Autumn Preview

 

The days on the calendar keep on rolling by and we're about to find ourselves in October.  Though I'm a fan of the frozen winter months, there isn't much that beats the colours of Autumn.  With all of the lockdowns and everything last year, I didn't get out that much to see the sights.  Hopefully, things will be different this year.  In the meantime, I guess this is a little preview of things to come.  This photograph was taken of the Fall colours reflecting on Lac Davignon in the town of Cowansville.  It was a calm day with no waves on the lake which allowed for all of nature's colours to be reflected.  I may have given them a little boost with Photoshop but even without the little boost, it was quite the sight to see.  The photograph was taken at f/14, 1/40sec, ISO 400 at 70mm.  I underexposed the photograph to bring out the colours and adjusted the Levels and colour balance to bring out a little more.  Bring on Autumn!

Cavaliers 37 vs Aigles 35

Wow, it has been a while.  Football is back at the alma mater this year and even though I ended up arriving almost an hour before kick-off, it was great to be at a football game.  And what a football game it was.  The Champlain Cavaliers, who were looking for their second win of the season jumped out to a quick 14-0 against the Ahuntsic Aigles, who had beaten the Cavaliers by a single point two weeks ago.  They continued to battle back and had the ball in the offensive zone with seconds to play and down by 8.  The Aigles ended up scoring a touchdown to cut the lead to 6, but failed to complete the 2 point conversion to tie the game.  Their only hope was to recover an onside kick, which they managed to do. Sadly for the Aigles, time was not on their side and they were forced to try and long distance field goal for the win which ended up falling a little bit short of the goalpost.  The game was over and the Cavaliers had held on for a 37-35 victory.  I was a little rusty on the shutter early in the game as I was trying to find my own speed trying to follow the ball through the lens of my camera.  I missed a couple of early plays, but as they say in sports, the game is 60 minutes long and I had shaken off the rust by halftime.  I spent most of the game between the 30-yard line and one of the end zones.  I wanted to be close to the end zone for scoring plays and I managed to photograph a few touchdowns as a result.  Though I need to work on capturing the celebrations.  I managed to snag a few during the final quarter while all of the craziness was happening and time was running out.  The first photograph was taken at f/2.8, 1/1250sec, ISO 25600 at 200mm and the second photograph was taken at f/2.8, 1/1250sec, ISO 40000 at 200mm.  Here are several more photographs of the game action.

f/2.8, 1/1250sec, ISO 40000 at 200mm

f/2.8, 1/640sec, ISO 40000 at 120mm

f/2.8, 1/640sec, ISO 40000, at 200mm

f/2.8, 1/640sec, ISO 40000 at 200mm

f/2.8, 1/640sec, ISO 40000 at 88mm

f/2.8, 1/400sec, ISO 25600 at 200mm

f/2.8, 1/400sec, ISO 25600 at 200mm

f/2.8, 1/400sec, ISO 25600 at 200mm

f/2.8, 1/500sec, ISO 25600 at 200mm

f/2.8, 1/320sec, ISO 25600 at 200mm

f/2.8, 1/500sec, ISO 25600 at 120mm

f/2.8, 1/500sec, ISO 25600 at 120mm

f/2.8, 1/500sec, ISO 25600 at 135mm

f/2.8, 1/320sec, ISO 25600 at 120mm

f/2.8, 1/320sec, ISO 25600 at 70mm

f/2.8, 1/320sec, ISO 25600 at 160mm

f/2.8, 1/320sec, ISO 25600 at 200mm

After everything that has been going on over the last 18 months, it felt good to be back at an event rather than begging my backyard insects not to fly away before I took their picture.  The Cavaliers still have one more home game left this season so maybe I'll have the chance to take in a little more action this year.  After all, there is still lots of rust left to shake off.

Pop Music

"Did I listen to pop music because I was miserable? Or was I miserable because I listened to pop music?"  The opening lines to one of my favourite films of the 2000's, High Fidelity.  Those lines popped into my head while I was at the Montreal Casino early last year to photograph a concert by the Baby Boomer's Band.  Feel free to take a moment and check out those photographs for a little reminder of what we used to do for fun before The Plague by following this link.  At the back of the room was this large 'Pop' sign, which brought that movie quote back into my head.  Once the music was over, I hung back a little bit and waited for the seats in front of the sign to empty so I could satisfy my inner music/movie geek with a quick photograph.  Though we haven't exactly finished with The Plague, some things are starting to come back.  One of those things is concerts, and after the great 2019 I had shooting shows, I hope that I will soon be able to find myself in front of a stage in the very near future.

Balthazar Bridge

I would often go out on little photography trips while visiting my parents.  There are a few old covered bridges in the area and I always used to like visiting them.  I got an email from my Mom the other day as one of the bridges was in the local news.  The city had just installed a new billboard near the bridge, which was built back in 1932, explaining its history.  Being a fan of stories, I obviously see this as good news.  There aren't many of these old wooden covered bridges anymore and the ones out in the Townships have been very well preserved.  So, I took this opportunity to dig in to the archives and pull out this photograph that I took of the Balthazar Bridge a couple of years ago.  The photograph was taken at f/4, 1/1000sec, ISO 400 at 41mm.  If you'd like to read the article about the bridge (en français), you can do so by following this link.

All Good Things

All good things come to an end.  That's the phrase that has been going through my head the last few hours as I count down to the end of summer vacation.  It's back to the Day Job bright and early on Monday as the fun of the last two weeks fades into memory.  It was a good two weeks.  We rented a cottage on Lac Simon and a good time was had by all.  My Lovely Assistant and The Heir Apparent put up with me and my constant stopping to snap away at the sites.  Even on vacation, I'm not able to simply point and shoot.  This was our view from the beach and what we had the pleasure of seeing each day.  This was taken during out last morning walk at the lake, so you can see why it was difficult to leave.  The photograph was taken at f/16, 1/160sec, ISO 100 at 35mm.  All good things do come to an end, but it's comforting to know that there will be still be other good things to come in the future.

Big Backyard Flower

The crop of sunflowers this year is rather large.  They are growing in three different spots in our yard and have been photographed from several different sides and angles.  Which means that it is time to put out one of my photographs that I took of last years batch before they fall deep into the archives, perhaps to never be seen again.  This particular flower had not yet been fully stripped by the local bees when I got to it.  There was a nice blue sky which I didn't want to blow out, so I set my camera to properly expose the sun and added a touch of flash in order to out the inside of the flower.  The photograph was taken at f/16, 1/80sec, ISO 100 at 70mm. I don't always have a healthy relationship with flash, but things turned out pretty good this time.  Now it's time to select which of my sunflower shots I just took won't be published until next year.

Looking To The Sky

Sometimes you get a glorious sunset but there just anything to photograph it with.  Since I have yet to find what I consider to be an equally cool co-star to some of these sunsets, I have taken to just photographing the actual sky and clouds.  I've gotten some pretty nice results over the last little while, but this one was a favourite.  The sun was hidden behind the clouds, giving it an odd shape and also giving the clouds a fluffy, but at the same time grainy, look.  I had mentioned in a previous post how I sometimes like to include a passing airplane into these sunset photographs, but sometimes I end up getting a visitor that I don't even notice until I get home and look at what I've photographed a little closer.  Those with keen eyes may notice the bird in flight that can be spotted on the far left side of the photograph, near the middle of the image.  It's always nice to find one of those little surprises.  The photograph was taken at f/16, 1/500sec, ISO 100 at 200mm.  I underexposed the photograph to help bring out some more of the colours.  The bird with it's wings open in full flight was just good old dumb luck.  Some times good old dumb luck can be a photographers best friend.

Promise Kept

This is far from being my best Dragonfly photograph, but it is one that I needed to post.  Since we've moved the Head Office, I've noticed the odd Dragonfly zooming through the yard on its way to visit one of the neighbours.  I have experienced the same problem with the local birds, but that is a topic for another day.  Back to my winged friend.  Over the summer, there was this one Dragonfly in particular who would curiously fly around me as I would water the garden.  Each time, flying all around me, hovering in front of me and zigzagging around the yard.  I would gently mention how much I would love to take this photograph one day if he would feel comfortable enough to spend a few minutes in the yard.  I guess that I should have been a bit more specific and mentioned that one of our many varieties of flowers or plants would make a more pleasing background.  Instead, he chose to land on the cement siding of the house.  Pickers can't be choosers, so I tried to find a good angle without getting to close so as to not spook my new model.  I ended up taking the photograph at f/6.3, 1/50sec, ISO 800 at 200mm, and as promised, put it up on The Old Blog.  Now, hopefully he'll take the time to pose on one of those previously mentioned flowers or plants next time.  No, I don't actually think that any of my words will play any kind of role in future Dragonfly appearances in my yard, but my 'talks' have yielded a few results over the years.  I have to stay hopeful.  But, in case it helps my chances, we'll toss in a second photograph as well.  Just to show that I am dealing in good faith.

f/9, 1/50sec, ISO 2000 at 200mm

Minimalist Sunset

We're starting to get into that time of the year where the sunsets have that added little bit of colour to them.  I was actually a little bit disappointed with this sunset as the two previous nights, the sun had been a bright red as opposed to the nice orange you see here.  Only an overly critical person like myself could be 'disappointed' in such a sunset.  I had gone down to the marina with the hopes of catching a bright red ball set between those two buildings from the Port of Montreal.  It wasn't meant to be, but I also can't argue with the results.  The photograph was taken at f/16, 1/60sec, ISO 100 at 105mm.  Those with sharp eyes may have noticed the airplane near the top of the photograph.  There are always some planes going by over the city and I've always liked including them in my photographs when I get the chance.