I'm Back On CTV News Montreal

I guess that I'm on a little bit of a hot streak! For the second time this month, one of my photographs ended up being part of the WeatherPix segment of CTV News Montreal.  I took this photograph from my favourite fireworks location and timed it perfectly by beginning the exposure before the fireworks display began  so that I could get the new lights of the Jacques Cartier Bridge, as well as the lights of some of the rides at La Ronde, which all get turned off during the shows.   I thought that it made such a nice mix that I immediately sent it off hoping that I could score myself a couple more seconds of fame.  The photograph was taken at f/16, 53sec, ISO 100 at 46mm.   I unfortunately discovered that my PVR is a few seconds fast so I missed the end of the newscast, but I luckily didn't miss the photograph being on the air.  Thanks once again to CTV News and Lori Graham for putting my photograph on the air.

Montreal International Fireworks Competition - France

As I mentioned a few updates ago, I was suffering from what I guess you would call repeated location boredom.  The best cure for this disease is to try a new location.  So, that's what I did this past Saturday night as the L'International des Feux Loto-Québec once again filled the sky over Montreal with light.  On this evening, the fireworks were presented by the Féérie - Fireworks, Pyromusical  and Pyrotechnics company from France.  This was their third participation in the annual competition, and I believe that I have already photographed their work back during a visit in 2012, before I opened this blog.  I may have to dig through my archives to see if I can find those photographs.  Might be fun to compare them to the ones here today.  The first photograph here was taken at f/10, 8sec, ISO 100 at 70mm and the second photograph was taken at f/16, 25sec, ISO 100 at 68mm.  Here are a few more photographs that I took during the show.

f/9, 10sec, ISO 100 at 70mm

f/10, 25sec, ISO 100 at 50mm

f/9, 8sec, ISO 100 at 70mm

f/10, 20sec, ISO 100 at 70mm

f/10, 8sec, ISO 100 at 70mm

I guess you could say that this was my widescreen edition of the fireworks display.  With this different location, I was hoping to get the fireworks as well as the Biosphere in my photograph, but getting them both in my shot meant cropping my photographs at either 12" x 4" or 12" x 5".  I also lost a few photographs because my new spot was on a wooden bicycle path and when people would walk or ride by, it would cause the deck to vibrate, which you could see in the finished product.  I also played around with some different apertures which added to the experimental feel of the evening.  I was really happy with the results.

Smoked Out

With fireworks, much like life, nothing is certain. Everything was planned and in place for a nice evening.  There was a fireworks display, put on by the Innovative Pyrotechnik GMBH firm out of Germany, and also a concert being held on Île Notre-Dame by possibly the biggest hard rock band of our time, Metallica.  The plan was simple.  Head out on bike to my favourite spot to shoot fireworks while listening to some of the great tunes being blasted from the island all evening.  And then, Mother Nature decided to throw it all into a loop.  A heavy at times early evening shower left the city trapped in a big bubble of humidity.  If there is one thing that I have learned over the years, humidity and fireworks just don't mix.  When the explosions go off, the smoke ends up mixing with the humid air and doesn't move.  This means that other that the first couple of explosions, everything else just gets swallowed in the smoke.  The first photograph was from the first set of explosions and was taken at f/16, 6sec, ISO 100 at 24mm.  Everything afterwards, including the second photograph that was taken at f/16, 13sec, ISO 100 at 27mm was smoked out.  Here are a few more smokey shots.

f/16, 12sec, ISO 100 at 57mm

f/16, 8sec, ISO 100 at 34mm

By the third photograph, I was getting frustrated just photographing smoke, so I decided to take a long exposure shot of the police cars going down the highway while trying to get the slow moving cars to move along. I also liked the smoke beginning to fall on the highway deeper into the right side of the photograph.  Hopefully the weather will be more cooperative with the remaining shows.

Montreal International Fireworks Competition - Poland

I'm getting a little bit of a late start on the International Des Feux Loto-Quebéc this year due to some family related outings, but the truth is that maybe a little break is a good thing.  As I've said in the past, learning how to get nice photographs if fireworks is what initially inspired me to learn more about photography in the first place, but after six years, I'm kind of suffering from a lack of inspiration.  I still like photographing the annual exhibition because I know that I'm seeing the best in the world, but I really need to find some new locations.  I like where I've been shooting the last few years, but repetition is starting to set in and I'd like to find some new spots to try.  In the meantime, I went back to a familiar spot for my first outing of the festival, though I ended up photographing the fireworks from a slightly different location.  This show was put on by the Surex Pyrotechnics company out of Poland.  It was a very colourful show that I photographed against the Jacques Cartier Bridge.  I know that you usually like to have the fireworks be unobstructed in photographs but I've kind of felt like using the bridge is an exception because there are so many additional little details to see.  The starring effects of the traffic lights and being able to pick out the people who are watching the display from the deck of the bridge have always been interesting to my eye.  An added bonus, there was a little extra window of light under the superstructure of the bridge which brought out some of the other steel details under the bridge.  The first photograph, which I also cropped to 12" x 4" for a wider view in order to get the illuminated portion of the bridge near the bottom left, was taken at f/14, 45sec, ISO 100 at 42mm.  The second photograph was taken at f/14, 20sec, ISO 100 at 43mm.  The third photograph was taken at f/14, 20sec, ISO 100 at 42mm and the fourth photograph was taken at f/14, 35sec, ISO 100 at 42mm.  Here are a few more photographs that I took of the display.

f/14, 30sec, ISO 100 at 42mm

f/14, 10sec ISO 100 at 42mm

And with that, the opening bangs have been fired.  Previous complaining aside, I still really like to watch these fireworks displays, so even if I can't find any new locations, you can probably bet you'll see a few more of these updates before the 33rd annual edition of the fireworks competition comes to an end.

Graduation Day

There are a couple of milestone days as a person grows up from being a child into adulthood.  One of those major days is High School Graduation and of course, the prom.  That's why I had a sudden case of excitement, followed by a large case of anxiety, when my friend Emmanuel contacted me back in May and asked if I would be willing to take some prom night photographs of his daughter, Florence.  Some of you may know Florence from these pages, though this is the first time she appears here without a hockey mask.  Florence is my favourite young goaltender and I've had lots of fun shooting her in game action over the last few years.  That is probably the big reason why I agreed to take a shot at taking real photographs of her, despite only having shot a prom once before.  As with most things, I find that you can get the best results when you prepare.  With that in mind, and also having full knowledge of my mood and nerves, I prepared for this day by Googling prom photos and printing out a few pages of poses that I found might be interesting because I was a little worried that once at the park, I would freeze up and not know what to do with my young models, or myself.  After some quick jokes to try and loosen my mood and also learning the magic word that a local cyclist told me would surely get a laugh out of my young subject (it begins with 's' and rhymes with 'flex'), we were off to find some free spots in the park that hadn't already been taken over by other prom goers with their own photographers in tow.  The late afternoon sun provided perfect lighting, and though some would have probably used flash in order to fill out the photographs I actually like seeing shadows here and there, especially the shadows of Florence's necklace and eyelashes in the second photograph.  The first photograph in this series was taken at f/4, 1/1000sec, ISO 100 at 46mm and the second photograph was taken at f/4, 1/1600sec, ISO 100 at 46mm.  Here are a few more photographs that I took.

f/4, 1/1600sec, ISO 400 at 24mm

f/8, 1/200sec, ISO 100 at 51mm

f/4, 1/1600sec, ISO 400 at 60mm

f/4, 1/1000sec, ISO 100 at 38mm

I made sure to use a large aperture in all of the photographs because I wanted the backgrounds to be blurred out, except for the group shot where I used a smaller one to make sure that everyone would be in focus.  Being a hockey player, Florence brought her goalie mask and stick with her for a couple of fun shots, though there was a bit of seriousness involved.  On her mask was a sticker that represented a friend and fellow player who had tragically died in a car accident earlier in the year.  I'm glad that one, as well as all of the others turned out and I'm glad that they thought of me to share the special day.  I hope I gave them a nice selection of photographs that will help Florence remember this milestone day for the rest of her life.  Merci pour votre confiance en moi mes amis.

Look Dad, I'm On TV

This past Monday evening, I went out for a walk with My Lovely Assistant and noticed how the setting sun was leaving a golden glow on the facade of the Jacques Cartier Bridge.   I thought that the bridge looked great in the setting sun and decided I'd grab a photograph of it the following night.  I took a quick bicycle ride under the bridge as the sun was beginning to set, found myself a spot that allowed me to see all of the bridge and waited for the perfect moment to grab my photograph, which was taken at f/10, 1/250sec, ISO 100 at 70mm.  Once back home, I cropped in a little bit tighter on the bridge, and also used the Curves and Levels tools in Photoshop to further darken the bottom of the photograph and add a little colour to the sky.  Once that was done, I figured that I might take a shot and send it in to CTV Montreal.  They have a WeatherPix segment where people can send in weather related photographs and then get them aired on the evening newscast.  I've been fortunate enough to already have this happen three times, so why not try for a fourth?  I never heard back from them and figured all was lost until about 10 minutes before the end of the newscast, my photograph showed up on the television.  Yes, it still feels as good as it did the first time.  Thanks much to Lori Graham for showing the photograph on her twitter feed, and CTV Montreal for airing it.

Trying Something New

The 2017 edition of the L'Internation des Feux Loto Quebec began last night, but I ended up missing out on the event due to being at a surprise party for my 'baby brother', in honour of his 40th birthday.  However, the lack of new material, means that I get to post something that I've been working on instead.  One of the more frustrating things about photographing fireworks is when the explosions don't happen in enough different spots to fill your frame.  Take this photograph for instance, which I took a few years back from the observation deck on Mount Royal.  I often found myself getting nice explosions over the bridge, but many shots were lacking a little something at bridge level of just below it.  Now Photoshop for me is still a bit of a learning process, but it is also provides some fun times of experimentation.  What I did here was take one photograph of fireworks exploding over the bridge, taken at f/16, 20sec ISO 100 at 100mm and then combined it with another photograph taken of fireworks going off a little lower which was also taken at f/16, 20sec, ISO 100 at 100mm.  I was able to mix them together using the Layers tool in Photoshop and lots of experimentation.  So much experimentation, in fact, that I can't really tell you exactly what I did.  I need to start taking more notes to keep for myself when I do stuff like this.  

To finish things off, I cropped the photograph a little bit tighter around the bridge in order to make the fireworks stand out a little bit more.  It's not a 'real' photograph since I needed to do some manipulation to get to the final image, but it was some fun manipulation.