STREET ABSTRACT, OTTAWA

Street art, graffiti or murals, is a subject which always interest me when walking around cities and towns. I also like looking for interesting patterns and textures found in cracked walls or pavements. Walking down a street in downtown Ottawa I photographed this richly textured and patterned damaged wall. 

FIRST SIGNS OF SPRING

What a wonderful early Spring day or at least it started to feel like Spring.  Our small harlequin was ready to take his dog for a walk after being cooped up inside these last cold and snowy weeks. Even though we can expect some more Winter weather, we know Spring will soon be here.

SAN FRANCISCO.CA

Lately I feel like the publisher of the old LIFE magazine. The magazine has not been published for decades but the company is publishing quite a few special editions using images from their very extensive picture library. The same with me the last few weeks I have been revisiting my old files and discovering many really fine images I totally forgot about. So her is a picture I took some years ago in San Francisco. I love this type of very richly patterned old buildings like this old downtown condo.

FANCY CAMPER, OTTAWA

Time for some colour, looking through some of my picture files I came across some pictures I took in Ottawa of this fancy camper. Well of course I had to post it because it certainly is colourful. Imagine arriving at a busy campground in this RV, it certainly would be the talk of the caamping community.

JANUARY THAW

Time to post another picture. I have been busy with a few other projects, which have kept me busy, Yesterday I took a couple images I liked. Particularly this one reminding me of the drawings and paintings by some of the great masters of Chinese painting.

ANOTHER MAGICAL SNOW DAY

A fresh load of snow made this day into another magical snow day. Of course i had to clean up our driveway and then other commitments prevented me of going out to take pictures. But not before I took some pictures of our backyard.  

A BEAUTIFUL SNOW DAY

Yesterday was just a wonderful day for taking pictures. I like the older part of the city and the reason is that, unlike in the new suburbs and developments, it is the trees which give a neighbourhood character, which is quite often lacking in our cities suburbs.

WINTER

I titled this image simply Winter. A few days ago on our walk along the city streets I took this picture of this beautiful maple tree. The light was of course quite harsh but I liked the image which has the quality of a pen and ink drawing. Adding some colour softened the strong contrast of the picture giving it a watercolour effect.

THE END OF THE HOLIDAY SEASON

The holiday season is finished. All our visitors have returned home and our home is again unusually quiet. It was a wonderful Christmas festival. Good company, excellent food and lots of laughter. But now i am also glad to be back to our quiet life and will be back posting regularly on my blog and on Facebook. The days are getting longer, with the promise of Spring. of course the Winter will continue for a few more month. 

CHRISTMAS 2016

It has been quite awhile since my last posting, but the Christmas season is always a very busy time for everyone. However today I like to wish everyone a very merry Christmas and a wonderful New Year. After the holiday season I promise that I will post again on a more regular basis. Enjoy the holidays.

SNOW

Yesterday we received our first serious snowfall. So I decided to return to Champlain Park to see what the landscape would look like in the snow. I was a little disappointed because I had expected the sandbank to be covered in the white stuff but no the wind was quite strong, which had blown the snow off the surface but the water was very textured of course which I liked. So here another dramatic black and white of the same landscape I posted yesterday.

CHAMPLAIN PARK, NORTH BAY

This image is for all my friends who love the classic quality of black and white photography. Yesterday was a dark rainy day, just the type of weather I like to take black and white pictures. I love the landscape photographs by Bill Brandt, Robert Frank and Josef Koudelka. Too many landscape photographs done digitally are technically superb of course but as David Hockney said in an interview they are boring. In other words they lack soul. I like the traditional images with all its deficiencies like grain for instance. 

A GLORIOUS FALL DAY

It was exceptionally warm yesterday. So of course I made a little walkabout around the lake. The water level was quite low so I walked onto the large sandbanks and took some pictures with the intention of turning them into some black and white images, but after I looked at the results, the colour images were definitely stronger. I especially liked this photo because of the strong impasto quality of the foreground texture.

BLOWING WIND

Last Friday , walking along a trail along the lake, I made a series of pictures of the strong wind blowing from the lake. This image was my favourite showing the gusts of wind seemingly blowing from different directions creating interesting patterns and textures.

COLOURS OF NOVEMBER, FOR DAVE BROWN

This picture is for Dave Brown, who loves this place but since he is living in southern Ontario, makes it a little bit more complicated visiting this wonderful place on Lake Nipissing. So when you come again to North Bay, we can go out there and take some more great images Dave. I titled this picture "colours of November" because this month has a very special quality, which is unique to this part of the year. The colour hues are browns, grays and some dark reds. 

TOTEM POLE (detail), MUSEUM OF HISTORY, OTTAWA

This is a black and white picture I took on our last trip to Ottawa. Most of the museum is under renovation for next year's celebration of Canada's 150th anniversary but I still enjoy seeing the large totem poles in the great hall. These magnificent and monumental sculptures definitely belong to the great works of art.  

NOVEMBER, SUNSET COVE, LAKE NIPISSING

Yesterday I made a trip to my favourite little cove on the South shore of Lake Nipissing. It was a nice early November fall day. Not much colour left just the brown tones of the pine needles. It was a very quiet day, which i enjoy. All in all a nice satisfying day wandering around and making some nice images.

STORE WINDOW, OTTAWA

Walking along Dalhousie Street in Ottawa, I saw this installation showing images of famous and not so famous women from prehistoric times to the present. I found it interesting because a few years ago, in the National gallery, I had seen a similar but a much larger installation made with news and advertising  photographs. So maybe that art work was the inspiration to this display.

CITYSCAPE, OTTAWA

We just returned from a very enjoyable tie in the Ottawa region. I like to photograph different cityscapes. Not the great buildings but the alleys and obscure backstreets. What attract me are the textures, colours and perspectives in scenes like this nondescript passage. The day was quite grey and dreary just the weather I quite prefer because the colours are quite rich and the reflections add some great textures.

ESCAPING THE SPIDER

I think what really fascinates me, as a photographer, is the surreal quality of the place. Every time I  visit the site I get some very surrealistic images. When I was working on this image I could think about a variety of titles, which, ever time, would change the meaning of the picture.