LOADING DOCK

A miserable grey, wet day, but I did get afew interesting images when I passed an abandoned warehouse. The building itself was not very interesting but it had some very interesting details. I just happened to be reading some poetry by the Austrian writer Ingeborg Bachman and I almost titled this picture after one of her poems "Always Living in Words"

MORNING FROST

It was quite cold this morning but I had to go out in the garden to photograph the frost covered leaves. the original colour image looked fine but I simply preferred the black and white picture, which looked very much like a fine etching.

CLOUDS, NORTH BAY CITY HALL

Yesterday I made this image of the cloudy sky reflected in the glass facade of the city hall. It brought back memories of a modern fairytale by the Dutch writer Godfried Bomans. It was a very good story but a little too much to repeat it in this posting.

OCTOBER, GOVERNMENT DOCK, NORTH BAY

No, this time I did not use my iPad but Perfect Effects from onOne. The drawback with the iPad is the smaller size files. I like to work with larger images and also I want to see if I can copy similar effects using my main computer. I can get some of the effects but others are definitely easier to accomplish on a tablet or iPhone.

AT THE WATERFRONT

Yesterday Bob and Cathy asked me what apps I use to manipulate my pictures on the iPad. Well I use a few of the  many apps I downloaded. So lets start with my most favourite, which is Snapseed, which was developed by Nik's Software. The next one has to be Filterstorm, this is another must have. It allows for very intuitive editing of your images. For black and white I use onOne's app Perfect B&W. A great app but alas not available anymore for iPad or iPhone. You can still get it but only for the Mac computer. What a pity because this is a terrific app. I wont make this post too long, so tomorrow I will talk about some apps I use for some special effects. Two apps I highly recommend, especially if you are seriously interested in this branch of photography is AppAlchemy by Dan Marcolina and his app Mobile Masters Let me know what you think.Maybe I should start a new blog just on Mobile photography.

LAKE NIPISSING, SUNSET PARK, NORTH BAY

As I mentioned before in one of my postings, computers have freed  photographers from the technical restrictions of traditional silver based photography. Lately, the new trend in mobile photography and iphoneography has created an enormous surge in the creation of very interesting directions directions of photographic art. I like to experiment with the new apps to explore new directions in my photography.

SUMAC, OUR GARDEN

The sumac in our garden is changing colour. All the maples have lost their leaves, so this is the last of the bright colours. The image is a bright abstract painting of rich textures.

OAKSTREET, NORTH BAY, AGAIN

Yes, all those years I lived in North Bay, I never noticed the strange architecture of this building. Its funny though.

OAKSTREET, NORTH BAY

Back in North Bay. Yesterday on our regular walk around town, we all of a sudden noticed this unusual building on Oak street. No I did not manipulate the image in Photoshop. New York has its beautiful and elegant flat-iron building but I think North Bay has a similar building, maybe not as architectural beautiful but definitely unique.

CAMERON HOUSE, TORONTO, DETAIL

Of course I couldn't resist taking some pictures of the well known bar the Cameron House on Queen street. I used a detail of the painting on the facade. The painting reminded me of some old pulp paperback cover or movie poster from the fifties.

ALLEY, TORONTO 2

Another image of a Toronto alley way. This painting is really an example of the great artistic quality of some of the street art found in the streets of our cities. Obviously people feel the need to express themselves through images painted wherever there is a blank space like this little passage way.

DARK ALLEY, TORONTO

When I took this picture I was not sure what the result would be. It was very dark and I had no tripod, so I simply increased the ISO to 1600. yes of course I did get a lot of grain or I should say noise but I was amazed at the detail in the image. I also promised to give more information about our visit to the David Bowie exhibit at the AGO. It is a wonderful show, which you should see and experience if you get a chance to go to Toronto. You are not allowed to take pictures otherwise I certainly would have posted an image.

AI WEIWEI, NUIT BLANCHE, TORONTO

We just returned from a great weekend in Toronto, where visited the David Bowie exhibition, more about that wonderful show tomorrow. Saturday night downtown Toronto was very busy because it happened to be the yearly art event Nuit Blanche. The centre piece of this event was the Ai WeiWei 3000 bicycle installation.Difficult to photograph because it was quite dark and of course extremely busy. Needless to say that everybody was taking pictures, so here is one of my images I made that evening.

NOTRE DAME CATHEDRAL, OTTAWA

I had never visited the Notre Dame cathedral in Ottawa but on our last trip I noticed that the doors were wide open so I walked in and have to say I was simply overwhelmed by the gaudy neogothic interior of this nineteen century church. I am quite familiar with the gothic churches in France and Northern Europe, where the austere interiors are spiritual spaces something lacking in this church. However I did enjoy the exuberant colours and textures.

FALL PATTERNS

Again it is a beautiful Fall day. This morning I hiked the trails close to our home. The colours are still magnificent but the leaves are falling fast. The patterns of the leaves and grasses combined with the strong blue colour reflections of the sky made I nice Autumn composition.