Archived Sunset

I've been on a pretty hot streak here on the old blog of late, and as a result, it's been a while since I've had to dig into the archives.  However, as I've been spending lots of time around the Jacques Cartier Bridge lately,  it reminded me of a sunset shot that I took last year, but didn't end up using.  Another version of this photograph did end up getting showcased here, as well as on CTV Montreal.  If you'd like to take a trip in the Wayback Machine, you can visit that photographic update by following this link.   I thought that the photograph might have looked good cut vertically rather than the original horizontal crop.  I had chosen a day when I knew the sun was going to be setting through the superstructure of the bridge, making it look like a caged ball of fire.  The photograph was taken at f/16, 1/500sec, ISO 100 at 200mm.  Sure, it's kind of a repeat, but at the same time, a little something different.  At the time, I was probably planning to post both versions at the same time, but since the other ended up being featured on the television, I decided to put it up solo.  That's happened a few other times too.  It gives me, and ofcourse you, the loyal visitor, the occasion to look back on some nice memories.

Shining A Light

Sometimes you get roadblocks thrown at you when you have a plan to take a certain kind of photograph.  As you may have noticed, it's sunset season and I have been spending lots of time near the Jacques Cartier Bridge in Montreal as the sun sets right next to it at this time of the year.  One of the fun features of the bridge is that there is a walking path that goes under the deck of the bridge and allows you access to the walking path on either side.  However, for some reason the door on this particular evening was locked, preventing me from being able to cross to the side I wanted to be on.  Since I didn't have the time to drive back to the other side and then walk back to the spot, I decided to stay where I was and hope for the best.  Thankfully, fortune was kind of smiling on me.  As it just so happened, the sun ended up going down right next to the bicycle path that is next to the superstructure of the span.  As a result, I had a nice clear shot of the sun, used a small aperture to get a star effect and underexposed the shot to put the bridge in a silhouette against the more colourful sky.  The photograph was taken at f/16, 1/250sec, ISO 100 at 30mm.  As the Rolling Stones once sang, you can't always get what you want, but sometimes you get what you need.  It ended up being good enough to appear in the pages of the La Presse+ paper as well.  Just goes to show, a locked door doesn't always mean a lost opportunity.

Spring And Winter In My Yard

Mother Nature had a little surprise in store for us on Wednesday morning.  The sky opened up and...snow came falling down.  Being a fan of colder weather, a little bit of April snow doesn't really bother me, but it certainly did bother lots of others.  The only thing that possibly disturbed me about this meteorological situation is that it might have harmed my Spring flowers.  Just a few days ago, I mentioned to My Lovely Assistant how cool it was that some of the flowers we bought last year ended up growing on their own in odd places on our lawn.  Much thanks to some industrious insects spreading their pollen I suppose.  They were still there this morning, although with an added coating of snow.  So, why not go outside and lay down on the wet cement to take a photograph of snowy flowers.  Who says that I don't suffer for my art.  The photograph was taken at f/4, 1/640sec, ISO 400 at 70mm.  I chose to underexpose the photograph in order to get a slower shutter speed to try and catch some of the falling flakes.  I managed to get a few in there, and thanks to Photoshop, was still able to bring out the colour in the flowers.  My pants and jacket were a little wet, but that's the price you sometimes need to pay in order to get your shot.

Lining Up For Bed

I'm pretty sure that such things must happen to other photographer out there, but I often find myself in a situation where I go out with the intention of photographing one thing, and then ending up with something else.  The other night, I headed out to capture the sunset in the trees of a park close to the Head Office.  After getting there, I heard the familiar noise of the pigeons and their fluttering wings.  I looked over to my right and found a group had gathered on a light post, and one by one.  So, plans changed and I got a little closer to the light post and waited for one to make the jump.  The photograph was taken at f/4, 1/4000sec, ISO 100 at 70mm.  As with most sunset photos, I underexposed the image in order to get more colour in the sky and to darken my fine feathered friends. I also tried to position myself so that I had some branches in the bottom of my shot as I though to added a little something more to the photo.  So, what is the lesson to be had?  Keep your eyes open, you may ended up seeing more than you thought you would see.
 

Try Try Again

"If at first you don't succeed..." is how the famous quote goes.  To be perfectly honest, I guess it doesn't really apply here.  Those of you who also follow my photographs at my Eric Mahannah Photography page on Facebook, as well as on my personal page, know that my last photograph was pretty well received despite my slight disappointment.  However, I am probably my own worst critic, so once there was a nice clear day, I went back to the spot near the base of the Jacques Cartier Bridge in order to get another sunset for my collection.  Mother Nature once again didn't let me down.  I waited for the sun to be between the clouds and the two buildings you see in the photograph and shot away.  I once again underexposed the photograph in order to get more colour out of the sky and to hide the previously mentioned construction scaffolding.  As an added bonus, I sent the photograph off to CTV Weather Specialist Lori Graham and she was kind enough to air it during the evening newscast.  The photograph was taken at f/16, 1/160sec, ISO 100 at 24mm.  Thank you very much once again to Lori Graham at CTV Montreal for airing the photograph, and of course to Mother Nature for providing the spectacular show in the sky.

****UPDATE****

Those of you who have the La Presse+ application for Apple products can view the photograph there this morning (April 16, 2021).  If you don't have the app, you can view a screenshot of the page by following this link.  Always happy to see my name on television and in print.

Not Quite What I Hope For

Sometimes you need to take a chance.  This was one of those evenings where there was thick cloud cover all day, but as the afternoon turned to evening, there began to get some breaks over the horizon.  The kind of situation that sometimes leads to a nice red sky after the sun goes down.  With that in mind, I packed up my camera and headed down to the Jacques Cartier Bridge.  Sadly, things didn't work out as planned.  I did end up getting a red sunset, but it didn't cover as much of the sky as I had hoped.  I underexposed the shot in order to bring out the red of the sky, which also served to blacken out the bridge.  This was probably a good thing as it does a good job of hiding all of the scaffolding under the bridge deck where some repair work was being done.  The photograph was taken at f/16, 1/100sec, ISO 800 at 38mm.  I didn't get it this time, but after spending 40 minutes waiting for what little red I got, I felt it needed to get posted to justify sitting out there waiting.  There will certainly be more attempts in the future, the joy of the hunt.

The Ugandan Giant

Those of you who are fans of the squared circle know that it is once again time for another WrestleMania.  This will be the 37th edition of the show, which only serves to make me feel really old because I remember the promotion for the very first one...and then thinking they were ruining the greatness of that show by running another one the next year.  I guess it's a good thing that 10 year-old me wasn't on the board of directors.  Getting back to The Old Blog, WrestleMania also means that it is time for me to play with my toys a little bit as I pull out one of my wrestling buddies and give them a nice portrait.  This year, we pay homage to a character that had me fearing for Hulk Hogan's life back in the 1980s.  Sadly, the man behind the character, James Harris passed away in August of last year, but his fearsome memory still lives in my mind.  For the photograph, I broke out the old white cardboard to serve as a background and placed Kamala on the kitchen table.  What is the most important thing to remember when photographing toys?  Cleaning off the dust.  There is more dust in my basement then I had thought.  After that, I bounced some flash off of the ceiling for both shots and since Kamala had that large headdress, I figured it would be nice to do a three-quarter-face unmasked shot as well.  The first photograph was taken at f/16, 1/30sec, ISO 100 at 44mm and the second photograph was taken at f/4, 1/30sec, ISO 100 at 70mm.  To those of you out there watching WrestleMania, hope you enjoy the show and see some interesting characters that you'll remember and blog about 30 year later.

Evening Glory

If you've been following things here on The Old Blog over the years, you'll know that I am a fan of sunsets.  Sunrises are fun too, but they happen far to early in the morning for my internal alarm clock.  Sunsets are more in my clock comfort zone.  For me, there are two times during the year where the sunsets are the best.  The block of March/April just after the hour changes and then again October/November when the clocks change once again.  There's just something about the Sun around those times that makes give it a nice round shape and an orange, rather than yellow glow.  I took advantage of that this past weekend and decided to visit my old friend, the Jacques Cartier Bridge.  It is just perfectly positioned for these early Spring sunsets and I generally always manage to grab a great shot.  I think I did so once again this time.  I wasn't the only one to think so either as it ended up being one of the three Pictures of the Day over at the La Presse+ newspaper.  Feel free to follow that link to a screenshot of the page, though it is really viewed better with free app on Apple products.  The photograph was taken at f/16, 1/50sec, ISO 100 at 70mm.  Thanks once again to the photography department at La Presse+ for publishing my photograph.  It's always fun to see my work in print, or in this case, digital print.

Breaking Free

Where did the time go?  I did a quick check of The Old Blog and noticed it has been a week since making an update.  Odd, it doesn't feel like a week has gone by, but here we are, six days later.  I suppose that we should put something up before you all think something terrible has happened to my camera or myself.  The last update featured a couple of early morning sunrise photos.  There was another from that set that I didn't end up using.  As I had mentioned, the sun disappeared behind a shelf of clouds shortly after rising.  As I scanned the sky, I noticed that the cloud cover was breaking apart  so I decided to stick around for a little while longer, hoping to see something nice.  Sure enough, the clouds gave way to a bright blue sky and I snapped away before the sun fully broke free of the clouds, giving a wide range of colours and shapes.  The photograph was taken at f/16, 1/500sec, ISO 100 at 24mm.  The morning sky can be an amazing thing to look at, it's just to bad that it happens so early in the day.