What Summer Looked Like

This is the time of the year when a large number of you out there begin to complain about the long, cold winter months.  Anxious for the warmer days which are on the way.  While I don't agree with your ideas, I understand your plight.  So, here I am with a little reminder of what was and what soon will be as I try and ease your pain.  This photograph, taken at f/8, 1/200sec, ISO 400 at 24mm, was captured during a late August walk on the Boucherville islands with My Lovely Assistant.  I suppose that some of you might be relieved seeing some summer colours and flowing water, and I guess I'm happy for you.  For myself, I'm going to continue enjoying the comfortable cold before the oppressive heat and humidity return.

She Stops All The Pucks

It's been a while since my camera and I have been inside of a hockey arena, so I reached out to my friend Emmanuel late last week to find out if my favourite goaltender, his daughter Florence, was going to be playing anywhere near.  As luck would have it, she and her team, Les Félines de Saint-Laurent - Midget A, were playing a game at the Bell hockey complex in Brossard, a short drive away from me.  I packed up some gear and headed out to take in some Monday night hockey.  Once on the scene, I was a little disappointed to find that the stands in the area don't go down to ice level.  Seeing as how this place is the practice facility of the Montreal Canadiens, I had filled my mind with the possibility of having a nice seat in the corner next to a hole cut into the plexiglass specifically for photographers, much like they have at the Bell Center.  That disappointment aside I was still fortunate enough to have the end seats of the rink to myself as most of the parents on hands to watch their kids in action stayed more in the center of the stands. Getting back to the topic at hand, Les Félines are having a great season, currently positioned second in their league.  On this night, they were playing against the third place Rapides de Champlain.  More importantly than climbing higher in the standings, also on the line was my personal two game losing streak.  Sadly, when my camera happens to be in the building, Florence had a record of 0-2!  Fortunately, the third time was the charm as Les Félines stormed back with four unanswered goals to earn a 4-1 victory.  As usual, I focused on her play, trying to make sure that I always had a fast enough shutter speed to capture the action and freeze the puck when possible.  I also tried to shoot some non-puck stopping action, though I still need some work following the flow of the action of the other players on the ice.  Fortunately, I don't know any of their fathers so I don't feel that bad about missing their plays.  It is something I plan on trying to continue working on if I get any other opportunities.  Enough talking, on to the photographs.  This is going to be a rather large update as I just send everything out that I took on Monday night.  In the past, I would have probably saved a few shots for future updates, but as you all know, my archives are filled to the point of busting so holding more back won't be helping out that situation.  The first photograph was taken at f/5, 1/320sec, ISO 3200 at 105mm.  The second and third photographs were taken at f/5, 1/320sec, ISO 3200 at 110mm and the fourth photograph was taken at f/5, 1/320sec, ISO 3200 at 105mm.  Here are the rest of the photographs that I took during the game.

f/5, 1/320sec, ISO 3200 at 105mm

f/5, 1/320sec, ISO 3200 at 168mm

f/5.6, 1/250sec, ISO 3200 at 130mm

f/5.6, 1/250sec, ISO 3200 at 130mm

f/5.6, 1/250sec, ISO 3200 at 130mm

f/4.5, 1/640sec, ISO 3200 at 105mm

f/5, 1/500sec, ISO 3200 at 105mm

f/5, 1/500sec, ISO 3200 at 110mm

f/6.3, 1/250sec, ISO 3200 at 90mm

 f/6.3, 1/250sec, ISO 3200 at 90mm

f/6.3, 1/250sec, ISO 3200 at 90mm

f/6.3, 1/200sec, ISO 3200 at 95mm

f/6.3, 1/200sec, ISO 3200 at 95mm

That is what you call a full crease.  It was a fun couple of hours at the rink and I'm really happy that I no longer have to consider myself to be a bad luck charm as my losing streak is over!  They have a couple more games left in their season, so maybe I'll even get the chance to start a little winning streak going.

Paul Bourcier at Bedford United Church

What was originally just going to be a little visit to my parents ended up turning into a chance to give my camera a little workout.  When I had called to see if my parents were free last Thursday, my Mom said that she was planning on going to a meeting that afternoon, but it could easily be missed.  With that, I packed up my car and made my way down for a visit.  Once there, I asked what the meeting my Mom was going to be missing was about.  She told me that my Uncle Paul was giving a lecture about his use of sign language in some of his travels.  Why pass up the chance to see my Uncle while I was in town?  I also figured this would give me the chance to practice something that I don't really do very often, photographing people.  I hid myself in the back of the room and began snapping away while my Uncle kept the crowd captive with his tales of being a sign language translator during trips to Cambodia and Vietnam.  The lighting consisted of overhead neon, which isn't really a very flattering light.  I was trying to avoid using my flash since I didn't want to distract either my Uncle, who was giving the lecture, or the people who were attending.  I cranked up the ISO and played with different shutter speeds in order to try and find a delicate balance between a bright enough exposure and a fast enough shutter speed.  My Uncle is very animated with his hands while talking, which is to be expected as he not only uses sign language in his life, but also helped create the Quebec signing language, and also has a very expressive face.  One of my favourite photographs in this set is the shot where you can see my Uncle's mouth through his fingers.  With sign language, he uses his hands to speak and I thought it made for a clever photograph.  Speaking of which, the first photograph was taken at f/3.5, 1/100sec, ISO 3200 at 123mm.  The second photograph of the logo on the screen was taken at f/2.8, 1/500sec, ISO 400 at 70mm and the third photograph was taken at f/2.8, 1/125sec, ISO 3200 at 115mm.  Here are a few more photographs that I took of the lecture.

f/2.8, 1/125sec, ISO 1600 at 85mm

f/2.8, 1/320sec, ISO 1600 at 70mm

f/2.8, 1/250sec, ISO 1600 at 70mm

f/2.8, 1/60sec, ISO 1600 at 120mm

As I mentioned at the very beginning, this was a bit of a learning experience.  Not doing many lectures, I thought that it was important to not get any heads of those attending in the crowd.  Upon doing some research, I found that some photographers do include heads in their shots.  I'd also like to try and maybe get more of the images from the screen in my shots.  Some things to keep in mind if ever there is a next time.  Thanks to the Bedford United Church and their Women Fellowship for allowing me to attend, and thanks to my Uncle Paul for the storytelling and being a willing model.

CTV Weather Pix - Part Two

As previously promised, here is the second photograph that appeared as part of the CTV Montreal Weather Pix segment earlier this week.  I had gotten an email saying that the photograph of Montreal would be featured on the 6:00PM newscast and then again later at 11:30PM.  During that late newscast, they also featured some other photographs that had been sent in, and my second photograph as well. What I liked about this photograph was the rolling ice fog on the river, but also the little coating of ice that you can see on the superstructure of the bridge where the clouds of fog had passed.  The photograph was take at f/16, 1/320sec, ISO 100 at 30mm.  During my little subzero walk, I also learned that my iPod has a sense of humour.  You can't help but find the humour in taking a walk outside at minus-30C when songs like Heat Wave by Linda Ronstadt are playing.  Just one of the little memories from my walk.  Thanks again to CTV Montreal and Lori Graham for putting my photographs on the air.

CTV Montreal Weather Pix - January 15, 2018

I often mention how I enjoy the cold weather much more than the heat, but sometimes I feel the need to prove it to myself.  While most people would like nothing more than to take a walk around Ile Saint-Helene on a warm summer day, I choose to do so when it's about -28 Celsius with the wind.  However, I sometimes get rewarded for my little quirks.  Cold like that tends to create a nice amount of ice fog coming off of the Saint-Lawrence River, often thick enough to obstruct the view of Montreal.  Something a bus load of tourists discovered as I came upon them while taking my little walk.  I suppose that means that my little photograph here is probably not that unique, but it is the only one that was aired on the CTV Montreal Evening and Late newscasts.  Thanks again to Lori Graham who tweeted out my photograph before the newscasts as well.  I guess that makes it somewhat unique then.  The photograph was taken at f/16, 1/320sec, ISO 100 at 70mm.  I actually had a second photograph that got aired on the later newscast, but since I can only post one video at a time, that one will end up getting an update of it's own later this week.

Foggy Ghosts

There's something a little spooky about fog rolling through a cemetery among the tombstones.  I had been thinking about doing this kind of photograph for a few years, but usually in the Fall when you get some foggy evenings.  However, our interesting weather of the last few days provided a foggy afternoon.  Upon finishing my time at the Day Job, I grabbed my camera and went to the closest cemetery.  The photograph was taken at f/4, 1/8sec, ISO 400 at 48mm and I used some flash in order to not only get some colour on the tombstones, but also make the rolling fog more visible.  In a perfect world, I would have tried to get a little closer to the tombstones so that there wouldn't be houses in the background, but the fog was starting to lift rather quickly.  I grabbed what I could and maybe these same conditions will present themselves again so I can have another shot.

Fireworks From Old Montreal

Those of you who have been following me here should be well aware by now that I really like photographing fireworks displays.  Despite my hatred of the Summer heat, I'm still out there when the temperature hits the 40's with humidity factored in and now I can say that I've hit the other end of the thermometer as well.  This past Saturday, after the windchill was factored in , the temperature was a rather crisp -41 Celsius.  My Lovely Assistant sat this one out, and my parents thought that I might have been a little crazy, but I wasn't going to let a little cold get in the way of my fun.  This was the final show of the annual Fire On Ice display from the Old Port of Montreal and sponsored by the Natrel dairy company.  Milk and fireworks, sounds like a winning mix to me. I went back to my spot on the banks of the Saint-Lawrence River from earlier in December.  There was still a brisk wind, but it wasn't as strong as it had been the previous time.  I had also since replaced my shutter trigger so there was much less of an issue concerning camera shake this time around.  Which is a good thing because I really liked the designs in the sky that this show produced.  I tried some different exposure times and also tried opening the shutter at different time during the explosions to create shorter and also longer light streaks in the sky.  As an added bonus, the cold air created a nice layer of ice fog over the river which you can see in several of the photographs.  I did have one surprise waiting for me...I actually wasn't the only one out there!  There was another brave soul out there taking some photographs of the show and we shared a chuckle over the extremes that we were going through in order to grab a few photographs.  Speaking of which, the first photograph was taken at f/16, 13sec, ISO 100 at 32mm.  The second photograph was taken at f/16, 8sec, ISO 100 at 32mm.  The third and fourth photographs were taken at f/16, 10sec, ISO 100 at 32mm.  Here are several more photographs that I took of the show.

f/16, 13sec, ISO 100 at 32mm

f/16, 8sec, ISO 100 at 32mm

f/16, 8sec, ISO 100 at 32mm

f/16, 8sec, ISO 100 at 32mm

f/16, 20sec, ISO 100 at 32mm

f/16, 10sec, ISO 100 at 32mm

f/16, 6sec, ISO 100 at 32mm

That was a pretty large selection, but I wanted to make the most out of my time in weather so cold that, as the late, great George Balcan would have said, was cold enough to freeze the nuts off of the Victoria Bridge.  Don't worry Mom, I was wearing boots and a scarf.

Starting The Year With A Bang

New Year's Eve brings out  variety of emotions in people.  This year there was some uncertainty, frustration and one huge surprise.  Uncertainty came in the form of the weather.  New Year's Eve this year featured a temperature of -24C, upped to -36C when you added the windchill.  The normal minded person would probably stay inside under such conditions, but the call of fireworks can be very strong.  Uncertainty was quickly replaced by frustration as what should have been a quick car ride to my desired parking spot ended up turning into a bit of an adventure as the first road was blocked off by police and security forces, I guess to make sure that people didn't get to close to the explosions.  We'll keep that in mind for later.  The secondary road to my spot ended up being congested with traffic as it seems that an in-ordinarily large amount of people seemed to want to spend New Year's Eve at the casino.  Why they were making the trek at 11:30PM is a bit of a question to ask, but I guess that's one that will need to be answered at another time.  After finally getting out of the traffic, parking the car and making a mad dash up the hill, My Lovely Assistant and I finally arrived at my desired location, just to find out that Mother Nature had been at work and caused the trees to grow in the years since I had last visited that spot. 

It was too late to turn, so I quickly began to shoot away as fireworks began to explode over the special illumination of the Jacques Cartier Bridge.  Then came the huge surprise.  At the stroke of midnight the sky lit up like one would expect when fireworks are involved...however these fireworks were going off rather close to us.  One parking lot away to be exact.  We could see the flashes of the explosions going off  and a quick look up revealed a sky full of colour and smoke.  Not to mention the fiery debris that was falling down all around us.  A large piece of which My Lovely Assistant brought home with us.  It made a New Year's Eve that will not only be hard to forget, but hard to top as well.  Back to business, I felt that the photographs left a little to be desired.  We were to close to the fireworks to properly capture them, but the experience was one that won't be forgotten.  Also, as My Lovely Assistant often tells me, the photographs aren't really as bad as I make them out to be either.  The first photograph was taken at f/16, 2sec, ISO 3200 at 24mm.  The second photograph was taken at f/13, 5sec, ISO 100 at 24mm.  The third photograph was taken at f/22, 4sec, ISO 3200 at 24mm and the fourth photograph was taken at f/20, 4sec, ISO 3200 at 24mm.  Here are a few more photographs from the night.

f/22, 4sec, ISO 3200 at 24mm

f/22, 2sec, ISO 3200 at 24mm

f/22, 3sec, ISO 3200 at 24mm

Yes, an old enemy returned, that being the version of me that forgets to reset the ISO after using the camera.  This resulted in a little bit more Photoshop work after the fact, but hopefully that guy won't be returning to often this year.  From My Lovely Assistant and myself to all of you, may your 2018 be full of all kinds of great surprises.