DOWNTOWN GARDEN

Yesterday I discovered this beautiful garden right in the centre of town. No you can't see it from the street because its hidden. It is completely enclosed and actually very small. But what an oasis of peace and quiet. It truly is a wonderful secret garden and I plan to go back to take some more images.

EMPTY HOUSE

Visited our friend Susan yesterday. The door of her very colourful birdhouse was open. Obviously the birds had already left on their migration south.

DRIFTWOOD, PEI

When searching my old negative files I discovered quite a few images which I had never printed. It is interesting that in time you discover pictures you initially overlooked. This image was one of a series of negatives I made on a piece of driftwood on a beach in PEI. It looks like the bleached bones of some prehistoric animal.

LOBSTER BOAT, PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND

This is an old picture from my archives. The reason i am posting this is that many years ago when I had printed this image, I had promised a copy to one of my friends and co-worker Brigid. I confess I forgot all about it but she just reminded me about my promise. Actually I am not even sure this is the actual image and actually, after seeing the print again, I still like the strong shape of this lobster boat.

YELLOW HOUSE, OTTAWA

I have been busy the last week and I confess I did not have had time to spend on my photography. So this time another image I made a few weeks ago in Ottawa. I named it the yellow house. Its a bit too cute for my taste but this urban scene  worked well in this photograph.

JUST FISH

Simply fish. I saw them swimming and with the very busy reflection thought it would make a good image.

TYPOGRAPHY

Walking past a display window and seeing the lettering, shadows and reflections, it brought back some memories of my early art training. I always enjoyed typography.

SUMMER EVENING LIGHT

A simple image but I liked the quality of the light. The composition is dominated by the shadow of the tree which contrasts with the pattern of vertical lines on the right side of the picture.

VERTICAL GARDEN, OTTAWA

Walking downtown Ottawa I simply had to take a picture of this house with what looked like a vertical garden. I guess it will be quite colourful in a few weeks when the leaves of the Virginia creeper start to change colour.

MARINER 9, NGC OTTAWA

We just returned from a very enjoyable time in Ottawa. It was mainly a family visit but we still found time to visit the National Gallery, where we saw some excellent exhibitions. We especially enjoyed the Marc Chagall exhibition .On our tour of the gallery we saw this great video installation called Mariner 9 by the Canadian artist Kelly Richardson . She is one of the foremost artists working with digital technologies. It is a magnificent thought provoking  video installation well worth a visit to the National Gallery.

NEW GRAFFITI, DOWNTOWN NORTH BAY

On my photo wanderings I had not visited downtown for awhile, so I was very pleased to see these new graffiti along one of the downtown walkways. A visit to Bob Morton's Photodyssey Blog I learned that a group of young Thunderbay artists had created the graffiti earlier this Summer. These artists are young members of the Thunderbay art collective called Die Active. Just click on this link to learn more about this very wonderful collective and definitely go and have a look at their art.

THE OVERPASS

The early morning light was just right for this composition of various shapes and textures.

TRANSITION

Last night we visited friends, who were staying at a cottage on Trout Lake. I decided to take an old camera with me, which I had not used for a few years. I was curious to use it again and surprisingly enough it work very well. We left when it started to get dark and standing on the deck I took a few pictures. The exposures were quite long but I wanted to try and see what the final result would be. I liked the mysterious quality of this image. The transition from evening to night.

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Textures more than colour attracted me in this detail of some graffiti. I always enjoy looking at this urban art. Of course I have to take a few pictures. but this time a black and white interpretation is much more intriguing than the colour version.

KINSMEN BEACH, NORTH BAY

This morning it rained when I went to Kinsmen beach to take a few pictures but the light was just right. I like photographing on overcast or even rainy days. The light is very soft and you can get some very romantic photographs , reminiscent of the 18th century landscape paintings.

SUMMER SKY

Yesterday was a great day if you like spectacular Summer skies. Occasionally it rained but when I saw this landscape near Powassan I just had to photograph this not so interesting scene, which the beautiful clouds and light changed into a dramatic view.

COMMANDA MUSEUM, COMMANDA, ONTARIO

It was a truly beautiful Summer day, so with my two friends Bob and Rob, I continued my little project of visiting the small local museums in the area. This time we went to the Commanda Museum, which is a wonderful restored general country store. Of course they have all the very similar artifacts you will find in every other small museum, but what sets this one apart is interior. Its definitely worth a visit and you can have simple country lunch.

IMAGINARY BEASTS

No, in this city and, I guess in most small communities, you will not find many examples of great graffiti art. Most of the graffiti here are simply inarticulate scribbles. But sometimes you will find some images, which inadvertently have some artistic quality. When I photographed this detail of spray painted scrawls, they reminded me vaguely of some prehistoric rock paintings.

OLD COMPASS, NIPISSING VILLAGE MUSEUM

Another interesting object I photographed on my recent visit to the Nipissing Village Museum. I was told that this compass was found in a farmer's field. It is a beautiful instrument, which makes you wonder, who would lose something like this.

CASH REGISTER, NIPISSING MUSEUM

This picture is for Moremiles, who was wondering about pictures from the Nipissing Museum. well yesterday I made a trip to the museum and had a nice tour of the three buildings. The museum is full of artifacts dating to the late 19th century till after the 1960's. Of course I had to photograph this very ornate cash register. it was surrounded by a lot of other artifacts so I decided to make a black and white image with the register in colour otherwise everything would have blended together losing the visual impact of this Rococo style register.