There are two months during the year where you kind of, for lack of a better word, get the seasonal blahs. February is really cold and is the point where most people have reached the end of their patience when it comes to Winter. The other month is November. The days have suddenly gotten shorter, the trees are bare and the flowers are gone. The magical lights of Christmas are slowly starting to appear, but at times there doesn't seem to be any colour anywhere. For such occasions, I always try and keep a little collection of colourful flowers on hand for when a boost of brightness is needed. The rose bush was rather productive this summer and I took this little close-up of the flower at f/9, 1/100sec, ISO 200 at 70mm. A bright dose of red is just the needed thing to to chase those November Grey's away.
Wednesday 29 November 2023
Colour Boost
Monday 27 November 2023
Leafy Rainbow
While I've been spending much of the last two months in various concert halls, the rest of you out there were experiencing Autumn and all of its wonderful colours. I did take a moment to do so as well. On our numerous walks, The Heir Apparent and I would always keep our eyes open looking for the perfect leaf. It's a lot harder than one would think. We found many all over the ground, but they were either missing pieces, had some dark discoloration or unwanted creases. But just before Halloween, we finally did find what we were looking for. It was a huge maple leaf and had a nice mix of yellow, green, brown and red to it. The Heir Apparent was tasked with keeping it nice and safe on our walk home and then we took a nice picture of it after we warmed up a little bit. The photograph was taken at f/7.1, 1/100sec, ISO 400 at 70mm with some flash bounced off of the ceiling. It's always nice to see Mother Nature put her colours on display. The leaves are pretty much all gone here now, but they were nice to look at while they were here.
Thursday 23 November 2023
Roxane Bruneau At MTelus
This past June saw Roxane Bruneau headline the festivites for the Fête Nationale de Québec from Longueuil and the show was a blast. I had never seen her perform before and I had such a good time that I have been singing her praises ever since. Feel free to take a moment to go back in time and revisit the photos if you'd like by following the link. A few weeks back, it was announced that an album release party would be held at the MTelus in Montreal so I figured I might as well try my luck and see if I could get a pass to shoot the show. Party would be the perfect word to describe the evening. We had celebrities galore, the building was packed to the rafters and the crowd was in an electric mood from the moment they entered the building until the lights finally went out and the music began. Roxane Bruneau hit the stage to a
thunderous applause and seemed to be moved by the entire experience. There was even a brief moment at the end of the first song where she knelt down on the stage and had to hide her face in her hands. Whatever emotions she may have been trying to hide were quickly replaced with smiles and laughter the rest of the way. She even made note that everyone in the crowd seemed to be singing along with her, despite the fact that her album had only been released four days before the show. There was also a special guest on the evening as local rap star Souldia hit the stage with Roxane to perform their hit single 'Côté passenger'. I was able to shoot that one from the crowd as though we were only allowed our usual three songs from the pit, we were granted a few extra minutes of shooting from elsewhere in the building before it was time to pack up our gear. Once again, a Roxane Bruneau show didn't disappoint. A large part of that has to do with the fans. Roxane's fans obviously love her and her music, so I tried to get a couple of extra shots of the crowd in to this set. The first photograph was taken at f/3.2, 1/80sec, ISO 2000 at 24mm and the second photograph was taken at f/3.2, 1/160sec, ISO 2000. Here are several more photographs that I took of her performance.
Friday 17 November 2023
Nita Strauss At Théâtre Beanfield
It may have been mid-November, but the city of Montreal was under a storm warning as Hurricane Nita blew in to the Théâtre Beanfield. Nita Strauss, one of the best guitarists out there today, led her band on to the stage this past Tuesday night and just about blew the roof off of the building. Considered by many to be one of the greatest female guitarist to ever pick up the instrument, as far as I am concerned, her ability goes beyond gender as I see her as one of the greatest guitarist, point finale. First gaining exposure as a member of the all female Iron Maiden tribute band, The Iron Maidens, Nita Strauss has only continued to grow her legend over the years. She is the touring guitarist for Alice Cooper, did a Summer tour with Demi Lovato, has graced the cover of several guitar magazines and was the very first female to become a
signature artist for Ibanez guitars. All that, and she still finds the time to teach master classes in guitar playing across North American and around the World. Her very first solo album, Controlled Chaos was released in 2018 and I remember thinking back then how cool it would be to be able to photograph one of her shows. Here we are, five short years later, and I got to do just that. Her most recent album, The Call of the Void, was released earlier this year and features her playing with a who's who of guest vocalist from the world of heavy metal like Lzzy Hale of Halestorm, Dorothy, David Draiman of Disturbed and even the legendary Alice Cooper himself. Another of the guest vocalists, Montreal's own Alissa White-Gluz of Arch Enemy, was a surprise guest at the show as they played the song that Alissa provides vocals for, The 
Wolf You Feed. Sadly, I was no longer in the pit at that time, but it was certainly awesome to be able to watch live. The night did feature another guest vocalist though, Kasey Karlsen, who gained national attention thanks to several cover versions of songs she posted to her Tik Tok and YouTube channels, as well as fronting her own band, Deadlands. The first photograph was taken at f/32., 1/400sec, ISO 6400 at 24mm, the second photograph was taken at f/3.2, 1/200sec, ISO 10000 at 24mm and the third was taken at f/3.2, 1/400sec, ISO 10000 at 24mm. I wasn't permitted to photograph the other band that was playing that night, so I went all out during Nita's set. With that in mind, here are several more photographs of her performance.
