Day 181 - A dragonfly drops by

Today, we offer a collection of photographs of a dragonfly that visited me and my friend Lisa as we ate a nice lunch on the sidewalk patio at the Palette in downtown Fredericton. He was quite a friendly little guy, not too intrusive, and rather interested in what we were doing. His casual attitude gave us plenty of time to get the camera ready and snap a number of photographs.

This time, the Olympus' autofocus was up to the challenge. Both Lisa and I had good luck getting some close up photos of the insect as he posed for us on the railing of the patio. On a couple of the shots, perhaps surprisingly, his head was out of focus; in others, his tail was a bit fuzzy. But in most of them, the focus was surprisingly crisp. Neither of us felt like attempting to set the controls manually, so we counted on the automatic settings to do the job. And they came through as well.

We enjoyed a lovely lunch at Freddie's best lunch location and didn't mind having this critter joining in. It was only at the end, when he decided he needed to sit on Lisa's shoulder, that he wore out his welcome. But just look at the amazing details in these shots. What a strange looking character.

Day 180 - Of signs, flags and banners

A simple composition of objects creates this pleasing photograph of the decorations of downtown Fredericton.

I like the way the Garrison district banner mirrors the layout of the Canadian Flag, with its reddish bars bracketing the central section. I like the reds, the greens and the blues of the photograph and the way the flag is caught just slightly in a breeze, just enough to blow it out in front of the insurance sign that rotates behind it.

This is an example of how even the simplest looking shot can take some time to create. I must have taken 20 minutes and at least 30 shots trying to get the flag and sign to line up just right. I wanted the flag to be billowing gently and the sign to be there but not intrusive. It took some time to get everything to work together to make this shot.

Day 179 - Splashes and Sky (for Elizabeth)

My sister-in-law, Elizabeth, has kindly let me know that she loves the shots of water drops and wants many more of them to appear on this blog throughout the rest of the year.

Well, Elizabeth, this one's for you.

Another brilliant, sunny day gave me the chance to return to the fountain in front of Fredericton City Hall to experiment some more with the challenges posed by the combination of moving water and auto-focus camera. This time, I positioned myself so that the water jet jumped up between me and the noon sun. This made the water sparkle, used the beautiful blue sky as background and filled the camera with light, allowing me to push the shutter speed (1/1000th) while still keeping the aperture fairly tight (f5.6).

The big question mark was the auto-focus. Could it "find" the water?

Apparently, yes. This time there was sufficient mass to the water for a consistent enough period of time that the camera found it and focused on it. And the sunlight coming through the water makes the drops look like diamonds, dancing against the gorgeous sky. I find that these shots make me feel happy. If water can feel joy, then this water's feeling it.

These two shots also gave me the chance to experiment a little bit with iPhoto's photograph editing functions: notice how much lighter the lower photo is, how much less dense the blue of the sky is and how much softer the water looks. I've posted both because I can't decide which look I like best. What do you think?

Day 178 - Street Scene with Saxophone

I spent a lovely half hour on my lunch, sitting on a shaded bench on Queen Street, taking photos and listening to a saxophonist running through her paces.

There's something nice about the sound of a tenor sax and the way if carries through the street. When I took this photograph, I was trying less to capture the young woman and her sax and more a feeling of the street upon which she was playing.

I like the crowded feeling of the shot, with the line of cars, the sidewalk advertising, the red and white spinner for Canada Day and the briefly glimpsed hands and arms of the pedestrians passing by. The saxophonist is not so much the subject of the shot as an integral part of the entire scene and, if I could capture her music "on film", I would have done that too.

This photo was taken at full zoom, with a necessarily slow shutter speed and wide aperture, which results in focus being lost at some levels of the picture. Still, I'm pleased with the way it seems to capture the mood I was looking for. And I like the intense concentration on her face as she entertains the world.

Day 177 - Electrical doo-dads in front of a river scene

A detail from the old railway bridge (now a walking bridge) across the St. John River in downtown Fredericton, this photograph captures the shapes of the electrical connections that run the length of the bridge's infrastructure.

I like this photograph for many reasons, not the least of which is the monochrome nature of the image that is created by the cloudy day. I also like the horizontal lines of the steel beams, marked by the outcroppings of the electrical doo-dads themselves. And I like the fact that there is a beautiful river image somewhere back there which is all but obscured by the industrial gadgets in the foreground.

Light balance is the key to this shot. You want to get enough light in to make the doo-dads visible but not so much that you lose the detail in the background. Without direct sun, this means sacrificing something. I chose to let the doo-dads go a little darker so that the river in the background stands out as beset it can. The doo-dads become slightly more than shapes against the lovely scene.

Day 176 - Sectioning off the view

Today's photograph comes from downtown Fredericton. I have been walking past the old barracks in the Garrison area for months now but only today did I see the columns of this building (I think it's a guard house or something) and how they neatly section off the view.

The central area between the historic buildings has become something of a lunch-time hang out for people who work downtown, a great place to eat a sandwich and talk. Sometimes I wonder if they see the beauty that surrounds them or if they are so used to it that is fades into mere background for them.

I like this photo for a number of reasons: the line of white pillars that parse the image of the picnic tables and the people at them; the way the balcony of the distant building to the left echos the same vertical lines; the fact that the huge white delivery truck finally moved so that I could get the photograph without it dominating the view.

Day 175 - A scramble of roof tops

Sometimes the best way to see things in a new and different way is to get close, real close. That's when it's nice to have an 18-times zoom lens on your Olympus, so that you can stand on the sidewalk and get a close-up of the tops of interesting buildings.

To be honest with you, I can't for the life of me remember which buildings these come from but I really like the collage of shapes and colours that brings life to this photograph.

In it, you can see three separate elements that come from the ornately decorated roofs of one, two or three buildings. I think they might be all from the same edifice, since the colours of the two closer buildings match and the shapes in wrought iron on the top of the two to the right are also quite similar. If I had my guess, I'd say this is a photo of the various bits of the top of the City Hall building in downtown Fredericton but I may be wrong about that.

Whatever they are, I think they build together into a very interesting picture.

Day 174 - An armada of clouds scudding

As you may have noticed, I have spent some time over the past couple of days trying to take a decent picture of the sky. We've had some amazing weather of late, with warm, breezy days and skies filled with armadas of puffy clouds, perfect for my experiments.

So you can imagine how delighted I was when this little gem popped up on the iMac. I find the sky and clouds breathtaking and, with a little bit of cropping, I'm happy with the land/sky balance. I had to over-ride the light meter to make sure the details of the clouds showed up but I think it worked out really well.

Yes, it's quite similar to a couple of other photographs I've posted over the past couple of weeks but that doesn't mean it's not worth posting on its own.

Day 173 - A large and lively spray of lilies

Fredericton comes alive with flowers in the summer in a way no other community in which I've lived has done in the past. Everywhere you turn, flowers. And not just one or two: large stands of them.

In this case, another sunny, breezy day took me down to the river bank again on my lunch hour. I wandered toward the ramps that lead to pedestrian bridge over the road to the river and I decided to check out what was under and around those ramps.

You've probably guessed it. Flowers. Lilacs in particular but also these lovely yellow lilies (or whatever). A large spray of them behind a wood fence. With the sun in just the right place to bring out the vivid colour, all I had to do was point and shoot. A nicely balanced, very intensely yellow photograph.

Day 172 - I've looked at clouds

I'm pleased with the horizontal balance of this photograph of Fredericton's north side, taken from the shores of the St. John River at the city's downtown.

I like the way the frame is divided into thirds: clouds, city and river, with its line of bridge supports. I am pleased especially with the drama of the top layer. We've had some pretty amazing days lately, with warm temperatures, high winds and dramatic skies and these clouds are some of the best we've seen. In this photo, it almost looks like I added them later.

No tricks here. Just a wide open aperture, a decently fast shutter speed and some care in creating the composition.

Day 171 - Reflections on an interesting shot

There are a number of reasons I chose this photograph for today's post.

First of all, I like it. A lot. And, second, I'm not sure everyone will be able to figure out what it is, at least at first glance. And, third, despite a particularly interesting day (a deep blue sky filled with puffy white clouds), I didn't get a lot of good photographs during my lunch-hour meanderings. This one was by far the best one.

It was a tricky little shot to get right. For example, the reflectiveness of the surface gave the auto-focus fits. Then, the light metre had a hard time dealing wit the conflict between the darkness of the surface and the brightness of the reflected light. Still, after playing with the manual settings on the Olympus for a bit, I finally got this one right. It's a reflection of the sky, some trees and the tower of the Fredericton City Hall tower on the contoured hood of a deep blue late-model Corvette.

Day 170 - Take me to the river

The Fredericton Marina on a bright, sunny day provides the subject matter for today's photograph.

I looked for a way to make an otherwise fairly standard shot (a line of boats) a little more interesting. That's why I framed the picture to include the curved wood railing in the foreground, thinking that the curve of the railing would echo the curve of the line of boats.

It's a pretty peaceful scene, with nice colours and pretty boats. You can even see the buoys from yesterday's shot. I like this photograph. I just wish it had more pizzazz.

Day 169 - Out with the buoys

I think of photographs like this one of buoys on the St. John River near the Fredericton Marina as "puzzle pictures". They remind of the puzzles I'd often do with my mother, both when as I was a child and after her retirement. So they bring back a lot of happy memories and the feeling of quiet contentment and companionship.

And I like the image itself. The repetition of the shapes, the one yellow buoy among the several white ones, even the bright blue rings on the top of two of the white balls. The water is nice too: a gentle breeze creates colour an interesting texture, provides variation to the colour of the water and makes the reflections of the buoys a little more interesting as well.

It's a snapshot, really, but still quite nice, if I do say so myself.

Day 168 - Spotting the Beaverbrook Leopard

Jonathan Kenworthy did most of the work to make this fabulous photograph: he sculpted this beautiful leopard which now prowls outside the front doors of the Beaverbrook Art Gallery in downtown Fredericton.

The Beaverbook Art Gallery is well known for its recent battle against the England-based Beaverbrook Trust over the ownership of a large number of very valuable paintings. We visited the Gallery for the first time a couple of weeks ago and it is a really impressive place.

Kenworthy's sculpture, appropriately title "The Leopard", guards the door, probably from more greedy Englishmen. And it provides the photographer with an excellent opportunity to practice his composition: how do I make this really powerful sculpture look new and different?

It looks great with a brilliant blue sky as background but I was especially pleased with this framing: the Leopard against a mottled forest scene.

Day 167 - Incredible colours on a beautiful day

Back to the water experiments, this time with the lovely fountain on the green near the St. John River in Fredericton. Another unbelievably beautiful day brought the downtown workers out in force on their lunch hour to enjoy a walk, run or ride in the sunlight.

And the bright sun makes the colours absolutely unbelievable. Like the blue blue sky and the creams and rusty reds of the underside of the fountain's bowl. The Olympus is still not quite able to get the kind of water-drop photograph I'm hoping for (I think it's a combination of the auto-focus delay and the fact that I haven't quite mastered the macro-photo mode) but, with the colours and the glistening drips, I'm still pretty happy with this shot.

Someday I'll have a camera that can shoot at even wider apertures and faster shutter speeds, where I can control the focus better and get the pictures I can see in my mind.

Until then, however, I'll have to rely on the ol' Olympus and continue to try to find ways for it to work for me.

I include the smaller photo because, even though the focus isn't great, I think the colours are even more stunning in this one than in the first shot of this entry. That's the kind of thing you get when you ignore the light metre and close the aperture a bit to limit the light. I just love the greens in the background as well as the deeper gold tones of the bottom of the bowl. I just wish it was in focus!!!

Day 166 - I'm walking, yes indeed

The walking bridge provides this interesting perspective on the Anglican Cathedral located just east of Fredericton's downtown core.

A converted train bridge, the walking bridge provides much needed access between the city's north and south sides for pedestrians, cyclists, bladers and joggers. On a sunny day like this, the bridge is always busy, especially during the lunch hour when downtown workers get out to stretch their legs.

I like the way the rusting metal struts of the bridge's structure frame the steeple of the church as it rises from the distant trees. The Olympus' autofocus made this a bit of a troublesome shot: I had to give up on my plan to use a short depth of focus to blur out the struts and keep the cathedral spire sharp. No matter how hard I tried, the camera kept finding the struts instead. So I opened the aperture wide and decided to let the composition and colours carry the photograph.

Day 165 - Out of my depth (of focus)

Back to Scott's Nursery for this photograph of a massive display of herb plants. Taken under very low light conditions, this shot shows depth of focus in stark terms.

With very little light (natural or artificial) inside the greenhouse on a cloudy day, I slowed the shutter speed down as far as I could while still eliminating the shake of my hand from the shot (so 1/60th of a second). Even then, I was forced to open the Olympus' aperture up as wide as it would go (I think it was f3.2) to get enough light into the camera.

The wide aperture meant that my depth of focus was very short, as you can see from the photo. The first row is out of focus, the second and maybe the third are crisp, then the rest of the rows fading into the background are also out of focus. It's a neat effect but it's also interesting evidence of how the available light can impact the kind of photo you can take.

Day 164 - Spectacular Rhodos overwhelm the camera

After visiting Rowan's yesterday, we moved along the highway to Scott's Nurseries, where I set myself up at the rhododendron display, trying to get a nice photograph of both the flowers and the dozens of bumble bees that were enjoying them. (Unfortunately, by the way, auto-focus and busy bees don't seem to mix.)

One of the staff members saw me there and said, "If you like rhodos, you should check out the display at the grounds keeper's house at the Experimental Farm. Right now, it's pretty spectacular."

So we made a special trip out to see them. Wow. Was it ever worth it! The mounds of flowers in vibrant colours amazed us. There were so many, not even my wide-angle lens could capture them all. And on an overcast day, the light wasn't sufficient to transfer the vibrancy of the many colours into the camera's memory. This large photo is the most vivid of the bunch and it only conveys a small taste of the intensity of the experience of actually being there.

The rhodos must fill an area the size of a football field, with paths in, around and through them. In places, they rise more than twenty feet in the air (see lower photo and, remember, those are not short women). The bugs, mind you, were absolutely insane near the bushes but even that didn't stop us from spending a half hour "browsing" the area, taking pictures and enjoying the experience. It helped that the many bugs and the millions of flowers served to attract a number of birds to the area, adding to the already spectacular visit.

Day 163 - There's nothing better than a nursery...

A trip to Rowan's garden centre and nursery provided ample opportunity to supplement my photo library. You won't find much better than a well-planned nursery for photo opportunities!

In this case, the auto-focus found a flower (please don't ask me to try to identify it) about ten feet from the lens and, because of the low-light conditions, rendered everything else in (at best) soft focus to create a truly memorable photograph.

I think the result is quite lovely, with lots of colour and an abundance of soft focus to make the single flower spectacular.

Day 162 - Abstract art at the Happy Baker

There is something about a long-exposure photograph. Especially the depth and warmth of its colours.

This photograph proves why I should always have my camera with me. While sitting at a table on the Happy Baker patio (which patio, by the way, is inside the HSBC Building in downtown Fredericton) waiting for Patti to buy her lunch, I started playing with the Olympus and its manual settings. In this case, the slow shutter speeds and wide aperture forced by the low-light conditions.

The only way to take the photo, of course, is to set the camera on the table, set it appropriately, then touch the shutter release. It's hard to aim so I just try a number of different angles and zoom settings, trying my best to keep humans out of frame.

In this case, I'm pleased with the colours, the composition and the combination of shapes (the red folder, the greeny-black chair backs, the shiny table top). The Happy Baker is not only tastey, but photogenic as well!

Day 161 - No great camera skills necessary

Another beautiful day, another waterfront stroll on my lunch hour. This lighthouse dominates the Fredericton riverbank on the south side of the St. John and makes for a very picturesque scene with the pedestrian bridge in the background.

City designers kind of wrecked things by placing one of the main access roads onto the bridge to the North Side right along the waterfront but some careful framing can serve to reduce the visual damage somewhat. Just a snapshot but you don't need great camera skills to get a good picture of a lovely scene.

Day 160 - And the flowers that dazzle

I've said it before, probably too often, but there's something about direct sunlight that makes photography easy.

In this case, the late afternoon sun sets these flowers - are they flowers if they're on a tree? - aglow, creating a wonderful contrast between the dark green of the trees in the background and the crisp white of the flowers. And the leaves on the branch in the foreground also take on a lovely lustre with the sun behind them.

It's a bit of a trick to get the camera's settings right, since the light metre wants to say there's too much light or not enough light, depending on precisely where you're pointing the camera. And the autofocus struggles as well, forcing you to be very careful to ensure that it finds the flowers rather than the background trees.

I tried a number of different settings and decided on this one because I liked how bright the white flowers are. It was a bit of a battle to get the shot but the effort is worth it.

Day 159 - Funtime Freddie and the speed boat

A different view of Fredericton. This time, it's funtime Freddie, the water resort. With the St. John River almost as smooth as glass and a brilliant sun setting the tin roof of a distant house on fire, New Brunswick's capital city comes alive with summer fun.

It was the roof and its reflection that caught my eye as I strolled along the riverbank during my lunch hour today but the speed boat flashing by in front of the house made this photograph even better. I was fortunate that I had just switched the Olympus to its manual setting and pushed the shutter speed to 1/1000th of a second for a couple of shots: that really worked to freeze the boat in flight. The bright sun meant the aperture could still remain tiny, creating the nice crisp focus throughout the image.

It's Fredericton like we've never seen her.

Day 158 - I think.... it's a house finch

I took all of one photograph today. Just one. And this is it.

I got home from work, looked back to our gravel drive just below the side porch and saw this brilliantly coloured little guy. He's actually a frequent visitor to our side drive but I can never seem to get him to stay put long enough for me to find the camera and get a decent shot of him. He's a bit of a nervous little fellow.

So today I changed tactics. I gave up trying to shoot over the railing but, instead, to shoot through it, using the railing as a sort of camouflage so as not to scare him. Of course, that put me at the mercy of the Olympus' auto-focus, which generally doesn't do well with objects between the camera and the subject. It tends to find the closest object, especially if it is anywhere near the centre of the frame.

That's why I'm so pleased with this shot. I somehow managed to get the autofocus to read past the slats in the railing and capture the bird. Of course, he's not quite centred but what can I do? You take the shot life gives you.

And then I had to work out what kind of a bird he is. House finches and purple finches can look so much alike. But I think, based on the shape of his head, the vibrancy of his colour and the fact that the colour is limited to his forehead and his chest, that this little guy is a house finch. And he's beautiful.

Day 157 (again) - A garden of sorts

There is beauty even in the vilest weed.

I have spent a great deal of time over the past couple of weeks trying to eradicate an infestation of dandelions from our lawn, particularly the front lawn near the road. I've become a little bit obsessed with the battle, to be honest, and I think I might be gaining the upperhand. Finally.

Then along comes another sunny day and I find these little bulbs beautifully lit on the side of a hill on my way home from work. In this case, I opened the aperture up as far as I could in the sun (in order to create a very slight depth of focus) and push the shutter speed to keep the light at a useful level. Dandelions suddenly don't look so bad.

Day 157 - What do you do?

What do you do as a photo blogger when Blogger won't upload your photos?

Day 156 - That layered look

My original reason for taking the series of photographs of which this one is a part was to capture the vivid late-afternoon sunlight that was setting the leaves on the trees on fire.

Just look at the red in the background, jumping out at you in the sunbeams, and the warm greens of the tree in the top right corner of the frame, glowing in the light.

But then I realised just how amazing the layered look was, with the blurred, darkened figure in the foreground, backed by the closest tree, the house and then the trees beyond.

I tried a variety of shots of this arrangement but decided that the fairly tight framing of this one, as opposed to the wider angles I had also taken, work the best. I saw the sunlight first but, once I had taken the pictures, I realised that there was a whole lot more to the image than just the brilliant sunlight and beautiful colours.

Day 155 - Wilmot among the trees

It's been a long time since I featured the lovely Wilmot United Church on this blog, hasn't it? I mean, at least a week, maybe close to two. That's probably a record.

I took this photograph while wandering around downtown Fredericton, trying to find new views, new things to shoot. Taken from the Loyalist Cemetery, this shot creates a nice mix of the natural and the artificial, with the lovely tree, darkened in the foreground, and the lovely church, in bright light beyond.

Two challenges, of course. First, the focus issue with the auto-focus problems I've always faced. I solved them here simply by closing the aperture down to f8 and trusting the depth of focus to save the day. I wanted the church to be crisp and wasn't too worried about allowing the tree to lose a little focus.

Second, the question of how much light to let in. Since I wanted the aperture as small as possible, I adjusted the amount of light through the use of shutter speed. I took one version at a somewhat higher speed but I felt that the tree got too dark, making the entire shot seem somber. So I went with this photograph, understanding that the church in this one might be a little too bright for some people. Without playing with the photograph in iPhoto, I wasn't going to be able to get both perfectly lit.

Of course, my brother-in-law Gavin has a website he'll send me to that allows you to combine two or more photos of the same subject to ensure that each element is well lit but I haven't mastered that one yet. He's a lot more technically savvy than I am. (And that's an understatement!).

Day 154 - The lip and the liquid

Back to the fountain at City Hall for this close-up shot of one of the tongue-shaped green chutes and the trickle of water that drips from it.

I think there is much to like about this photograph, even if the lack of light caused by the close-up nature of the shot forced me to slow the shutter down to 1/500th of a second. Instead of crystal clear and crisp drops of water, at that speed you get a more fluid (no pun intended) image of the moving liquid.

I like the rich colour of the chute, the shape and texture of the water and the dark trunk of the fountain below the lip of the chute.

For the purposes of this picture, I battled the auto-focus, which tends to find the object that is either closest to the lens or closest to the centre of the frame. Here, I wanted the lip of the chute to be in the upper third of the frame but in focus: so I had to put the lip in the centre of the shot, press the shutter release half-way down to focus on it, then move the camera to create the composition I want and release the shutter. I'm not sure if it worked perfectly: I worry the lip and the water might be a little bit out of focus.

Day 153 - The accents and flourishes of City Hall

Sometimes, it's all about the framing and composition. In this photograph, I take Michael Freeman's advice seriously and zoom in close to capture the details of the clock tower and roof of the Fredericton City Hall.

I like this building a lot (I'm a fan of red brick, apparently) but I'm having trouble finding new ways of photographing it. It's the same problem I'm having with the United Church in downtown Freddie: I've taken so many pictures of it, I'm struggling to think of new ways to capture it.

One way Freeman suggests to keep photography fresh is to focus on details. Forget about getting the entire building; just try to capture a detail or two that represents its essence.

That's what I tried to do here. To me, the clock tower and the red brick are key to the identity of the building but it is the white wood accents and the cast iron flourishes that make it really remarkable.

Again, not a lot of technical wizardry to this shot. Just a small aperture for a deep focus and lots of light and shadow.

Day 152 - Shadows and Tall Trees

Tree tops. Taken from above in the evening. Long exposure, small aperture, tripod providing the steady base for the Olympus.

A nice surprise with the variety of textures and colours provided by the various types of foliage in the shot. I had to use iPhoto to lighten it a bit and stretch the colours too but I don't mind.

I was again taking photographs of the city from the top of McLeod House residence at UNB and took this picture as a bit of a lark. Didn't expect much and was thoroughly pleased with the result.