Comforting Concert

People are looking for entertainment during this pandemic, and the good folks at Longueuil est culture have been putting together a series they call Concerts réconfortant.  They feature a musician giving a concert, usually from their home, in order to give a couple of moments of joy to those watching.  This week, the artist is Alexandre Da Costa,  the artistic director of l’Orchestre Symphonique de Longueuil.  I was able to photograph him last year at the Festival Classica in Saint-Lambert.  This photograph was taken at f/2.8, 1/200sec, ISO 1600 at 200mm. If you'd like to see the rest of the photographs I took of his performance, you can click on the link.  In order to view his concert, you need to visit the Longueuil est culture Facebook page at 3:00PM tomorrow (the 28th) and sit back to enjoy the music.  To find out more about Alexandre Da Costa and his music, feel free to visit his website.  Have a good show.

Old Time Rock & Roll

As mentioned in the previous update, the end of May usually signalled the beginning of Summer with the annual Saint-Lambert Classic Car Show, put on by Saint-Lambert en Fête.  The cars were only half of the fun.  There would usually be a band on hand playing all of the classics of yesteryear that would have likely been blasting from the speakers of those very same cars.  Over the last four years, I've been able to photograph Manny Jr. & The Cyclones as well as Baby Boomer's Band as they have played everything from Chuck Berry, to Elvis and The Beach Boys.  The kind of good tunes that bring a smile to anyone's lips while they tap their toes to the beat.  Here is a shot from each of the past four years, and if you'd like, feel free to follow the links back to the updates I made from each show in 2016, 2017, 2018 or 2019.  The first  photograph, was taken at f/5, 1/320sec, ISO 100 at 70mm, here are three more.

f/4, 1/800sec, ISO 400 at 400mm

f/7.1, 1/100sec, ISO 100 at 165mm

f/5.6, 1/2000sec, ISO 400 at 70mm

As usual, head over to the respective websites of Manny & The Cyclones and The Baby Boomer's Band to find out more about them and their music.  Hopefully the cars and music will make their return soon.

Silver Co-Pilot

As we get closer to the end of May, we get closer to the beginning of the outdoor Summer activity season.  Generally, the event that would kick off my Summer was always the Saint-Lambert Classic Car show.  Sadly, this year it is but the first of those annual events that ended up being cancelled.  I always love to look at the old cars.  I've become a big fan of the old style hood ornaments.  Something that has disappeared over time.  This happy fellow was found on the hood of a 1973 Cadillac El Dorado.  It's fun to play around with my positioning when I photograph these hood decoration.  Using a small aperture to catch little sunshine stars, and also find a fun location to place my own reflection.  I also like to look for some surrounding colours as they reflect nicely on the ornaments as well.  The first photograph was taken at f/16, 1/200sec, ISO 100 at 52mm and the one just below was taken at f/16, 1/30sec, ISO 100 at 58mm.  As with many other things that will be missed, here's to hoping that the cars will be able to roll out again next year.

Happy Victoria Bridge Day

It's a day off here at The Old Blog.  While My Lovely Assistant slaves away creating our new garden, I took a trip to the archives.  In my part of the world, this day off has seen several name changes over the years, but in the rest of Canada it is known as Victoria Day.  Seeing as how celebrating the Queen doesn't always go over that well in my locale, I've decided to change things up by posting a photograph of the Victoria Bridge.  Same monarch, different theme.  Though it doesn't appear often here, the Victoria is my favourite of the Montreal bridges.  I had found a nice spot near a bicycle path and noticed that the sun set behind some of the structure.  I was also able to position myself to get some of the downtown buildings into the shot as well.  By playing with the shutter speed I was able to bring some colour out of the sky and also silhouette the classic structure.  The photograph was taken at f/16, 1/250sec, ISO 100 at 51mm.  Hope you all have a Happy Victoria Bridge Day, or however you wish to call it.

One Wild Night

We're continuing to take trips down memory lane and through the archives.  One memory that is still particularly fresh took place one year ago.  Back at then end of 2018 I took a chance and applied for a photo pass to a concert.  When I ended up getting that pass, my head began to swell up a little bit and I thought to myself, 'Hey, why don't I keep doing that!".  I circled a date on my calendar, May 15th, 2019.  That was the night that Halestorm would be having a show at the MTelus, though it was still called The Metropolis back then.  I had first seen the band at Heavy Montreal back in 2013 and had not missed one of their shows since.  I put together a quick portfolio of some of my concert photographs and stressed over pressing the 'Send' button before the voice of Joan Jett rang in my ears.  "You only lose if you don't try."  That lyric seemed to give me the push I needed.  I sent the message and was pleasantly rewarded a day later with the news that I would be getting a pass to shoot the show. It was a triple bill that night and I got to photograph all three bands that were performing.  A great memory.  One that I like to relive every once in a while thanks to some fan shot video I found of the show.  Check it out and see if you can spot Your Friendly Neighbourhood Photographer.  Since it doesn't look like I'll be shooting any shows any time soon, I figured I'd go back in time with a couple shots of Halestorm, Palaye Royale and Beasto Blanco from their performance that night.  The first photograph was taken at f/2.8, 1/500sec, ISO 1600 at 50 mm and the second photograph was taken at f/2.8, 1/2500sec, ISO 1600 at 70mm.  Here are a couple other shots from that memorable evening.

f/2.8, 1/400sec, ISO 3200 at 28mm

f/2.8, 1/125sec, ISO 3200 at 24mm

It was a terrific evening, a thrill that I still haven't forgotten.  Thank you very much Joan Jett.  If you'd like to go back in time, you can visit the photographs I took of Halestorm, Palaye Royale and Beasto Blanco by following the respective links.  Don't forget to visit the websites of Halestorm, Palaye Royale & Beasto Blanco to find out more about them and their music.  Here's to hoping for more great memories to come.

Flower For Mother

It's Mother's Day, and it's the first time that it will be officially celebrated by My Lovely Assistant thanks to the arrival of our Heir Apparent back in January.  It will also be the first time that I don't see my mother for Mother's Day because of all of the current craziness.  Sorry Mom.  Hope you enjoy our little Facetime meeting instead.  Hopefully, we can make up for it sometime in the very near future.  In the meantime, here's a little flower for Mom, My Lovely Assistant and all of the other Moms out there.  The photograph was taken at f/4, 1/125sec, ISO 400 at 60mm, using a Macro lens.  This flower came out of the large bunch that my Mom got last year, and I'm sure that I'm not the only one looking forward to giving flowers to Mom some day soon.

He Uses The Force...I Use Photoshop

It's May the 4th, Star Wars Day (May the Force...May the 4th...we've been through this before).  I certainly was happy to have the welcome distraction of playing with my toys.  Since I haven't been going out as much, I've been trying to experiment with certain photographic techniques at home.  For Star Wars Day I decided that I would try and create a lightsaber in Photoshop.  I'm not a big Photoshop user, so I thought this might be a fun little project.  I dusted off my old Darth Vader action figure, found a nice grey background and then proceeded to erase the plastic toy version and replace it with a somewhat more authentic representation, or that's what I hope I did.  That will be up to you, the viewer, to decide.  The photograph was taken at f/16, 1/200sec, ISO 100 at 70mm with some flash bounced off of the ceiling and a little bit of Photoshop work to create the lightsaber.  Is it perfect?  Probably not, but it was a fun try and it took my mind of of things for a couple of hours.  That is priceless.  May the Force be with us all.

It Will Be Okay

We're beginning another month of our new reality, being shut-in and shut-off from almost everything.  Over here, the big catchphrase is ça va bien aller/it will be okay.  The symbol that goes along with that catchphrase is a rainbow, and as a result, lots of rainbows have been showing up in the windows of peoples homes, buildings and bridges.  A few nights back I decided to head down and check out the light show on the Jacques Cartier Bridge.  Since having the decorative lights installed a few years back, the bridge has become a featured model here on The Old Blog.  With the new rainbow lights, I thought it would be good to get out of the house for some fresh air and a little light show.  I found a good spot that gave me a clear view of the metal structure and snapped away a few shots with different stages of the rainbow being shown.  I then returned to one of the spots that I used for shooting the fireworks because I wanted a full shot of the bridge, along with the iconic Mont Royal Cross, a major symbol of the city, to be visible.  Things took a little bit longer than planned as I quickly realized that I had left my shutter trigger at home, but after figuring out the timer feature on my camera, I was able to get the long exposure shots that I needed in order to properly capture all of the lights.  The first photograph was taken at f/16, 30secs, ISO 100 at 70mm.  The second and third photographs were taken at f/16, 25secs, ISO 10 at 200mm.  As we continue down the road to what will hopefully be a happy ending, the best thing to say for the moment is ça va bien aller/it will be okay.