Kevin Bazinet at Greenfield Park

As mentioned a few days ago during the photo update of Patrick Lehman in concert, back on Canada Day, My Lovely Assistant and I headed over to Greenfield Park after the clouds parted and the sun began to dry up the rain that had fallen from the sky.  We arrived a little late for Kevin Bazinet's set, but still in time to hear most of it.  His claim to fame was winning the 2015 Reality Series, La Voix.  He played a little mix of cover songs and some of his own originals as well and the crowd was really enjoying the performance.  Myself, I came equiped with my telephoto lens as the crowd was a little bit bigger at this point of the evening and I couldn't really get as close to the stage as I would have liked. I still ended up with some nice photographs of the show.  There isn't much more to add that wasn't said in the first update, so let's get to the photographs.  The first one was taken at f/4.5, 1/200sec, ISO 800 at 200mm.  Here are a few more.

f/5.6, 1/100sec, ISO 1600 at 200mm

f/5, 1/125sec, ISO 800 at 170mm

f/4, 1/80sec, ISO 800 at 200mm

f/5, 1/80sec, ISO 800 at 168mm

f/5, 1/160sec, ISO 1600 at 130mm

f/5, 1/125sec, ISO 1600 at 200mm

f/5, 1/160sec, ISO 1600 at 200mm

f/3.5, 1/400sec, ISO 1600 at 200mm

f/4.5, 1/250sec, ISO 800 at 135mm

I was happy to get some photographs of the background musicians as they appeared to be having a great time during the concert.  It was tough to get some god shots of them as they were kind of bunched together behind a keyboard, but I managed to shuffle around a little bit to get a better view of them.  A short fireworks presentation was scheduled to happen next.  As I already mentioned, I wasn't there with photographing fireworks on my mind, but I still managed to get a little something, which I'll save for a future update.

32nd Edition Of L'International des Feux Loto-Québec Begins

Back when I was a youngster, one of my favourite shows on television was The Dukes of Hazzard.  While I may not have 'been in trouble with the law since the day I was born', my photography has managed to get me into a few meetings with the local law enforcement officials.  Before my Mom gets bent out of shape, no pepper spray, batons or handcuffs were involved and no arrests were made.  Saturday marked the opening of the 32nd edition of L'International des Feux Loto-Québec.  Over the last four years of the blog, July has pretty much been dominated by photographs of fireworks as I really love photographing them. This year, weather and law enforcement permitting, things should be no different.  It was nice and cool, an appreciated treat for July, so I decided to drag My Lovely Assistant and myself for a bike ride over to the Pont De La Concorde to photograph the pretty explosions in the sky.  It's a location that I've used over the last two years and one that I really enjoy.  However, it will now be noted that my photographs taken from the bridge last year will be the last ones, unless some municipal laws and regulations change.  We were delayed getting the to bridge as a boat was passing through the Saint Lawrence Seaway, meaning there was a delay over at the Victoria Bridge as we waited for the deck to lower.  Regardless, we got to the Pont De La Concorde with about 30 minutes to spare before showtime.  I opened up my tripod and began to get my camera ready when, from the corner of my eye, I noticed a police car with its light on make a quick u-turn and head right for us.  The car stopped right next to me and the officer inside made it quite clear that there had been a change in the rules concerning the bridge and people were no longer allowed to remain still.  We had to ciruculate.  Now, had this been a structure where traffic would be flying by, I suppose I would understand, but there is a large concrete barrier between the traffic and the bicycle path and sidewalk.  For what it's worth, the cop was very nice about everything, to the point where even I felt like he knew what he was saying was silly.  With time running and my options suddenly very limited, I decided we should make a run for Parc de la Cité-du-Havre.  I last shot there a few years back, but was afraid that due to the time, I wouldn't be able to get a spot near the railing in order to get a clear shot of the fireworks.  Luckily, I managed to squeeze myself into a spot with about ten minutes to go and was able to shoot away.  The first photograph was taken at f/16, 10sec, ISO 100 at 68mm.  The second photograph was taken at f/16, 13sec, ISO 10 at 68mm and the third photograph was taken at f/11, 13sec, ISO 100 at 68mm.  Here are a couple more photographs that I took during the show.

f/16, 15sec, ISO 100 at 70mm

f/11, 6sec, ISO 100 at 68mm

f/16, 30sec, ISO 100 at 68mm

The fireworks were handled by Feu d'artifice Apogée and was themed 'Our Heroes'.  The soundtrack featured pieces of music from Star Wars, Superman and other 'hero' themed movie soundtracks, as well as some pieces from video games such as Legend of Zelda and Super Mario Bros.  As for my latest run in with the police, much like those Duke boys, someday the mountain might get me but the law never will.

Patrick Lehman in Greenfield Park

The rain almost kept us away, but the clouds clear from the sky at the very last minute so My Lovely Assistant and I made a quick car ride to Greenfield Park in order to take in the Canada Day festivities. By the time we got there, only two bands remained to play and a fireworks display was scheduled.  I decided to forego the fireworks and left my tripod at home, choosing to focus on the music.  The final musical performance was handled by Parick Lehman, a local artist from Montreal who was a nominated for a Juno in 2016 in the Best Soul/R&B Recording category.  His show was a collection of classic rock (Creedence Clearwater Revival & Fleetwood Mac), R&B (Stevie Wonder) and some of his own original songs as well.  Though the crowd had thinned out midway through his set, it wasn't due to the performers.  Less people actually made things a little easier for me as I was able to walk around the site a little bit more, free to shoot from almost anywhere I would have wanted. I had come equipped with my telephoto lens since I thought I would be stuck a little distance from the stage, which was the case, but I spent lots of time near the soundboard as I was having my best results from that spot.  The first photograph was taken at f/4, 1/250sec, ISO 800 at 142mm and the second photograph was taken at f/4, 1/60sec, ISO 800 at 140mm.  Here are a few more photographs that I took during the performance.

f/5.6, 1/400sec, ISO 3200 at 190mm

f/2.8, 1/100sec, ISO 800 at 200mm

f/3.2, 1/160sec, ISO 800 at 135mm

f/5.6, 1/80sec, ISO 3200 at 200mm

f/4, 1/80sec, ISO 800 at 200mm

f/4, 1/60sec, ISO 800 at 150mm

f/5.6, 1/250sec, ISO 3200 at 190mm

f/4. 1/200sec, ISO 800 at 115mm

It was a cool evening with a bit of a breeze, which was kind of handy because it helped blow away some of the smoke that would at times overwhelm the stage.  I did take advantage of all of the smoke to try a silhouette style of shot, the fifth on on this page, though a little bit of Photoshop was used as well.  A fun night out.

1965 Shelby Cobra

I guess you could say that I was out hunting for logos.  This past May I once again visited the Saint-Lambert Classic Automobile Exhibition.  Once again there were several awesome cars on display and some terrific hood ornaments and car logos.  I'll be getting back to the hood ornaments at some time in the future, but tonight I wanted to share my favourite logo that I found on the day.  This one belonged to a 1965 Ford Shelby Cobra. The colour and details on the logo really caught my eye, as did the LeMans racing stripe that ran through it and up the hood.  The curving of the hood makes the stripe look like it's going off to the left, a visual effect that I really liked.  If you remember my Corvette logo from earlier in the month, I mentioned how I had tried using a small aperture in order to get a star effect on the reflection of the sun on the logo. I didn't have much success then, but if you look a little bit to the left of the 'C' in 'Cobra', you'll notice that I had a bit more success with this one.  This photograph was taken at f/16, 1/400sec, ISO 100 at 46mm.  The car was a one seat roadster built for racing, which is kind of cool because I think that my photograph feels pretty fast.

Turn, Turn, Turn

Flower beds are always a source of interest for me.  On the one hand, they're full of all kinds of different sizes, shapes and colours that grab my interest and get me rushing to grab my camera.  On the other hand, they're also pollen filled disaster areas that will sometimes leave me sniffling and sneezing for hours on end.  It's the price I pay, says the poor little internet blogger looking for a little bit of sympathy from his audience.  While this particular flower didn't leave me grabbing for the Benadryl, it most definitely grabbed my attention when I first saw it.  With my limited botanical knowledge, I think that this particular flower is an orange peonie.  I originally shot this photograph vertically, which you can see on the left-hand side of the screen.  However, while I was fooling around with Photoshop, I accidentally ended up rotating the photograph 90degrees clockwise and I kind of ended up liking the way that it looked vertically as well.  So, I've included that version of the photograph with this update as well.  Two for the price of one, everybody is a winner.

The photograph was taken at f4, 1/500sec, ISO 800 at 60mm.  I probably should have taken better care to make sure that the unopened flower had not been cut off, but when I was shooting it vertically, it didn't really seem like a big issue as it was just some filler at the top of the frame for me.  Horizontally, the cut seems a bit more evident to my eyes, but the way that the stamens and petals reached out really seemed more interesting to me. To each their own.

Pour Pierre

Over at The Day Job, we got some bad new the other day when it was announced that a former co-worker had sadly passed away while fighting cancer.  He had been a big fan of my photography, and more importantly, was a great person as well.  His name was Pierre, and this was probably his favourite of my photographs that I had shown him.  He had even asked if it was possible to get a this photograph blown up to a huge size as he would have liked it on his wall.  Sadly, his illness struck soon after and he was forced to leave the job.  I never got to see him again.  Repose en paix M. Pierre.  C'était un honneur de partager la backstore avec vous.  If you would like to find out more about this photograph, you can follow this link back to when it was originally shown here on the blog.

Violas & A Friend

This past Sunday was Father's Day, which meant a visit to Mom & Dad.  Longtime readers will also know that a visit to see Mom & Dad also generally means a visit to Mom's garden, a magical land full of colourful flowers just waiting to be photographed.  Sadly, the visit was probably a week or two late as many of the flowers in the garden had already bloomed a while ago and were showing their age.  All was not lost, however, when I spotted a little pot on the swing with these little Violas.  They were barely the size of the nail on my pinkie finger, but their yellow and blue colour, along with the deep black lines grabbed my attention.  As I was taking the first few photographs, I began to notice something moving quickly over the petals.  It ended up being a tiny red spider.  Sadly, it didn't take direction very well and wouldn't stop moving, so I took a few quick shots in burst mode with the hopes that I'd catch the little guy in action.  He's a little bit out of focus since I was shooting with a large aperture, but the mere fact that I was able to catch him considering his size made me quite happy.  The first photograph was taken at f/8, 1/50sec, ISO 400 at 60mm.  Here is the second photograph.

f/4, 1/250sec, ISO 400 at 60mm

After the colours, what I really like about these photographs is they show the power of the Macro lens.  As I mentioned, the flower itself was the size of my small nail and the spider was about the size of a pin head.  Yet here they both are, large and alive.