MERRY CHRISTMAS

Two more days and again it will be Christmas. So I like to wish all my friends a very Merry Christmas and of course a Happy New Year. Enjoy the holidays.

CHRISTMAS LIGHTS, ORLEANS, ONTARIO

Last night we took a walk though one of the most decorated streets here in Orleans. Needless to say it was quite crowded but kids simply loved it and actually so did the adults.

WINTER NINEBARK

It has been and still is bitterly cold. Not a good time to wander outside to take pictures. So sitting at my fireplace reading very wonderful book about Chinese art. Looking at some of these very fine drawings I took some pictures of various shrubs in our garden making my own pen and ink images reminiscent of  Chinese drawing styles.

IT IS COLD

Its cold today. This afternoon we went for a short walk and I mean short. The thermmeter read -20ºC but it felt closer to -25º. The lake is definitely frozen, as you can see. I just took a few pictures and then quickly back to our warm home.

SOO,OLD BOX CAR, MATTAWA

On our visit to Mattawa last week, we stopped at the railway yard. There is not much left because most of the railway is now history. In the yard were a collection of old box cars which offered some great opportunities for some wonderful abstract images with  strong textures, colours and patterns.

JUST A HINT OF COLOUR

Busy days before Christmas. Anyway here is another picture from our last photo trip. I made an almost monochrome image with just a hint of colour.

PERSPECTIVE, OTTAWA RIVER, MATTAWA

Yesterday I went on a great photo trip with my friend Gerry. We wandered along the country roads and ended up in Mattawa on the confluence of the Ottawa and Mattawa river. The light was just fine for some good Winter images. We made some pictures of the bridge but when I wanted to go to the covered part on the middle of the bridge, Gerry discouraged me because he was worried that we would be in trouble if a train would come rolling down the track. So we decided to go for lunch before continuing our trip.

WINTER TRAIN

The last few days of November. Well I guess these  are the days before Christmas, nearly always grey and cold. but also very busy days preparing for the annual Christmas season. I made this picture while doing some shopping downtown. Just a little red of early dusk adds some colour to an otherwise monotone landscape.

LATE POSTING

It has been a long time since my last posting. This week has been quite busy, so I did not get a chance to go out and take pictures. I am working on a few other projects. I made this image a few weeks ago and I love the rhythm of the red and green patterns. It reminded me of Paul Klee's theories on music and abstract art.

FIRST SNOW

Today we received our first big snowfall of the Winter season. We made a little tour but at times the snow squalls made driving quite tricky especially on the country roads. I did manage to get this picture which looked like an old pen and ink drawing.

TWO BARNS

I took this picture a little earlier in the week. The two barns show character,so I immediately thought of black and white. Mind you it will work in colour but I will have to explore this landscape further after a first snowfall. So I will be going back there to hopefully get some more interesting images.

EARLY WINTER LANDSCAPE, BONFIELD

This morning I made alittle trip to the Bonfield area. We received a dusting of snow but actually not enough to get some nice early Winter images. The sky was overcast but later in the morning the sun started to appear and just when I passed this landscape the sun put a "spotlight" on the birches and fields. Again I preferred the black and white interpretation over the original colour rendition.

QUARRY

Another picture of my photo excursion to the quary. I like this image because its quite dramatic especially the black and white rendition.

QUARRY NEAR ASTORVILLE, ONTARIO

Yesterday, it was a beautiful warm late Fall day. So I went on a little photo tour to a stone quarry near Astorville. The strong textured shapes of the boulders, which reminded me of the prehistoric stone circles in Europe but also of the great sculptures of Henry Moore. I did get a few excellent images from this trip, which I will post the next time.

CURVES, WATERFRONT, NORTH BAY

This morning I downloaded the beta version of the new onOne software Normally I don't like to advertise products on my blog but I know that people are interested what software I used. The final result of this picture reminds me of the black and white photographs of the British photographer Bill Brand, who is one of my favourite photographers.

REMEMBERING HITCHCOCK

Last week, walking past this house, I thought about the Film Noir movies of the forties and fifties. I especially enjoy the films made by Alfred Hitchcock, even though he was not strictly a Film Noir director. Anyway when I reviewed my pictures I took last week, I remembered the old Film Noir movies and felt that the image reflected the photographic style of these very popular movies.

ABSTRACT, McINTYRE STREET

Today was a typical grey November day, so I decided to post a picture I took a few days ago of some graffiti on McIntyre Street here in North bay. I liked the bright red painted line contrasting with the crack in the wall. In this series of abstract images I concentrated on photographing closeups rather than the full graffiti.

NOVEMBER, LAKE NIPISSING

Another image from yesterdays photo walk. I like very almost minimalist composition but pictures which reflect the mood and atmosphere of the season.

FIRST SNOWFALL, NOVEMBER 2013

All the renovations are finally done. So today I took some time to take some early Winter pictures. Here is an image of one of my favourite spots along the shores of Lake Nipissing. I was quite happy with some of the images I made early this afternoon.

MILLER BLOCK POSTCARD

A few weeks ago I looked at a book of vintage postcards of North Bay and communities in the Nipissing district. It is a beautifully produced book, which at the same time, gave a great overview of the history of this city. The book was compiled and written by Jack de la Vergne, who is a collector of vintage postcards. I tried to buy a copy but Jack informed me that the book was a limited edition of twenyt five copies, which he had made for friends and family. I hope he will publish it in a larger edition but it is a very large book and I think might be too costly for this limited market. Anyway I decided to recreate an old vintage postcard with a modern scene, taken yesterday afternoon.

MAN WITH DOG

We are having some renovations down in the house so not much time to go and take photographs, but by the end of this week everything should be back to normal. Yesterday I noticed this composition of light, shadows and forms, which made me think of images of the photography movement in the nineteen twenties called Neues Sehen or New Vision. The ideas of this movement originated in Europe and the USA. It was also closely tied to the Bauhaus in Germany.

NOVEMBER RAIN

It rain for two days. It was not a great time for going out and take pictures. Actually I do enjoy the dark days of November because of the wonderful moody landscapes. This bright yellow school bus contrasted beautifully with the dark wet landscape.

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.

TRADITION, OUR GARDEN

It is a yearly tradition to take pictures of our garden. I simply love the Fall colours and each year I can't resist photographing the garden. So here is my yearly Fall garden impression.

SCAFFOLDING, OTTAWA

There is a lot of construction work going on at the National Gallery. Of course, when I go to Ottawa, I always make a short visit to the gallery.I liked this view of all the scaffolding, which made a rich abstract pattern of lines and shapes. This worked particularly well in black and white.

BARN NEAR MUNSTER, ONTARIO

I agree with you Cathy, it is a pity to see these old buildings disappear. It would be nice if some of those old log barns could be preserved. Maybe at some local open air museum like the one in Cumberland.

ABANDONED FARM INTERIOR, OTTAWA

Last Winter I posted a picture of an old log farm near Ottawa, actually it is situated within the city limits. This time I photographed the interior of the old house. The floors were in a deplorable state so I simply took the pictures through the windows. The final result were a set of fine images, rich in texture, colour and shapes.

FALL POND, ASHTON, ONTARIO

We returned yesterday from a trip to Ottawa. I did take a few promising pictures. Yesterday was a very darkand wet day but I managed to get a good picture of this pond with the first signs of the Fall season. The scene reminded me of a rich tapestry of patterns and colours. It is a handheld shot so I had to use a high ISO setting simply to freeze the ripples in the water. 

COLOUR ON A GREY DAY, NORTH BAY

It has been raining quite a bit in the last few days but when I walked by this house in downtown North Bay it cheered me up. I simply loved the exuberance of the bright colours and patterns.

FALL CLEANUP

Again its been awhile since my last posting. The main reason was a problem with my external hard drive, which holds my pictures. It simply stopped  working. Of course I have a backup but I neglected to duplicate my images from the last few weeks. Not very smart of course. I tried everything to get the drive working again. Then, all of a sudden it came to life. Of course I was quite happy. In the mean time I purchased a 3TB drive and now all is well. This picture I took a few days ago when my wife started on her anual Fall ritual, the cleanup. The fun part for me is burning all the dead branches she had trimmed from the various shrubs and trees. The smoke filtered light created this rather romantic image but I love it.

CAGED, TORONTO

Walking along a downtown street in Toronto, I photographed this wooden elephant on display in a store window.He looks rather sad don't you think.

HONEST ED, TORONTO

When we were in Toronto, we had to visit Honest Ed's before it would be closed permanently. It had been decades since we had been there and it actually had not changed that much. The same cheap merchandise was still on sale. I particularly liked these bizarre looking figurines.On second thought, maybe I should have bought one.

ELEVATOR, TORONTO

One morning I stepped into the hotel elevator, during our Toronto trip, when I saw this great sunset right in front of me. Of course I could not resist taking a picture of this imaginary landscape. 

AII WEIWEI EXHIBITION, TORONTO

Yesterday we visited the Ai WeiWei exhibition at the Art Gallery of Ontario. It is a wonderful show which exceeded our expectations. To use our granddaughter's words " its awesome aand very cool". Ai WeiWei is definitely one of the most important artists of the early twenty first century. So, if you get a chance, go and see this great exhibition.

THE FIRST UNMISTAKABLE SIGNS

This morning while walking along the lake I photographed the first unmistakable signs of the coming Fall. I did not post much this week because I received my new small camera, the Leica D-Lux 6 and, as with every new tool, it takes time to familiarize yourself with all the various functions. Each camera is slightly different. I am getting used to it and I am very pleased with the results. The lens is simply superb.

SERVICING ONTARIO, FIELD

It has been a few years since I visited Field, a small community not far from Sturgeon Falls. It saddens nme to see the slow deterioration of many small towns here in northern Ontario. But surprisingly many of these same communities are very resilient and I have noticed new businesses opening up and are doing quite well.