Photo Highlights of our London trip

Some of my favourite, somewhat "artistic" images of from our recent trip to England.

Shadows at Covent Garden

Kensington Park tree at sunset

Talbot's Study

Albert Statue at Sunset

The first photo (reproduced)

Mugs on Portobello Road

Ceramic Tiles on Portobello Road

Cape Breton overwhelms expectations...

Awesome tree on the way to Uisage Bahn Falls

We were quite certain Cape Breton would meet our very high expectations when we set out for a week-long visit last Saturday but we were amazed at how easily and how far Cape Breton actually those expectations.

What a spectacular place. Already blessed by nature with some of the most spectacular sights (and sites) in the world, Cape Breton burnishes its natural splendour with kindness, comfort and great food.

Even though we had talked about spending a week on the Island for more than a year, we only got down to planning and booking the trip 10 days before our scheduled departure. Add the fact that we planned to take our dog (an 85-pound Golden Doodle) and we figured we would face some significant challenges finding places to stay.

White Point, about half way out

Yes, we had to do some searching, with a number of hotels, inns and B&Bs on our list either having no vacancy or no rooms for dog-loving guests. But we ended up finding four places all around the perimeter of the Island that not only suited but turned out to be wonderful places to stay.

This allowed us to move about freely and get a taste of all the different areas of Cape Breton. We stayed at the Bras D'Or Lakes Inn in St. Peter's (in the south), McIntyre Cottages in Baddeck Inlet (central), Castle Rock Inn in Ingonish Ferry (east coast) and the Capeway Bed & Breakfast in Troy (south west).

We were awed by Cape Breton's shorelines and its mountains and were most taken (by far) by White Point, at the north-east tip of Cape Breton.

Uisage Bahn Falls

We hadn't planned to visit White Point but decided, on a whim, to check it out. What a great choice. The Point reaches far out into the water where the Bay of the St. Lawrence and the Atlantic Ocean meet and its rugged terrain is unbelievably beautiful. It takes perhaps 20 minutes to walk to the farthest accessible point and, when we went on a Wednesday afternoon, we had the place entirely to ourselves (except for one man picking wild blue berries).

Well, we had to share it with cormorants, sea gulls, ravens and bald eagles. But we weren't complaining.

From White Point, we drove on to Bay of St. Lawrence, an amazingly picturesque fishing village with a fantastic seafood hut called, you guessed it, "The Hut". Great food, very friendly service. Spectacular locale.

A Boat at the Harbour at White Point

We spent seven very busy, very happy days on Cape Breton, walking the many trails, visiting numerous arts and crafts places, and eating the great food. We don't feel like we saw even a small portion of what the Island has to offer and we'd love to go back to some of the places we did manage to visit.

I have realized now that we took way too many photos of late afternoon sun sparkling on placid waters and of Marlee Marie in various states of joy as she found herself off-leash on long wilderness trails, at the seaside or along the banks of various creeks and rivers. Even worse, my video taking ended up being a complete disaster, with lots of guard rails and sky and little of the scenery as it flew past the car.

Oh well, the trip was about making memories, not taking photos. And I still think we got at least a couple of good ones along the way.

To the lighthouse...

Just a brief note to introduce my favourite photo from our recent trip to Caraquet. I won't say anything more, other than that it was taken at the light house at the tip of Miscou Island, which is located where the waters of the Baie des Chaleurs and the Gulf of the St. Lawrence meet off northeast New Brunswick.

Hotel Paulin makes Caraquet a great place to visit

Some photos from our recent trip to Caraquet, a lovely town on the Acadian Peninsula in the northeast corner of New Brunswick. We stayed at the Hotel Paulin, hosted by Gerard Paulin and Karen Mersereau, to celebrate our 10th Wedding Anniversary and, to put it bluntly, enjoyed the best meal we've had in those ten years.

Hotel Paulin

The Hotel itself is a gorgeous, 18th Century building that has been in the Paulin family for more than 100 years. Carefully restored and updated, it offers magnificent suites, many with amazing views of the Baie de Chaleur. Add to that the culinary expertise of chef Karen Mersereau and you've got a fabulous facility that, all by itself, is worth a visit.

The town of Caraquet is nice enough, with lovely views of the Baie and miles of rocky beaches to enjoy. Unfortunately, Highway 11 runs right through the heart of the town, bringing with it a constant, noisy parade of transport trucks, motorcycles and other types of vehicles that make it hard to enjoy the town.

The Baie de Chaleur from our window

Karen and Gerard

Deck chairs outside the Paulin

We also found that, while Caraquet offers a number of really nice eating establishments, they are scattered along the main drag, getting lost in the shuffle of gas stations, fast food joints and sometimes tumble down houses.

Still, the culinary delights provided by Karen and Gerard at the Paulin are amply complemented by the food at places like Mitchan Sushi, Deja Bu, Restaurant Le Crapet, and Grains de Folie, making Caraquet a worthwhile place to visit.

Shimmering Baie de Chaleur

And the Hotel Paulin's suites are first class, large and quiet, beautifully furnished in a wonderful mixture of traditional elegance and modern convenience.

Exquisite Floral Touch

December's favourite photo is...

Our Final Winner, which caught the taste of the season

Dancing Tree Lights!

Although other photos also received votes, most people felt this one captured December best. I have to admit, the tree lights shot would likely have been my last choice of the five but I must bow to the will of the voters!

Thanks to everyone who voted throughout the year. If I can get my act together and produce a calendar using the monthly winners, I'll try to make sure everyone who participated gets one!

Photo favourites for December

#1: Street Lamp and Decapitated Statue (336)

#2: Starry-Eyed Moon (352)

#3: Bridge at Night (354)

#4: Dancing Tree Lights (358

Raise a glass. With this blog entry, we will have completed our review of last year's 365+ daily photos and chosen our twelve favourites by month.

It turns out December of 2011 was an impressively rich time for me, from a photographic standpoint. I had a hard time narrowing down the selection to five and am happy with the final product. It was an extremely productive month!

#5: Skater (362)

As usual, please look these images over and cast your vote, using the Comments feature or via email or in person. Which is your favourite photo from December? Once I have all the votes in and a winner declared, I'll start thinking about producing a calendar for 2013, using the twelve winners and a select few of the runners up. Want one?

Confirming my Hopewell hopes

A while back I posted this black-and-white photograph of a particular flower-pot rock at Hopewell, taken from the book This is New Brunswick, by Jessie I. Lawson and Jean MacCallum Sweet (Ryerson Press, 1951).

I promised to try to take the same photo, showing the same rock from the same angle, the next time I went to the Hopewell Rocks Provincial Park.

I had found a shot in my collection from 2012 that showed what I thought was the same rock (I was right, by the way) but wanted to make sure with a more carefully planned picture.

The new shot is still not a perfect recreation (I was a bit rushed as the tide was coming in) but it's not too bad.

Amazing how much has changed, isn't it? And yet how much has stayed the same. The "face rock" to the right (which is actually standing behind the rock that is central to the photo) hasn't changed much but a full one-third of the main rock is now gone. Neat, huh?

A Flash of Hummingbird

Hummer, with flash and cropping

Hummingbirds are turning out to be the bane of my photographic existence. I don't know how many times I've encountered one of these tiny little beauties and completely failed to get even a remotely decent picture.

First off, they're small. Very small. Tiny even.

Second, they're quick. Even though one of their most remarkable characteristics is they're ability to hover in the air, hummingbirds don't hover very often, usually flitting from place to place in rapid movements.

Third, hummingbirds rarely land and rest. At least when I'm around.

And fourth, hummingbirds are skittish little things so that any attempt to get even a little bit closer with your camera makes them fly off into the distance.

So I end up trying to take them from at least twenty feet away so as to avoid scaring them. That forces me to use a long zoom (they're about two inches tall, remember) which makes simply getting them in the view finder difficult.

I try to keep the shutter speed as high as possible, in order to try to freeze their speedy wings, but also need to keep the aperture small so that the depth of focus remains good in case they move.

The hummingbird in context

And then, of course, there's that ruddy autofocus which, at twenty feet, is more likely to find the pole to the left of the bird or the leaves down below than the hummer itself. Ugh.

So last night, we're out in our backyard having dinner with some visiting friends and a little hummingbird shows up at our honey suckle bush. We get our cameras and try, try, try to get some decent shots.

The fact that daylight was fading proved both a curse and a blessing. A curse because it meant there was little light to work with, forcing shutter speeds down and apertures wide. A blessing because, well, it actually convinced me to try shooting on the Olympus' automatic settings, using the built-in flash.


I'd never thought of doing that before but, surprise surprise, it worked pretty well. These are the best hummingbird photos I've ever taken. Not that I'm saying much with that but still...

November's photo favourite is...

November's Favourite Photograph: "Impermanence"

"Impermanence". Surprise surprise.

I honestly believe that "Beer Taps" is the best, most interesting photograph of the bunch and yet not one person voted for it nor even mentioned it as being among their favourites.

"Jumpy Lights" is also an interesting photographic experiment but received little support while "Magic Pods", with its interesting shapes and textures, was also mentioned by only one person.

I find this amazing. And yet, I can't disagree with the support that both "Dog Days" and "Impermanence" received. I love both pictures, for their simplicity and their beauty. Maybe I can learn something from this: complexity and technical brilliance does not necessarily make a good photo.

And poor, poor "Waiting for the Wind". I don't think people even noticed it, despite the fact that it was the first shot on the list. I hope New Brunswick isn't insulted by that. And... I think it's a pretty good photo!

Photographic favourites from November

#1: Waiting for the Wind (308)

 So here we are. Trying to choose our favourite photograph from the month of November. I'm sorry to say it but November was not a stellar month and it wasn't easy coming up with shots for this selection.

That being said, I know very clearly which is my favourite. I'm just interested to see if you like the same one I do.

So please use the "Comments" button below, email me or find some other way to contact me to cast your vote for the best shot from November. And please don't hold it against me that I can't seem to get the hang of the new Blogger photograph placement rules.

#2: Dog Days (330)

#3: Magic Pods (312)

#4: Beer Taps in the Sky (332)

#5:Jumpy Lights (334)

#6: Impermanence (317)

Favourite Photo for October is...

Red Sky at Morning.

Although a number of photos received some support, this subtle but beautiful image of the morning sky was loved by many and at least mentioned by most. Thanks for voting and watch this space for the next chance to contribute, when I post the selection for November's favourite photo.

A Hopewell Rock: Then and Now

During a recent visit to the Owl's Nest Book Shop here in Fredericton, I was looking for books on New Brunswick history to help with a writing project upon which I am working. I was pleased to find a hardcover book called This is New Brunswick, written by Jessie I. Lawson and Jean MacCallum Sweet and published by The Ryerson Press in Toronto in 1951.

In this book, these two women write about their travels to the four corners of the province of New Brunswick in 1950, providing a first-hand account of the province's many towns and villages, its rivers and valleys, and its people. They also provide a great deal of New Brunswick history, all written in an approachable and enjoyable style and accompanied by a collection of black and white photographs that were taken during their journey.

I was pleased and excited to find the top photo taken at the Hopewell Cape, which shows quite clearly some of the magnificent rock formations created by the ebb and flow of the world's highest tide as such rocks appeared in 1950.

So I went to my iPhoto archives to look at my own shots of Hopewell, taken on several trips to the Provincial Park over the past several years. I wanted to see if I could find a photo of the same rock, but as it appears today, 60 years after Ms. Lawson and Ms. MacCallum took their picture.

And I think I've done it. My photo is from a slightly different angle but I am convinced it's the same rock, even though it has changed a great deal over the years.

Now don't laugh. They are the same rock, I'm certain. First, recognise that the modern shot is taken with the photographer standing in a slightly different position - I am to the right of where the photographer for the first shot must have been, such that the rock in behind the main one is more in the shot.

Second, you have to accept that, in the 60 years between the photos, a full one-third (the left third) of the main rock has completely disappeared. The vertical lines on the face of the rock cut it into three parts in the 1950 photo while only two of those three parts remain in the newer shot.

Just look at the horizontal lines on the face of the rock in the modern photo and compare them to the horizontal lines on the face of the righthand two-thirds of the rock in the older shot. They match perfectly. And, in the old shot, you can see the bumps on the side of the rock in behind the main rock that look so much like a face in the modern shot.

I think it's the same rock. And I think it's amazing to think that, in a mere 60 years, the tide has wiped away a full one-third of this massive form. That's why it's so important to visit Hopewell every couple of years, since things are constantly changing.

In fact, we're going back to Hopewell this August and, when we do, I'll bring this interesting book and try to reproduce the original photo exactly.

Or, as exactly as time and erosion will allow.

The Best Photographs of October

If September presented too many great photos from which to choose, October appears to have been a bit of a dry spell, photographically. I have chosen the following six from that month but I'd be very hard pressed to find a seventh worthy of this list.

Take a look, think about it and then cast your vote for Favourite Photograph from October. You can use the "Comment" button at the end of this post, send me an email or speak to me in person. And thanks for your help!

#1: Urban Farm (281)

 #2: Spectacular Orange (283)

 #3: Framed Front Entrance (291)

 #4: Red Sky at Morning (297)

 #5: Catching Fire (298)

#6: Reflections In Sharp Focus (304)

September's Favourite Photograph is...

September's Winner

 #3: A Swath of Sunlight!

What an interesting vote for the photo of the month for September. Everybody seemed to agree that it was a strong group from which to choose but nobody seemed to be able to agree on a favourite. As you can see from the online comments, our three voters each preferred a different first choice, with one going with the Sunlight shot, one the Cake picture and one the Wilmot photo.

The same went for people who emailed me or talked to me in person. Lots of interest, little consensus on a first pick. But just about everybody mentioned "A Swath of Sunlight" as a wonderful photograph, most saying that, if it wasn't their first choice, then at least it was their second.

So it's the big winner this month. I have to admit, I love all five of these shots so I'm grateful for all the help in picking the best of them.

Watch out for the next vote, Favourite Photo for October, coming soon!

Truro's Victoria Park, in all its glory

Jacob's Ladder

 After hearing about my own battery-operated debacle with my camera, our friends Tiziana and Marco very kindly sent along some of their own photographs of Truro's stunning Victoria Park. You'll notice, of course that the first two shots were taken during the summer while the bottom two are winter scenes.

The park is beautiful in all seasons, apparently.

The swimming hole

There are boardwalks and wooden stairs criss-crossing the place, including the daunting Jacob's Ladder, a challenge for even the most fit stair-walker. And you'll find any number of water falls, large and small, the size of each depending on the season.

Can you imagine that the second and fourth photos capture the same scene? Kind of amazing, isn't it? Thank you, Tiziana and Marco, for sharing these lovely shots!

Cascades in winter

Yep, that's the swimming hole in winter

Make Tracks for Truro... and glorious Victoria Park

Man, I hate those rookie photographer mistakes. I'm no pro but I'm a lot better than forgetting to recharge my camera batteries the night before going to one of the most stunning, and surprising, city parks in Canada.

One of many tiny waterfalls

Patti and I visited friends in Truro this past weekend for a birthday party, our first visit to the city that calls itself the hub of Nova Scotia. Truro's slogan is "Make Tracks for Truro", which is a lot of fun to say, by the way, and recalls the city's railroad past, I guess.

At the party, we had several locals tell us of the glories of Victoria Park, an inner city park that was supposed to blow us away if we got a chance to visit. I'm always skeptical about these kinds of comments, since too many people in the world suffer from too much civic pride, in my opinion.

When I got the chance to visit Victoria Park the following morning, however, I learned very quickly that Trurorians (I just made that up) have every reason to be proud of this magnificent park.

The placid stream

Victoria Park is absolutely beautiful. Centred on a narrow river valley, it features a gorgeous wooded setting, complete with complementary wood bridges and stairs that lead up the sides of the valley. It's quiet and lush; you feel like you've left the world completely behind.

Unfortunately for me, however, I had neglected to recharge the Olympus' batteries before my visit and suffered the ignominy of hearing the "Batteries Dead" chime immediately following my second photograph of the day.

Even worse, the two shots I did manage to take before the batteries gave up the ghost are pretty bad. They capture none of the park's beauty and, in fact, insult my memory of the place. The bottom shot is especially awful, making a beautiful stream look like a sewer. Oh well. We'll go back and I'll get more, better photos. I promise.