Day 334 - A jumpy collection of lights

No photo blog is complete without the classic "driving down dark streets with the shutter open" shot. Here's mine. With the Olympus on the dashboard, set at f3.4 at 15 seconds, we drove along Brunswick Street in downtown Fredericton at 8:30 at night. The result is this jumpy collection of lights, captured as the car moves past them: greens and reds from the stoplights, yellows from street lights and whites from headlights. Neat.

Day 333 - The blurred brick wall

One theme I seem to be exploring of late in my photographs is the idea of different levels in the image, especially the simplest two: the foreground and the background.

There are a lot of decisions to be made when taking a photograph like this. You have to decided how to frame the shot, how close to get to the objects in the foreground and how much space to leave around them (on the sides and top and bottom). You have to choose the angle from which you take the photo (again, both from side to side and up and down) which will have an impact on what forms the background to the shot.

Once you've made those decisions, you have to choose whether you wish to have all elements in sharp focus (by prioritising a narrow aperture setting on the camera) or different levels of focus at different levels of the shot (by opening the aperture up and then compensating by speeding up the shutter). I had the aperture setting at its smallest (f8) with the shutter at 1/60th for the first picture I took of these lamps and the shot was boring: everything was in focus.

So then changed the aperture to f3.4, increased the shutter speed to 1/125th of a second and suddenly you've got this much more interesting image, where the finely focused lamps stand out against the interestingly textured but blurred brick wall.

Day 332 - Beer taps in the sky

Wow. Do I ever love this shot! Add this photograph to my list of favourite images from the year. It's so cool and surreal.

What is it?

It's the rooftop patio of one of the bars in downtown Fredericton, taken from the sidewalk below with a cloud-covered sky in the background. I underexposed the image slightly in order to make the beer taps (left) and the beer sign (right) stand out against the sky. Doesn't that Coors Light sign jump out at you?

Day 331 - Angle, reflection and distortion

As anyone who reads this blog on a regular basis can tell you, I'm a sucker for a good reflection. But I think this photograph has even more going for it than simply a nice mirroring in the windows of the Barracks in downtown Fredericton: because of the sharp upward angle at which I was shooting, the lines in this photo also feature a neat distorting effect.

I've become much more aware of the existence and impact of lines (both straight and curved) on the way we see things and this shot is a good example of it. The window appears to be at an angle and, in fact, seems to be tilted slightly upward toward the sky. It isn't, of course: it's on the flat vertical plane of the wall. But it looks that way because I was standing so close to the building when I took the picture.

If that isn't enough, I also like the colours in the stone that come through in this picture. There's red, orange and yellow in there, bringing even more life to the shot.

Day 330 - Every dog has its day

Today's photograph is in honour of the McMaster Marauders university football team, which last night won the Vanier Cup as national champions.

Like Marlee here, the Marauders have earned themselves some time in the sun, time to kick back, secure in the knowledge that their place in football history has been well established with their big win over heavily-favoured Laval. Marlee wasn't too sure about wearing the McMaster ball cap for this photo but eventually decided just to put up with her dad's strange whims and go to sleep, cap in place.

Not an easy photo to get, to be honest, and not just because the subject was a fidgety hat hater. Lighting was an issue. Marlee is lying in her bed on the landing outside our side door, under the car port, with the sunlight beaming between the slats of the railing. I had to make a number of adjustments to get the light right, including moving the Marauder eagle insignia around on her head to catch the beams of sunlight.

Day 329 - It's all about the brilliant red

Today's photograph is all about colours. And shapes. And textures. But mostly about colours.

I just love the red of the wall in the background. And I love the contrast between that fantastic red and the black of the lamp in front of it. You've seen that red before. Some time ago, I posted a photo of a driveway with this red on either side of the laneway. This time, I've positioned the camera so that the black lamp from one building is highlighted against the red wall of the building next door.

I also made a conscious effort to open the aperture up a bit and push the shutter speed to create the slightest amount of blur to the background wall. I wanted the background to be all about the colour with the texture blurred away. Looking at the photo now, I wish I had opened the aperture up even further; there's still maybe too much detail in the wall.

Then again, maybe I'd lose those nice vertical lines if it were any less focused. And I like those lines.

Day 328 - Deep evening colours

The days are short in Fredericton and the night comes early. This is what it's like now as I wait for my bus home from work outside King's Place downtown. By taking advantage of a post box that is under the cover of the mall's overhang, I am able to place the Olympus on a stable surface and slow the shutter right down, in this case to four full seconds. This allows me to keep the depth of focus strong with an aperture setting of f8, while still getting enough light to make a clear photo.

I really like this photo, especially the composition of the structures at the top and bottom of the frame, as well as the full, deep colour the long exposure gives me. The picture shows up, however, the limitations of my camera: I'd have preferred to shut the aperture even further, to f16 or smaller, which would allowed an even longer shutter and made the lights of passing cars interesting streaks across the frame. I like those types of photos but my little Olympus isn't really capable of them, at least not under normal evening conditions.

Day 327 - The city in snow

We are having a snow storm out here in New Brunswick. The city of Fredericton is expecting up to 25 centimetres while other parts of the Maritimes might get as much as 40 cm of the white stuff. So on my lunch hour I went out with the intention of capturing the city in snow. I took quite a few photographs (of blowing snow, of streetscapes obscured by falling snow, or footprints in the snow) but came away feeling that this shot was the best by far.

For me, it captures so much of what Fredericton is: a winter place, a bilingual place, a place that hasn't quite gotten over its fixation with Christmas and then wonders why members of other races, cultures and religions don't quite feel at home here. I'm pleased with the photograph as well because I feel I did a pretty good job framing the elements, with the bare tree up the right side and across the top, the post just a little off-centre left, the black lamp overlapping into the tree and the wreath, with its delicate sprinkling of snow, adding colour to the scene.

Day 326 - Light falling on oak leaves

I have been fascinated with oak leaves for some time now, ever since I noticed that they cling to their branches well into the winter. In fact, I'm not even sure that they ever drop off. Maybe they just renew themselves each spring.

Fredericton is home to some pretty amazing oak trees, including this one that stands in front of the public library downtown. There are several more in my neighbourhood and, although their leaves don't seem to colour as vividly as do the maples, they still provide some interesting shapes and shades every fall.

Of particular interest to me in these photographs, however, is not so much the colour and shapes of the oak leaves but the difference the amount of light allowed into the camera makes in how vividly those colours come across. Simply by speeding up the shutter by a small amount, you really bring the leaves to life.

The upper photo was taken with the aperture at f8 and the shutter speed at 1/60th of a second. It is a bright shot and, on first glance, seems like the better of the two. But there is, in fact, too much light and the colour and detail of the leaves gets bleached out. The lower shot, taken at f8 and 1/100th of a second, is much darker. You lose the brick in the background but you gain vivid colour in the leaves themselves, especially the oranges and reds that are all but lost in the first picture. I think they're both nice pictures but I prefer the lower one, with its brilliant colours and darkened down background, over the upper one, which seems over-bright and bland by comparison.

Day 325 - When the background detracts

I'm not sure whether to be charmed or revolted by this photograph of an aging wooden embellishment on a downtown building. I like the shapes and tones of the support structure for an awning but the bird droppings in the background I can do without. You would think that someone who works for or owns the Sushi restaurant in the background would notice that disgusting mess and decide to clean it. I would think a good power washer would do the trick. But there it is.

The buildings of downtown Fredericton never cease to surprise me, in positive ways as well. Many of them have these interesting little features, remnants from bye-gone eras (or is it by-gone?), whether in stone, brick, or heavily painted wood. You just have to look around and find them. In this case, these embellishments get lost in the busy-ness of the downtown street. I'd like to see the building's owners rediscover them, strip the many coats of paint and bring them back to their original lustre.

Photographically, this shot was fairly simple: a point and shoot, with some attention to the framing. As the bird doo proves, however, I tend to get so involved in the subject of my photo that I often forget to check to make sure the background doesn't detract from the shot either.

Day 324 - The inscriptions of passing time

A detail shot from the court house in downtown Fredericton. I liked the way the word was carved into the stone in sharp, deep letters and I liked the several colours that show up in the shot.

This photograph is all about the framing, with the pointed top of the arch drawing the eye upward to the word and the two windowsills at the top providing further punctuation to the shot. As I take more and more of these kinds of photos, I am growing interested in the very physical way these buildings age, the way the passage of time inscribes itself on the stone, concrete and brick.

323 - That little leaf...

I love the little leaf that sits on the glove. I didn't put it there, honest. I just think it's a perfect adornment for this very bright red garment.

I also think the white tags issuing from the mouth of the glove are funny: they're almost as big as the glove itself. And they add an interesting swath of white to the shot.

The other thing that I notice about this photograph is the depth of focus. The fingertips of the glove are not quite crisp while the leaves in the background are quite fuzzy. I think the effect is nice but now I wish I had flipped the Olympus to manual and opened the aperture up even further. That would have shortened the focus more, making the leaves just a blur in the background. But, still, I'm happy with the colours, the composition and that little leaf.

Day 322 - Blue skies and hospitals

The Dr. Everett Chalmers Hospital in Fredericton stands at the top of the south side of the St. John River Valley, overlooking the city.

Opened in 1976, the "Dec" as it is known serves all of Fredericton and surrounding area. It's a massive structure, modern in design and quite functional. I'd like to say it's attractive but I simply can't force myself to type those words. I think the blue sky in this photograph complements the portion of the building that I've framed off the whole and creates a nice balance to the shot. With the bright November sun, the place actually looks cheerful.

Day 321 - Bollards or vases or statues, oh my

Don't you miss these kinds of odd little flourishes on the new construction? Are they bollards? Are they vases? Are they statues? Who knows! I certainly don't know who they are, even if I could figure out what they are. But I like the way they gaze down at you when you approach the front doors of the New Brunswick Legislative Assembly building. And I like the slow discolouration they undergo as time passes and the copper and iron above them bleeds from rain and melting snow.

No chance of taking this photograph straight on, since the figures are about 20 feet off the ground, so I was forced to step back, then use the zoom to try to get some level of detail in the shots. Tough to do on a dark day. As you might have noticed, I'm working on noticing and photographing detail rather than entire objects or buildings. Looks pretty good, I think.

Day 320 - A strangely pleasing planter

One of two concrete planters on the front stoop of the old court house in downtown Fredericton. The big decision with regard to this photograph was how to crop it: I first tried to trim down to a square so that the planter was in the exact centre of the frame but that didn't look right; I decided I liked the taller, narrower image that included a great deal of the wall above the planter and some of the concrete pad beneath it, thus accentuating the broad bulkiness of the object itself.

This is a strange picture. The colours are mostly bland, the planter is unremarkable and that pipe on the right should seem entirely out of place. And yet I think this photograph works quite well. I like the shapes in it, particularly the contrast between the roundness of the planter and the tall, narrow lines of just about everything else. I am also pleased with that cluster of dry leaves to the right of the object, balanced by the patch of yellow paint to the left. And the variety of textures captured in this one photo are quite pleasing as well.

Day 319 - On the limitations of flashes

An interior shot, not because it's a great example of photography but to show the limitations of the Olympus camera I'm using. Don't get me wrong, I think it's a great camera for the price and for the fact that it is a glorified point-and-shoot.

One limitation is the built-in flash. It is small and fairly powerful but it lacks a diffusing filter that softens the light. This means that it tends to overpower subjects that are close to the camera, creating areas that are washed out with too much light and areas that are blanketed in very sharp shadows. As for more distant subjects, the flash is not quite "big" enough to make for a useful photo.

In this case, the atrium of the Legislative Building in Fredericton shows up as grainy and flat due to the lack of light. You get a taste for the beauty of its staircase and the bronze statue-lamp in the centre but the photograph is not quite crisp enough to do the place justice.

Day 318 - Centennial seat of power

The Centennial Building on King Street in downtown Fredericton is one of those hard-to-photograph buildings because of its breadth and the lack of space in front of it. You either have to take a picture of only part of the building (as I have done here) or use a very wide angle lens to capture the whole thing, which badly warps the image.

Since the beauty of this building is associated with, inter alia, its straight lines, you really don't want to distort them in order to try to get the entire edifice in the photo.

As the home of many of the Province's governmental departments, the Centennial Building attracts its share of political action, including this protest against the practice of hydro fracking. I attempted to minimise the presence of the protesters by taking the photo from the far end of the building, while still capturing the long, sixties-era lines of the office block. Still, having the protesters there does help both to complement those lines and remind one of the importance of the decisions that come out of the tenants of the building itself.

Day 317 - Recognising our own impermanence

The classic footprint-in-the-sand image, taken on the slowly growing beach in Pickering, Ontario.

The governments here are trying to rebuild the shoreline of the north side of Lake Ontario, using a variety of techniques including adding clean fill and installing water breaks to create small, protected areas of beach. It seems to be working. The waterfront in this area is really becoming a lovely area and there are even real sand beaches forming.

Here, my sister's single footprint marks the sand. It's an image of surprising beauty that captures the significant impact each of us makes on the world while still conveying a recognition of our own impermanence. And also, it shows the weird treads on my sister's shoes!

Day 316 - The mistake that pays off

An exercise in lighting. This photograph of my sister and brother-in-law opening their wedding gift is special to me not just for the occasion but also for the ridiculously stark contrast between light and dark. To be honest, this shot was a mistake. The flash on the Olympus failed to go off. I have other pictures that are just like this where the flash did, in fact, flash but they are just bland compared to this one. This photograph emphasizes the shapes in the image, the body positioning, the way the people's postures speak to us about how they are feeling.

In this case, my brother-in-law is relaxed and happy, the shrug of his shoulders and the jaunty bend to his knee showing his comfort. My sister, meanwhile, appears just as relaxed but the bend of her head suggests concentration, focus on the card she is reading. If the flash had gone off, your attention would be drawn perhaps to the clothes they are wearing, the details of their faces, over even the business of the background, instead of the mood and emotion of the moment. In this case, a mistake turned out to be the best shot of the event.

Day 315 - A bit of shameless promotion

A bit of unabashed promotion in today's photographic blog. Not only are these quite nice pictures (as far as snapshot kinds of photos go) but they are also directly related to the novel I'm writing. In fact, I took these photographs of Hamilton's old court house building (now the continuing education centre for McMaster University, top) and it's new court house building (bottom) so that I could more accurately represent them in my book. But then I saw them on my little netbook computer and thought: "Hey, they're quite nice". So here they are for you to enjoy even as you wonder, "What novel?".

The two buildings face each other on opposite sides of Main Street in downtown Hamilton. I think they're both interesting buildings in their own right and worthy of a photograph or two. But their close proximity to each other (and to other large buildings nearby) makes it difficult to get a full image of either using even a wide-angle lens. In situations like that, the photographer's task is to decide what angle to use and what part would best represent the whole in a picture. And then, of course, there is the issue of light. On a sunny day like this one, with the sun actually behind the old court house, shining directly on the new court house, you have to be careful to compensate appropriately for it. I think I did okay in that department, though the windows on the bottom photo are a little bit overexposed and the top photo could use to be adjusted a bit. Oh, iPhoto, where are you when I need you?

Day 314 - The end of "The" era

Today's photograph pays tribute to "The" Boutique, one of west Hamilton's real treasures that will be closing its doors for the last time on December 10 of this year.

The success of The Boutique is thanks mainly to the exquisite taste of its proprietor Anita, who filled the shop on a daily basis with items that appealed to her. If she didn't love it, she didn't offer it for sale in her shop. And if it was offered for sale in The Boutique, I could be confident it would be a perfect gift for the important people in my life.

I offer this photo today as my way of paying tribute to this wonderful fixture of taste and elegance in the Westdale area and to wish Anita, her family and her wonderful staff over the years all my best for their futures.

Day 313 - The face of the willow

At Princess Point, at the edge of the water near where we said our last goodbye to our mother, stand two enormous willow trees. My sister tells me that these trees have such extensive root systems that they can only be grown in wilderness areas near great bodies of water like this. If you try to grow them in town, their roots infiltrate sewer systems and destroy the foundations of buildings.

But they are beautiful trees and their broad trunks teem with character. I had originally planned to post a photograph of the entire tree, with its wide, fantastic branch system sweeping the sky and its massive trunk anchoring it to earth. But then I saw this shot, just the trunk itself, with the face of the tree so clear in the detail of its bark. I would have liked to have been able to lighten the shot a bit (it was taken, not surprisingly, under shady conditions) but I don't have access to my usual iPhoto program right now.

So we do with dark but detailed. And we notice that someone has seen the face of the willow too and has added, quietly and without any fanfare, their own painted face at the very foot of the tree.

Day 312 - Afraid to ruin the magic

I have no idea what this pod is. It's beautiful, though, with its finely intricate tufts and it's perfect whiteness. My sister and I went for a walk yesterday at Hamilton's Princess Point park and found these pods near the place where we said our last goodbye to our mother more than two years ago.

I'm impressed with the performance of the Olympus in this case. Although several of the photographs I took of these pods turned out blurry, several others did not. I'm happy because I didn't use the macro setting on the camera to take the shots so I was really trusting my luck with them. And the Olympus came through, finding some way to focus from in close using its normal settings.

I really should look into finding out what kind of plant this is but... that might ruin the magic.

Day 311 - Sparkles on Lake Ontario

Sunlight on Lake Ontario. I'm visiting family and friends in the ol' country and, while walking along the northern shore of this beautiful lake, found this wonderful scene. I tried a little experiment, asking my sister to stand in the bottom left corner of the frame to see if there was any way I could get, in one photo, a balance between the light on the water and the light on her face. The results: no way. Either she was reduced to a silhouette (as here) and the sunlight reasonably visible or you could see her face but the background was just a sheet of white.

Day 310 - Some downtown perspective

An exercise in perspective, this photograph depicts the front porch area of the barracks building on Officer's Square.

Located on Queen Street in downtown Fredericton, this building holds the local museum. I decided to take this picture because I liked the way the lamps line up and the look of the columns down the right side and the windows on the left. I had to play with the light a little bit, since it was a bright day outside but dim under this porch roof. If I recall correctly, I ended up having to slow the shutter right down in order to keep the aperture tight: f8 at 1/60th, if my memory serves.

As you're probably figuring out from this blog, the city of Fredericton has a lot of really lovely older buildings with some interesting architectural styles. And the community has done a fairly nice job of conserving the buildings and making them available to the public.

Day 309 - A misleading date and a coat of arms

Today we go with a detail from the Legislative Assembly building. This photograph shows misleading "1880" sign above the front door, along with windows and the coat of arms. Don't ask me which coat of arms it is because I'm not sure. Probably New Brunswick's or Canada's or even the British royal family's or something like that.

There's something that I like very much about this photograph and I'm not sure what it is. Maybe its the gentle colour scheme. Or the balance of the image, with the two windows, the sign and the coat of arms. Or maybe it's just the fact that I'm trying to take more photos of smaller details of buildings and I'm realising I'm not very good at it, so when one turns out pretty well I feel inappropriately delighted.

I don't know what it is that gives one person an "artistic eye" but I know I don't have it. But I do my best and I think this shot is one of the best I've done.

Day 308 - Waiting for the wind

A little NB patriotism for you. Here, the strange New Brunswick provincial flag flutters over the old post office building on Queen Street in downtown Fredericton.

Despite my antipathy toward the flag itself, I'm quite pleased with this photograph. I like the way the building frames the flag and I like the gust of wind that unfurled the flag just long enough for me to get this shot. For some reason, I'm ridiculously pleased with the fact that the corner of the flag does not intersect with the top of the building so that the flag is completely encompassed by the sky.

I've also figured out that I can't think of a single other word for "flag", hence its repeated use in that last paragraph. Oh well. This photograph was taken with the Olympus fully on automatic: my contribution was seeing the interesting composition and then waiting for the gust of wind before pressing the button.

Day 307 - Taking liberties with Her Majesty

New Brunswick's Legislative Assembly building dates from 1882 (even though its front wall features a prominent "1880" carving) and, according to the descriptive plaque in the foyer, is made of sandstone with a mansard roof and matching towers (see bottom photo). It is currently in the process of being refurbished, with the exterior work being done first.

I trust that, as part of that refurbishment, the tradespeople won't display the same lack of respect that the workers who installed security cameras and pigeon-proofing showed when they defaced this poor carving of the Queen that keeps watch on the building's front doors (see upper photo). Yes, that is actually pigeon wire sticking out of Her Majesty's crown!

This photograph was not as easy to take as it might at first appear. The carving is located inside the arch of the doorway, meaning there wasn't much light to work with. Since the Olympus' flash washed out the details on the face and crown, I had to figure out a way to get a decent exposure while not losing too much depth of focus nor adding too much shake. I have to admit, I cheated a bit. I kept the shutter speed at 1/60th while allowing enough of an aperture to keep focus throughout the shot.

In other words, I underexposed the image on site and then fixed the exposure on my trusty old iMac.

I was also forced, because of the harsh angle at which I took the picture, to rotate the image slightly so that the carving appears straight in the photo. Neat what you can do, isn't it?

The lower photo is of the building itself. You can't get far enough back from the front wall to take a photograph of the entire building with a nomral lens so I had to zoom way out and accept the distortion caused by the use of the shorter lens (somewhere close to 28mm). Unfortunately, you can't fix that on the iMac.

Day 306 - The photographer's gain

Some time ago, I posted a photograph of a man on a crane, working on the top of the Fredericton City Hall clock tower. What I thought was going to be a quick fix has turned into a major renovation of the outside of this historic building.

This new photo shows the tunnel they've constructed that leads into the city tourism information bureau on the first floor of the City Hall building. Looks inviting, doesn't it? "Come on in and find out what we're all about!" it shouts at the passing tourist.

The tourist's loss is the photographer's gain, as this scaffolding-and-mesh structure serves as an interesting subject, with its many lines and colours, the perspective it provides as it moves into the background and the contrast between the structure itself and the curved shape of the bricks on the ground. A challenge to get the lighting right but a neat photo nonetheless.

Day 305 - Jack says "Hi"

Happy belated Hallowe'en everybody. Believe it or not, this is the FIRST Jack'o'Lantern I have ever carved. He adorned our brand new front porch last night for the Hallowe'en festivities and we even got a compliment about him.

In order to get some shots of Jack lit from within by a candle, I got out my mini tripod and started taking shots at various aperture and shutter speed settings to see what would work best. Needless to say, as I fiddled with the camera, the evening darkness also grew denser so it turned into quite a challenge.

The top photograph is the first one I took. It's got an aperture of about f4.5 with a shutter speed around four seconds. It's a good, crisp picture but I wanted to see if the flickering flame of the candle could be more visually interesting with a smaller aperture and a longer exposure.

The lower shot was taken under much darker conditions and with a 15 second exposure. This resulted in a dark photo (no matter how long you made the exposure, there just wasn't much light) so that Jack's face stands out better but the slower shutter didn't seem to do much with the flickering flame. My guess is that the light from the candle was already diffused as it passed through the carved features of Jack's face, so that, even if the flame itself moved while the shutter was open, it made no difference to what the camera saw and captured. The question of course is: which photo do you like better?