Red Sky Morning

This is probably a photo set that is a little bit out of date since the photographs were taken a few years ago.  I went up to the observation deck of Mount Royal here in Montreal to try and grab the sun rising over the fair city.  It was mid-February and the sky was cloudy and grey.  There was a small open space in the sky and once the sun peaked over the South Shore mountains, I quickly snapped away before it got swallowed by the clouds.  Once at home, I added a bit of red to the highlights and mid-tones in order to change the bland grey into a somewhat warmer colour.  I also cropped the final photograph for a wide angle style, but I've also included the more traditional sized photograph in this update as well. The photograph was taken at f22, 1sec, ISO 400 at 24mm.  I might have to wake myself up early again some day to make my way up there once again since I believe that a few buildings have sprouted up since then.

Manny Jr. & The Cyclones in Saint-Lambert

Providing the soundtrack for the annual Saint-Lambert Classic Car Exhibition has fallen on Manny Jr. & The Cyclones.  I'm usually on the ground early in the morning and am gone by noon in order to miss out on the large crowds so that I have more room to move around the cars.  However, last year I discovered this band for the first time, despite hearing the announcement this year that this is the fifth consecutive year that Manny & The Cyclones perform in Saint-Lambert.  They play some early rock standards from the 1930's to the 1960's, as well as some songs of their own.  A nice soundtrack to fit with the classic cars that surround them on the city streets while they were performing.  You could almost imagine a different time, driving down main street in your souped up convertible.  This is the kind of music that would have been blaring out of your stereo as you cruised down main street.  The crowd sure enjoyed the show.  From the elder set who remember when their cars were not called 'classic' yet, to the little toddler who was rocking out to the beat of the music being played.  The first photograph was taken at f/4, 1/500sec, ISO 100 at 70mm and the second photograph was taken at f/5, 1/400sec, ISO 100 at 70mm.  Here are a few more photographs that I took as they played.

f/5.6, 1/160sec, ISO 100 at 70mm

f/4, 1/400sec, ISO 100 at 70mm

f/4, 1/250sec, ISO 100 at 62mm

f/9, 1/60sec, ISO 100 at 200mm

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

My only complaint is that the city should give them a better backdrop or stage from which to perform.  They're doing their thing under a bland white tent placed over a slab of cement.  Seems like they deserve something a little more.  Go out and check them out when they come back next year, or visit their website and find out if they'll be playing near you.

Ford Thunderbird

This past Sunday the town of Saint-Lambert held their annual Classic Car Exhibition.  I've gone to this event for several years for two reasons.  One, I like looking at all of the old cars, and two, I like taking photographs of them.  Not of the cars per say, but rather parts of those cars.  As I've mentioned in the past, getting good photographs of the cars is difficult as they often have information tags on them and are also parked closely together and surrounded by people.  So, I look for the details.  The small little bits of the car that I find attractive and think make nice car related photographs.  This year, my checklist was simple.  I wanted to find some Ford Thunderbirds.  Last year there was only one and it was parked in an unfortunate location where the lighting was bad and there was no room to move around it.  Not so this year.  They had a reserved spot in a local parking lot, and there were five of them.  The Thunderbird is probably my favourite of the old Ford cars, mostly just because of the name.  'Thunderbird' seems like the kind of car name I'd like to drive had I been around in that time.  The Thunderbird was created by Ford as a response to the Corvette.  Ford was looking for a sporty two-seater, but something a little more classy than the Corvette.  Thus, the first 'personal luxury car' was created.  The first photograph, a decal that was found on the front of a 1966 Ford Thunderbird, was taken at f/9, 1/60sec, ISO 100 at 70mm.  The second photograph, the spare tire compartment from the back of a 1956 Thunderbird convertible was taken at f/5.6, 1/400sec, ISO 100 at 48mm.  Here are a couple more photographs.

The front logo from a 1955 Thunderbird

f/5.6, 1/500sec, ISO 100 at 68mm

The front logo from a 1956 Thunderbird

f/4.5, 1/1000sec, ISO 100 at 30mm

I grabbed a few more photographs of some of the cars while walking the streets, and they should find their way to these pages soon.  Mind you, I've been saying the same thing for the last few years and there are almost as many car parts in my hard drive as there are in my brothers garage.

It's Time To Light The Lights

Yesterday, the city of Montreal celebrated its 375th Anniversary and the star attraction in a day full of events was the illumination of the Jacques Cartier Bridge.  They've been running some tests of the lights over the last several weeks, and though I may not agree with the price tag attached to the project, I must admit that the nights where the lights were being tested made the structure look pretty good.  So, as May 17th approached, I tried to think of where I could stick my camera and myself to grab some nice photographs of the event.  The immediate answer was the La Ronde parking lot on Île Sainte-Hélène.  However, much like most of my answers on my Secondary IV Physics Exam, it wasn't the right answer.  Now, before I get all 'woe is me', I must admit that I do like these photographs.  I got some nice shots of the structure of the bridge, some of the different light schemes, and some nice shots of the fireworks that accompanied the show.  The only problem is that I wanted to get some shots of the entire bridge, not just half of it. I arrived at the park about two hours before showtime only to discover that my first desired location was roped off by the police.  So were the second and third options.  Since I've photographed the bridge from several angles, I had a few secret passageways up my sleeve.  One such pathway led me past the original security fence and my false sense of accomplishment lasted for a few minutes before I noticed that I had been noticed by the policewoman who was now walking my way.  In defeat, I managed to find a spot in between the people and the trees that afforded me a clear view of at least half of the bridge.  I decided to take what I could get.  Which all things considered, wasn't that bad at all.  The first photograph on the page was taken at f/11, 44sec, ISO 100 at 70mm.  The second photograph was taken at f/11, 13sec, ISO 100 at 70mm and the third photograph was taken at f/11, 15sec, ISO 100 at 70mm.  Here are a couple more photographs that I took during the rest of the light show on the bridge.

f/11, 13sec, ISO 100 at 24mm

f/11, 10sec, ISO 100 at 24mm

f/11, 25sec, ISO 100 at 24mm

It was announced today that they'll be re-doing the light show at a later date due to some distractions caused by a group of protesting police officers.  This will give me another opportunity to shoot the show from a different angle.  I just need to choose one that won't be surrounded by the police.

Point Of View

If I were to be asked for one photograph from my most recent exhibition that most sums everything up, it would be this one.  The exhibition was called Point Of View because the majority of the photographs that were on display were taken with the idea that 'everything can look good'.  My little photography motto that I'm sure that you long time visitors have already seen here.  This dandelion is something that everyone has seen in their yard at one point, and they've silently, or maybe not so silently sworn at under their breath.  I took it as kind of a mission to take such a hated thing, and make a nice photograph with it.  I got up real close, lined myself up with some yellow dandelions in the background mixed in with the green grass and snapped away.  The photograph was taken at f/9, 1/80sec, ISO 100 at 70mm.  I got many nice comments about this photograph along the line of people hating those flowers, but liking the photograph.  Mission accomplished.

Bull's Eye

The month of May is kind of known for when the flowers come into bloom, but in my neck of the woods, May have actually be a wet and chilly month.  It even snowed here this morning.  No accumulation to speak of, but snow on May 9th is kind of unheard of.  So, it was back into the archives for this photograph, though I didn't have to dig very far to find it because it was currently featured in my recent photography exhibition that took place in Greenfield Park.  Nope, still not done talking about that.  The photograph was taken at f/18, 1/50sec, ISO 400 at 60mm.  I used a macro lens to magnify the center of the flower, and it worked out pretty well as I think the texture looks almost real enough to touch.  I also liked the added touch of the little yellow dusting of pollen that you can see on some of the petals.  It's bright red and really grabs your attention, while the yellow in acts like a good supporting character.  It adds to the photo, but doesn't take away from the star.  It was fairly popular during my show, we'll see if it will be popular on the internet as well.

Testament At The Metropolis

Time for the headliners to take the stage.  Prong (photographs here) were the first to hit the stage a got the crowd rocking.  Sepultura (photographs here) were up next and kept the Metropolis grooving.  Now it was time for Testament to blow to roof off of the Metropolis.  Testament had formed in the early 1980s in San Franciso, and though never associated with the Big 4 of Thrash Metal, they don't rank very far behind.  Their late 1980's albums The New Order and Practice What You Preach saw lots of time on my stereo and though a revolving door of members and some cancer scares may have slowed them down along the way, the band reformed in the early 2000s and have had a string of successful albums since.  They were in town to promote their most recent album, Brotherhood of the Snake, and a full Metropolis greeted them with outstretched hands and a roar of approval.  There was one little problem from my point of view.  Usually, the headliner gets the best lighting set-up because their stage set is usually the largest, so most of the lights get set up with them in mind.  This was the case here as well, however the entire stage ended up being lit from behind.  This made for some colourful backgrounds and some nice silhouette shots, but not it made things kind of difficult as with the lights pointing out into the crowd, it would sometimes try to fool the metering system of my camera.  To combat this, I would try and follow the patters of the lights, as they would tend to follow the pace of the songs.  I'd try and learn the pattern through the first chorus and then shoot through the rest of the song.  Oh yeah, I was also trying to have some fun as well.  I was at a concert after all.  The first photograph was taken at f/4, 1/100sec, ISO 3200 at 50mm.  The second photograph was taken at f/3.5, 1/200sec, ISO 1600 at 50mm and the third photograph was taken at f/4, 1/125sec, ISO 1600 at 50mm.  Yes, those are a pair of legs in the middle of the shot.  Lots of moshing and crowd surfing at these shows, and the reason why my old self stays near the relative safety of the sound board.  Here are some more photographs that I took during the show.

f/4, 1/160sec, ISO 1600 at 50mm

f/4, 1/160sec, ISO 1600 at 50mm

f4, 1/40sec, ISO 1600 at 50mm

f/4.5, 1/200sec, ISO 1600 at 50mm

f/4.5, 1/320sec, ISO 1600 at 50mm

f/4.5, 1/250sec, ISO 1600 at 50mm

f/4.5, 1/60sec, ISO 1600 at 50mm

f/4.5 1/250sec, ISO 3200 at 50mm

f/4.5, 1/250sec, ISO 3200 at 50mm

f/4, 1/400sec, ISO 3200 at 50mm

All in all, it was a terrific night filled with lots of old songs that I really liked and some newer ones that rattled the rafters just as good as anything from their past catalogue.  See you at the next show.

Star Wars Day

I guess that I could be described as a creature of habit.  Something as simple as moving a bookcase can cause a whole flood odd waves through my head.  The same can be said with certain dates when it comes to this little photography blog of mine.  One of those habits revolves around May 4th.  A simple day of the year to most people, but also known as Star Wars Day for those of us in the know.  As mentioned here in the past, in spoken form, 'May the fourth' sounds very similar to the famous Star Wars phrase, 'May the Force' as in 'May the Force be with you.'  We've seen various Star Wars theme photographs here in the past, and that little tradition continues this year.  Our model today, making a rare appearance from a galaxy far, far away is the notorious bounty hunter Boba Fett.  I posed the figure on a pure white piece of cardboard and shot the photograph at f/8, 1/250sec, ISO 400 at 30mm.  I also bounced the flash off of the ceiling in order to avoid having any shadows cast in the image.  Being a creature of habit, Boba was quickly returned to his assigned spot on top of my bookcase quickly afterwards. 

Sepultura At The Metropolis

We've gone through my photographs of the opening act, Prong, and now it is time to get on with the show and visit our second band, Sepultura.  Sepultura was formed in the early 1980's in Brazil by brothers Max and Igor Cavalera, though neither are currently with the band.  As such, the most senior members are bassist Paulo Jr. and lead guitarist Andreas Kisser, who have been playing since 1985 and 1989 respectively.  I was a fan of early Sepultura, though I must admit that I haven't actually bought any of their albums since the departure of Max Cavalera.  I was pleased to see this new-to-me version of Sepultura and that the still retain the thrash/groove metal style that I remembered.  It was great to hear songs from their great albums like Roots, Chaos A.D. and Arise, but I also liked the songs off of their latest album, Machine Messiah, which is their reason for being on tour at the moment.  Photographically, I was still suffering from the same old far from the stage/low light conditions that are the norm.  These shows can sometimes get a little violent, in a fun kind of way, as you'll see in the next update.  One thing I liked about this show their light show.  With a variety of crossing lights and colourful gels, it made the concert visually interesting as well.  The first photograph was taken at f/4, 1/80sec, ISO 3200 at 50mm and the second photograph was taken at f/3.5, 1/100sec, ISO 3200 at 50mm.  Here are a few more photographs that I took during the show.

f/3.5, 1/160sec, ISO 3200 at 50mm

f/3.5, 1/30sec, ISO 3200 at 50mm

f/3.5, 1/60sec, ISO 3200 at 50mm

 

f/3.5, 1/60sec, ISO 3200 at 50mm

f/4, 1/125sec, ISO 3200 at 50mm

f/4, 1/125sec, ISO 3200 at 50mm

f/4, 1/160sec, ISO 3200 at 50mm

I was pleasantly surprised with the seventh photograph.  Most guitarists love to flip back their hair while playing a heavy riff, but from my position, I rarely get to capture the act.  Kind of a 'holy grail' kind of photo from a guy like me shooting from the crowd.  Only one band remains, but before they took the stage we were treated to one of the oddest intermission songs I've ever heard played over the PA during a show.  'You Make My Dreams Come True', by Hall & Oates.  It was at the same time an awkward, yet interesting change of pace.  One more band to go, they'll be here soon.