Change Of Weather

I actually wasn't planning on posting this photograph today.  I had planned on putting up one of the photographs that I had taken while on my frozen January walk.  But, it was such a nice day outside, by some of your standards, that I felt you all might not appreciate getting plunged right back into the freezer.  Since they say that the customer is always right, I decided to bring out a warmer photograph of my own.  This one, taken at f/7.1, 1/100sec, ISO 100 at 24mm, was captured while My Lovely Assistant and I had been on vacation in Tadoussac.  It was early September, but it had been a warm end of Summer so there was still much greenery to be scene.  I took the photograph while we were taking a little hike on one of the many nature trails.  One of those times when she tried to kill me with long walks and high climbs, but that also sometimes lead to nice photographs like this one.  The kind that make surviving those outings worth while.  So, enjoy the warmer weather that is upon us while I begin to check and make sure that the air conditioning will be ready for the coming months.

Red Feathered Friend

Sometimes I have good luck talking to my little furry or feathered friends.  I'll tell them that I'm just trying to take their photograph and mean no harm, all the while hoping that no other two legged members of my species are watching and wondering just what I'm doing.  Often times it works, and my wild subject will stay still and allow me to get a nice shot.  Such wasn't the case with this little guy.  I originally found him sitting in the show as you see here.  The photograph was taken at f/9, 1/320sec, ISO 100 at 70mm.  I tried to follow him around for a better shot, but every time I got close, he'd fly off.  Not very far, staying close enough to tease me into thinking I still had a chance to get a photograph.  I'd get close and then he'd jump off and fly away again.  At least all of the moving kept me warm.

Bedford United Church

Over the last month I had the chance to photograph my Uncle while he gave a couple of lectures to the Women Fellowship of the Bedford United Church.  They were about his experiences using sign language while helping out a group of podiatrists during humanitarian missions in Southeast Asia.  For those of you who would like to revisit those photographs, you can do so by following this link for the first group, and then this one for the second.  The meetings took place at the Bedford United Church and I took a walk outside the building before the second meeting took place.  We've had more snow than usual this Winter so there wasn't really much room to walk around the property and find a good view.  I did have a clear path to walk up to the church tower.  There was a nice cement plaque over the door that listed the dates that both the church and tower had been built that kept grabbing my eye.  The bricks were also a nice colour so I decided to grab a quick photograph.  It was taken at f/7.1, 1/200sec, ISO 100 at 24mm.  It's maybe not the flashiest photograph that I've ever taken , but it's a nice little memento of a good time and a building that has probably seen lots of them over the last 100+ years.  Thanks once again to the Bedford United Church and their Women Fellowship, as well as my Uncle Paul, for allowing me into their meetings to take some photographs.

Paul Bourcier Back At Bedford United Church

Sometimes your schedule just works out right.  Last month, while I was visiting my parents, I made my way out to the Bedford United Church where my Uncle Paul was giving a lecture about his use of sign language in some of his travels.  My Mom was planning on skipping the meeting due to my visit, but I've always liked listening to my Uncle's stories so instead of making my Mom miss the lecture, I ended up inviting myself and my camera to the meeting as well.  The meeting ended up going a little bit longer than planned, so much so that a second date would need to be scheduled to finish the story.  As luck would have it, that second date also coincided with a planned week off that I had.  After a quick clean-up at the dentist, I hit the road to see my parents once again, and took my Mom and one of her friends back to Bedford to listen to the second part of my Uncle's lecture.  As I mentioned last time, I wasn't really used to photographing lectures, so I pretty much just focused on taking photographs of my Uncle while he was speaking.  I wanted to try and change that up a little bit.  Obviously, I needed to get more shots of my Uncle, but I also wanted to get some of the people attending, some shots of the video and photograph display that was part of the presentation and, if I could pull it off, a shot of my Uncle with his hands blurred.  I know that sounds like an odd choice for a photograph, but as my Uncle uses sign language as an instructor and interpreter, it means that even in every day life he is very demonstrative with his hands when he speaks.  Blurring his hands would be an effective way of showing how they are always in motion.  With that checklist in mind, I put my gear together and headed to the back of the room.  After a few moments, I ended up getting thrown a curveball when my Uncle closed the lights in the hall so that everyone could better see the images that were being projected up on the screen.  A very nice gesture for those who were attending, but a little bit of a headache for the guy holding the camera.  Since the people were there to see his presentation, I didn't make any kind of a fuss and rather saw it as a chance to see if I could work my way out of an unexpected situation.  Neon lighting is very bad to begin with, but it is still better than no lighting.  With the lights turned off, the ISO went as high as I could get it on my camera.  That meant there would be lots of grain in my images.  I got rid of some of it in Photoshop, which is no mean feat considering the ancient version of the program that I use.  On occasion, the sun would peak through the windows to add a little natural light, but all in all, I was happy with the end results and how I had dealt with the issues.  The first and second photographs were taken at f/2.8, 1/640sec, ISO 3200 at 70mm.  The third  photograph was taken at f/2.8, 1/640sec, ISO 3200 at 24mm.  The fourth photograph was taken at f/5, 1/125sec, ISO 3200 at 24mm and the fifth photograph, which if memory serves is of my Uncle using the sign for his name, was taken at f2.8, 1/640sec, ISO 3200 at 68mm.  Here are several more photographs that I took during the lecture. 

f/4, 1/60sec, ISO 3200 at 70mm

f/4, 1/125sec, ISO 3200 at 70mm

f/4, 1/60sec, ISO 3200 at 70mm

f/4.5, 1/125sec, ISO 3200 at 70mm

f/3.2, 1/60sec, ISO 3200 at 70mm

f/4.5, 1/100sec, ISO 3200 at 110mm

All of that writing and those photographs, and I haven't even mentioned that the presentation dealt with how my Uncle had used his knowledge of sign language in order to help podiatrists on humanitarian trips to Singapore, Cambodia and Vietnam, as well as training trips to Atlanta and Hawaii.  It was very interesting to listen to the stories and adventures of the trip, and nice to know how my Uncle was using his talents to help out people in far off places.

Hugs & Kisses Day

I was given strict orders by She Who Must Be Obeyed not to do anything special for Valentine's Day, but she never said anything about Hugs & Kisses Day.  True, it might not be a legal loophole large enough for me to sneak through, so to offer myself a little more protection, I'd like to put out here in print that these chocolates were bought for photographic reasons and my blog, and not for My Lovely Assistant.  I'm not sure that she'll buy that, but my years of watching lawyers in action on film and television tell me that I might have a legal leg to stand on.  I took the photograph at f/7.1, 1/160sec, ISO 100 at 60mm and bounced some flash off of the ceiling for a little extra glow.  I played with some different shutter speeds get a nice reflection of the foil wrappers on the table.  Happy Hugs & Kisses Day everyone!

Birthday Treat

My Lovely Assistant recently celebrated a birthday by making herself a tasty Dominoes Cake.  I came home from the Day Job to find this waiting in the fridge.  She was working an Evening Job so I had a few hours to play with her creation before it would quickly disappear.  I tend to feel disappointed with my food photography because I sometimes feel that the food doesn't stand out enough.  To try and better that, I put the white plate on a wood cutting board, and then put that on our wood table.  That put three layers between the Dominoes and the table.  This created, in my eyes anyway, layers of separation to help make the food stand out more.  I took the photograph at f/16, 1/100sec, ISO 100 at 30mm and bounced some flash off of the ceiling as an additional light source which helped make the sugar sparklers shine.  I hope the finished product looks as good as it tasted.

Keeping It Simple

A blue sky and some silver metal.  Sometimes  that's all it takes to make a nice photograph.  Granted, I might be a little bit biased in my opinion since, after all, I took the photograph in question.  This one, taken at f/16, 1/125sec, ISO 100 at 70mm, was one of the last photographs I took during my frozen walk back in January.  I walked around the Biosphere a little bit for a few seconds until I found a nice angle where the sun was hitting the steel just right to give it a little shine and also highlight the curve of the structure against the blue sky.  After spending countless minutes waiting for the rolling fog to be just right, it was nice to just look up, snap and go.

Super Bowl Sunday

Super Bowl Sunday means doing two of my favourite things.  Eating a large selection of my favourite (not good for me) snacks and watching some football.  Since those two things, along with an afternoon hockey game, will be taking up my time, it meant that if there was going to be an update today, it had to be in the morning.  Also, since these photographs have already been dated with last years watermark, This year, the Big Game features the defending champion New England Patriots taking on the Philadelphia Eagles.  The teams playing here were the Champlain Cavaliers and the Shawinigan Electriks.  These are some extra photographs from a game I photographed, and was featured here on the old blog, back in October.  At the time, I was hoping that the Cavaliers would have a late season surge and make it to the play-offs since I had only be able to see one game, but it wasn't meant to be.  Luckily, for the short amount of time that I was there that day, there was lots of action near the end zone that I had placed myself.  So much, that it allowed me to 'save' a few extra shots for a Super Bowl Sunday update.  The first photograph was taken at f/7.1, 1/400sec, ISO 400 at 200mm and the second and third photographs were taken at f/7.1, 1/640sec, ISO 400 at 200mm.  Here are a few more photographs of the action.

f/7.1, 1/2000sec, ISO 400 at 200mm

f/7.1, 1/2000sec, ISO 400 at 70mm

f/7.1, 1/2000sec, ISO 400 at 200mm

f/7.1, 1/2000sec, ISO 400 at 200mm

For the record, he made that kick, now we'll have to wait and see how many kicks get made tonight.  In the meantime, it's time to break out the chips, Cheetos and pizza as we all try to see how many calories we can consume before halftime.  Enjoy the game.

Forgotten Fireworks

Here's a little story on how some of my photographs end up getting lost in the archives.  Back in December, there was a weekly fireworks show down at the Old Port of Montreal every Saturday for a month.  There was also a fireworks display on New Year's Eve, which fell on a Saturday.  Since I had planned on using the New Year's Eve fireworks as an update, I felt that it would be better to use those first since it was topical at the moment.  I figured I'd get back to the Saturday night fireworks shortly after that.  However, the next Saturday there was another show, so those photographs ended up getting posted instead.  Next thing you know, a month has suddenly gone by and these photographs were still taking up place on my hard drive.  So, before the July fireworks end up arriving, I felt that I had better get these up.  A fun little story about these photographs, it was rather cold that night, as it was for much of the month of December this year.  I decided to leave about ten minutes later than I should have because I figured it would mean ten less minutes standing in the cold wind down by the river.  Sounds like a reasonable plan, however, once I got to where I wanted to be, I found that there were big metal barriers that were blocking my path and some nice red signs that read 'No Trespassing, People Crossing This Line Will Be Prosecuted'.  Other than being rather annoyed, I was also left scrambling as the fireworks were due to begin in ten minutes.  I raced back to my car, went to the next parking lot and raced up to the snow covered walking path of the Jacques Cartier Bridge.  I was still setting up my tripod as the fireworks began, but since the show lasts for fifteen minutes I was still pretty sure that I'd be able to grab a few nice shots.  The passing cars and trucks caused a bit of camera shake, which was kind of annoying, but I learned to watch for the oncoming traffic and tried to time my photographs when less cars would be passing by.  As it was, the first location I wanted to use ended up being closed for a good reason.  I would soon discover all of the fireworks for the big New Year's Eve show had been set up along the riverside, making for a pretty good reason why they wouldn't want people like me walking around the place.  Also, I was planning on taking some photographs from that spot up on the bridge at some point anyway, so it wasn't that big of a loss.  It was also a little entertaining to see the quizzical looks on some of the people riding in their cars as they passed, trying to figure out what I was doing up there.  The first and second photographs was taken at f/16, 10sec, ISO 100 at 50mm.  The third photograph was taken at f/16, 13sec, ISO 100 at 50mm.  The fourth photograph was taken at f/16, 8sec, ISO 100 at 50mm and the fifth photograph was taken at f/16, 15sec, ISO 100 at 50mm.  Here are a few more photographs that were taken of the display.

f/16, 10sec, ISO 100 at 50mm

f/16, 15sec, ISO 100 at 50mm

f/16, 10sec, ISO 100 at 50mm

I really like doing those wide angle style photographs with the fireworks on one end and the buildings of downtown Montreal on the other.  It gives me an odd joy to see these large buildings that I see all of the time look small next to the bright lights.  Just a little something extra added to the skyline.