90 wpm @ F22

Electoral Reform

2011-05-15T17:55:00.002-04:00

May 14 was a national day in support of electoral reform in Canada, with demonstrations organized in most major cities across the country. In Montreal, demonstrators gathered under pouring rain at Place Émilie-Gamelin, across the street from the Université du Québec à Montréal. More pictures on my Facebook page.

Tomorrow I Will Fly

2011-04-30T07:35:00.002-04:00

After fifteen years in Ottawa, I am going home to Montreal tomorrow. All photos © S.E. Amesse 2008-2011. Music from the soundtrack of "Winged Migration" © Nick Cave / Bruno Coulais 2003.

2010 in Review

2010-12-13T12:15:00.003-05:00

I didn't get to shoot as much as I would have liked, but 2010 still presented ample opportunities for memorable captures. This is a collection of my favourites for the year.

● I got to spend some quality time in Montreal, and brought back pictures 1, 2, 17, 24 and 25. The kiss at 24, from Pride Montreal in August, is one of my favourite captures from 2010. ● I finally got a haircut. It took a few tries, but picture 3 shows the final result.● Police forces made the news for their controversial actions at the G20 summit in Toronto. At the time of the summit, I was checking out preparations for Canada Day on Parliament Hill, and captured the RCMP officers shown in picture 9. ● Demonstrations were held across Canada to protest against police actions in Toronto. Pictures 7 and 29 are from the Ottawa demonstration at the Human Rights monument. ● My Canada Day started with the young woman on picture 5 playing a tango on Byward Market. ● I met rock artist John Felice Ceprano, shown on picture 26, whose work can be seen at the Remic Rapids on the Ottawa River. ● My Canada Day started with the young woman on picture 5 playing a tango on Byward Market. ● I finally got a divorce. It required a few trips to the courthouse on Elgin Street, and I got to shoot Bruce Garner’s sculpture Due Process from all angles. ● Pictures 2, 15, 17, 18, 21, 22 and 29 are from photo shoots with my son Dominique in Montreal, Wakefield and Luskville. ● Ottawa fired Larry O’Brien on October 25. Picture 10 shows Nadia Willard, who ran for City Councillor in River Ward. Picture 11 shows me with a sign on my front lawn. ● I didn’t get out in the woods as much as I would have liked, but I still managed to capture a few images like pictures 4, 6, 8, 12, 20, 27 and 31. ● My cat Flip died in May. Picture 13 is one of the last ones I have of him. ● Boogie was Boogie, as shown on picture 14. ● Shadow joined the family in June. Picture 19 shows her at six months of age.

Happy Holiday$!

2010-12-12T16:15:00.003-05:00

My annual overdose...

An Empty Chair

2010-12-10T12:21:00.003-05:00

In solidarity with Chinese Peace Prize Liu Xiaobo, who will not be able to attend the award ceremony in Oslo. CBC report here.

Ho, ho, ho.

2010-12-05T09:31:00.002-05:00

Boogie is not amused.

First Ice

2010-11-26T23:49:00.004-05:00

Though we'd already had a wee bit of freezing rain on Monday, today was the first real nasty-weather day in the Ottawa Valley. I was working from home, fortunately, so I missed the commuting misery and was able to take a walk through Beechwood Cemetery at lunchtime. This is from the Chinese section at the St.Laurent entrance next to Our Lady of Mount Carmel church.

Queen of Spades

2010-11-19T22:17:00.002-05:00

Shadow is now seven months old, and there's not a lot of kitten left in her...

Centre-ville

2010-10-30T00:55:00.003-04:00

Captured in downtown Montreal on a photo walk with my son.

Tribal Ottawa

2010-10-24T10:40:00.006-04:00

Ottawa's annual Zombie Walk was held on October 23. Undead college students gathered at Beechwood Cemetery and staggered over to Parliament Hill, where the RCMP was a little on the intense side this year.

More photos of the Zombie Walk on my Flickr photostream.

Christian Pride

2010-08-31T18:35:00.007-04:00

A representative of St.Michael and All Angels Anglican Church in the Capital Pride parade on August 29 in Ottawa. Thanks to Francesco Esposito for correcting my earlier mistakes; I'd managed to get not only the name of the church, but the religion wrong as well... :-)

I have more pictures of Capital Pride on Flickr and Facebook.

Car Wash Religion

2010-08-28T15:29:00.003-04:00

When I was a kid growing up in Montreal, the Église Vie et Réveil at St.Catherine and Papineau used to shout in foot-high letters at anyone driving through the Gay Village: LE SALAIRE DE TON PÉCHÉ, C'EST L'ENFER!!! ("The reward for your sin is Hell.") It appears to have run out of breath.

Fierté Montréal 2010

2010-08-16T21:40:00.005-04:00

The Montreal Pride parade was held on Sunday, August 15, under a sky that mercifully held off on the pouring rain until the very end. This is a member of the Lambda Youth contingent, one of the most joyful and energetic in the parade. I have more pictures here on my Flickr page.

Fascination Street

2010-08-09T20:55:00.004-04:00

On an otherwise desperately fruitless walk through downtown Ottawa on Sunday...

Predator

2010-08-07T10:12:00.003-04:00

An arctic wolf at Parc Oméga, Montébello, Québec.

City of Ottawa: we put the SIT in TRANSIT

2010-08-05T17:07:00.000-04:00

For the second day in a row, the Ottawa Citizen reports on mind-boggling public transit delays during the afternoon rush hour. Eastbound traffic on Slater Street, which was already viscous because of construction on downtown Transitway stations, became downright glacial when Bell Canada opened up the street at Slater and Elgin in order to replace a conduit. With the two centre lanes of Slater closed to traffic, includng the Transitway lane, buses have to move to the far right and wait in line with right-turning private vehicles before they can get through the Elgin intersection. As a result, buses have been backed up as far as Lebreton station, and commuters have reported delays as long as one hour in getting through downtown.

In all fairness to OC Transpo, this latest bit of insanity is not entirely the transit company's fault. According to the Citizen, Bell Canada did apply for the proper permit to open up the street. The permit was granted, but no one at the City saw fit to inform OC Transpo of this. Presumably the first OC Transpo ever heard of the Bell construction was from a bus operator who noticed barricades going up and called dispatch to report something along the lines of: "Err, we're gonna have a problem here."

One of the commuters interviewed by the Citizen, Eric Darwin, makes an excellent point when he says: "It's almost contempt the way they treat bus passengers. They would not close down the Queensway by just putting a barricade across the four lanes and saying, OK, we’re going to be here for hours, and we’re not going to change the access routes or tell you beforehand."

In larger cities like Toronto and Montreal, public transit is the smart way to get places. In Ottawa, it seems that we're still struggling with a small town mentality from the 1950's that considers that only those too young, too old or too poor to drive a car would ever stoop so low as to get on a bus. The car culture still reigns supreme, and Mr. Darwin is quite correct in pointing out that no one at the City would ever dream of authorizing the closing of two lanes of the Queensway in the middle of the afternoon rush hour.

Buses? Apparently, nobody cares.

As a reminder, OC Transpo is planning five "customer appreciation days" through the month of August. This is the schedule:

August 9: Terry Fox Station
August 11: Fallowfield Station
August 13: Hurdman Station
August 17: South Keys Station
August 19: Place d'Orléans Station

While I am definitely not urging anyone to hurl abuse at OC Transpo employees who have nothing whasoever to do with the gross mismanagement of public transit in Ottawa, I would still encourage not only regular transit riders, but all taxpayers in this city to show up at one of those customer appreciation days and make their concerns known. If you live here, work here or pay taxes here, public transit is your business whether you take the bus or not. As long as the population of Ottawa continues to meekly accept what in other Canadian cities would be considered absolutely unacceptable, City Council will have exactly zero incentive to roll up its sleeves and do something about it.

Requiem

2010-08-03T17:13:00.014-04:00

This is the former home of the Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography, located at 380 Sussex Drive between the Rideau Canal and the Château Laurier.

The CMCP was founded in 1985, with a collection based on the Stills Photography Division of the National Film Board of Canada. With a mandate to collect, preserve and exhibit Canadian contemporary photography, it was created an autonomous affiliate of the National Gallery of Canada.

In 1992, the CMCP moved into its distinctive new home, designed by architect Michael Ludhom by adapting a former railway tunnel running alongside the Canal. Built at a cost of $16 million, the underground facility included climate-controlled exhibition and storage space, a professional audio recording booth and a production studio.

In 2006, the CMCP was temporarily closed to the public due to a leak in the building. The temporary closure became permanent in May 2009, when the Conservative Government announced that the museum would cease to exist as a separate venue. The CMCP's collection would be absorbed by the National Gallery of Canada, and the building would become meeting space for Parliamentary Committees.

Granted, the CMCP's problems had begun long before the Conservatives came into power. Through its short history, and some would say even before it officially came into existence, it has been plagued by controversy, bureaucratic drama, territorial squabbles, and management that can only be politely described as baffling. While it would be incorrect to lay the blame for the CMCP's demise squarely at the feet of the current government, the fact remains that the Conservatives have shown precisely zero interest in finding a solution that would preserve the museum's autonomy and ensure its continued existence.

We've known for a long time that Canadian culture is nowhere near the top of the Conservative agenda, and the Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography is only one example of the "rationalizations" that have been directed at funding for the arts, public broadcasting, and anything else that will allow Stephen Harper's minority government to wrap itself in a populist mantle of fiscal responsbility. It's easy to look good by closing a small museum that most Canadians have never heard of; but every time a small corner of Canadian culture becomes an easy target for "rationalization", it is our collective national identity that dies a little more.

ADDITIONAL READING

This is an eloquent article in defense of the CMCP written by Martha Langford, the founding Director of the Museum and currently an Associate Professor and Concordia University Research Chair in Art History.

Focus!

2010-07-31T22:33:00.009-04:00

You can correct a lot of mistakes in digital photography. Depending on the software you use and your level of skill with it, you can straighten, brighten, adjust the colour and increase the contrast, soften your mother's skin and remove bird droppings from your new sports car, but there are a few things that no amount of Photoshopping are going to fix for you, and the first of these things is focus.

"Well", you say, "what about the sharpening feature in Photoshop?"

Well, I answer, all decent photo editing software comes with a sharpening feature (including decent photo editing software that doesn't cost more than a sports car), but here's the bad news: it only works if your pictures are already sharp to begin with.

Huh?

The sharpening feature in photo editing software doesn't really sharpen anything. What it does is increase local edge contrast, so that your pictures look sharper to the human eye. Software cannot make up information that isn't there; if you feed it a blurry picture, there's no amount of manipulation that will make it less blurry.

There are several factors involved in taking sharper pictures. Some of these have to do with the technical aspects of getting something sharp, and others have to do with getting the right thing sharp. So let's talk about the technical stuff first.

GETTING IT SHARP

First of all, the shutter speed has to be fast enough to "freeze" your subject, on the one hand, and prevent your own movements from blurring the picture, on the other. Neither of these things will usually bother you much when you're shooting outside in broad daylight; it's when you try to take pictures indoors or in low light that you're going to start noticing them getting blurry. Assuming that you're using one of your camera's automatic modes, that would be because the camera has to keep the shutter open for a longer period of time in order to get all the light it needs to take the picture. If your or your subject happen to be moving while the shutter is open, the camera will record the movement as a blur.

So how do you fix that?

The first thing to try is to set your camera to aperture-priority mode (check your manual), and use a wide aperture. (As a reminder, the widest aperture will be the lowest number.) With a wider aperture, your camera will be able to use a faster shutter speed, because the lens is allowing more light inside and the camera doesn't have to keep the shutter open for quite as long. Think of it as filling a bathtub with a drinking straw or a firefighter's hose; the hose will get the job done faster.

If your lens or camera has a vibration reduction feature built into it, turning it on will help to a degree. It also helps if you hold your camera properly, with your elbows tucked in and your body steady. If you can brace yourself against a fence, wall or tree, that will help as well.

If you've just bought your first DSLR and you're used to framing pictures by looking at the LCD in the back of a point-and-shoot camera, do yourself a favour and turn off the live view. Learn to shoot through the viewfinder like a crusty old film veteran. The only way you'll get any decent pictures by holding your camera at arm's lenght is by pure accident.

In very low light, or if you're taking pictures of a city skyline at night, you're going to have to use a tripod. There are thousands of models available from hundreds of manufacturers, at prices that range between $10 and several thousand. Which one you need depends on how much you're going to use it, but you should make sure in any case that the tripod you buy will be able to support the weight of your camera and lens. A lot of cheap tripods available in electronics stores are designed to support a small point-and-shoot camera, not a DSLR. If it wobbles, or if the lens "droops" after you frame your picture, you need a sturdier tripod.

GETTING THE RIGHT THING SHARP

Even if you're using a tripod in bright light and shooting a statue of Queen Victoria, your pictures will still look terrible if you get the wrong thing in focus -- like the trees behind Her Majesty instead of Herself.

Many digital cameras will give you the option to display an overlay in the viewfinder, showing among other things the focus point the camera is using. It's a good idea to turn that feature on, and learn how to move the focus point around the frame if that option is available to you.

Most digital cameras have several focusing modes available. Many of them will have a matrix focusing mode that tries to figure out what your subject is; other modes will focus on the object that's closest to the camera, which can be useful in many situations, but not always. If you're taking a picture of your daughter as she stands behind a hedge, for instance, you don't want the hedge to be sharp and your daughter out of focus.

Take some time to read through the section in your manual that describes the various focusing modes, and experiment with each of them. If you have the time and inclination, set your lens on manual focus and experiment with that as well. There will be some situations where autofocus is either difficult or impossible, and it's a good idea to get comfortable with trusting your own eyes.

And speaking of eyes, that's what you should be focusing on when taking pictures of people or animals. Whether or not the eyes are the mirror of the soul is beyond the scope of this blog, but I can tell you without a doubt that getting your girlfriend's nose sharper than her eyes will get you no brownie points whasoever.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

Photocritic.org has an article here that provides 8 steps to taking sharper pictures.

Photographer Nasim Mansurov has an excellent article here.

NEXT WEEK: COMPOSITION

Tune in next week for a discussion of picture composition, or how to take photos that look interesting and dynamic.

Happy shooting!

Group Hug!

2010-07-30T23:19:00.009-04:00

...

According to the Ottawa Citizen, OC Transpo is planning to hold five customer appreciation days at strategic Transitway stations throughout the month of August. These events will be held at morning rush hour and will include "refreshments, transit information and promotional items".

Like what? The complete works of Mazo de la Roche in a special weather-proof edition, so we can have something to do when three 118's in a row fail to show up on time?

Apparently someone at City Council thinks it's a good idea to hand out cookies and fridge magnets in the middle of rush hour, presumably with the goal of improving the public image that was never flying all that high, even before the disastrously-managed transit strike of 2008-2009 shot it down into flames. That such a lame attempt at public relations received approval and funding from the City makes it extremely difficult to avoid concluding that none of our duly-elected City Councillors have taken an actual bus to actually GO somewhere since they got their first cars as high school graduation presents. If they HAD been anywhere near Hurdman Station in the last decade, they would realize that OC Transpo customers don't want "refreshments, transit information and promotional items" at morning rush hour.

What we want is to get to work on time more than once a month, preferably without having to leave home earlier than if we were taking an airplane to China.

Even if OC Transpo wasn't still trying to recover the ridership lost to the transit strike (let's give them the benefit of the doubt and assume that they ARE in fact trying to recover it), I'm pretty sure that any first-year marketing student could have told City Council that it is not prudent for a public service to go out and tell the public "We love you!" when the public has nothing particularly good to say about the service in question. It's hard to imagine Revenue Canada, for instance, mailing out "customer appreciation packages" at tax time. The best thing to do for a widely-reviled public service is to lay low, stay off the front page of the newspapers, and avoid getting laughed at and slapped around all over the Internet.

OC Transpo holding "customer appreciation days" is like BP sponsoring a convention of marine biologists. We already know exactly how much we're appreciated, thank you, and it's not a travelling circus that will do anything to change our perception.

Get on the darn bus and see for yourself, Councillors. You're dealing with a cancer that won't be made to go away by throwing a handful of candy at it. Get your act together, fix your disastrous labour relations climate, and get serious about making public transit an attractive option for working people in this city. Give us buses that run on time, quit cutting trips at rush hour, clean up the transit map that currently looks like it was designed by following a deer on psychedelic drugs, and get some client service training for your power-tripping fare controllers.

Give us public transit worth appreciating, and you won't have to hire dancing bears to tell us how much you appreciate us.

Early Harvest

2010-07-30T00:11:00.003-04:00

...

They were harvesting one of the oat fields today on the Central Experimental Farm...

Taken at lunchtime from the southwest corner of the Farm, looking towards Fisher Avenue.

Hollywood, here I come!

2010-07-28T18:38:00.005-04:00

I was just about to download the pictures from the camera this afternoon when I noticed a tuft of black fur sticking out of my camera bag. I had the 105mm mounted on the camera, not enough space to use it without moving the bag, and nothing else to use but the little old 50mm F/1.8 manual focus. Luckily I also had one strobe not in the bag with the kitten, and she graciously let me have the 3 seconds I needed to set it up...

Shadow is now four months old and apparently satisfied that this house will do nicely until she's crowned Empress of the Universe. She's teaching me and the dog all sorts of new life skills, like putting headphones in a safe place when they're not in use. It took me two pairs of headphones to learn that one...

The Taming of the Shoe

2010-07-25T23:57:00.005-04:00

This young man did not especially want to dress up for the pictures today... :-)

Lenses: What's in a name?

2010-07-25T08:07:00.006-04:00

Camera lenses are usually designated by names that look somewhat like this: Nikkor AF 55-200mm F/4-5.6 VR.

So what does it mean?

AF means that the lens will work in autofocus mode. AF-S is more recent and usually more desirable; it means that the autofocus mechanism is driven by the camera instead of relying on its own internal motor. AF-S lenses will usually focus faster, but they will not autofocus on cameras which do not have the capacity of driving autofocus. Examples of such cameras include the Nikon D40, D60 and D80.

The designation AI means that the lens can handle light metering as we know it (provided the camera can be set up to accept this particular lens), but focusing will be manual. The designation MF means manual focus, but the lens may or may not be capable of light metering. Both the AI and MF designations are usually seen in listings for secondhand lenses; if you’re thinking of buying one of those, you should do some online research and make sure the lens is compatible with your camera before you put in your bid on eBay.

The figure expressed in millimeters, such as 35mm or 55-200mm, refers to the focal lenght of the lens. Single figures mean that you’re looking at a prime lens with a fixed focal lenght, while a pair of figures indicates the range of a zoom lens.

The F number refers to the maximum aperture of the lens, or in other words how much light it can allow into the camera. On eBay listings and camera store web sites, it will usually be expressed as, for instance, F/1.8. On the lenses themselves, it will usually appear as 1:1.8, as in the example above. The lower the number, the bigger the maximum aperture, and the more light can be allowed into the camera.

For zoom lenses, a maximum aperture expressed as a single figure, like F/2.8 or 1:2.8, means that the maximum aperture will remain the same throughout the lens’ focal range. A pair of figures, like F/4.5-5.6 or 1:4.5-5.6, means that the maximum aperture will decrease as the focal lenght increases, allowing less light into the camera at 200mm than it will at 55mm.

As a general rule, lenses with very wide maximum apertures (such as F/1.4 and F/1.8) will be significantly more expensive. Zoom lenses with constant aperture throughout their focal range will also be more expensive than variable-aperture zoom lenses.

The rest of the alphabet soup in a lens’ name depends on the vocabulary used by the various manufacturers. In Nikon world, for instance, VR is Nikonese for Vibration Reduction. Some of the codes in lens names may refer to the type of glass, special coating, absence or presence of a manual focusing ring, and too many more characteristics to be able to list them here. Before you go ahead and drop a chunk of money on any lens, new or used, you should make sure you understand what you’re buying and whether it will work with your camera.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

Ken Rockwell has a more extensive description of Nikon lens types on his web site, including notes on camera compatibility.

For a more technical discussion of Nikon lenses, see Making Sense of Lens Acronyms by Thom Hogan.

If you know of any relevant Canon, Pentax or Sony resources, please send them on and I'll be happy to add them to the list.

NEXT WEEK: FOCUSING

Tune in next week as we discuss the various factors involved in taking sharper pictures.

Happy shooting!

On the Campaign Trail

2010-07-24T23:57:00.002-04:00

Today I got to tag along with Nadia Willard, a retired nurse and community activist who will be a candidate for City Councillor in River Ward in the Ottawa municipal election of October 25. These are volunteer canvassers Karen, Linda, Rose and Diane getting briefed at Riverside Community Centre before heading out on the campaign trail.

I have more pictures of Nadia's campaign on my Facebook page.

An Abstract Interlude

2010-07-24T07:52:00.004-04:00

...

Yesterday I set out to do some nature photography under a light rain in the Montfort Woods, and ended up doing something completely different when I (quite literally) stumbled upon a rusty metal drum on the north trail at the edge of the former CFB Rockcliffe. I used one strobe to light up the drum from a low angle, and had a lot of fun until the mosquitoes sent me home...

The Buzz

2010-07-21T20:46:00.009-04:00

Another shot from one of my evening walks at Beechwood Cemetery, this one from the gardens near the Beechwood Avenue entrance. The shutter speed was 1/1,000th of a second, so that gives you an idea of how fast the insect's wings were beating...

TECHNICAL NOTES:

With a bit of patience, it's relatively easy to get good shots of bumblebees. Personally I like to set the lens on manual focus, choose a flower, and wait for a critter. I find it a more reliable method than trying to track the critter on autofocus, which can be next to impossible even with a really good lens. This shot was taken with my Micro Nikkor 105mm F/2.8, but the good old manual focus Micro Nikkor 55mm would have done just as well or even better. The shot above highlights one of the few things that are definitely not outstanding about the 105mm: backgrounds and bokeh are nothing to write home about for a $1,000 lens.

(As an aside, B&H Photovideo seems to have found a stock of the good old manual focus Micro Nikkor 55mm. They're selling them new for US $450, so if you're a Nikon user looking to get a really good macro lens without getting into the four figures, that one is a splendid choice.)

The Ottawa Variations

2010-07-21T00:23:00.009-04:00

I'm very proud to announce that my photo book The Ottawa Variations is now available on Blurb. It includes 46 pages of pictures taken over two years of walking the streets, hiking the trails and riding the buses (when they do show up, mind you). The book aims to show some of the lesser-known aspects of Ottawa, and present some of the clichés in a slightly different light.

Take a look at the preview and feel free to comment. Feedback is always welcome!

The Ottawa Variations by s.e. amesse | Make Your Own Book

Of Sleepwalking and Short-Sightedness

2010-07-19T18:02:00.010-04:00

In his editorial of July 17, the Ottawa Citizen's Ken Gray advises us to "wake up" about the City's plans for public transit improvements. Mr. Gray is particularly exercised about the proposed light rail tunnel through the downtown core, which he calls "buying a Volkswagen with a BMW price tag".

While there is certainly some reason to be concerned about the projected costs of a downtown tunnel, I personally find exception with Mr. Gray's arguments against it. What seems to be irking him above everything else is not so much the cost of a tunnel as the fact that it will take too long to complete.

Under the title Wake Up Ottawa - You're sleepwalking towards transit disaster, Ken Gray writes:

"The commuting traffic problems in Ottawa are now, not in 2018. And the biggest problem with the current light-rail plan is that is does nothing to solve the problem of commuting."

Doesn't it? Has Mr. Gray taken a bus or driven a car on Rideau Street at rush hour lately? By my watch, it can take up to 30 minutes to crawl down the four blocks between Sussex Drive and King Edward Avenue. If fiscal responsibility is such a concern to the Ottawa Citizen, I would be curious to know how much gas we're wasting on dozens of OC Transpo buses idling in viscous traffic every day of the week, and how much the taxpayers would save if walking wasn't the fastest way to get through downtown.

But setting aside any speculative accounting, what makes me roll my eyes about Ken Gray's analysis is the time argument. If I'm following Mr. Gray's reasoning correctly, we're having problems NOW and the tunnel won't be ready until LATER, so we should ditch the tunnel plan and focus on short-term solutions that will provide temporary relief and leave the underlying issues for future taxpayers to deal with at a later date.

Ken Gray for Mayor. He has all the required qualifications.

Dragonflies at Beechwood

2010-07-19T17:14:00.006-04:00

There's always something to shoot at Beechwood Cemetery, and these days drangonflies are stealing the show at the little pond behind the hosta garden. I'm not sure if it's a question of environment or which species are present, but they are much more difficult to photograph than the ones at Meech Lake. The big showy green one I really wanted eluded me for two hours last night; I'll see if I can do better this evening...

TECHNICAL NOTES:

Picture taken with my Micro Nikkor 105mm F/2.8, which is not the most suitable lens to use on extremely fast flying subjects. The lens is superb in all respects but focusing speed, and trying to focus on creatures that are coloured to blend in with their surroundings is not helping the lens one bit. As a matter of fact, I'm not sure which lens *could* be called suitable for photographing dragonflies...

Shot at ISO 200, F/6.3, 1/160. If I had to do it again (and the critter gave me any time to think about it), I would use a wider aperture and a faster speed.

Lenses: Introduction

2010-07-18T20:09:00.013-04:00

From time to time I get photography questions from co-workers, Facebook contacts or perfect strangers who see me shooting on the street, so I've decided to compile some of the answers I've been giving them. For lack of a better name, I'm going to call these blog entries Stef's Photo Tips, and I'm going to start with a disclaimer.

DISCLAIMER!

These photo tips are not intended for professional photographers, or even for experienced amateurs. If you know exactly what F/3.5-5.6 means, this is not for you; it's for your father-in-law who just bought his first digital camera. If you want advanced information about lenses, shooting techniques or the latest new gadgets, resources abound on the Internet, and I'll be listing some of them at the end of each photo tip article.

END DISCLAIMER!

Because it's probably the question I get asked the most, I'm going to inaugurate this new blog feature with a discussion of lenses.

If you bought your digital camera as a kit, it probably came with a lens that is far from the best your camera manufacturer can do. Kit lenses are usually zooms, because manufacturers and retailers are aiming for a market of consumers who will seldom be changing lenses, if at all. Some of these zooms can be fairly decent, but if you're thinking of getting a new lens, you might want to do a bit of research before you go out and buy a more expensive zoom to replace your kit zoom.

ZOOM LENSES

A lot of people are attracted to zoom lenses because they're practical. Instead of packing five or six different lenses in your camera bag, you need only one lens to cover a wide range of focal lenghts – such as 18-105mm or 18-200mm. Zoom lenses with wider ranges tend to be more expensive, and some people may think that they are better. In most cases, they are not.

Zoom lenses are much more complex to manufacture than fixed lenses. For this reason, manufacturers tend to "cut corners" in order to be able to offer a competitively-priced product that will meet the needs of the average consumer. Setting aside the professional-grade zoom lenses, which are too expensive for most people to consider, most zoom lenses will usually feature lower-quality optics, which means lower-quality pictures, and a barrel made of plastic instead of metal, which means that these lenses will not be as sturdy as fixed-lenght lenses. The wider the zoom range, the more difficult it is for manufacturers to build a lens cheap enough to sell on the mass market, and therefore an 18-200mm lens is usually a bigger gamble than an 18-35mm lens in terms of quality.

In optimal conditions, you may not notice the difference. Many affordable, cheaply-made consumer zoom lenses are capable of extremely good performance when shooting landscapes in broad daylight. It's when you try to use these lenses in less than optimal conditions that their shortcomings will become apparent. Most consumer zooms do not have a large maximum aperture, which means that they do not perform well in low-light conditions. Cheaper optics means that these lenses will usually not be quite as sharp as fixed-lenght lenses, and some of them will also produce quite a lot of distortion.

PRIME LENSES

A prime lens is a lens with a fixed focal lenght, as opposed to a zoom lens which offers you a range of focal lenghts from shorter to longer. Prime lenses come in a variety of fixed focal lenghts, and may fall within one of three categories: wide-angle lenses, which have shorter focal lenght and provide a wider angle of view; telephoto lenses, which have a longer focal lenght and narrower angle of view; and so-called "normal" lenses, which are somwhere in between. To put this in plain English, a wide angle lens is what you would use if you were taking a picture of a dramatic stormy sky over a vast landscape; a telephoto lens would be useful to take a picture of a nesting falcon from a distance; and a normal lens is what you would normally use for portraits and family pictures.

There is an additional category of prime lenses which doesn't refer to focal lenght, but rather to focusing distance -- i.e. how close you can get to your subject. Macro lenses are designed to take pictures at very close range, typically of smaller subjets such as insects or flowers. They are usually much more expensive than other lenses, and quite often offer superb optical quality even when they're not used at close range.

SO WHICH LENS DO YOU NEED?

Well, that depends what you're going to do with it. If you're strictly into bird photography, for instance, you might want to consider a prime telephoto lens over a zoom lens, because it will give you more optical quality for the money you'll spend. If you're looking for something of better quality to replace your kit lens at family vacations, you should probably look for a prime 50mm lens. And if you do a bit of everything and you're definitely not going to be trying to sell your pictures to National Geographic, then a zoom lens of good quality might still be the right choice for you, especially if you don't especially like the idea of changing lenses.

Depending on your budget, there are a few more factors to take into consideration before you decide which lens to buy. A rugged metal barrel will come in handy if you're going to use the lens in rough conditions, harsh weather or dusty environments; a sturdily-built lens will also be much more forgiving of getting bumped or even dropped. Nikon and Canon both offer lenses with vibration reduction systems, which can be helpful in getting sharper pictures; these systems will also add up quite a bit to the price of a lens. If you're going to be using the lens in low-light situations, by which I mean anything other than out of doors in broad daylight, you might want to take a look at so-called "fast" lenses, which have a wider maximum aperture and allow more light to get into the camera. A wider maximum aperture can also translate into a significantly higher price, and while fast lenses generally tend to be well-made, you should remember that faster and more expensive does not necessarily mean better.

As with buying a car or a computer, the important thing is to do your research before you buy. Don't let salespeople dazzle you with technical jargon, don't let self-proclaimed experts assure you that "this is the only lens you'll ever need", and don't let anyone pressure you into buying something before you understand what you're paying for. Ask a lot of questions, and if the salespeople are unwilling or unable to answer them in plain English, go somewhere else.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

I don't get any money from Nikon and I'm not one of those Nikon users who think everything else is worthless, but because I am a Nikon user, most of the resources I know about are either Nikon-heavy or Nikon-specific. If you're a Canon person or a Pentax person and you happen to know about a useful link, please send it on and I'll be happy to add it to the list.

Ken Rockwell is vastly sneered at in the professional photography world, not without good reason in some instances, but I'm including him here because he writes in plain English and he's tested a positively staggering number of lenses. Just remember to double-check any bold statements he makes about one lens or another being the best invention since sliced bread.

If you have a Nikon and you want to do some research on Nikon lenses, the very best resource in my opinion is Thom Hogan's web site. The language can get a little technical, but Hogan does provide a handy five-star chart summarizing the strenghts and weaknesses of the lenses reviewed.

NEXT WEEK: DECIPHERING LENS NAMES

In my next photo tip article, I'll be taking a closer look at the alphabet soup that constitutes a lens name (e.g. Nikon 55-200mm F/4.5-5.6 VR), and what each of these hieroglyphs means to you in terms of taking some actual pictures.

Happy shooting!

Rally for Civil Liberties

2010-07-17T20:41:00.017-04:00

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Today was a day of demonstrations across Canada, to protest against police actions at the G20 meeting in Toronto last month.

The Ottawa rally was held at the Human Rights Monument, probably a wise choice since the crowd of a few hundred would have looked a little lost on Parliament Hill. The rally was organized by Canadians Advocating Political Participation (CAPP, formerly known as Canadians Against the Prorogation of Parliament). Participants included representatives from the Canadian Federation of Students, the Public Service Alliance of Canada, and the Ottawa Chapter of the Raging Grannies. Several photographers and videographers were in attendance, but I didn't notice any representatives of the mainstream press. I saw no CBC trucks, no press passes and no CTV reporters trying to film and ask questions at the same time.

A petition demanding a public inquiry into last month's events in Toronto was displayed on the stage throughout the rally and available for demonstrators to sign. Other demands included the repealing of Ontario's Public Works Protection Act, which was used extensively at the G20 meeting in order to arrest and detain protesters. Among other provisions, the Act allows police to "search, without warrant, any person entering or attempting to enter a public work", and to "refuse permission to any person to enter a public work and use such force as is necessary".

What remains to be seen is whether or not today's rally will make a ripple in the stagnant waters of Canadian politics. While I'm always encouraged to see citizens of all ages gathering in public to stand up and be counted, CTV reported on July 12 on a Harris-Decima poll showing that fully two thirds of Canadians believe the police response to G20 protests was appropriate. The McGuinty government will, no doubt, be delighted to seize that argument against an independant public inquiry -- most of the public thinks nothing untoward went down in Toronto.

Between public indifference and media silence, it would be tempting to conclude that today's rally was an exercise in futility, but I like to think that all public protests are good for something. I cannot help but notice that Stephen Harper's government, for instance, has been increasingly and remarkably quiet about all those Conservative issues that are supposed to define a Conservative government. Harper is still running the country like a cross between Big Brother and Mr. Magoo, but at least he's been keeping quiet about abortion and same-sex marriage and all those familiar Conservative scarecrows.

I for one am counting my blessings.

I have more pictures of yesterday's rally on my Facebook page.

My Joint Venture with Gary Fong

2010-07-16T19:31:00.003-04:00

The Gary Fong™ Origami Diffuser Thingy (patent pending), while not too terribly impressive at diffusing light, does come with a Gary Fong™ Rubber Band Thingy (all rights reserved), which can be useful. Here it's holding the S.E. Amesse Snoot Thingy, which is made of a tabbed index card and a bobby pin. My design is open source; feel free to copy.

When it comes to light-shaping tools, it's often possible to make do with a bit of imagination and some readily-available office and household supplies. As David Hobby points out on Strobist.com, there's no need to spend $100 on a piece of glorified Tupperware when a real Tupperware would do the job just as well.

Summer Ad

2010-07-14T01:21:00.005-04:00

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Brought to you proudly by the Marketing Department of S.E. Amesse Photography... ;-)

Giant Hogweed in Ontario

2010-07-12T10:29:00.010-04:00

The CBC reported on Thursday that the invasive and toxic giant hogweed (Heracleum mantegazzianum) has been spotted in Eastern Ontario. Contact with the plant's sap can cause severe burns and even blindness if the sap gets into the eyes. As a nature photographer who frequently goes around stalking crickets and damselflies in all sorts of weeds, I was keen to learn how to stay away from this one.

From the pictures in the CBC's report, the plant looked alarmingly like Queen Anne's lace to me, so I thought I'd do some research and learn how to identify it.

Wikipedia has a much better picture in its article on giant hogweed, which thankfully eliminates any possibility of confusing it with Queen Anne's lace. The plant can reach 2 to 5 meters, and occasionally up to 7 meters. From the Wikipedia article:

"It is further distinguished by a stout, dark reddish-purple stem and spotted leaf stalks that are hollow and produce sturdy bristles. Stems vary from 3–8 cm in diameter, occasionally up to 10 cm. The stem shows a purplish-red pigmentation with raised nodules. Each purple spot on the stem surrounds a hair, and there are large, coarse white hairs at the base of the leaf stalk. The plant has deeply incised compound leaves which grow up to 1-1.7 m in width."

The Ontario Federation of Anglers and Hunters has an identification page on its web site. In case of exposure, the OFAH recommends washing the exposed area immediately with soap and water, keeping affected areas out of direct sunlight, and seeking medical attention.

For comparison, this is my own picture of Queen Anne's Lace (Daucus carota) at the Rockcliffe Airport. It would be difficult to confuse these gangly stems with giant hogweed, but they do closely resemble those of water hemlock (Cicuta), which is highly toxic. Because I am not an expert by any stretch of the imagination, I find it safer to avoid touching any plants in the field, and to be careful where I step when I'm wearing shorts.

Shame!

2010-07-11T11:26:00.007-04:00

While the Ottawa Sun has never been known as the voice of articulate political discourse, yesterday it gave up on any attempt at dressing itself up in a mantle of populist common sense and burst out of the closet in all its hateful pettiness. In an editorial titled Hip, hip, hooray for the white GG, the Sun writes about the recent appointment of academic David Johnston as the next Governor General:

"In an age when the federal civil service has taken affirmative action to the extreme, with preference in the federal bureaucracy given to those who are bilingual -- preferably francophone, of course -- or persons of colour, or disabled or aboriginal, the appointment of David Johnston as Canada's next Governor General is a historic breakthrough."

The Sun goes on to praise Johnston's "extraordinary doctoral pedigree" and snidely insinuates that both of Johnston's predecessors, Adrienne Clarkson and Michaëlle Jean, were appointed more to satisfy some requirement of "affirmative action" than for their objective qualifications. The piece is blatantly racist, sexist and reactionary, shamelessly giving voice to the resentment of those individuals who feel that the Canadian Human Rights Act is a direct attack on their God-given privilege.

The Sun, however, stops well short of having the spine to stand up to its own hateful opinions. A notice on the online version of the editorial reads: "Due to the number of inappropriate comments, the commenting feature has been turned off. If you want to comment on this editorial, you can send a letter to the editor to ottsun.oped@sunmedia.ca."

In other words, the Sun reserves the exclusive right to public inappropriateness, and dissenting opinions will be handled away from the public eye. Letters to the editor will presumbably be sorted, and only those validating the editor's opinion (or attacking it in such a clumsy, strident or inarticulate manner as to get a good belly laugh from the readers) will be allowed to see the light of day.

Shame on you, Ottawa Sun, for your pettiness, your close-mindedness, and your cowardice.

Happy Birthday Michell

2010-07-11T00:24:00.005-04:00

My co-worker Michell is celebrating her birthday today. We had a great shoot on Friday evening, mostly with the 85mm F/1.8 which really shines in studio-type situations. Lighting was two strobes, one bounced off the ceiling slightly to the right and the other bounced off the wall to the left. I did the split toning in Lightroom, and the final adjustments in Corel Paintshop Pro.

Heat Wave Sunset

2010-07-10T01:55:00.003-04:00

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Fantastic sunset over Ottawa tonight... Fernando was kind enough to stop at Bate Island, even though he didn't have his cameras with him and he was no doubt banging his head on the steering wheel as I ran out of the car with mine... :-)

New Web Site!

2010-07-09T12:05:00.001-04:00

I'm very excited about the launch of my new web site! I've tried number of free or almost-free services, and this one seems to offer the best balance of flexibility, ease of editing, and discreet advertisement from the hosting company.

The site is still in construction, so any comments or suggestions will be much appreciated!

Heat Wave

2010-07-08T07:42:00.003-04:00

The Ottawa region is on its fifth day with a maximum temperature above 30 degrees Celsius, and those of us without a pool or air conditioning are quickly running out of ideas to cope with the heat. Personally I've been relying on popsicles and frozen fruit...

Picture taken with one strobe set to TTL -1.0 and bounced off the ceiling. It's too hot to get fancy. ;-)

Vintage Wings

2010-07-04T21:45:00.006-04:00

Today was the Vintage Wings air show at Gatineau Executive Airport, and man! Was it ever hot! According to Environment Canada, the high was 32 degrees in the shade at 17:00, so it was probably hot enough to fry an egg on the pavement at the airport...

The show was well-organized as always, with special kudos to the Société de transport de l'Outaouais for providing a free shuttle service between the airport and the designated parking areas. There were perhaps not as many airplanes on display as in previous years, but the Snowbirds (above) made it worth all the pain of sweating in the sun. For a free event, the Vintage Wings air show is definitely on a par with the $20 show at the Rockcliffe Flying Club in Ottawa, and the crowd this year was the biggest I've seen so far.

White Balance

2010-07-04T00:20:00.005-04:00

Every now and then I find myself without a gray card in the middle of the woods, which by definition tend to be rather green in the summer, so I usually go looking for birch bark. I've learned to be wary of the auto white balance on my Nikon D300, and the reason for this should be fairly obvious from the pictures above. The shot on the left is what auto white balance was giving me at Meech Lake this afternoon, straight out of the box, no saturation. The one on the right is what Lightroom's white balance pick tool proposed in post-processing, which was +1 temperature and a whopping +69 tint.

Like my late father used to say, "I don't care how fancy your camera is, you're still smarter than it is".

Canada Day Tango

2010-07-02T11:35:00.006-04:00

My Canada Day started with this young woman and her friends playing Por Una Cabeza, the piece made famous to the general public by Scent of a Woman, near the Highlander Pub at the entrance of William Street. It was still early, and the crowds hadn't yet exploded out of Parliament Hill to fill every nook and cranny in the downtown core. Pub managers tied red and white balloons to terrace railings; kitchen staff smoked a quiet cigarette before the madness started in earnest. Pigeons fluttered overhead and coffee smells drifted on the wind as an elderly man took his wife's hand to lead her in a dance. It was a moment of eerie poetry, and it sort of spoiled the whole flag-waving experience for me... :-)

This is the famous scene from Scent of a Woman, with the music performed by The Tango Project.

HDR Test - Picturenaut

2010-06-30T20:24:00.009-04:00

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Somerset House, or what's left of it.

This is an HDR test using Picturenaut, which is free and does a much better job than anything else I've tried so far. Some ghosting at the bottom, but that'll teach me to choose a busy intersection to do HDR tests, and it's nothing like the horror show I'm getting with the Photomatix demo.

The split toning is from Lightroom, the final sharpening and contrasting from Corel Paintshop Pro.

Small World

2010-06-28T16:59:00.008-04:00

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According to a Toronto Star article, this is Kirk Warrington, 26, and he stands accused of setting police cruiser 3251 on fire during the G20 demonstrations in Toronto last weekend. Warrington was caught several times on camera during the demonstrations, to the extent that Flickr member phirleh put together a gallery. Ottawa photographer John W. Macdonald noticed the gallery and remembered my own shot (above), from the 4/20 smoke-out in Ottawa in April 2009.

Small world...

The New Flag

2010-06-27T12:09:00.004-04:00

Yesterday I wandered onto Parliament Hill hoping to get a few shots of the workers setting up the stage for the upcoming Canada Day celebrations, but it quickly turned out that I didn't have enough zoom in my camera bag. Half the front lawn is fenced off, with security guards in bright yellow t-shirts frowning at tourists who lean over the barriers trying to get a nice shot of the Centre Block.

Yesterday afternoon the techies were testing the giant screen above the stage, with colour stripes chasing each other and sound people wincing as the Peace Tower bells rang the half hour. Presumably someone will be instructed to silence the bells for the live broadcast. As for the Snowbirds which roared over the Hill before Stephen Harper was finished speaking last year, I wouldn't be surprised if some clever suit from the production company had suggested preventing the same blunder from happening again by having the Snowbirds fly over the Yukon and broadcasting them live on the giant screen. Mind you, they could also save fuel money by using canned footage.

On a symbolic level, there's something I find profoundly disturbing about a massive TV screen hiding the seat of government. Of course Canada Day on the Hill has been a giant TV show for many years, but never before had I got such a sense of the event being so blatantly scripted, stage-managed, and spinned by the Ministry of Truth. Between the fences, the giant screen, and the security guards, the general feeling is that Canadians are not welcome on Canada Day except as extras in the TV show.

Stay on your marks, people.

Security

2010-06-27T00:56:00.003-04:00

While in Toronto today all hell was breaking loose at the G20 summit, here in Ottawa Parliament Hill had a rather grimmer feel than we've come to expect for the week before Canada Day. I didn't see the nice Mountie in red uniform who used to pose for pictures with Chinese tourists and little old ladies from Calgary and Halifax; today the RCMP were in business attire.

Happy Canada Day!

2010-06-26T10:18:00.002-04:00

Slide show created with Corel Video Studio. Not an easy product to work with, but the image and sound quality are quite acceptable for the price of the software.

Rock Art

2010-06-20T00:31:00.006-04:00

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Fernando with the sculptures of John Felice Ceprano on the Ottawa River. Ceprano's web site is here.

Naked Bike Ride

2010-06-13T14:01:00.003-04:00

The Ottawa Naked Bike Ride on June 12, 2010. The bike ride is intended to protest car culture and demonstrate the vulnerability of cyclists on the road.

Blogspot police, please note that I have carefully masked all potentially offensive areas, so have a nice day.

Justice

2010-06-11T22:55:00.001-04:00

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A wide angle view of Bruce Garner's sculpture "Due Process" in front of the Ottawa courthouse.

Homeless

2010-06-11T00:33:00.003-04:00

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This old bear broke my heart at the Glebe Garage Sale last week. Possibly a Steiff, in which case it might find a home in a collector's glass case, but it seemed to know that its days as a child's best friend are never coming back...

Beauty and the Beast

2010-06-03T10:33:00.003-04:00

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Introducing the new addition to the family -- Shadow, aka Sombrita, aka Little Demon, aka (to the dog) "Oh, no....."

Goodbye Old Friend

2010-05-28T10:23:00.003-04:00

My cat died yesterday. Bye Flip...

Mystic Rhythm

2010-04-22T23:38:00.006-04:00

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From the 4/20 smoke-out on Parliament Hill in Ottawa. The Notre-Dame spires in the background might have been perfect if the angle had been different, but I couldn't find a way to make them work with the subject, so I had me some fun with layers in Corel Paintshop Pro. The background is from an outing to the Carbide-Wilson ruins at Meech Lake a couple of weeks ago.

Première

2010-04-12T21:48:00.001-04:00

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First tulip of the season... :-)

Signs of Spring

2010-03-14T00:10:00.000-05:00

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At the Luskville Falls on March 9.

Get Back to Work!

2010-01-16T23:21:00.002-05:00

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Ottawa's Raging Grannies performing at a demonstration against the Conservative government proroguing Parliament for the second time in two years. The Ottawa demonstration attracted well over 5,000 citizens, with hundreds more gathering in other Canadian cities. More pictures here.

We Remember

2009-12-06T09:10:00.006-05:00

Twenty years ago, on the afternoon of December 6, 1989, a man walked into the École Polytechnique in Montreal with a legally-purchased semi-automatic rifle, and killed 14 female students and staff members.

At the time I was working on Polytechnique's first annual fund-raising campaign, running a massive mass mailing to 10,000 alumni on what even then was truly pathetic equipment. I had one 286 laptop and one laser printer that churned out 4 pages per minute and occasionally triggered the fire alarm when it got too hot. The fund-raising campaign was housed in the offices of the Polytechnique Foundation on Decelles Avenue, down the hill from the Polytechnique building on the Université de Montréal campus.

December 6 was a Friday and the first really nasty snowstorm of the season in Montreal. I had a shoebox full of donation cheques in a desk drawer, worth more than $35,000, and I really needed to drop them off at Finance up the hill before going home for the weekend. That was a daunting prospect; the Finance folks took a very dim view of us Foundation yahoos and our little tin-can operation on Decelles, to say nothing of our accounting methods.

Rush hour traffic was a mess in the snowstorm. The cab driver was chatting a mile a minute; I was dead tired and really wished he would shut up. It took us more than 40 minutes to crawl our way up what was normally a 10-minute drive up the hill. The cab was finally pulling into the Polytechnique parking lot when suddenly the thought of explaining my shoebox-filing system to the people in Finance was too much for me. It was a little after 4:00, and suddenly I wanted to be as far away from there as I could possibly get. Home wasn't far, but it would do. The shoebox would have to keep for the weekend. I leaned over and told the cab driver to take me to Édouard-Montpetit on the other side of the hill.

I got home, kicked off my boots, fed the cat, turned on the radio, and that's when I heard the news about a madman shooting an automatic weapon at Polytechnique. I didn't have a TV set; all my news that evening were from the radio and the frantic phone calls from friends and family as they heard the increasingly strident reports from Poly. At one point there was a rumour of more than one shooter, then one radio station reported that the gunman was loose in the Côte-des-Neiges neighbourhood, shooting random people on the streets. It wasn't until very late at night that the full story emerged, including the fact that the shooter went through the Finance Department right about the time I should have been there with my shoebox.

In twenty years there have been books and films about the massacre. Scholars have commented, activists have reacted, survivors and families of the victims have lobbied for tighter firearm control in Canada. Various groups have used the events to support wildly divergent positions on feminism and gender equality; others have argued that the shooter was a lone madman and it would be pointless to see any political significance in the events. That the tragedy at least provoked people to think is, I suppose, a good thing; but personally I still can't make any sense of it. Twenty years ago, it's still too close to home.

The CBC archives have a section on the massacre here.

White Ribbon

2009-12-05T11:14:00.002-05:00

Tomorrow is the 20th anniversary of the Polytechnique Massacre, and it seems you can't find a high-resolution image of a white ribbon anywhere online unless you buy it for up to $10. So I'm making this one available for free download on my Flickr page, in case you need it to mark the event.

Gabrielle

2009-11-23T23:27:00.002-05:00

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While the rest of us are scrambling to get to December 25 on time, some people are bracing themselves for a pretty cold Christmas.

21 Años de Historia

2009-11-19T20:35:00.002-05:00

On November 14, the Colombian association of Ottawa-Gatineau celebrated its 21 years at La Maison du Citoyen. This is the slide show we created for the association, with photos of more than 25 members of the community we took especially for the occasion.

Half the Pictures

2009-11-17T21:28:00.004-05:00

As I sit here at my laptop, penning increasingly constipated letters to a couple of delinquent customers, I find myself reminiscing about my late father and That Woman In Outremont.

The lady had money. She also had cats, and she wanted a nice portrait of them. My father hated cats, but a hungry photographer will shoot all sorts of abhorrent things for hard cash. It was the photo shoot from Hell, and I distinctly remember my father coming home with scratches on his face.

Come 30 days and it turned out that the lady had money for the good reason that she really hated parting with any of it. It took a number of phone calls and cancelled appointments, but in the end she reluctantly agreed to pay for the portraits. She showed up late and immediately announced: "I brought you half the money."

For a moment I thought my mother was going to burst into flames. My father, however, smiled sweetly and said: "That's okay, Ma'am, then you can get half the pictures."

And tore the prints in two.

Help Portrait

2009-11-16T23:53:00.002-05:00

On November 16, we spent the day doing free family portraits for the clients of the Lower Town Community Services Centre as part of the Help Portrait movement. Our subjects included immigrants from Haiti, China, Afghanistan, Nepal, Iran, Vietnam, Russia and Venezuela; families of seven, middle-aged couples, newborn babies and grandmothers; one cat and several dogs; people of every skin colour, religion and background. The staff at the community centre offered us a warm welcome and wonderful support, and the experience was a fantastic one for everyone involved.

In the usual order, the photographers of the Lower Town team were Eva Murray, Stephen Lanthier, Fernando Farfan, Stéphanie Amesse, Greg Snyder, Francheska and Martin Gonzales Mendizabal. Missing on the photo are Ely Babb and Deo Silvederio, who came in to help out in the afternoon. Thanks everyone!

Seb et les Locos

2009-11-14T10:15:00.002-05:00

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Sabrina Sauvé of Gatineau band Seb et les Locos, in concert at La Batoche on November 12.

Notre-Dame

2009-11-03T07:53:00.001-05:00

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Ottawa's Notre-Dame Cathedral.

Old City Hall

2009-11-01T10:02:00.002-05:00

Ottawa's former City Hall on Green Island, now being used by the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade. Everything but the big block on the right is an addition designed by architect Moshe Safdie and completed in 1992.

Wide Angle Fun

2009-10-19T23:44:00.001-04:00

This is the 12-24 at its most bizarre... :-)

Dance With Me

2009-10-15T23:22:00.004-04:00

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The King of Montfort Woods in his October finery. This is the 12-24mm lens I bought from Sang Trinh, at 15mm.

2009-10-12T23:23:00.002-04:00

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Yesterday I spent an inordinate amount of time standing / crouching / holding on to dead branches on slippery rocks I wouldn't dream of climbing if I didn't have a camera in my hands. For this one I was straddling the stream with one foot wedged between two rocks.

Wakefield

2009-10-11T08:50:00.003-04:00

The Gatineau River in Wakefield, with the covered bridge in the middle of the frame. I've been looking at various options for a wide angle lens for the last month or so, and finally settled on a used Nikon 12-24mm. Yesterday in Wakefield I was like a kid in a candy store ("Look what I can do with this baby!"), but I'm hoping to give the lens a more serious workout today at Meech Lake... :-)

September Song

2009-09-21T19:33:00.002-04:00

From a shoot in Gatineau Park on Sunday.

To Keep Searching

2009-09-13T11:19:00.004-04:00

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Yesterday we went to the old McLaren Cemetery in Wakefield to pay our respects to Ottawa photographer Malak Karsh. The artwork in progress on Fernando's arm is by tattoo artist Anastasia Proudnikova of Divine Line Studio.

Friends

2009-09-08T21:05:00.000-04:00

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Another wonderful Labour Day weekend in Les Coteaux, Québec...

Unnatural Beauty

2009-09-03T22:09:00.003-04:00

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The Morrison Quarry in Wakefield. For forty years it was a large magnesium carbonate quarry; now it's a popular scuba diving spot and the site of a bungee jumping venture, also famous in the Ottawa region for the small airplane submerged in one of the flooded pits. We were there for three hours and I saw exactly one crow, one frog and one dragonfly.

Capital Pride 2009

2009-08-31T07:31:00.003-04:00

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Ottawa's annual Pride march was held on August 30, in the weather mish-mash that seems to be the new tradition for special events in Ottawa. This performer was lucky enough to get a sunny break at City Hall after the march... :-)

Derrière la gare

2009-08-24T22:43:00.003-04:00

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My first shot straight off the train on Saturday, on the Rue de la Gauchetière behind Central Station in Montreal. I had three hours to kill before meeting Dominique downtown, and it turned out that spending them with 40 lbs of laptop and cameras on my back was not the best way to enjoy the city... ;-)

Fierté Montréal

2009-08-18T01:17:00.002-04:00

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The Montreal Pride parade was held on Sunday, August 16. More pictures here on my Flickr page.

Waiting for the Stars

2009-08-13T23:39:00.004-04:00

Fernando at the Champlain Lookout. We went up last night to see the Perseides, but I didn't have much luck with the stars. I did, however, manage to get a few decent shots of the sunset... :-)

There was quite a crowd at the lookout, with headlights constantly sweeping the parking lot and one guy helpfully pointing out the meteors with a laser pointer... nice for the regular stargazers, but not so nice for the photographers. And the mosquitoes were vicious! We thought we'd seen the last of them for this year after we went to Meech Lake and were left unmolested, but apparently they are still thriving in other parts of the Park.

This particular shot is my 100th Explore on Flickr.

Fire

2009-08-09T23:13:00.004-04:00

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A collage of the Québec-Canada presentation by Royal Pyrotechnie at the International des Feux Loto-Québec in Montreal on July 25.

Félicitations!

2009-06-23T00:34:00.004-04:00

Tonight was the high school graduation of my son Dominique Noël, here with his friend Alexandre Bisaillon and teacher Maxine Turcotte.

A Study in Charcoal

2009-06-10T23:32:00.003-04:00

The peonies are out on the Farm... :-)

Target acquired!

2009-06-07T21:30:00.000-04:00

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Tree swallows may be cute, but they are badass birds and they don't like photographers getting too close to their houses.

Fleurs de Macadam

2009-06-06T00:02:00.003-04:00

Today was Aylmer's annual Fleurs de Macadam festival. More pics to follow after a good night's sleep... :-)

New Web Site!

2009-06-02T00:23:00.003-04:00

The new home of AF Images is now live! :-)

The Great Glebe Garage Sale

2009-05-24T21:05:00.005-04:00

May 23, 2009. More pictures on Flickr here.

Le Show Biz

2009-05-14T11:09:00.004-04:00

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Alexandre Bisaillon in his first comedy show Le Show Biz. Alexandre is graduating this year from the drama program at De La Salle high school in Ottawa, and putting on the show was his final exam.

More pictures of the show:

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A Tulip Story

2009-05-12T23:57:00.004-04:00

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Self-portrait at the grave of photographer Malak Karsh (1915-2001), which we discovered entirely by accident in Wakefield today. I knew Lester B. Pearson was buried in Wakefield, so we went in search of his grave and stumbled on Malak's. By some sort of uncanny coincidence, I happened to be dressed to match the tulips... :-)

Squeezing Light out of Stones

2009-05-09T09:55:00.005-04:00

It was quite the light show last night at Nepean Point, but I got carried away and forgot all about a few basic necessities -- such as the ND grad filter, which would have been useful. I did, however, manage to save some of the shots by using Lightroom's fill light feature and adjusting the tone curve. I didn't touch the saturation or vibrance at all; the colour was all there, it was just a matter of bringing it out.

This was shot at ISO 100, so the only noise I had to deal with was the one I created by using the fill light, which Lightroom's noise reduction feature did a pretty decent job of getting under control.

And this is the original shot:

Springtime in the Park

2009-05-06T23:36:00.003-04:00

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This is from the Waterfall Trail in Gatineau Park, which we only discovered a couple of days ago. We'd gone looking for it last winter, but the very few trails not reserved for cross-country skiers were sheer ice at the time, so we turned around after an hour of slipping and sliding. The trail turns out to be gorgeous in the spring, and right now the forest floor is covered with trilliums.

Ottawa Orchid Society Show

2009-04-27T09:33:00.002-04:00

Got some pretty good shots from the Ottawa Orchid Society Show at the Nepean Sportsplex yesterday. The light was horrible, but thank God I was shooting JPG, so I didn't have to struggle with the shots in post-processing. My RAW problem, however, is still intact... :-(

Lightroom vs Capture NX

2009-04-22T23:04:00.004-04:00

Lately I've been having one hell of a time getting the colour right on my RAW files, so I decided to download Nikon's Capture NX just to see if it was any better than Lightroom at handling Nikon RAW files. And the answer is: err, yes, very much so.

This is just a quick compare using only the basic adjustments in both applications. The Lightroom image is on the left, and the Capture NX image is on the right. I think we can all agree that the Lightroom image looks more than a little flat compared to the Capture NX. What you can't see here is the noise in the background, which is quite noticeable at high resolution in the Lightroom image. Nothing that couldn't be fixed, but the Capture NX image could almost go to print without any further adjustments.

Friends

2009-04-10T00:40:00.000-04:00

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At the Luskville Falls today... :-)

Bonne Fête Dominique!

2009-03-30T07:41:00.001-04:00

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My son is turning eighteen today! :-)

A Farewell to Ice

2009-03-22T11:09:00.002-04:00

It was Fernando's idea to get the ice floes on the Ottawa River on a long exposure, and the shots turned out pretty cool! This was taken from the Québec side of the old railway bridge. There's free and legal parking on Dumontier Street in Hull, a five-minute walk from the bridge either on the tracks or on the bicycle path.

Spring Cleaning!

2009-03-20T20:44:00.002-04:00

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We're getting there, eh?

Slánte!

2009-03-17T00:56:00.004-04:00

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Happy St.Patrick's Day to all my Irish friends!

Progress Report

2009-03-16T00:30:00.002-04:00

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There's running water at the Luskville Falls! :-)

Good Morning Sunshine!

2009-03-11T07:39:00.004-04:00

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We spotted this guy at the Luskville Falls on Saturday afternoon, about 100 meters above the first lookout. He's a cinnamon bear, which is a subspecies of black bear more commonly found in the West. According to Gatineau Park authorities, that was the first bear sighting in the park this season.

Ad Astra

2009-02-20T23:21:00.002-05:00

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Junior Ernst Dumesle in his dance number Krump at De La Salle high school's annual fund-raising production, Ad Astra. De La Salle is the only French-language public high school with an artistic concentration in Eastern Ontario.

Obama in Ottawa

2009-02-19T23:31:00.001-05:00

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Today I took the day off to be on Parliament Hill for President Obama's first official visit to Canada. More pictures here on my Flickr page.