, as evidenced by my confiscated Lifesavers, I was still able to get the camera into the building.  From my location, I was able to photographs the California legends as they tore through their catalogue of songs which helped them claim a spot as one of The Big Four, along with Metallica, Megadeth and Anthrax, of Heavy Metal.  Though I wasn't close enough to the stage to get any close-up shots of the band while they played, I did manage to caputre, in my opinion, some very cool photographs of the band with the spotlights and their many backgrounds.  That kind of became my mission right from the very start as I knew close-ups were going to be out of the question.  I was also aided by those spotlights being very powerful.  It allowed me to lower my ISO and get much less grain in my photographs that I had earlier in the evening.  The lack of grain made all the difference in my having 12 photographs of Slayer, but only four from Death Angel.  Along with the photographs of the band, I also took some cool photographs of the lighting and backgrounds, but I'll save those for another update as there is already a lot here for all of you out there to dig through.  In the meantime, the first photograph was taken at f/8, 1/60sec, ISO 1250 at 50mm.  The second photograph was taken at f/4.5, 1/100sec, ISO 1250 at 50mm and the third photograph was taken at f/5, 1/400sec ISO 1250 at 50mm.  Here are some more photographs that I took during the show.

f/3.5, 1/160sec, ISO 1250 at 50mm

f/2.8, 1/200sec, ISO 1250 at 50mm

f/2.8, 1/500sec, ISO 1250 at 50mm

f/5.6, 1/125sec, ISO 1250 at 50mm

f/2.2, 1/200sec, ISO 1250 at 50mm

f/2.8, 1/400sec, ISO 1250 at 50mm

f/4, 1/250sec, ISO 1250 at 50mm

f/3.2, 1/320sec, ISO 1250 at 50mm

f/3.2, 1/250sec, ISO 1250 at 50mm

When I mentioned previously in the last update that anything and everything happens in the most pit, I think a good example of that is the ninth photograph.  Yes, that is a shoe that is flying through the air.  I'm guessing that there was no foot still in it, but we just don't know.  I kid, I kid.  I was a little apprehensive about having the crowd in my photographs.  I was afraid that they would block out the musicians.  While that did happen a few times, more often than not, all of those arms in the air made me like the photographs even more.  Not bad of a haul considering I was tempted to not even bring my camera with me.  Some nice additions to the musical wing of my collection.

Death Angel & Anthrax at The Metropolis

I suppose that I should mention right out of the gate, there aren't going to be any close-up photographs in this little update.  This past Tuesday, a couple and friends and I crossed the river to go to the big city for a rather loud concert.  The Metropolis was the place, and the first two bands on the bill were San Francisco thrash metal veterans Death Angel and one of the Big 4, New York's own Anthrax.  The last few times I've attended concerts, I've managed to find myself relatively close to the stage, thus being close to the action and get some pretty nice photographs for my collection.  That wasn't in the cards this time.  To be perfectly honest, it wasn't even part of the plans.  Having recently had a double-digit changing birthday, I have very little desire to find myself in situations that don't favour my leaving a show in the same physical condition as when I arrived.  If you go to a Death Angel, Anthrax and Slayer show, more on them to come another time, you know that if you're on the floor, your going to find yourself in a physical situation rather quickly.  Very quickly.  With the opening notes of the first band, the mosh pit was in full effect as I watched from safety as a dust cloud of wild hair and flailing body parts took over much of the floor.  Nope, the floor was not for me on this occasion as discretion really was the better part of valour. I found a nice safe spot behind the wheel-chair section from which I had a clear, and safe, view of the stage.  Once again I was able to get my trusty camera into the show, though the same cannot be said for my Lifesavers, which for some reason the members of the security staff had never heard off.  Have Lifesavers become an obscure candy?  Anyway, the candies ended up in the garbage, but the camera made it in, despite my actually being stopped and asked to show it for the first time.  Luckily, I had taken off the battery pack and was only using my trusty plastic cased 50mm lens.  Not the best lens to use when you want close-ups from several feet away from the stage, but my only real option as there was no way that I was going to get into the show with any of my other lenses.  As a result, I tried to focus on getting wide shots of the bands in action, getting some of the different band backgrounds into the shots, as well as the raised arms, and other assorted body parts, of the crowd.

I also tried using some different crops while editing the photographs, as there are only so many wide shots one can look at.  That being said here come a whole bunch of photographs.  The first you was was taken at f/4, 1/250sec, ISO 3200 at 50mm.  The second photograph was taken at f/4, 1/160sec, ISO 3200 at 50mm.  The third and fourth photographs were taken at f/4, 1/60sec, ISO 3200 at 50mm.  Those first four photographs were taken while Death Angel was performing.  The low lighting and my distance from the stage meant that I didn't get a really large selection of photographs, but I was happy to end up with those four that I just showed.  Up next was Anthrax and their lighting was much better.  Their set also allowed to me watch the  work of one crew member who seemed to be having a difficult time keeping up with the action on the stage. That would be the guy in charge of the lighting.  When I wasn't watching the concert, or had one eye in my camera, I was watching the poor lighting guy as he tried to keep up with the band on stage, constantly pushing buttons and spinning dials to create the lighting effects that we were seeing up on the stage.  He seemed to lose himself a few times, but always seemed to pull himself out of whatever mess he  always appeared moments away from falling into.  Again, there isn't going to be much shot variety here, but the clarity of the photographs I did manage to get was thanks to that hard working crew member. The first photograph was taken at f/4, 1/160sec, ISO 3200 at 50mm and the second photograph was taken at f/5, 1/320sec, ISO 3200 at 50mm.  Here are several more photographs of Anthrax in action.

f/3.2, 1/60sec, ISO 1250 at 50mm

f/3.2, 1/200sec, ISO 1250 at 50mm

f/8, 1/80sec, ISO 1250 at 50mm

f/4, 1/125sec, ISO 1250 at 50mm

f/7.1, 1/125sec, ISO 1250 at 50mm

f/5.6, 1/160sec, ISO 1250 at 50mm

f/4.5, 1/100sec, ISO 1250 at 50mm

f/4.5, 1/250sec, ISO 1250 at 50mm

f/4.5, 1/160sec, ISO 1250 at 50mm

f/1.8, 1/200sec, ISO 1250 at 50mm

f/5, 1/200sec, ISO 1250 at 50mm

Due to the conditions, I tried taking some silhouette style photographs, like the second and just before last Anthrax photograph.  It was fun to spin the dials of my camera as I experimented with several different aperture and shutters speeds to try and get some shots.  It was great fun.  That should be enough to keep everyone satisfied for now, but stick around.  There is still one more band to go.

Almost There

It's funny the things that can catch your eye.  On this particular Sunday afternoon it was a very persistent caterpillar who was trying his hardest to make it from My Lovely Assistant's gardening stick over to the leafy goodness being offered by the neighbouring tomato plant.  Several times the little bugger slowly climbed up the stick and stretched out as far as he could, only to fall short before slowly making his way back down to the soil below.  Not willing to admit defeat, he would climb back up the stick and repeat the whole process over again.  After watching this happen a few times, the sun came out and I knew that I needed to grab my camera and snap off a few photographs of this persistent guy and his never give up attitude.  The first photograph was taken at f/8, 1/250sec, ISO 400 at 200mm.  Here are a couple more that I took.

f/8, 1/250sec, ISO 400 at 200mm

f/8, 1/200sec, ISO 400 at 200mm

Under normal circumstances, I probably would have used a larger aperture in order to blur out the background, but I really liked the shadow of the caterpillar, especially in the first photograph where you can make out the little feet of my small friend in the shadow.  I was hoping that my visitor would stick around and turn into a butterfly, but he had disappeared by the next morning.  I hope he finally made it to that leaf.

Out Of Focus

Here's something a little different.  Sometimes as a photographer, you just see something through the viewfinder and know you need to take the photograph.  Such a feeling came over me with this photograph.  "But, Eric," I hear you saying, "it's out of focus."  I know, and that's what I like about it.  This image is what I saw when I took the lens cap off of my camera while getting ready to take some photographs of the fireworks back in July.  I know it may seem a little odd, but I saw the pattern of the out of focus lights as well as the colours in the sky and of the road in the foreground and it really grabbed me.  The photograph was taken at f/2.8, 1sec, ISO 100 at 68mm.  I hope that some of you out there find it as interesting as I do.

Louis-Jean Cormier at Saint-Lambert En Fête

On Saturday night, My Lovely Assistant and I attended a concert by Louis-Jean Cormier as part of the annual Saint-Lambert en Fête.  Oops, I should mention this happened last Saturday.  One of the downfalls of running this blog is that sometimes things get backed up a bit.  As a result, these photographs only get to you a week after I took them because I like to let my posts breathe a little bit.  Four updates in one day would have been a little bit of overkill, and even one every other day seems to be a bit much in my opinion.  The other reality is that with the day job, I didn't have the time to edit all of my photographs in a timely manner to be able to produce any of the above scenarios.  So, in my world of an ever expanding hard drive, I'm happy that it only took a week for these photographs to finally see the light of day.  There are still some Summer of 2012 photographs that are waiting for the same opportunity.  Getting back to the subject at hand, the final concert performed at Saint-Lambert en Fête this year was by Louis-Jean Cormier.  He is a singer-songwriter originally from Sept-Îles and gained initial fame as part of the group Karkwa, though he has released a couple of solo albums over the last few years.  He also had a special guest with him on stage for this show, his young son Édouard.  The youngster almost overshadowed his father, waving around his maracas to the beat of the music.  Sadly, the show might have been a tad bit late for the little guy.  My favourite photograph of the night is of young Édouard yawning, but still not missing a beat with his instrument.  The lighting was also very low for this show, so I decided to try out shooting some different style photographs, going for silhouettes of the band, or trying to key in on the lighting.  Something new, that was interesting to play around with.  The first photograph was taken at f/4.5 1/400sec, ISO 3200 at 155mm. The second photograph was taken at f/2.8, 1/800sec, ISO 3200 at 142mm and the third photograph was taken at f/4, 1/20sec, ISO 3200 at 120mm.  Here are a few more photographs that I took during the show.

f/2.8, 1/60sec, ISO 3200 at 88mm

f/2.8 1/100sec, ISO 3200 at 120mm

f/2.8, 1/200sec, ISO 3200 at 70mm

f/16, 1/20sec, ISO 3200 at 70mm

f/2.8, 1/640sec, ISO 3200 at 142mm

f/2.8, 1/200sec, ISO 3200 at 140mm

f/2.8, 1/100sec, ISO 3200 at 165mm

f/2.8, 1/200sec, ISO 3200 at 125mm

I promised a story about a 'riot' last time.  Well, at these open air concerts, lots of people show up and set up deck chairs on the street to sit and watch the show.  However, this time around, some older concert goers decided to show up and set up their chairs directly behind a group of younger fans who were standing.  Moments before the show, the older fans began to ask the younger ones to move because they coudn't see.  The youngsters didn't want to move, nor did they approve of the idea of sitting on the pavement.  They were there to have fun and dance to the music.  After a few unsuccessful attempts at verbal negotiations, and by negotiations I mean lots of yelling by the older fans, one of the women jumped from her seat and began moving around wildly, flailing her hands around and actually hitting the younger fans a few times.  It's all okay, she said.  She was dancing.  She was having a good time.  At moments things looked to be getting rather heated, which had My Lovely Assistant wondering where security was, but some people to the right of the scene ended up moving, allowing the people who wanted to sit to be able to do so without having their view obstructed.  Later during the show, I decided to try and find those same fans in the crowd, and I did so, only to discover that the woman wasn't even looking at the concert, she was reading from a Kindle!  Incredible. The final photograph was taken at f/2.8, 1/400sec, ISO 3200 at 165mm and the previous photograph was taken at f/2.8, 1/60sec, ISO 3200 at 70mm.  Craziness aside, I really enjoyed Louis-Jean Cormier's show.  Good music, fun attitude and a youngster who stole the show.

Jesse Mac Cormmack at Saint-Lambert en Fête

The musical coverage continues here on the old blog with another musical act from the recent Saint-Lambert en Fête.  The act on the stage this past Saturday night was a local Montreal artist by the name of Jesse Mac Cormmack.  I'd never heard anything by him before, and the show got off to a rough start as there were some technical issues related to the way his guitar was plugged in to some pedals, but once he got things sorted out, the music began to flow. The show began at 7:00PM so there was still a little bit of sun in the sky, allowing me to not have as much noise despite using a large ISO.  I think that I was briefly spotted from my position in the crowd as a smile was flashed in my direction, which can be seen in the first photograph.  I also grabbed a couple of cool band photographs and one of my favourites, a shot of the drummer with his sticks in the air.  I was also at a good angle to catch some of the looks that the drummer would give to Jesse during the performance, the last photograph of this batch being my favourite of those.  Jesse didn't move around very much on the stage so I tried to focus on capturing facial movements, trying to capture the feelings that he was experiencing while playing.  The first photograph was taken at f/3.5, 1/400sec, ISO 1600 at 140mm and the second photograph was taken at f/3.5, 1/800sec, ISO 1600 at 135mm.  Here are some more photographs that I took during the show.

f3.5, 1/400sec, ISO 1600 at 123mm

f/2.8, 1/160sec, ISO 1600 at 190mm

f/3.5, 1/160sec, ISO 400 at 145mm

f/3.5 1/320sec, ISO 800 at 145mm

f/3.5, 1/250sec, ISO 1600 at 160mm

f/3.5, 1/250sec, ISO 1600 at 130mm

f/3.2, 1/400sec, ISO 1600 at 140mm

f/2.8, 1/160sec, ISO 1600 at 130mm

f/3.2, 1/125sec, ISO 1600 at 102mm

I took these photographs from the other side of the stage than I had been the other night as I did a bit of research and found out that the guitar players were both right-handed.  It was a good strategy that really paid off.  The position also allowed me to witness a near riot, but that story will be saved for the next time.