I mentioned a few posts back how, even after three years, I still hadn't found a location for sunsets that compares to where I used to live. I thought I might have found one near the rail-yards that straddle the cities of Longueuil and Saint-Hubert. It might still prove to be a good spot, but at this time of the year, the sun was far to much to the right of the city. Sure, it was a little cloudy, but even if it had been clear, I don't think the sun would have fit into my frame. Though the sky might have been a tad bit more interesting. All wasn't lost though, as a couple of trains were making their way through the yards. Once the train on the left had passed the train on the right, he lit up his bright lights and I quickly upped the ISO and spun to a smaller aperture to get a nice star effect on the headlights. The photograph was taken at f/16, 1/40sec, ISO 1600 at 70mm. I'll probably head back in the Fall when the sun shifts location a bit. Hopefully, there will still be a train going through.
Wednesday 26 April 2023
Bright Lights, Big City
Sunday 23 April 2023
Colours To Come
The old saying goes that April showers will lead to May flowers. I've been hearing it for a good many years and it always holds true. That being the case, we've got about fours days of rain lined up for my part of the World, so that means that we should be in store for a very colourful month of May. And I hope that will be the case because our yard is looking rather bleak at the moment. There is a little bit of green returning to the yard, but so far there has been no sign of any kind of flowers at all. While I can't tiptoe through the tulips, I can take a stroll through the archives where there are lots of colouful flowers waiting for me, including my favourite, the Day lily. The wonderful thing about them is that they grow anywhere, and I have photographed them in several different places as I just can't resist looking at them and snapping away. This particular one was found the the cottage of My Lovely Assistant's father during one of our visits. It was photographed at f/6.3, 1/400sec, ISO 100 at 59mm. Hopefully ours will peak their heads out of the ground shortly.
Wednesday 19 April 2023
Partly Cloudy
Since moving the Head Office a few years back, I still have yet to find a nice place to shoot the setting sun. We still get some nice red skies at the new location, but there is nothing to compete with the bridges and skyscrapers that I used to be able to shoot against those bright colours. So, I've been turning my head to the sky a little earlier in the evening. We've gotten some nice cloud formations this Spring, so I've traded in the fire-hot red for a nice cool blue. For me, the best time to shoot the clouds are just after the sun tucks itself in behind a nice cluster of puffs. They get nice and bright and you can still make out the blue of the sky as it leaks through the cracks. It sure catches my eye anyway. The photograph was taken at f/16, 1/640sec, ISO 100 at 24mm. It's always nice to take a moment and look up at the sky. There's often some very interesting things up there.
Friday 14 April 2023
Bikini Kill At MTelus
Montreal has seen its fair share of musical royalty over the years, and it's most recent was the founding band of the 1990's Riot Grrrl movement, Bikini Kill, who took the stage on Wednesday night at a sold out MTelus. Lead singer Kathleen Hannah told the crowd how in the early days of the band they would often get heckled and deal with all kinds of harsh comments from concert goers just for being women who dared to play punk rock music. We've certainly come far from that point, and Kathleen herself said that she has mellowed on stage as well. Once know to stage dive onto hecklers, she said that the band have even reworked a few songs to deal with their less confrontational nature. Even with a few little lyrical changes, the songs themselves have not lost any of their vitality or punch. The inspired countless
women to pick up a guitar and rock out, and for that, they have garnered a great deal of respect. This is another of those COVID shows that ended up being delayed a few times, but patience proved again to be a virtue as those years melted away in mere seconds as the guitars began to roar. Though the band broke up back in 1997, they've reformed a few times over the past few years in order to play some shows. There haven't been any rumblings of new music, but you can't go wrong with their back catalogue. The first photograph was taken at f/3.2, 1/250sec, ISO 6400 at 24mm and the second photograph was taken at f/3.2, 1/250sec, ISO 6400 at 30mm. Here are several more photographs that I took of their performance.
CB Radio Gorgeous At MTelus
It was a 1990's Punk Music Revival down at the MTelus this past Wednesday night, and kicking off the festivities was a band from Chicago called CB Radio Gorgeous. This is usually the part of my post where I tell you a little bit about the band, but I've kind of rolled a blank on this one. They don't have a website or a Facebook page and what little info I was able to find came from an Instagram and Bandcamp pages. One thing that I do know, is that they hit the stage full of energy and seemed generally super happy to be performing before this sold-out Montreal crowd. In particular, singer Anna Kinderman and bassist Jill Lloyd Flannigan, were bouncing and running around the stage so much that I had to up my ISO several times in order to get a fast enough shutter speed to catch them in action. Speaking of which, the first photograph was taken at f/3.2, 1/125sec, ISO 10000 at 24mm. Here are several more photographs that I took of their performance.
Thursday 13 April 2023
July Talk At MTelus
July Talk has been on my musical radar for almost ten years now, yet in that time I never was able to find myself attending one of their shows. Which is odd, because while their music is very unique and easy to identify, it was a reputation for terrific live shows which helped them make their name. I finally got to experience a live performance this past Tuesday night as they headlined a show at the MTelus in Montreal. Writing, writing, writing. Peter Dreimanis has one of those voices that simply cannot be replicated and you know right away who you are listening to. Joined on the microphone by fellow vocalist Leah Fay, they make a vocal combo that simply cannot be matched. All three of their albums (July Talk (2015) , Touch (2017) & Pray For It (2021)) have won Juno Awards for Alternative Album of the Year and they are touring in support of their most recent album, Remember Never Before, which was released in January of this year. The first photograph was taken at f/3.5, 1/200sec, ISO 6400 at 24mm. Here are several more of their performance.
