Day 31 - A Knick Knack Knack

A collage in brown shades today in a photograph taken from the couch in our TV room. I wasn't feeling very well so a trip into the frigid world of New Brunswick to take pictures was out of the question, forcing me to settle for a knick-knack shot.

I'm not sure this is the most successful picture of this type but I still like it. The many shades of brown appeal to me as does the line of the shelf that dominates the lower left of the frame. Members of my family will recognise the fragile wood windmill that is the centre of attention, a family knick knack I've possessed since the beginning of my memory. And, of course, that is an unfinished wooden yo-yo beside it, creating a nice contrast between the brittle straight lines of the windmill and the chunky curves of the toy.

I like taking still-life photographs like this. They're not always easy to take, since it's the arrangement of the common-place objects that is the key. Also important, the way you frame the objects: the tendency is to shoot from straight on and to ensure that no part of an object is cut off. I think that's a mistake. You create interest, I think, by purposely reshaping the objects, pruning them, so to speak, with the camera.

Day 30 - The Joys of Manual Control

A bright, sunny day, strong shadows and a zoom lens. That's a recipe for photographic disaster if you're dependent on the automatic settings of your camera.

That's why I'm delighted with this fairly average shot of our dog, Marlee, taken at the UNB woodlot today. Using the manual settings on the camera, I was able to compensate for the brightness of the sun-drenched snow background and still get this detailed, well-lit photograph of Marlee (and the icicles on her chin).

The most important trick, I think, is not to let the camera's light meter fool you. On a sunny day, with snow in the scene, it's going to try to convince you there's more light on the subject than there really is. You've got to ignore its advice and open up the aperture more to allow enough light in to bring out the detail in your darker subject.

The original of this photo included more of the snowy background but I decided to crop it out so as to focus attention on Marlee's face. I'm glad I was able to set the camera manually for this picture, however: if I had had the camera on automatic, the face would have been much too dark.

Day 29 - The Ghost and the Machine

My long flight delays this week had at least one beneficial effect: they gave me time to figure out the manual settings on the camera.

So now I've discovered not only how to adjust both the aperture and shutter speed, I've also found out that our little Olympus has some fantastically long shutter settings. Up to fifteen seconds, in fact.

That allows me to set the camera, touch the shutter release and then, while the camera is focusing the shot, move away from it and into the frame. Unlike the "bulb" setting, which keeps the shutter open for as long as you hold down the release button, the 15-second setting works without me having to be in contact with the camera, so no shake is transferred from my hand to the image. This means that the fixed objects in the image (like the stove) remain crisply focused despite the long shutter opening.

I love this setting. It allowed me to create this interesting shot of my ghost making spaghetti. It also allowed me to take a shot (lower picture) of my portable DVD player while it was showing a movie, thus creating a neat collage of images from the movie itself (Stephen King's The Stand). The only trick is to make sure you don't have too much light. In this case, I closed the aperture right down and then turned off most of the lights in the kitchen to ensure the photos weren't overexposed.

Day 28 - The Book Shelf

I had a little battery problem with the camera today. It would seem that my Energizer rechargeables aren't really recharging any more. I found this out after taking only four photographs on my lunch hour, two of which were of my friend trying to avoid having her picture taken.

That being said, I'm still quite happy with this shot. Not spectacular by any means, it has a nice feel to it, with interesting intersecting lines of the books and the shelves and just enough colour to make it fun. We were in a bookstore, in case you wondered, the kind of place I enjoy visiting. I think this shot, taken with a flash and the camera on automatic, gives a nice sense of the calm but energized feelings I get when I wander among the rows of books. Too bad my camera wasn't as energized as I was.

Day 27 - The Tropics of Cancel

Sometimes life throws you too many curves to allow you to be creative with the camera. I'm just back from Montreal after 18 hours of flight delays with Air Canada and I'm beat.

This photograph captures the sheer tackiness of the hotel at which Air Canada placed me and the other stranded passengers last night after our flight home was cancelled. The hotel, a Holiday Inn near the Montreal airport, was as scary a hotel as I've ever seen, all nicely packaged with a tropical theme.

I like this photo because it tells a story, at least for me, of one awful night stuck in airline limbo. I also like it because, if you look real hard, you can see the piles of snow in the windows at the top of the picture, absurdly juxtaposed with the (real) tropical trees that surround the swimming pool. The trees were amazing; if only the hotel management spent as much time and money maintaining the rooms.

Day 26 - Life on Hold

There's much to like, both about this photograph and the subject matter.

I'm laid over in Montreal due to various problems with my flight and one of the ways I passed the time was a very nice rye and ginger at my hotel. Looks good and tastes great.

I can't tell on this computer if the focus of this shot will stand up to large-scale enlarging but I like the texture of it, the shape of the ice and the lime and the saturation of yellow colour caused by the low light. I wonder if it doesn't look a little like a green whale surfacing in a yellow sea. No? Oh well.

I have another shot of the same drink, less zoomed in, that I liked too but I couldn't resist the tactile effect of this photograph.

Day 25 - Signs in Soft Light

A day-long conference kept me out of lovely Old Montreal during the hours of broad daylight, forcing me to find some way to capture the beauty of the city in the fading light of dusk.

In a situation like this, I try to find some combination of the remaining natural illumination and any artificial light that might be available. In this case, the electric bulbs near these nice restaurant signs along the waterfront in Old Montreal provided just enough brightness to allow me to get a pretty good picture. I like the yellowy-orange flavour the low-light conditions create but I'm also quite fond of the way the different shapes in the frame come together to create a pleasing construction.

I'm not sure the focus is perfect but I still quite like this picture. I'll miss Montreal and all the beautiful scenes it has to offer when I leave tomorrow but I trust I'll be refreshed to find new ways to look at friendly ol' Fredericton upon my return.

Day 24 - Schwartz's Heaven

A bitterly cold day in Montreal (- 35 or lower with wind chill) didn't stop us from tracking down Schwartz's deli for a smoked meat sandwich.

What a fantastic place. Despite its fame, Schwartz's remains an unassuming little diner with plenty of staff and big crowds from opening to close. We got there just before the lunch-hour rush and got a table right away, despite the fact that most of the place was packed.

Fast service and great food make it an excellent lunch choice. I know, the photos aren't anything spectacular but the food certainly is.

If I could go back (and I'd indeed like to go back) and try to find a way to even out the light in the top picture, since the flash bleached out the pickle a bit and left the sandwich itself too dark. Probably moving back a bit and using the zoom more would have helped. Oh well. The pictures still do a nice job of capturing the flavour of the food and the place itself, I think.

Day 23 - Egg's Wide Shut

A fun photo from Montreal. In this case, we were sitting having breakfast at a little place near the Musee des Arts Contemporiares with a view of the front facade of the museum.

We loved the photo of someone's eyes on a banner on the building (we think they're Tom Cruise's eyes) so I took some pictures of that banner. Then I realised that the little egg on the railing beside our table could be framed into the photo so that it would look like Tom's staring at it with some incredulity. I think it works pretty well, don't you?

It's too cold here to spend a lot of time outdoors trying to create beautiful panaromas so I'm pleased to have come up with this fun inside-outside shot for today.

Day 22 - Magnificent Montreal

Okay, this is NOT Fredericton. This is Old Montreal. This gorgeous angel in lights is just one of three that adorn the glorious Notre Dame Basilica which is located just two blocks from our hotel.

We've been in this beautiful city for less than six hours and we've already had a fantastic lunch of Chinese food, a fun walk through part of Chinatown, a coffee break featuring mochaccino and chocolate croissant from Reza (see small photo below), and then a quick tour of some of Old Montreal's interesting shops.

Now we're back at the Hotel Nelligan, enjoying a glass of wine and resting up for an evening out. Too bad it's so cold. No colder than New Brunswick, I think, but still pretty darned cold.

Tomorrow, we have an entire day to explore the city and find two more great restaurants to please our palates.

We had planned to check out the various museums and galleries that are sprinkled around the city but, after seeing so many fabulous shops right here in Old Montreal, we're serious considering giving the official places a miss and just wondering the shops. Of course, we are hopeful of finding a nice jazz club and maybe some live comedy to enjoy as well.

Ahhh Montreal...

Day 21 - A High Five

I call this photograph "York Street High Five". Can you guess why?

That's right. The street sign says "York Street" and the red "Don't Walk" hand combines with the number that tells you how many seconds you have left to cross to send a clear "High Five" message.

I like busy shots like this, with many shapes, colours and lines intersecting and crossing around the frame. For some reason, I feel that this kind of picture captures the feeling of the city, with so much going on and so many people going in different directions.

I know, I know. Some day I'll have to start including people in these shots. Soon, I promise, soon. The more I'm seen downtown with my camera, the more people express an interest so, one of these days, I'm going to ask one to be a subject for a picture.

Day 20 - A Sign of Old Times

I knew there would be days like this. I went for my usual lunch-hour walk in the bitterly cold wind and felt completely uninspired. I tried to take interesting photographs of icicles, strangely-coloured buildings, street scenes, but nothing really worked out.

I did, however, find myself drawn to a number of old-style commercial signs that still dot downtown Fredericton, including this one for George's Clothing [and] Footwear. The photograph itself is nothing to write home about (it wasn't even very nicely composed before I did some editing) but I do like the look of this sign, its colours and its nostalgic feel. George's isn't around any more: it closed just last summer before I had a chance to visit. Too bad, too. I find the sign quite inviting.

Day 19 - A Banner Effort

Banners at the New Brunswick Craft College near historic Officer's Square are the subject of today's photograph. I liked the warm, rich colours of them, set against the flatter red brick of the building. It's almost as if a vivid, lively world is trying to jump out of the bland reality of the brick and mortar.

I also like the straight lines of the banners themselves in contrast to the rounder images they contain. This is a simple point-and-shoot photograph, shot on my lunch-hour, that turned out pretty well, I think.

Day 18 - Historic UNB (Number 1)

A walk up the hill at twilight gave me a nice opportunity to capture the University of New Brunswick's beautiful, historic Fredericton campus bathed in a gentle light.

Built on the side of the river valley, UNB features as its central building Sir Howard Douglas Hall, better known as the Old Arts Building, which is to be found just to the right of this photograph. Old Arts is a massive stone structure that dates back about 200 years and serves as the central administrative building.

All the other older buildings on campus are either made of red brick or wood, creating a beautiful scene for the students, staff and faculty. The only challenge: the hill itself. You get quite a workout trying to walk the campus. But it does create a dramatic effect in photos like this one, which features a line of lamp-posts and a second of trees escorting the narrow path upwards in to the centre of the University.

This shot is all about composition and light. And it will likely be the first of many featuring the attractions of UNB this year.

Day 17 - Reflections of Tuscany

I love this picture. I took advantage of the late-afternoon sun shining on the Beaverbrook Crown Plaza hotel in downtown Fredericton to capture its image reflected in the bank of windows on the front of the city's new convention centre. I took several photos like this, most of which had much crisper, brighter images of the hotel's reflection, but this one, with its pastel colouring and stepped fragmentation of the reflected building in the middle layer, made me think of a hill-top village in Tuscany.

Reflections like this are popular in "arty" photography because you never seem to know what you are going to get. In this case, I was taken completely by surprise when I saw this shot. I like the three layers of images, the colour and the warmth of the reflection. I guess I don't have to tell you but I'm very happy with this photograph.

Day 16 - Basic Sunshine-Through-Trees Shot

Sometimes I wonder if every possible photograph has already been taken. Today's shot is quite nice, I think, with the sun peeking through the snow-laden trees but I have no doubt the same picture has been taken dozens of times before.

Still, there is something lovely about the star-like quality of the sun as it makes its way through the branches. Needless to say, you would never point your camera's lens directly at the sun except through some kind of filter and the trees (and snow) here do an excellent job of taming the brilliance, transforming it into something special.

This photograph is also my way of telling the world that Fredericton has had a spectacular winter so far: not too cold, not too much wind, and just enough snow to soften all the lines. Plenty of sunshine too.

Day 15 - Hand Study

For the second day in a row, I'm going with an extreme close-up taken using the zoom on my Olympus camera. In this case, two hands cradle the liner notes from a James Brown CD at a friend's apartment.

The zoom combines with the use of the camera's built-in flash to give exquisite detail to both the natural and created forms in the shot. I especially like the foreshortened presentation of the fingers on the hand in the left side of the frame, the lines they create and the contrast between their skin tone and the black and white of the album notes.

Day 14 - Puppy Close Up

A busy day running around meant I had little time with the camera. Time to take an extreme close-up of Marlee's face, to capture the beauty of her brown eye.

Though the camera's point-and-shoot set up offers little in the way of adaptability to certain situations, it does handle close up shots fairly well, especially when you use the extreme (18x) zoom function. The zoom allows the photographer to get up close and personal without giving the subject warning that you're taking their picture. Here, Marlee was more focused on her mom on than on the camera, giving me a chance to get a nice, clear shot of her face from the side.

Day 13 - Flash or No Flash

A bit of a cheat today, since I actually took these two photographs just after 11 p.m. last night. We were walking the dog in the continuing snowstorm and I brought the camera along to practice low-light shots. I took the top picture first, without a flash, holding the camera as steady as possible. I think it's quite pretty. I then took the second shot of the exact same scene, this time with a flash. An amazing difference.

In the first, the whole scene is visible but dimly lit. The street lamp shines through and the entire image has a yellowish tone. In the second, with the flash, the individual snow flakes near the camera are brilliantly lit and stand out, while the background fades into
darkness and the street lamp is a fuzzy ball.

I think they're both interesting pictures but I am most fascinated by the differences between the two. When we looked at them in iPhoto, I kept flipping from one to the other in rapid succession. It made for a really neat effect.

Day 12 - Nighttime on Snowy Streets

A night scene from the snowy streets of Fredericton. As the snow began to come down, traffic snarled and intersections like this one became sources of entertainment (for those of us on foot) and frustration (for the people inside the cars).

This kind of picture is very hard to take, especially when you haven't figured out how to adjust the camera's aperture and shutter speed. When it's basically point-and-shoot, the camera deals with the lower light situation by slowing down the shutter speed (keeping the shutter open longer), which means the shake of your hand might just cause the image to blur. From what I understand, any shutter speed slower than 1/60 of a second will show that shake.

Imagine what it's like to take a photo in the cold, with bare, shivering hands and a slow shutter speed. That's the challenge I faced. Still, I like the colours of this photo and the dramatic light/dark contrast.

Day 11 - Some Perspective

I thought I'd bring a little perspective to the blog. I like this photograph of an alleyway in downtown Fredericton because of the lines leading back to the wooden doors in the background. The perspective of the shot makes the two walls look like they're leaning back toward the doors, while the tire tracks in the snow also add to the effect.

It's a simple composition that I find quite pleasing and I think the colours, though muted and somewhat pastel, are nice as well.

The contrast between the older brick building on the left and the newer, cleaner lines of the concrete block building on the right also add visual interest to the shot. Funny, I walked past this alley several times before finally deciding to photograph it. I'm glad I did. Best shot of the day by far.

Day 10 - A Fredericton Funny

Read's/Reid's is a bookstore/cafe in downtown Fredericton. I'm not sure if the conflicting signs are a mistake or a Fredericton funny, a joke aimed at all of us who live in the capital of New Brunswick. I sometimes wonder if the Reids own it and the goal of the store itself is to make sure that everyone in the city Reads.

One of the things I like about photography is the many ways you can make a shot interesting: through composition, colour, texture, lighting or, as in this case, simply the content of the photograph. I don't see this one as a work of art by any means but I like the way the very simple composition captures the conflict between the signs. I also quite like the tree branches in the top left corner.

I'm still finding having to choose one photo per day very hard. But my brother-in-law insists that I do. No more two- or three-shot days, he tells me. Okay. We'll keep it to one.

Day 9 - The Birthday Puppy

Today features the first of what might be too many photographs of our beloved golden doodle, Marlee Marie. Marlee makes her first appearance today because it's her birthday! She turned four this morning, which is approximately equivalent to 28 in human years.

Another first is that this photograph was not actually taken by me. My partner, Patti, took this interesting picture of Marlee doing the "happy dance" in the snow in our backyard. She used the same Olympus camera I've been using every day. I find the picture interesting on many accounts but most importantly that it's taken after dark, with light be provided by the camera's own flash and an LL Bean head lamp doo-dad that we use for walking Marlee at night. The glowing things on Marlee's legs are reflector straps she received for Christmas from an aunt in Toronto, useful for making sure Marlee's visible to car drivers on her many night-time walks around the neighbourhood.

Happy birthday, Marlee. Let's hope your fifth year on the planet doesn't include too many appearances in this photo-a-day blog. No promises, though.

Day 8 - A Close Call

Well, the fire is now out, the fire department has left and the pot of formerly burning canola oil is buried in a heap of snow until tomorrow.

So much for my attempt to make Oliebollen, the traditional Dutch new-year's treat. Too bad, too, since they actually looked great before the fire.

Sometimes life just hands you a photograph, I guess. It's not art but it's life. And thank goodness it is life because, from the way the fire was raging for a while there, it could have been something much worse. And, of course, I find out only after I carried the burning pot out into the yard to get it out of the house that carrying it is precisely what you should not do. As one website said, that's how most people find themselves engulfed in flames.

But, we're all alive and well and unburnt. We're short one pot but, other than that, no damage. Special thanks go to the Fredericton Fire Department and our friend Patty, who hurried over with a working extinguisher when we found out, to our horror, that the brand new extinguisher we had standing ready was empty.

Day 7 - Low Light Still Life

Without much time on my lunch hour for photography, I was forced to improvise this shot. I took it in a local restaurant while I waited for a friend to join me.

I'm actually quite pleased with it. I like the quality of the light, the various shades of red, the complementary shapes of the lamp and the salt and pepper shakers and the overall structure of the shot.

Low light pictures are always difficult but especially with a point-and-shoot camera. I know that I am able to use the onboard computer to adjust the shutter speed and open the aperture somewhat but I still haven't delved that deep into the instruction manual. As a result, I tried to overcome the low light conditions by placing the camera on the table-top, using the lens cap to raise its angle, then very carefully hitting the shutter release button, trusting the camera's computer to compensate for the lack of light by opening the aperture as wide as possible and slowing the shutter down.

At that point, the biggest worry is the shake of my hand causing a blur in the picture. For once, that ridiculous digital-camera delay between me pressing the shutter release and the camera actually taking the picture worked for me: the delayed reaction meant my shaking finger was well away from the camera and it had become still again before the aperture clicked slowly open and closed.

Day 6 - In Memoriam

On another snowy, cold day I used my lunch hour to visit a Loyalist graveyard in the heart of downtown Fredericton. I like graveyards: I find them visually interesting and quite peaceful. In this case, the cemetery is a major walking throughfare for Frederictonians but I kind of like that.

I came away disappointed with the pictures I took but, in contrast to yesterday, I was actually pleased with what I found when I reviewed my photos on the computer. In fact, it turned into a fairly difficult choice and, again, I succumbed to the lure of publishing two, rather than making the final decision.

The first picture shows a tall grave marker, taken with a tree trunk blurred in the background. I like the similarities and contrasts in their shapes and colours and, when I first saw this photo, I was quite struck by it.

The second is much simpler but equally striking, I think. A tiny stone marker, almost buried in the snow. The marker has been worn by time such that the inscription is no longer visible and the snow, which almost swallows up the stone itself, adds to the feeling that a soul has been forgotten, left behind by the passage of time.

Day 5 - The First Animal Picture

An uninspired day, I'm afraid. I went for a walk along the Saint John River on my lunch hour, hoping to find an interesting shot. I thought I found it in a new wood fence that curved along the path but, when I got the pictures onto my computer for review, I found them to be rather boring.

So I guess we'll go with this sweet picture of a squirrel hiding from me among the branches of a tree. One of my real frustrations with my camera is that I have no control over the focus and often, when you're trying to take pictures like this, the lens focuses on the branches in front rather than the critter hidden among them.

Thankfully, it worked out better this time.

Day 4 - Downtown Shadows

I had hoped to capture the cold today. Fredericton endured a bitterly cold, windy winter day today and my goal, in setting out with camera in hand on my lunch hour, was to find some way to create a photographic image of cold.

I had been successful at just that task more than 20 years ago in Cambridge, Ontario, when I worked for a newspaper there. I managed to get a really neat photo of a couple of construction workers, in heavy coats, knit caps and mittens, blowing on their hands in vivid detail in the foreground with a line of stiff-looking flags slightly out of focus behind them. It was a great shot and a number of people told me it made them actually feel the cold.

Today, I was not so fortunate. While I found some flags in front of Fredericton's historic city hall building, they were too colourful and too breezy. It didn't help that the sky, instead of offering scudding clouds, was pure, almost warm blue. And no well-chilled construction workers offered themselves up to my camera.

I'm pleased, however, that I was able to take what I think is an interesting alternative shot: I like the brightness of the brick and the crispness of both the metal sign, "City Hall", as well as its shadow, on the wall below. Once again, the framing took place on-site so I didn't even have to crop the shot for today's blog.

Day 3 - Snow Painting

I don't think there is much in nature that can rival a landscape painted with fluffy white snow. The crystal brushstrokes soften lines, highlight colours and bring a wonderful freshness to everything they touch, whether natural or artificial.

With 15 or so new centimetres of snow scattered around the city, Fredericton took on a magical look today, making the job of taking pictures easy but the job of choosing pictures hard. I went out about mid-morning and, in a three-block walk, snapped off about thirty photographs, any one of which I would have been proud to post here.

The top picture shows a narrow laneway between two streets in the city, with the trees that drape the scene beautifully covered with new-fallen snow. The middle picture, my personal fave, is a slightly cropped close-up of a long-needle tree (do NOT ask me to name it) painted with snow.

The last photo is a little more creative, with an extreme close-up of the snow-speckled name-plate of a battered old pick up truck. Even this banal little sign is made lovely by the flakes of snow. Now, I'm realizing that Blogspot offers only a limited amount of space for each blog so I think I'm going to have to be a bit more selective with how many photos I post per day.

Still, I think my project is off to a pretty good start.

Day 2 - Goodbye To Christmas

Day two of my photographic journey finds me mostly indoors, with a thick, soft rain making the outside world no fun at all. So I stuck to inside subjects and found myself pleased with the colour and texture of this shot of Patti's hand-made popcorn-and-cranberry string on our Christmas tree. I like the curve of the string against the more rigid lines of the needles and branches of the background.

The challenge here was to find a portion of the string that showed up well, to frame it properly and then to find the appropriate combination of zoom and distance from the subject to ensure proper focus. I took several shots where the combination wasn't quite right and the string was not entirely in focus. But this one, I think, turned out well.

And it provides a lovely reminder of Patti's work to make this year's tree a special one.

Day One: Winter Scenes

Day one brings an absolutely beautiful January day here in New Brunswick.


With the lovely weather today, I spent as much time birding as taking pictures but, unfortunately, the camera couldn't catch the two beautiful nuthatches that my binoculars found. Still, the day's winning photograph shows the patterns of light and shadow on a path in Fredericton's Odell Park, making an interesting pattern with the many tracks people have left in the slowly melting snow.

The runner up is an interesting shot of two paw prints in the snow. It looks like a dog managed to place her the left toe of one paw right into the print of the right toe from the other, so that the two separate paws meld into one design.

Both shots were taken with the camera on its automatic settings, so it was simply a matter of point and shoot. And I was pleased with the framing and composition I captured in the original photograph so I didn't have to use iPhoto for any cropping of the shots. All in all, a pretty good start to my project, I think.