TWENTY FIRST CENTURY CANADIAN LANDSCAPE

On our visit to the Ottawa are I noticed two things. First no snow and secondly the increase of solar panels around the farms in the area. I also wish everyone a very happy New year.

WINTER HWY 17

We returned yesterday afternoon from our Ottawa Christmas visit. We had a wonderful time with our daughters, sons in law and of course our grandchildren. I did not take too many photographs, just a few for the blog. Wednesday we had our first major snow storm of the season. The weather was beautiful yesterday but the driving conditions were rather scary. The road surface were pure ice and of course the traffic was quite busy. Not much fun for the driver but we made it home safely.

NO SNOW YET

We still don't have snow. So here is a picture I took at the beginning of the year. I will be away till after Christmas so I wish everybody a very happy Christmas and of course a great New Year. I will be posting again when I return.

WINTER, LAKE NIPISSING

Rain, rain and more rain today. It certainly does not feel like Christmas. So here is another picture I made a few days ago along the shore of my favourite lake.

BIRCH TREES, WATERFRONT TRAIL, NORTH BAY

It was rather late in the afternoon when I tried to photograph some birch trees along lakefront trail. The exposure was too long but i really liked the painterly effect when I saw the image on my screen.

FREEZE UP LAKE NIPISSING, ON

From the day we moved to North Bay I was fascinated with the unending visual possibilities offered by Lake Nipissing. You can keep photographing Lake Nipissing  at any time of year or even day and discover that each image will show a different aspect of this beautiful lake.

LAKE NIPISSING II

Lake Nipissing is slowly starting to freeze up. Walking along the beach I thought about a photograph I saw in the Guardian newspaper. It was the most expensive image ever sold. It was a photograph by the German photographer Andreas Gursky, titled Rhine II . The picture sold for a whopping $4.3 million. So I thought I'll title my picture Lake Nipissing II. Well, I guess I will not sell this picture for a similar amount.But you never know.

SUNSET PARK AGAIN

This image shows the end of Fall and the beginning of Winter. Its still just a dusting of snow but soon everything will be covered in a think white blanket. 

CEDAR TREES, SUNSET PARK, NORTH BAY

Thanks Peter and moremiles for your postings yesterday. I agree that the view of the wintry lake might looks a little dark but I like the dark grey Winter skies, which make for strong graphic images. So today a colour picture of the same area but now in colour. Hope you like this one. By the way, it was bitterly cold with the wind blowing over the lake.

WINTER, LAKE NIPISSING

The Winter has definitely arrived. The weather has been cold but grey. The last few days we started to get some snow flurries so this morning I took a few pictures along the shore of Lake Nipissing. I did not stay long because the wind was very chilling.

ANOTHER DOOR, FREDERICTON, NB

These are the dark days before Christmas. Not a great time to go out and take pictures. Also of course it is a busy time with all the preparations for the festive season. Luckily I still have a few interesting images from our trip. I have a special interest in doors. Maybe its the mystery of not knowing whats behind them. Again here I am also attracted by the various textures and shapes.

COUCH, FREDERICTON, NB

While Visiting a gallery in Fredericton , I loved the elegant shape of this couch in one of the rooms. The bright red contrasted very nicely with the pastel colours of the rainy outside.

BIRCH TREE, WINTER GARDEN

My first Winter image of the season. We had our first snowfall of the new Winter season. I simply took this picture of our front yard with strong patterns of various shrubs and of course the birch tree as the central focal point. I always like the pen and ink effect of the branches contrasting with the white snowy background. It reminds me of Chinese and Japanese ink drawings.

BARCODE, FREDERICTON, NB

I noticed this strange painting on a wall in Fredericton. I looked like a barcode but I just loved the abstract painterly quality. So of course I had to photograph it and here is the final image.

GARDEN ART, NORTH BAY

Last year I posted a picture of a house, which belongs to John Weiss, a well known North Bay artist and educator. Yesterday John gave us a tour of his property.  I loved his garden' which  reflects his great artistic imagination. John decorates his garden with a wide variety of different objects, like some very nice metal garden sculptures or he simply used found natural items like these skulls stuck on walls or on trees and bushes.

DOOR, FREDERICTON, NB

It was a rather drab grey day in Fredericton so rather than taking some pictures of the old and historic buildings, I concentrated on the little alleyways downtown. This picture reminds me of the work by some of the American Abstract Expressionists.

OLD CEMETERY, FREDERICTON, NB

It was a very grey day when we arrived in Fredericton. Luckily it did not rain so we took a walk through the old downtown. Smack in the centre of town we found this old cemetery  dating back to the early part of the nineteenth century. Of course I had to make a few pictures and again felt that black and white made a visually stronger image.

OLD RAILWAY STATION, BATH, NB

This was the old Bath railway station, which now has been converted to apartments. It looked a little sad so I combined a sepia image with the original colour to subdue the tone of the picture.

LAUNDRY, BATH, NEW BRUNSWICK

It has been a few days since my last posting. The time before the snow arrives is a sort of an in between time. So I have not been on little photo trips. Anyway I still have some good images from our New Brunswick trip. Here is a picture I took when driving through the little town of Bath along the St. John river. I brought back the colour of the laundry, which nicely contrasts with the toned black and white image.

OLD HOUSE, NEW BRUNSWICK

I liked this old house. It definitely has character. Of course it is rundown and neglected but it still shows the remnants of a wonderful place when it was newly built.

COLOUR AND PATTERNS, NEW BRUNSWICK

What struck me when I passed this place how colourful it these buildings were. Most of the houses are simply painted white. Of course this makes for strong black and white images. What makes this picture is the different patterns and the brightly painted porch.

BUILDINGS, HWY 104, NEW BRUNSWICK

This picture, which I made in a small village along HWY 104 in New Brunswick, reminded me of pictures made by Paul Strand who visited the Gaspè in 1929 and again in 1936. What I liked was the strong geometric shapes of the composition.

INTERIOR, SCHOOLHOUSE

As promised, here is a colour image of the inside of the old schoolhouse. I was really surprised to see that the place had not been stripped bare.

AGAIN ABANDONED SCHOOLHOUSE

Its true Bob, I guess the world always had colour. Its not that I don't like colour but I still love black and white. I think in this case for instance a black and white interpretation makes for a visually stronger image. It is a very utilitarian building but architecturally quite interesting with the returning eaves, which add a nice decorative touch to the side of this little school. I promise tomorrow I will post a colour image  of the interior.

ABANDONED SCHOOLHOUSE, NEW BRUNSWICK

On our way to Fredericton, our GPS directed me on to HWY 104. It took us through some very interesting back country of New Brunswick. We passed this empty schoolhouse abandoned  in the country side. Its actually a very nice building in its architectural simplicity.I decided to present it as a black and white image, which would reflect the era better than the colour version.

REMEMBRANCE DAY, 2011

 Today is Remembrance Day so I thought it appropriate to post this image of the North Bay war memorial. I took this about a month ago when the leaves were still on the trees. I liked the contrast of life with remembering those who sacrificed their lives.

EMPTY HOUSE, NEW BRUNSWICK

Driving through New Brunswick on the only sunny day of our drive through this province. I could not resist taking pictures of this typical Maritime style house. I liked this view the best. Using my 10mm lens and I think it just gave it that extra twist to an otherwise rather mundane subject.

XTRATA SMELTER, IMAGE # 2

Another image of the same smelter. I would have loved to wander around but of course I had to take my pictures through the fence. I like this wider view with the various patterns and the heavy lines from the pipes leading to an almost singular point in the picture. Hope you enjoy this.

XTRATA SMELTER, NEW BRUNSWICK

It has been a busy week for me. I had to deal with a sudden medical problem but I have recovered enough that I can start posting again. Here is a picture of the Extrata smelter in New Brunswick. I liked the various textures and patterns of this plant. So I had to stop and photograph through the fence. I used my trusted canon G11 and I think I got I nice black and white image of the plant.

A BEAUTIFUL FALL DAY

What a beautiful Fall day. It is not very often that we get this kind of warm sunny weather so late in the season. So here is a very simple picture of seagulls enjoying the sun. I liked the soft pastel colours of the sky and water.

APPLE TREE L'ÎSLE AUX COUDRES

I am still working my way through the pictures of our trip. This apple tree was in the garden of the old mill in L'Îsle Aux Coudres. When I took the picture I already had the idea in mind to make it look like an old Autochrome image. It turned out slightly different because when you start working with a picture new visual avenues open up. I liked the final result, which you see here. 

WALL PAINTING, QUEBEC CITY

We arrived late in a very wet Quebec City. After dinner, we took a quick walk through the old city. I took a few pictures so here is one of a quite famous or popular mural. I simply liked the contrast of the lit painting with the dark street.

COUNTRY ROAD, NEW BRUNSWICK

As I mentioned earlier, the weather on our trip was not the greatest. We had a few nice days but most of the time it was cloudy and of course lots of rain. I liked the coming of Fall mood of the image. I had stopped to take a picture of the tree with the fields but just as I clicked the shutter this flock of birds flew right in front of me. Bonus of course. It added a nice element to the picture.

ABSTRACT, QUEBEC CITY, P.Q

This is detail of a wall I photographed in Quebec City. I always like to photograph abstract subject matter like this beautiful coloured surface. I have a very interesting book by Jonathan Miller, Nowhere in particular. It is a collection of his photographs and his notes on a variety of subjects. His introduction is especially interesting because it deals with what Turner called 'pictures of bits' but , like Miller, I am interested in these negligible fragments and details.

BUILDING SUPPLY STORE, GASPÉ, P.Q

It was a very miserable day when we traveled through the Gaspé. Definitely not a great day for photographs  but I made a few pictures i liked. Adding just a speck of colour to this black and white picture simply creates , what Andreas Feininger would call visual impact.

OCTOBER SKY

I could not resist posting this picture of Lake Nipissing, which I took late yesterday afternoon. For me the sky and the colours of the landscape really gives the feeling of late Fall. It has been very wet and dark but we still have some nice days to finish the last work in the garden before the first snow arrives.

FERRY TO RIVIÈRE DU LOUP

From Charlevoix we crossed the Saint Lawrence river to Rivière du Loup. The weather was miserable with dark gray skies and of course lots of rain. It looks as if I coloured part of a black and white image but actually this is exactly what it looked like during the crossing.

INTERIOR, CHAPEL, L'ISLE-AUX-COUDRES

This is the interior of the chapel of yesterday's posting. For me, it feels like literally stepping back in time. We had those roadside chapels in Holland but now they have to be closed if you did not want to eiter see them vandalized or robbed.

ROAD SIDE CHAPEL, L'ISLE AUX COUDRES

Driving along the highway on the island you will pass quite a few of these small roadside chapels. They have been immaculately restored.

WINDMILL, L'ISLE-AUX-COUDRES

L'Isle-aux-Coudres is a small island in the Saint Lawrence near Baie Saint Paul. It is a beautiful island and one of the attractions are the two flour mills, a windmill built in 1836 and a watermill on the same site from 1825. I think that the wind mill needs some more restoration work.

RAIN, PARKING LOT, NORTH BAY

The last few days the weather has changed from beautiful warm sunny days to very wet grey conditions. Of course Fall has truly started. Yesterday I sat waiting in the car. Rain pelting down, which transformed the view of the boring  parking lot seen through my water covered windshield into a nice abstract image.

FOR SALE, BAIE SAINT PAUL

Krys and Paul are absolutely correct, Baie Saint Paul is a lovely place. I photographed this building, which at the moment houses a art gallery but could have been transported from Louisiana even from South America. It is a heritage house but I suspect that it will need lots of renovations.

COUNTRY ROAD, CHARLEVOIX

After a very nice Thanksgiving weekend time to post another picture. Again I opted for a black and white over the colour version of this landscape. The image has far more impact in monochrome. Colour is nice but it simply lacked drama.

DOWNTOWN, BAIE SAINT PAUL

This Thanksgiving weekend was definitely one perfect weekend to remember. Norman Rockwell would have been very happy.today the picture is a detal of one of the many galleries in downtown Baie Saint Paul.Its the light and shadow combined with the various shapes and patterns which makes this image.

THANKS JOHN

Thanks John for your very gracious comment. I thought you might enjoy this very pastoral Charlevoix landscape. The magnificent cloudy sky is what makes this image. Black and white was my  first choice, remembering what David Ernest said one time " black and white is poetry" and I have to agree. Anyway have a great thanksgiving weekend everybody.

CHARLEVOIX BARN

buildings always attract me. I think it is not just shapes and textures but the human stories and history, which intrigue me.

ANOTHER BLACK AND WHITE

I simply liked the patterns of the reeds along the shore line but I was not interested in just making a straight black and white. Simply changing contrast , resulted in an image  with strong visual impact.

DETAIL, BARN, CHARLEVOIX, PQ

Another black and white, or actually a sepia toned, picture of a detail of the old barn in Charlevoix.

ABANDONED BARN, CHARLEVOIX, PQ

A black and white picture for a change. Actually when I saw this barn along the highway, I realized colour would not work with this scene. It has rich textures and patterns best translated as a monochrome image.

DOWNTOWN BAIE SAINT PAUL, PQ

The main street in Baie Saint Paul is very colourful. Most of the businesses are either art galleries or restaurants with a sprinkling of  small boutiques and gift-shops. The problem for the photographer who would like to  take pictures of the interesting buildings is of course the bumper to bumper parked cars which block the view. In this case I simply included the car giving a measure of scale to this dollhouse type building.