INTERIOR, WATSON'S GARAGE

Two books with photographs by Ralph Greenhill, Rural Ontario and Ontario Towns, started my interest in the architecture of Ontario. So I like photographing interesting buildings in cities and towns including of course the various open air museums like the one in Cumberland. This photograph shows the interior of the old Imperial garage. I tried to recreate the time period in this image by using a subdued colour palette.

WATSON'S GARAGE, CUMBERLAND HERITAGE MUSEUM

Aother image from my visit to the Cumberland museum. According to the information provided by the museum, this garage is the oldest surviving example of an Imperial Oil service station. It dates from around 1920 and came originally from Cumberland. I also like to welcome a new blog friend "moremiles" to my blog.

CUMBERLAND HERITAGE VILLAGE MUSEUM

Well, I am back. Last week we spent again some time in Ottawa. This time I did get a chance to take a few pictures. Last Friday I visited the small outdoor museum in Cumberland. It is definitely worth a visit and surprisingly it was not very busy. This allowed me to look at all the buildings. this old house, the Dupuis House, is the oldest structure of the museum. it was built in 1820 and moved from Orleans to its current place in 1984. I loved the quiet scene and the light was just perfect. It rained off and on during the day which made for quite dramatic skies.

YOU ARE BEING WATCHED

I will not be posting for a few days so here is an image I have been experimenting with in Photoshop. I like to try different visual effects strengthening graphic image impact.

RED'S DEN FOR MEN

What attracted me in the first place is the title of this barber shop.I took this picture early one Sunday morning. Of course I made a few changes in Photoshop to give the image a vintage look. First I tried black and white but it definitely has more impact in colour.

WINDOW WITH CURTAIN, NORTH BAY

Well it was a great long weekend so time to post again. This time an image of I guess an empty house we, Rob, Bob and I, passed last week on our little evening excursion. I am attracted to  older  houses. I like the weathered look of these buildings, which makes me wonder about the history and human stories of these places.

BLACK AND WHITE VERSION, LOCOMOTIVE 503

Here is the black and white version Dave of yesterday's picture. Its a much darker and grimier image than the colour version. My wife commented that it reminds her of Darth Vader.

FRONT VIEW LOCOMOTIVE 503

Last night I went with my friends Bob and Rob downtown on a little photo excursion. Of course we stopped at the old steam locomotive 503 to photograph this engine and , even though I had already posted a black and white picture of the same locomotive, I simply had to post this view reflecting some of the power of this remnant of the glory days of the steam train.

WALL ADVERTISEMENT, NORTH BAY

Another image with quite strong colour saturation and contrast. I have seen this old wall ad since we came to North Bay. It has faded quite a bit so time to preserve it. What appeals to me is the simple but effective composition of this image. Actually it fits in nicely with yesterday's image of the ventilation outlet.it would work well in black and white but again I prefer the strong primary colours.

VENTILATION SYSTEM

I don't know what it actually is but I liked the abstract quality of the various shapes combined with the  strong impact of the primary colours.

FOR SALE

There are quite a few parts missing but with a lot of dedication maybe this truck could be come a show stopper at antique car shows.

CLOUD, BLUE AND YELLOW

It has been quite a few days since I posted a picture. In the last week we had a heatwave, which was not a great time to wander around outside taking pictures. But yesterday the pleasant Summer weather returned so here is an image of my ongoing project of photographing city scapes around North Bay.

HEATWAVE, LAKE NIPISSING

We are in the middle of a heatwave. So here a picture of the lake early this morning. A nice breeze made the walk quite pleasant.

STORE SIGN, NORTH BAY

When I took this picture I knew it could only really work as a black and white image. When working on the picture it reminded me of the work by the Russian  Alex Rodchenko, who was one of the most influential  artists of the twentieth century.

LANDSCAPE, NORTH BAY

Having no point of reference makes it difficult to have an idea about the size of this hill. Actually it is part of the new waterfront park extension, which is being developed this Summer.

OLD MILWAUKEE BILLBOARD, NORTH BAY

Seeing these billboards at various places around town, I thought I had been teleported back to the fifties. The feminist revolution of the sixties and seventies had not taken place yet and sexism was still rampant. Then I realized no this is the twenty first century and we simply regressed. All very sad actually. The picture reminded me of an old quite famous picture by Walker Evans called "Houses and Billboards, Atlanta 1936" . Obviously we have not progressed.

STRONG MAN, COUNTRY FOLK ART

A few days ago we visited Leisure Farm in Sturgeon Falls to pick up some fresh strawberries. It was simply too hot o pick the berries ourselves so we bought some baskets. At the entrance of the driveway I had to photograph this strong man, which was a great example of simple country folk art.

CHRYSLER, 1931 HOOD ORNAMENT

Last Saturday I visited the Carp antique autoshow. One car in particular was definitely my favourite. It was a 1931 Chrysler Deluxe Coupe. Everything on this car was authentic. The owner, Mr. Norman Legault, told me that he had spend years restoring it and still was not finished. I really liked the various details and had to make a picture of the hood ornament, which is an excellent example of 1930s design.

MUSEUM OF NATURE, OTTAWA

Were back from our family visit to Ottawa. Of course I did not get a chance to take many pictures but one day, it was a very rainy day, we some time with the little ones in the Canadaian Museum of Nature. So here is one image from that excursion.

GARDEN TEXTURE

First I like to wish everybody a very happy Canada Day. I will be in Ottawa  till next weekend. Our garden is very textured and I decided to show this in black and white, which emphasizes textures.