I'm A Highway Star

It's been a while since I pulled the camera out of it's comfy bag, and I had a bit of a trigger finger today so it was off to the bicycle path to for a 2013 Reissue.  The photo you see on the left is an update of a picture I took a few years back while I was taking my classes at Concordia University.  I originally took the image as part of an assignment called 'Mystical Light' where we had to create a photograph with special light effects.  The special effects being the streaks of light that you see which are all that remains of the passing cars.  I chose to redo this picture based on comments I received about another of my photos that was on display during my exhibition.  My photograph, Bernard's View, was pretty the most popular shot that I had on display.  One of the reasons it was so popular, I've been told, was because the street signs reminded people of specific places.  So, I reached back into the archives and was reminded of this old photograph which also features road signs for the Champlain Bridge and Laurier Boulveard.  This shot was taken at f/9, 10sec., ISO 100 at 42mm from a bicycle path that crosses over Highway 132 in Saint-Lambert.  I like how I have four different traffic sources in the picture and the sky had just enough light left in it for that nice dark blue colour.  The only thing missing are some fireworks going off in the top left-hand side. I hope you enjoy it.

Midnight Train To Saint-Lambert

Digging into the archives again for another of the photographs that was seen during my exposition this past fall.  This is a shot that I had seen in my mind for over a year, but had been to lazy to actually go out and take.  I know, I can't believe that I'd be lazy for a year either.  We'll just call it a scheduling snafu and leave it at that.  This shot was taken just a bit past the Saint-Lambert CN Train Station, and in the background you can see a part of the Victoria Bridge that leads to Montreal.  Passing by a railroad crossing near this location, I often saw how the lights from the towers would follow the steel rail tracks and thought it would make a nice photograph.  I believe I had a good idea and so did someone else as I sold a framed copy of this shot during my show.  This photograph was taken at f/10, 15sec. ISO 100 at 70mm.  Again, the long exposure creates that star effects around the lights, as well as adding some light to the sky.  The sun had just gone down, but there was enough light to be picked up by the long exposure.  I like how the red light reflecting on the rails acts as a leading line towards the light towers, and then beyond the station right to the bridge.  The same goes for the reflections on the telephone and electric wires seen on the left-hand side of the photo.  One other thing of note, I do not suggest you attempt to take this kind of photo on your own.  Train tracks are not the safest place to be.  Yes, I took the shot, but what you don't see is my spotter who was out of frame and keeping her eyes open for any trains.  I also checked the train schedule the day before taking this photo and stuck around the site to make sure that the trains would arrive when they were supposed to.  Sometimes you have to do your homework in order to get the photograph that you want.  In that regard, I'd like to hope that my Mom & Dad are happy to see that though it might take a year, my homework still gets done.

Always Look Behind You

One of the early lessons I learned in photography class was to never be afraid to move around, and maybe even get a little dirty.  Most people shoot their photographs from a standing position, while the simple move of bending over or going belly-down on the floor can turn a regular photograph into something more.  I didn't get very dirty taking this photograph, but I did take advantage of the previously mentioned lesson.  Though to be honest, it was done accidentally.  This shot was taken while on vacation at Niagara Falls.  I was feeling sad by the recent death of my Grandmother and one of the final conversations that we had was about how she had visited Niagara Falls when she was younger and how she hoped that I'd make my way there as she knew I'd be able to take some nice photographs.  I walked up and down the sidewalk next to the falls, trying to get the perfect angle, but just couldn't come up with something that interested me or was a unique image.  Out of frustration, I gave the stone wall next to the sidewalk a good kick and then turned, leaning against the metal railing.  That's when I saw it.  Illumination Tower.  The concrete stage where all of the lights that are used to light up Niagara Falls are located.  Sitting just behind the stage was the Niagara Falls casino with it's bright red lights reflecting against the passing mist created by the Falls.  I quickly spun the tripod around and snapped the picture you see here, and that was one of the featured shots on my exposition last autumn.  It was shot at f/7.1, 13sec., ISO 100 at 35mm and was the jolt that I needed to get that lesson mentioned above drilled into my head.  Everybody goes home with a picture of Niagara Falls lit up at night.  But I think my photograph of the lights that light up the Falls is much more interesting than anything else I took on that trip.

***UPDATE***

During the write-up I forgot to mention that I timed the exposure for 13 seconds purely because of the casino in the background.  Lucky 13 and all.  You could get pretty much the same result with an exposure of 12 or 14 seconds.

It's Somewhat Chilly

As I write, we're currently in the middle of a cold spell that has temperatures in the minus-teens Celcius with wind chills in the minus-twenties.  However, you don't come here for weather reports, you come here to look at my pictures.  While we're all trying to keep warm, I took a trip into my photo archives to find the photograph you see above my words.  It wasn't a very long trip though as this picture was last seen as part of my exhibition this past fall, though the version you see here has been a little modified.  As with the last few days, this photograph was taken on a cold January day back in 2008.  The shot was taken at f/8, 1/200 sec ISO 400 at 18mm.  For this site, I cropped the picture to 12" x 6".  I feel that the picture does a good job of showing how cold the day was.  From the crisp blue sky to the ice floating by, just looking at this picture gives the chills.  I also like the fact that since the photograph was taken before the sun went down, there were no lights on in any of the buildings across the river in Montreal, making it the frozen city.

Newest Family Member

 Over the Christmas holidays I had the honour of meeting the newest member of my family, little Louis-Francois.  He's a couple of months old and I had been asked to bring my camera with me on my next visit to take a few family photographs.  I told them what I tell most people, I don't have much experience photographing, ahem, humans, but I'm always game for a new challenge and who could resist taking a picture of that cute face.  We found a little secluded room away from the rest of the family and went to work.  In an ideal world, I would have had some nice studio lights and backgrounds with me, but since I have yet to win the lottery, we improvised with some soft mood lighting and my Canon 580 EX II flash.  Side note to myself and any future photographers.  Always check to make sure your ISO is properly set.  I made the mistake of leaving mine at 1600 for most of the shoot and had to do some 'magic' work in Photoshop afterwards.  All of the shots that you see were taken at f/4.5, 1/250sec, ISO 1600 at varying lenghts.  I did some cropping and had to play with the levels in Photoshop.  I should have taken heed of the words of my photography professor...make sure it's right on the camera and don't waste time in Photoshop.  I delivered the photos a few days later and everyone was really happy with them.  As someone who doesn't have all that much experience photographing young children, it was truly a learning experience and one I look forward to having again.  Every little bit of practice is helpful and hopefully there will be many more opportunities like this to come.  In the meantime, if you're looking for someone who really has the art of child photography down pat, take the time to visit an old classmate of mine, Elisa Elliot (http://elisaelliot.com/).  She does some really good work with the young ones and I hope to do as well as her one of these days.  Practice, practice, practice.

Nah, -15 Isn't That Cold

Those of you who follow me on Facebook (visit Eric Mahannah Photography and don't forget to 'Like' the pages was well as all of the photos you wish) probably noticed that I changed my cover photo the other day.  Here's the story behind the photo.  I can't quite explain why, but I've always been captivated by the American Pavilion from Expo '67, or as it is known these days, the Biosphere.  I see it almost everyday from my home, it was featured in one of the photographs from my exhibition and it just generally lends itself well to being photographed.  This past Saturday was a fairly mild day, by my standards, so I decided to lug out my equipment to Île Sainte-Hélène and grab some more shots.  One evening while driving home from work I noticed how the lights from the bridge lined up pretty well with the Biosphere so I was off on a photo mission. This shot was taken at f/9, 10sec, ISO 100 at 34mm.  The long exposure time allows for the 'star' effect you see around the street light, and then I cropped the image to 12"x5".  The lights on the bridge also form some leading lines to, hopefully, capture your attention and on the right hand side is my favourite metal ball.  The photo was also taken just a little bit after the sun went down, allowing just enough light to bring some colour to the sky.  I've been several times in the past, I'll keep going several times in the future and I hope that you'll still enjoy looking at what I do.

Some Wall Hangers

Over the course of trying to figure out what to give as Christmas presents this year, I was drawing my usual blank on trying to figure out what to get people.  Luckily, the brains of this operation, my girlfriend, came to my aid as she offered up the idea of bundling up some of my photographs and creating a calendar with them.  The final results can be seen in the photos that I`ve attached with this blog post.  The lucky recipients of these calendars were some family members as well as a few friends.  This was kind of a test for me as well to see how well the finished product would turn out.  I was really happy with the calendars when I picked them up and was almost sad to see them go.  I probably should have been smart enough to get one printed for myself.  Told you I wasn't the brains of this operation.  Everyone who recieved a calendar seemed really happy with them as well.  So, my question to you, gentle reader, would this be the kind of thing that you would be interested in buying?  If the response is positive, I might look into trying to find a good printing company and maybe produce some copies and making them available to be purchased come next Christmas.  I might even come up with a better title than '2013' for the next batch of these things. 


By the way, I realize that the watermark still reads 2012.  These photos were actually prepared to be posted in late December, but then the big snowstorm hit and the pictures from that bumped this post a little further down the docket.  Then came New Year's Eve, and suddenly it was 2013.  No, I'm not trying to peddle calendars to you without actually knowing what year we are currently in.