A little while ago you all met Peter Pumpkinhead. As we got closer to Halloween, he began to experience some changes. Much like Dr. Jeckyll became the sinister Mr. Hyde, our good friend Peter became the spooky Jack O'Lantern. This carved up version of our good friend Peter was handled expertly by My Lovely Assistant, who I will probably try to be nicer with now that I have discovered how talented and precise she is with a knife. I took the photograph at f/16, 15sec, ISO 100 at 42mm. It was lit with one little tea candle from the inside and I then played around with the exposure to make the ghost look much darker and the inside to look much brighter. My noted habit of leaving things until the last minute meant that I almost blew getting this shot as the pumpkin had begun to weaken due to having been outside in the elements. In fact, mere seconds after this photograph was taken, then entire ghost section broke off and fell to the table. Although I guess it is kind of appropriate for a ghost to be on the loose for Halloween. May your treats be many and your tricks be few on this Halloween.
Saturday, 30 October 2021
Jack O'Lantern
Monday, 25 October 2021
Cavaliers 37 vs Électriks 21
The RSEQ College Football season is coming to an end and my old school's football team, The Champlain Cavaliers were having their final home game of the season against the visiting Shawinigan Électriks. It was a rather important game as the Cavaliers sat in a third place tie in their division with three wins and three loses. A win would definitely help them in their quest for a play-off spot. The first half as kind of spotty as the offence scored two big touchdowns, but were also responsible to a turn-over late in the 2nd Quarter that led to a Shawinigan touchdown and a 21-14 lead at half-time. However, things turned around in the 3rd Quarter. The Cavaliers scored 16 unanswered points to grab a 30-21 lead and never looked back, eventually winning the game by the score of 37-21. The victory locked up a play-off spot for the
Cavaliers, but if they can win their final game next Saturday in Drummondville, they could possibly host a first-round game in their hunt to win the Bol d'Or. We'll be wishing them good luck, and maybe I might find myself at a play-off game in a few weeks. It was a beautiful day for football and photography. The sun was nice and bright, but the occasional cloud would force me to quickly up the ISO from time to time, so after missing a few plays, I decided to save myself the headache and just leave the ISO at 400 and not have to worry about it anymore. A wise choice indeed. The first photograph was taken at f/6.3, 1/320sec, ISO 100 at 200mm and the second photograph was taken at f/6.3, 1/250sec, ISO 100 at 200mm. Here are several more photographs that I took of the action on the field.
Thursday, 21 October 2021
Peter Pumpkinhead
"Peter Pumpkinhead came to town, spreading wisdom and cash around." I was listening to the radio earlier this month when a song played that I hadn't heard in many years. It was 'The Ballad of Peter Pumpkinhead', a song originally recorded by XTC in 1992, though the version I am most familiar with, and the one that played on the radio that day, was the 1994 cover version by Canada's own Crash Test Dummies. I immediately became obsessed with the song after not having heard it for many years. It being mid-October, pumpkins were starting to sprout up everywhere on our daily walks and we were given a pumpkin by my parents during a visit for Thanksgiving. I immediately knew that I had to take a photograph of it, and began calling it 'Peter' whenever The Heir Apparent would look curiously in its direction. After looking at the poorly drawn face, you should be able to see rather quickly why photography was chosen form of art rather than drawing. Uneven triangles aside, I raked up a bunch of leaves that were still nice and red after having recently fallen from my neighbour's tree and plopped old Peter right in the middle of the pile. The photograph was taken at f/2.8, 1/160sec, ISO 100 at 70mm. "Hooray for Peter Pumpkin, who'll pray for Peter Pumpkinhead." Hooray indeed.
Saturday, 16 October 2021
Marc Dupré At L'Étoile Banque Nationale
It has been 20 months since I have last been able to photograph a show. 20 long months. With restrictions caused by 'The Plague' beginning to let up, one of the things that have finally returned are concerts. I had been holding off applying for any shows because I am still a little bit skittish about the situation, but I told myself that enough was enough and it was time to get back on the horse. With that in mind, I checked out the internet and saw that one of the biggest names in Québec music was going to be playing close by at L'Étoile Banque Nationale. Marc Dupré broke out here in the early 2000s and rocketed to the top of local charts rather quickly. The fact that he has remained in that rarefied air for almost 20 years is testament to the
fact that not only does the man know how to write a good song, but he is a terrific live performer as well. 'Marc! Marc! Marc!' was the cry from the crowd the first time I photographed him back in 2017 and the crowd was just as anxious to hear him again tonight. His most recent album was 2019's 'Rien ne se perd', but he has released two singles this year. One of which, 'Où sera le monde' is nominated for a 2021 ADISQ Award for Song of the Year. I was only there for three songs, but he sounded great and seemed just as happy to be in front of a crowd as the crowd was to have him there. The first photograph was taken at f/2.8, 1/500sec, ISO 16000 at 200mm and the second photograph was taken at f/2.8, 1/1000sec, ISO 16000 at 200mm. Here are a few more photographs that I was able to take during the show.
Thursday, 14 October 2021
Path To Nowhere
It was rather foggy in these parts last week, conditions which I am sure would have led to some terrific shots. Sadly, I was at the Day Job while the rest of the city was blanketed in a rather thick fog. Since I couldn't get any fresh shots, this provided an opportunity to head into the archives. Just this January, there was a similarly foggy morning. I was able that day to get out, and took several photographs of the bridges between Montreal and the South Shore. Feel free to take a moment to refresh your memory by following this link to see them. I also took several other photographs that morning, which sadly got left behind. This moody shot was taken on the bicycle path that leads to the Samuel-de-Champlain Bridge. The photograph was taken at f/6.3, 1/200sec, ISO 100 at 45mm. As I was walking the path I took notice of the trees, but I wanted to
make sure I got a shot of the bridge first just in case the fog were to
lift. I did some backwards walking on my return until I found an angle
that I liked with the bike path trailing off into the fog past the trees. Bad weather can often lead to nice photographs.
Tuesday, 12 October 2021
Thankful Sunset
It was a good Thanksgiving weekend and it ended with a pretty nice sunset. I was hoping to get down to one of our bridges in time, but since I decided to follow the posted speed limits, I discovered about half way on my trip that there was no way I was going to make it to any of the bridges. So, I went with the backup plan and decided to visit the park close to the former Head Office to get a photograph of the Thanksgiving sunset against the buildings of Montreal. There have been some new buildings that have gone up since the last time I was there, and as you can tell from the construction cranes, there are some new ones that will soon be sprouting up as well. Mother Nature thankfully provided the nice pumpkin orange sunset and I photographed it at f/16, 1/60sec, ISO 100 at 70mm. I'd also like to mention how thankful I am for My Lovely Assistant and The Heir Apparent who still allow me to run out of the house just before supper in order to let me keep taking these photographs. Thank for your patience, I love you both very much.
Thursday, 7 October 2021
Creepy Crawlies
I guess that the main reason that I like to take photographs of flowers is because I think they look nice. But, there is a secondary reason that I like to take those pictures. Every once in a while hidden in the flowers, I'll find some creepy crawly insects either have a snack or just relaxing. While looking at our sunflowers, I noticed this little spider hanging around the center of the flower. It was only after that I noticed the other two little visitors on the petals. The photograph was taken at f/16, 1/50sec, ISO 400 at 70mm. I also bounced some flash onto the flower to make everything a little more visible since it was later in he afternoon and the sun was on the wrong side to provide enough natural light. Most of the creepy crawlies are gone for this year, but like the sunflowers, they'll be back next year and I'll be looking forward to seeing them.
Tuesday, 5 October 2021
Playing With Fire
Every year around vacation time we try and get away from the big city and spend a few days in a cottage somewhere. Most of the evenings are spent sitting around a fire that was expertly made by My Lovely Assistant. As the fire would slowly begin to die, the colours caught my eye and I decided to grab my camera. The glowing red embers just grabbed my attention right away. So, I took a deep breathe of cool air and zoomed in on the fire. I had My Lovely Assistant strike them with a stick to get them nice and bright and then I shot away. The photograph was taken at 1/5sec, ISO 1000 at 200mm. I know it's not really smart to play with fire, but it sure was interesting to photograph it. I've got about three years worth of these flaming photos, so if they prove to be interesting you'll probably see more of them in the future.
Friday, 1 October 2021
Rocktober Memories
Rocktober is upon us, though it is beginning to look like the month of October might once again be rock-less thanks to The Plague. With that in mind, this seems like an opportune time to release this set of photographs. Those with astute eyes may notice that they are watermarked for 2020. That's because in my ever optimistic mind, I had hoped that The Plague would be short lived and at some point last year things would have returned to normal. At that point, I was going to post these as a reminder of what I enjoyed doing very much, with the hope that I would be returning to photographing some shows very soon. Here we are, almost 20 months later and I'm still waiting to get back in to a show, though there was some good news yesterday that leads me to believe that the wait might not be that much longer. Or, maybe that's just
my ever optimistic mind reaching out for some hope. There photographs were taken in 2019 during a concert by Sylvain Cossette as part of the Saint-Lambert en Fête festivities. You can check out the other photographs I took of the concert by following this link, and photographs from the other shows at the festival can be seen in the August 2019 section of this blog. Though Sylvain Cossette was the headliner, it became obvious early on that his guitarist was equally entertaining. So, I would turn my camera in his direction rather often during the set and captured a pretty cool collection of photographs. His name is Matt Laurent and he was owning the stage that night. At the time, I felt that he deserved an update of his own. It's a little bit late, but he gets to be my Rocktober moment this year. The first photograph was taken at f/2.8, 1/160sec, ISO 3200 at 75mm and the second photograph was taken at f/2.8, 1/250sec, ISO 3200 at 115mm. Here are several more photographs that I took of his performance.
