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.