Spotlight Montreal

I mentioned a little while ago how I was trying my hand at some silhouette style photographs.  I found this one in one of my many file folders and thought it might look good with a little treatment.  This was a photograph that I took while on a ferry ride back home after spending the day biking in Montreal with My Lovely Assistant.  The photograph was taken at f/8, 1/3200sec, ISO 100 at 24mm.  I then used the Curves and Colour Balance tool in Photoshop in order to adjust the contrast a colour of the photograph, darkening the skyline of Montreal and adding a little bit of blue to what was an otherwise grey sky.  All of these adjustments aren't usually my cup of tea, but I must admit that it is kind of fun, especially since I'm enjoying the final results.

They Turned On The Lights

Last week I made my way up the new staircase that links Longueuil to Montreal via a sidewalk on the outside of the Jacques Cartier Bridge.  When I went up there the first time, I was disappointed because though some new lights were installed on the bridge and have been lighting it up at night, on that evening it seem like a bare minimum of them were being used.  Having a bit of a hard head, and being disappointed because I didn't get what I wanted, I decided to climb back up those 108 steps a couple of nights later and just moments after sunset, the lights came on and I had a smile on my face.  Over the next several minutes as the sun disappeared, I snapped several photographs as the sky went from red to light and then dark blue.  I still didn't understand why the lights were suddenly back to normal, when the last time I had been there, they seemed frozen.  It was My Lovely Assistant who finally was able to find the answer to that question.  She read that the first night I had gone up the bridge, the lights were purposely dimmed due to it being Remembrance Day.  Mystery solved.  The first photograph was taken at f16, 3/10sec, ISO 100 at 200mm and the second photograph was taken at f/16, 5sec, ISO 100 at 200mm.  Here are a few more photographs that I took while I was up there.

f/16, 6sec, ISO 100 at 200mm

f/16, 30sec, ISO 100 at 200mm

f/16, 8sec, ISO 100 at 200mm

Obviously when looking at the shutter speeds involved, I used a tripod, but I still ended up getting lots of blurry photographs.  This was because the passing cars were causing some vibrations on the metal staircase.  It was a little frustrating at times, but as you can see, I still came away with some nice shots.  Much like the other update, I used the Curves and Colour Balance feature in Photoshop a little bit to get the sky to be a little more red, but as usual, my manipulations were limited to that.  Even though it seems this bridge has been featured several times on the blog this year, it was still fun to be shooting from a new spot.

Red Sky, Black Buildings

Mother Nature hasn't been as generous with the sunsets this year, so I've had to give her a bit of a helping hand.  I took this photograph of the skyscrapers of Montreal while walking along the bicycle path just off of the Victoria Bridge that leads to Île Notre-Dame.  There was a bit of reddish glow still behind the buildings as the sun had just set, though not quite as much as we see in the photograph.  I used the Levels and Curves tool in order to adjust the colours and contrast, while also adding a little more red to the sky using the Colour Balance tool.  I also cropped the photograph to give it a more panoramic look.  In order to show the differences, here is the original.

The photograph was taken at f/16, 1/100sec, ISO 100 at 70mm.  Just so that you're not overly disappointed, I did purposely underexpose the photograph while I was taking it in order to bring out the most colour possible from what was left from the sunset.  So, while they was some trickery involved, there was a little bit of knowledge involved as well.

Turn On The Lights

Those of you out there who live relatively around my part of the world are aware that some lights were installed on the Jacques Cartier Bridge earlier this year as part of the 375th birthday celebrations for the city of Montreal.  Over on my side of the river, some work was also done on the steps that lead up to the walking path that allows pedestrians to cross the bridge.  I noticed it a few days back, and it is a staircase that features several little observation decks that give different views of the city and the bridge.  So, this past Saturday I decided to walk up that staircase and waited for the sun to go down a little bit to photograph some of those new lights from an angle I had never before used.  Sadly, there must have been some kind of bug with the lighting system as everything appeared to be locked in place.  The lights usually move around and change colours, but on this night they remained exactly as they appear in the two photographs here.  The first was taken at f/16, 4sec, ISO 100 at 200mm and the second at f/16, 13sec, ISO 100 at 200mm.  This lack of diversity also inspired the title of this little update.  It was kind of chilly with a wind on Saturday evening.  As a result, I would vent a little bit of my frustration by saying 'turn on the lights' in my head, and potentially out loud as well.  There might have been a few more colourful words tossed in there as well, but that's between me and the motorists who were passing by.

Relaxing Sunset

Most of my anticipation from earlier this week has disappeared as the week that I thought would have been terrific for sunsets has kind of turned out to be a dud.  Luckily, the one night that did turn out to have an interesting sunset was the night that I headed out with my camera to the Victoria Bridge.  There are no bridge photographs in this update, but they should be around eventually.  Rather, I decided to go with this shot of the sun setting over the waters of the Saint-Lawrence river.  The clouds and electricity poles kind of create a bit of a calming feeling.  The photograph was taken at f/16, 1/200sec, ISO 100 at 70mm.  Helps to calm the frustration caused by the cloudy skies that have haunted me for the rest of the week.

Cracks In The Sky

This is one of my favourite times of the year because it's when the sky turns all kinds of different shades of red as the sun sets.  Last night was my first opportunity to grab some of the colours in the sky, but some heavy cloud cover ended up eating the sunset before it really had the chance to give us a light show.  Some of the red did manage to fight through the clouds and gave me this reddish glow over some of the buildings of downtown Montreal and the new Grande Roue de Montréal, which just opened this summer.  The photograph was taken at f/4, 1/250sec, ISO 400 at 200mm.  Hopefully the sky will be a little more clear in the coming days as these first few weeks of November, in  my experience, are always the best for sunsets.

Ladybug Feast

I suppose that this little update puts to test my theory about being able to photograph anything.  Bugs eating a rotten apple is probably not going to win the award for photograph of the day, but I think that it's still somewhat interesting.  My Lovely Assistant doesn't quite agree with me, but she was the one who pointed out this happy meal to me in the first place.  It's true that this one probably won't be making it to the final cut of any future potential exhibitions, but it's still something different to see.  The colours are nice, the ladybugs are cute and the background is nicely blurred.  The photograph was taken at f/6.3, 1/125sec, ISO 400 at 70mm.  A Ladybug Feast may not be as cute and cuddly as a Teddy Bear Picnic, but who knows, maybe there's a future in photographing rotten fruit after all.

Under The Bridge

I have this fascination with bridges.  Which is kind of odd because when I was younger, there was nothing I hated more than having to cross one.  Now, I can't stop taking photographs of them.  This is another photograph of the Jacques Cartier Bridge in Montreal.  It was taken from the deck of a ferry that My Lovely Assistant and I took late in the summer to complete a bike ride home.  The sun was beginning to set as our boat was about to go under the bridge, leaving a nice golden glow on the metal frame.  The photograph was taken at f/8, 1/1000sec, ISO 100 at 54mm.  I cheated a little bit by adjusting the colour balance to add a bit of blue to what was an otherwise overcast sky, but the rest is all natural.  The way the light strikes the metal and the curve of the bridge, these are but a few of the things that always grab my attention and keep pulling my eyes back to something I see almost daily.