Natural Spotlight

It's the spookiest night of the year, which is saying something in a year that has been relatively spooky all on its own.  To add to the spookiness, there will be a full moon tonight which is also the second full moon the month.  I stuck my head out the front door back on the 1st to see Full Moon #1.  I'd already taken a few moon shots this year, so I wanted to try something different.  I looked around for a couple of branches that were reaching out from our cedar and took the photograph at f/2.8, 1sec, ISO 100 at 125mm.  Part of the fun was looking at the photograph afterwards and noticing that the branches kind of formed little characters.  I can see a ice fisherman sitting on a log, a female singer belting out a high note and a little turtle.  Have I mentioned that I have a somewhat active imagination?  There will be another full moon out there tonight so if the plague is keeping you away from trick or treating, you can find a nice socially distanced place and try to find the man in the moon instead.

Sunday Service

 

It's been almost a year since My Lovely Assistant and I packed up the Head Office for a larger upgrade.  The previous head office found me within walking distance of two iconic local bridges and with a clear view of the skyscrapers of downtown Montreal.  The one thing near me that can stand next to those would be the Paroisse Saint-Hubert.  It's a large church that I first discovered last year while photographing some outdoor concerts that were taking place on the front steps.  I rediscovered the church during some of the morning walks I've been taking with The Heir Apparent.  With some of the leaves having already fallen, it offered a clearer view of the church.  After taking the photographs, I decided to look into the building a bit more and discovered that it was officially consecrated in 1859 after two years of construction.  The two men who were behind the project, Laurent Benoît and Moïse Vincent, along with their wives, Aglaë Vincent and Marie-Théophile Benoit, are buried in the two crypts of the Church.  Also, according to legend, it was Saint Lambert who baptized his protégé, Saint Hubert.  So, when the Saint-Hubert Church was officially opened, it was decided to be named after Saint Hubert, as the church in Saint-Lambert had been named after Saint Lambert just a few years prior, continuing the tradition of one following the other.  Interesting stuff.  The first photograph was taken at f/16, 1/80sec, ISO 100 at 63mm.  Here are a couple more photographs.

f/16, 1/80sec, ISO 100 at 45mm

f/16, 1/80sec, ISO 100 at 31mm

f/16, 1/250sec, ISO 100 at 28mm

A little bit of photography and a history lesson to go along with it. I was considering going back on another day to redo the second photograph with less cars, but with the weather we had this week, all of the leaves are already gone.  A project that will have to wait for next year, God willing.😇

Red Fall Leaves

 

Sometimes you're to busy looking for something that you fail to notice that it has been staring back at you the entire time.  Such has been the case with my hunt for some autumn colours this year.  I've been so busy lamenting the fact that I can't go out to the Country to see some of the Fall colours, that I failed to see this bright red bouquet staring right at me.  I went out for a walk with The Heir Apparent and made a stop for a sock check because some have had the bad habit of disappearing from her feet while we walk.  As I got back to moving, I immediately saw these red leaves sneaking over the black fence.  The photograph was taken at f/4, 1/320sec, ISO 100 at 44mm.  It's a good time of the year to go out for a walk.  There might be some nice colours like this waiting for you next door too.

The Maples Want More Sunlight

 

Since we're all under confinement, I've been trying to find some nice Autumn scenes around the new Head Office.  Last week we went out for a little family walk in Longueuil at Parc Michel-Chartrand.  There was a little bit less colour in the trees than I had hoped, but we walked by this little urban forest area with the sun shining high above the trees.  Some of them were already losing their leaves which remained on the ground as a colourful carpet.  There were still some on the branches too and I thought it looked like an nice autumn scene.  Since I'm the one holding the camera, I decided to snap away.  The photograph was taken at f/4, 1/640sec, ISO 100 at 24mm.  Hopefully the season is a bit more colourful where you are as I continue to look around for some colours here.

Watching The Water Fall

Our little socially distanced group went out for a little Autumn walk this past weekend.  We couldn't spend Thanksgiving with the family, so I was at least hoping to find some nice colours to grab some photographs of.  While I'm sure that the colours are nice and bright down by my parents, the effects haven't taken hold around here just yet.  So, with nothing to my liking in the trees, I looked to the water fountain instead.  To go along with the nice blue sky, there was a little breeze that was pushing a mist from the fountain through the air.  Had a little fun with the shutter speeds to try and catch the falling water in different forms.  A little bit of outdoor fun on a nice sunny day.  The first photograph was taken at f/16, 1/125sec, ISO 100 at 70mm.  Here are a few more photographs.

f/5.6, 1/320sec, ISO 100 at 41mm

f/5.6, 1/640sec, ISO 100 at 41mm

It's not the easiest of times to go out and do things, but if you can take advantage of a nice stroll through the park, go for it.  A little fresh air and sunshine is good for the morale.

Musical Memories

It's time for another trip into the musical way-back machine to one of the concerts that I had the pleasure to photograph last year.  In this case it was an eardrum shattering night of rock and roll from Grand Magus, At The Gates, Arch Enemy and headlined by Amon Amarth live from the MTelus, though I still prefer to call it the Metropolis.  If you'd like to go back in time as well and enjoy some of the other photographs I took that night, just click on the links and you'll be magically transported back in time too.  A couple of things I remember from that evening, all four bands were great and by the end of Amon Amarth I sweating so much that you'd think it was a sweltering evening in July rather than October.  Hopefully things will progress in a positive way and I can have some more ear shattering sweating nights again soon.  The first photograph was taken at f/2.8, 1/100sec, ISO 2000 at 50mm.  Here are a couple more photographs taken that night.

f/2.8, 1/160sec, ISO 3200 at 24mm

f/2.8, 1/160sec, ISO 3200 at 30mm

f/2.8, 1/500 ISO 3200 at 24mm

They say that the concerts will come back one day, but until that day comes, at least I can go back in the photographic time machine and be transported back to the front of the stage.  If you'd like to find out a little more about Grand Magus, At The Gates, Arch Enemy or Amon Amarth and their music, you can follow those links to their respective websites.  Happy listening.

Autumn Snacking Spot

I know that most people think of warm weather under a hot sun as the ideal spot for having a picnic.  It's not quite an opinion that I share.  One of my favourite Fall activities is going apple picking with My Lovely Assistant, and this year The Heir Apparent was introduced to the activity.  Coming home with a bag full of delicious apples is an obvious plus, but equally as fun for me is the Fall treat of warm apple donuts, cooked on site and then eaten underneath a multi-colour tree with fallen leaves littering the ground.  To me, that is an ideal picnic spot.  The photograph was taken at f/8, 1/40sec, ISO 100 at 70mm and the warm apple donuts were provided by Verger Petit et Fils.  I'm not sure if the donuts are available this year, and the picnic table is probably out of bounds, but hopefully they'll both be there waiting for me in the very near future.

In The Red Zone

As of last week we took a step backwards in our continuing Covid saga as the area I am in became a red zone.  Not really good news at all, but the kind of news we've been dealing with since March.  As if in an attempt to really bring the point home, Mother Nature provided a bright red sunset just hours after the announcement was made.  It's not quite as colourful as a rainbow, but at least the red sunset was a little bit easier for morale than the earlier code red.  The photograph was taken at f/3.2, 1/1000sec, ISO 100 at 200mm.  There was a slight breeze that was causing the trees to sway and I caught  few of them at an angle.  I guess all that is left to do is grin and bear things for the next 28 days.  Oops, we're down to 23 days as of this writing.  Hopefully time will fly and things will take a turn for the better.

The Sound Of Silence

October is usually a musical month for Your Friendly Neighbourhood Photographer, but such will not be the case this year.  My little part of the world just got shut down again for another 28 days.  So, whatever little hope there may have been, and it was admittedly very small anyway, is pretty much gone.  I usually like to celebrate 'Rocktober' here on The Old Blog, so I had been going through some older photos looking for something cool from the archives.  That's when I came upon this shot that I took earlier this year.  The photograph was taken at f/2.8, 1/60sec, ISO 3200 at 70mm.  It was a triple-bill of bands at the Théâtre Corona. Blackguard, The Agonist and Epica (follow the links to see the photographs).  Before the show began, one of the roadies set the microphone down on the elevated platform, waiting to be grabbed by the Blackguard singer.  I thought it seemed like an interesting little picture at the time, though it seems to take on a little more meaning now.