Day 211 - Of light and eagles

One of the wonders of New Brunswick is the abundance of large birds of prey, particularly bald eagles and osprey. I've been lucky enough to get great photographs of both breeds of bird: I got within about 20 feet of a massive eagle while kayaking on the St. John River west of Fredericton and took a good osprey shot in Oromocto, where a pair of osprey have built a nest at the top of a pole in a waterfront park.

There also happen to be two osprey nests near the potato research farm in Fredericton as well as a bald eagle nest. It's quite amazing: the nests themselves are massive and their location means we are quite often blessed with close up sightings of these majestic birds.

Today, I happened to be driving by the eagles' nest and spotted not one but two of the eagles in a nearby tree. I got as close as I could (tramping my way through a muddy field and getting caught in a sudden downpour for my troubles) but the eagles seemed content to give me all the time in the world to get their photo.

The biggest challenge, other than the rain and mud, was the available light. It was an overcast day with the bright, diffuse light of such weather. That meant that the birds were merely dark silhouettes against the bright sky background. I set the Olympus on manual and took more than 50 shots, playing all the time with the shutter speed and aperture to adjust the amount of light I let into the lens.

The top photo shows the result when I overexposed the shot in order to try to get some detail on the birds themselves. As you can see, these are juvenile eagles that have yet to develop the characteristic white head, though they already have the regal pose down! The image (and especially the sky) seems a bit bleached out to me, however.

That's why I've included the second photograph. In this one, I bumped the shutter speed up and closed down the aperture, limiting the amount of light that got into the camera. The grey sky now shows through but the eagles (and the tree upon which they sit) are merely silhouettes with no detail.

Even then, I think I prefer the second photograph. It seems to me more dramtic. Which do you like?

Day 210 - Still life on Masonite

I've long since learned not to second guess myself when I find myself snapping photographs of strange things I see as I wander through life. More often than not, a shot I took just for the heck of it turns out to be something I really like.

Such is the case with this image of an iron doodad (believe me, I've tried to figure out what this thing is called but I just can't think of it... an eyelet?) screwed into the siding at the back of our house. I like the shape of the doodad, its colour and its surroundings and I like the shadow it casts in the gentle morning sun.

Taken using the Olympus' automatic settings, this shot turned out to be a happy surprise for me.

Day 209 - Nothin' stacks like a Deere

I'm willing to accept that it's not great art. I'm willing to accept that it's not even great photography. But this picture, for me, speaks of New Brunswick.

Just about everybody has a lawn around here. A big lawn. And, with all the rain we get, that lawn keeps growing all summer long, as opposed to Southern Ontario where, by mid-July, the grass has dried out and stopped growing. So, when you live in Fredericton, you need power in your mower.

We started here with an environmentally friendly, we-all-need-a-little-exercise reel push mower. We had good intentions. But our lawn proved the better of us. After several months of four-hour grass-mowings (I'm serious, four hours each week and often more. It would take me several days to recover), my brother and sister-in-law saw our great need and, as a thank you, bought us an electric mower.

A nice one. Plenty of power. Wide carriage. Nice. The lawn, however, got the better of it. After I had left it too long over a couple of weeks last summer, the electric mower actually caught on fire as it tried to power its way through the long grass.

So now we have a super-powered gas mower. We're environmentally unfriendly, smog-producing New Brunswickans at last! But at least we don't have one of these John Deere ride-em mowers. Yet.

Day 208 - That poor, doomed ball

Warm evening sun warms the colour of Marlee's fur and deepens the blue of the water in this photograph taken the other day at the Mactaquac marina.

The water is clear enough that you see her legs as she paddles but there's also her reflection to contend with, making for an interesting lower half to the dog figure in centre frame.

I'm pleased with the composition of this shot as well, with the location of the bush, dog and finally ball moving your eye from bottom left to top right, in coordination with Marlee's chase of her orange prey. It adds to the sense of action in the photograph, heightens the sense of danger for that poor, doomed ball.

Day 207 - Mactaquac marina in the evening sun

I know I've said it before but I am still in awe at how easy it is to take great pictures when you have sunny day. The sun provides all kinds of different light, depending on the time of day and the atmospheric conditions, making it simple to take vivid, crisp photographs of just about any subject matter.

In this case, the "subject matter" is pretty spectacular too. This is the marina at Mactaquac, with the early evening sun still fairly high in the sky. The water of the bay is calm enough to create vivid reflections of the sun and the fluffy clouds.

I had to take several shots of this to get the exposure right. Again, as in any high-sun situation, you have to chose between getting details of the landscape (the darker areas) or of the sun and clouds (the brighter areas). As usual, I chose detail in the brights and I think the result is beautiful.

Day 206 - A charming country fence

A photograph in duo-tone: brown and green.

This charming country fence presents itself to me every time I take our dog for a walk down the pathways of our neighbourhood. I particularly like the logs from which it is made and the way the designer makes it zig-zag forward through the well-treed property.

Marlee likes it too. She often chooses to walk down this path and sniff at this fence. I don't know what she finds so interesting about it but she spends a couple of minutes attending to it every time we happen by.

No real art to the photography here: just a narrow aperture to ensure crisp focus throughout the frame and a slow shutter, since the many trees tend to render the area quite dim.

Day 205 - The intimacy of the details

When I look at this photograph, I see the many different lines that run through it. Straight lines, rounded lines, black lines, white lines, green lines, so many lines.

I took another photograph of these flowers from a little further back, a shot that showed the entire fan-shaped trellis upon which these lovely yellow flowers are being encouraged to grow. I thought it would be the better shot but something about the added distance, the wider angle, made that shot less interesting and effective.

This closer-in view seems to me to be more intimate. It reduces the number of elements in the frame while increasing how much detail we can see in each element. It also helps to accentuate the purity of the colours in the shot: the white of the background, the green of the leaves and vines, the yellow and black of the flowers themselves and the reddy-brown of the cedar mulch on the ground.

Day 204 - A contrast of cameras

I don't know why I like this photograph so much. It's not particularly well-composed, it doesn't have anything special about the way it's lit or the colours in it, it didn't take any planning to get.

In fact, it's as point-and-shoot a shot as you can get.

I think it's more the contrast between the camera this man is carrying so casually over his shoulder and the camera that I take such precious care of everywhere I go.

His is probably a $2,000 plus camera body with another $2 or $3-k worth of lens attached to it. He can probably shoot a flea at a thousand yards and get every millimeter of the shot in focus. My camera, meanwhile, was under $300 on sale (including lens) and, while capable of some really nice photographs, has its issues.

And here I am taking a picture of him. And, to be honest, not a bad picture at all.

Day 203 - The more you look...

Patti pointed this scene out to me as we were out for a walk in the downtown core. Brightly painted walls, a textured drive, an interesting brick building in the background. Makes for a kind of neat photograph.

I like the shiny red walls on either side and the car cowering between them but I think my favourite aspect of this photo is the white downspout on the right-hand side. I didn't see it when I was lining up the shot but, every time I look at the picture, that downspout makes me smile.

I'm also quite pleased with the reflections of the car in the metal on either side. They're mere ghosts of the vehicle but add an interesting touch to the shot. And the way the inset windows on either side create perspective into the back of the picture.

I guess that's the key to this photograph: the more you look, the more you see.

Day 202 - The effects of evening sun

This is my attempt to capture the effect of the warm evening sun on bales (rolls?) of hay in a field at the Potato Research Farm outside Fredericton.

Evening light is so beautiful and soft, making everything it touches feel warmer, richer, deeper. In person, these rolls of hay seemed to glow in the reddish evening sun but I'm not sure how much of that effect shows up in this photograph. I think the composition is good and the colours are nice. I'm just not as happy as I'd like to be with the light and its effects.

Day 201 - Now that's a Sky!

Not much to say about this photograph. Dark clouds. Setting sun. Dramatic sky.

I had to play with how much light to let into the lens: did I want to be able to see some of the details in the field at the bottom and risk bleaching out the light at the top? or did I want to let the field fade to black in order to get more definition in the sky?

I think you can figure out which way I went. A photo that's been taken probably a million times in the past but this is my own special addition to the collection.

Day 200 - Big brother tree

Today wasn't the most creative day for me, from a photographic standpoint. I wandered around downtown Freddie and saw very little that interested me. You have those kinds of days sometimes and you just have to work your way through them.

That's why I was so pleased to find this shot popping up on the iMac at the end of the day. No, it's not art but I think it's an interesting composition. I like the way the stone wall of the barracks works with the lush greenery of the trees to frame the big machine in between.

I like the vertical lines of this shot and the way the massive tree at left shapes itself around the crane like a big brother, overwhelming the smaller beast. It's a victory for nature over the machines, I think.

And the solid stone wall stands for history and roots, as opposed to the busy-ness of our modern lives. Okay. Maybe I go too far. Still, I think it's a nice shot.

Day 199 - White bobbles and roasted tomatoes

I had to play with the focus to get this photograph of roasted tomatoes on a white platter. The Olympus' autofocus function wanted to find the nearest object (the white porcelain bobbles that rim the platter) so I had to force it to see the tomatoes, hold the focus there, and then move into position for the perspective of the picture.

Then, of course, there was the challenge of adjusting the exposure to get enough light on the subject. Instead of slowing the shutter, however, I opened the aperture to enhance the light, thus also creating the very short depth of field, which limits the focus to just the closest of the tomatoes.

It seems such a simple shot but it was devilishly difficult to take. I'm very pleased with it, though, since I think it is actually quite stunning in beauty and fairly fascinating in composition. Can you guess what provided the patterned background?

Day 198 - The fragile complexity of a stalk of grass

Like most of the country, New Brunswick is currently in the midst of a hot spell. Temperatures in the 30s plus humidity. But, unlike Ontario (where I come from), New Brunswick usually has something of a breeze to take the edge off the heat. In fact, the same wind I curse during the frigid winters I love in the dog days of summer.

I took Marlee for a walk this afternoon at the Potato Research Farm this afternoon to enjoy the unique combination of blistering heat and cool breeze. What we found, however, was breathtaking: massive fields of four-foot-high grasses (hay?) literally glowing in the sun and rippling in the breeze. I know they must get this kind of thing all the time on the prairies but I've never seen it before. It was one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen.

This photograph fails entirely to catch the marvel of this phenomena. But it is interesting, nonetheless. I love the fragile complexity of each stalk of grass, the shimmering vitality of the field, the overwhelming serenity of the waves of stalks. I was tempted to crop off the hydro towers in the distance but Patti convinced me to leave them in. They give perspective and add solidity to the image.

Day 197 - Still life on a cafe table

Back to the Cedar Tree for this interesting photograph of the aftermath of our lunch.

I find that sometimes photographers and other artists focus too much on a world of beauty. Life is about both the positive and the negative or, in this case, the wonderful food and the mess it leaves behind.

The variety of glasswear attracts me in this picture, as does the orange of the plate on the right, which balances the red of the Coke can to the left. I think the plate is worthy of notice as well as the single horizontal object in a world of verticals, the solid among the transparent, the colourful behind the colourless.

Day 196 - Woodlots, lily pads and faint-hearted dogs

The University of New Brunswick owns a plot of land at the southern end of Fredericton that is known as "The Woodlot". I believe it was originally obtained for the use of the University's forestry program but, as that program has dwindled of late, so has the need for the Woodlot. So UNB has been selling it off, piece by piece, for development.

It's a controversial topic around here, mainly because the Woodlot is a wildlife preserve, providing a home for a variety of species of animals, birds and plants. Many locals also enjoy the vast wooded property for recreational purposes (dog walking and skiing, for example), which makes its destruction even more of a cause for concern.

The Woodlot currently features quite a lovely pond just off the main trail, complete with a small boardwalk and some wonderful views. I took Marlee for a long walk in the Woodlot today and stopped long enough to take some shots of the amazing lily pads and their flowers. Not much to say from a technique standpoint: I just pointed the Olympus in the right direction and pressed the button.

I love the reflections in the water.

The lower photograph captures Marlee, peering out at me from a safe position at the foot of the boardwalk. Our dog, you see, doesn't like walking on things that move so the motion of the boardwalk bothered her. She wouldn't come out to join me but just sat near the shore, gazing at me with a forlorn expression, and whimpering gently. THAT was the true challenge I faced in trying to take this lovely photograph of the plant life in the pond: dealing with the complaints of my four-year-old Golden Doodle.

Day 195 - Welcoming the Cedar Tree to downtown Freddie

The Cedar Tree Cafe is rapidly becoming Fredericton's go-to place for lunch, especially for people with a taste for something a little out of the "New Brunswick" ordinary.

Offering great tasting Lebanese dishes, the Cedar Tree earned a dedicated clientele while operating out of a tiny location on York Street, about a ten-minute walk from the downtown core. And when I say a "tiny location", I mean tiny. The place held maybe six two-person tables crammed into a T-shaped space that was clapped onto the side of an old house.

The Tree recently moved to a more spacious location on Queen, right in the middle of the downtown core, and, even though it has at least triple the seating, it's still packed over an extended lunch-hour period.

This picture doesn't capture the place at all. For one thing, the extended dining room is actually situated behind where the Olympus sat on a side table to take this picture. This is just the rear area of the establishment, where the cooking gets done. The photograph required a long exposure under the low light conditions, meaning I had to set the camera down on a stable surface to take my hand away after depressing the shutter release.

I went to the Cedar Tree twice for lunch this week and expect to become a semi-regular as time goes by. The food is good, the service friendly and the atmosphere, though quite loud with the excited patrons, pleasant and inviting. A nice addition to Freddie's downtown dining menu.

Page 194 - Shooting through resolves frustration

Fredericton has these interesting looking stations dotting the downtown core that offer billboard space for posters advertising everything from rock bands to protest marches to local plays. The hope, I guess, is that people will post their bills neatly on these contraptions rather than more messily on hydro poles up and down the streets.

I'm not sure the city's plan is working but I do find these stations quite interesting from a visual standpoint. Try as I might, however, I haven't seemed to be able to find a way to capture that interest on film. Until now, perhaps.

It occurred to me that, instead of trying to shoot a photograph of the station I should try to shoot through the station, with it serving as a frame for whatever lies behind it. I'm quite pleased with the result, with a lovely building as the focal point, a lush tree providing further framing and the station itself reduced to simple black-and-white in the foreground.

Day 193 - A Farmers Market miracle

The Fredericton Farmers Market is a weekly cultural and social event here in New Brunswick's capital city. Every Saturday, for about six hours, farmers, craftspeople, and artists offer their wares to the eager public and the city folk flock to take them up on the offer.

Housed in an L-shaped building that is more barn than market, the FFM is a wonderful, if crowded, experience for shoppers and gawkers but hell for photographers. There's little light and less room and you're bound to be jostled and bumped if you should even try to stop long enough to take a picture.

I got this shot of an artisan's glasswear by ducking behind another vendor's table for a second to escape the crowds, then shooting slightly upwards to take advantage of the strong artificial lights above the stall. It doesn't capture a sense of the crowds on hand but at least it gives a taste of some of the lovely items up for sale. And it's in focus, which itself is something of a miracle under those conditions.

Day 192 - Church spire with clouds

My sister has told me on several occasions that she's tired of "musty old churches" on this blog. So I offer her this: a new twist on a musty old church, where I use its sky-reaching spire as an ornament in a cloud photograph.

Since I do most of my photography during the middle of the day, I rarely get the chance to take shots like this, where the setting sun is illuminating the cotton-ball clouds high in the sky, colouring them in all sorts of soft tones.

And the spire of this cathedral just to the east of Fredericton's downtown provides a nice complement to the clouds, its dark shape serving as a dramatic contrast to the brightness of the sky.

The trick was to overexpose the image to make sure the details and colours of the clouds show up while allowing the musty old church to fade into almost two-dimensional darkness.

Day 191 - Cookie cutter shadows on a bright day

With beautiful weather in Fredericton, interesting photographs just seem to pop out at you.

Here, the bright sun creates a cookie-cutter shadow on the base of this concrete and iron fence that runs along the road to the river. I took a number of shots of this effect, trying to figure out the proper brightness and depth of focus.

I eventually chose one of the darker shots, where the aperture on the camera was at its narrowest, in hopes that the shadow would stand out strongly.

Day 190 - The mystery of the Owl's Nest

The Owl's Nest on Queen Street in downtown Fredericton is one of the biggest used book stores I've ever seen. Spread over two floors of a large building, it offers a veritable maze of rooms packed floor to ceiling with books of all sizes, shapes and colours.

It also offers some of the cleverest signs (all of them handwritten) you'll ever find in a place of business. You get the feeling in the Owl's Nest like they must have the book you're looking for; it's just a matter of finding it.

We spent an hour or so today browsing this literary disneyland, looking for three specific books. Unfortunately, we found none of them. But we found thousands of other volumes to interest us. And then one little girl captured the feeling of the place for me: "It's like a bookstore from Harry Potter," she told her mother as she gazed wide-eyed at the children's lit sections.

I wanted to create a photograph that would convey the Owl's Nest to you, from the crowded shelves to the dim lights to the worn wood shelves and dust-filled air. So I put the Olympus down on one of those shelves in the furthest back room of the second floor, pointed it through a rolling ladder used to reach the upper collections, set it for maximum depth of field and a shutter speed (4 seconds) that would result in a shot that was just slightly underexposed. And let her rip.

The result is a crowded shot, filled with wood and books, slightly yellowed to match the colour of the aging pages of the volumes on the shelves, with one large faceless book hiding under the ladder right in front of you. It represents that book you're looking for, that you feel must be there, but that you know you'll never find.

Day 189 - Black and white with a splash of blue

The contrast between subject and sky is so steep this photograph almost seems to have been taken in black and white.

I bracketed the shot to see what level of light would look the best. With the aperture as small as possible (f8) to enhance depth of focus, I played with the shutter speed to vary the amount of light that came through the lens. I wanted to have the choice between lighting the chair and deck properly and bleaching out the sky or lighting the clouds nicely and blacking out the objects in the foreground.

Guess which I chose.

I'm actually very pleased with this photograph. I like the dark shapes and the fact that you can see the lovely clouds around and through them. I'm even pleased that there are splashes of blue sky to the bottom and left of the frame, just to ensure you're not fooled into thinking it's a B&W shot.

Day 188 - Creating beauty with an old ketchup can

This photograph makes me think of folk art. I took it, almost as an afterthought, at the end of a long, hot walk through downtown Fredericton today and I'm glad I did.

I'm pleased with the composition of the image, with the yellow can central and almost bleached white. I took several shots to get things right and chose this one because, first, I made a good decision to ignore the light metre in the camera and close the aperture right down, which makes the colours deeper and the entire image a little more balanced, and, second, I like the plastic chair in the background, which was either fuzzy or not really visible in the other pictures.

I wonder if people know how interesting their back porches are to a wandering photographer like me. I mean, they probably just thought to themselves, "What the heck am I going to put this plant in? Hey, here's this old ketchup can, cool," never realising that they're creating beauty.

Day 187 - A lonely sentry on a blistering day

Believe it or not, this photograph was taken today. It's a combination of elements from previous pictures that I stumbled upon during my lunch hour.

First, there's the wonderful fountain on the plaza in front of the Fredericton City Hall on Queen Street. I like the little dude, wrestling a fish, at the top of the fountain and I like the soothing sound of the water. Then there's the city hall itself, with its brick walls and stone steps. Of course, the photo has to include one of the neat street lamps as well.

The surprise is the red-coated figure standing stock-still below the street lamp: one of the soldiers from the changing-of-the-guard ceremony we went to the other day with our friends.

I'll say one thing: with temperatures pushing 30 degrees with an additional bonus for humidity, the young person must be broiling in that outfit.

I faced a challenge with this shot, photographically, because I wanted both depth of focus (and, therefore, a narrow aperture) as well as a fast shutter, to freeze the drops of water in mid-air. Unfortunately, even with the sun beating down, there wasn't enough light to do both. I ended up sacrificing speed for focus and ended up with a pretty nice shot.

Day 186 - The majesty of the Hopewell Rocks

I'm cheating a little bit, I know, but I thought this photograph from our trip to Hopewell on Sunday was good enough to bring forward and use today.

With beautiful weather and bright, deep blue skies, we picked a fantastic day to go to see this natural wonder. We arrived at 10 a.m., just as the tide was at its lowest point. That allowed us to walk on the ocean floor and see the magnificent "Flower Pot" rocks from below. We were lucky that, at such an early hour on a Sunday morning, we also managed to miss the usual crowds that flock to the site.

I under-exposed this shot just slightly to overcome the tendency of the bright sun to bleach out the colours. Just look at that sky, and the deep greens of the trees at the top left-hand corner of the frame. Wonderful. I had to use iPhoto's cropping function to trim the bottom and right side of the photo a bit, both for the sake of balance and to remove the one human figure that managed to sneak in. I think it's pretty great that I was able to get a number of scenic pictures without any bipeds in sight.

Three hours after this photo was taken, the tide had come in and the water levels had risen by almost 40 feet. That meant that the entire floor you see here was submerged and the water levels rose well past the base of kelp and seaweed at the base of these rocks. It's really quite amazing to see.

Day 185 - Stepping back into Fredericton history

It's fantastic to have guests come to visit us for many reasons, including the fact that we explore our city with them. For example, today for the first time we took in some of the events and exhibits in downtown Fredericton that celebrate the history of the city.

We visited the old guard house and enjoyed an educational tour put on by some of the young people in the top photo. I'm pleased with this photograph, to be honest, because it catches the two women in sort of introspective poses, looking down. I like the columns and the fact that the musician is obscured.

We then moved on to Officers Square to watch the daily changing of the guard ceremony. It's a neat show, with drums and marching and even an inspection of the guard performed by some lucky spectator.

These photographs are interesting more for the content than for anything I did with the camera. The programs are well designed and nicely performed, a worthwhile attraction for any visitor to Fredericton.

Day 184 - Winsome lass at low tide

A trip to the Bay of Fundy on a breezy, beautiful summer day bring us this photograph taken at low tide.

Our friend Steph decided to take a shoeless walk in the mud of the ocean floor at the Hopewell Rocks world nature site and I was lucky enough to capture her in this winsome pose, shoes in hand, gazing out to sea.

The colours today were unbelievable. Unfortunately, the bright sun has a habit of bleaching them out so I had to underexpose my shots just slightly to hold the colours. Although I love this photograph, I am somewhat disappointed that it doesn't include the incredible sky that we enjoyed today. Even so, I'm pleased with the overall effect of this shot.

Day 183 - From the mean streets

As I mentioned yesterday, I've been trying to find approaches to photographing this city in interesting and creative ways.

So I thought to myself, why not? A sewer grate. It's symmetrical, has a feeling of strength and permanence and seems to be able to resist the decay that is evident in the pavement and concrete around it. It's straight lines contrast with the jagged edges of the crumbling street; it's slightly reddish colour stands out against the black, grey and white of the road.

I'm surprised at how happy I am with the result.

Day 182 - A sign of the times

Is there a single sign in this picture that isn't bruised or dented or bent in some way?

I have a great deal of respect for photographers who capture urban subjects (and often unsavoury urban subjects) in artistic, often beautiful ways. I am certainly not claiming that I'm among them but it is a photographic approach that I enjoy attempting to perfect.

In this case, an assemblage of signs on a single post on Queen Street in downtown Fredericton provides an interesting collage of shapes and colours and imperfections. I like the crowded feel, the fact that the pole itself is a bit tilted and the mixed messages you get when you read all the different signs. It's not art, I grant you, but I think it is an interesting look at the city.