Project 365: dying flowers and magic places

Well, either it was a particularly beautiful week in the universe, or I’m actually getting good at this 365 thing, because I liked the pictures from this week a lot. A couple of days, I had a hard time choosing from very disparate shots (let alone the 16 shots I took of each composition!) to select a single picture of the day.

Of the week’s photos, I’m least fond of this one of the Laurier Avenue Bridge over the Rideau Canal. It’s okay, but I love this bridge and I didn’t manage to capture what I wanted to capture — the beauty of those iron supports, the grace of the structure. That’s why I put it in b&w, to emphasize the form. I think I might have liked it better if I could have taken it square on, but that would have meant taking a swim to the middle of the Canal, and I’m not *that* obsessed. Yet.

I have always loved the quality of the light in September. The sun is lower in the sky, so the light is more indirect and often dappled through the trees. It’s a golden, flattering light. And of course, the early changing leaves are spectacular in their brilliant colours. But even beyond that, there’s an incredible amount of beauty in the autumn that I never noticed before.

These grow in my back yard. I’m not sure what its called, but it turns the most gorgeous shades of purple, red and yellow as the season fades.

I’m pretty sure this is the last of the coneflower pictures for this season. Even mostly dead, though, they’re still pretty! (Suddenly, I’m having a Monty Python moment over here. “I’m not dead yet. Feeling much better, actually…”)

This sunflower still has lots of life left in her! Do you see how the colour is a little less than natural in this one, sort of a blue tone to it? I set the white balance to “fluorescent” in the RAW editor by accident, and loved how it looked. From there I desaturated it just a bit. I really like the effect. Of course, a happy yellow sunflower against a red maple background and a blue sky doesn’t necessarily *need* my mucking about with it, but I think it makes it look just a little bit different… not necessarily a bad thing?

On the other hand, I did nothing to enhance the colour on this sunrise. I swear, it really was this colour! (Well, I had to adjust the colour once I uploaded it to Flickr, because I’m having a weird problem with Flickr desaturating my photos this week, so I had to tweak it to get it back up to the level of vibrancy it had straight out of the camera. I’m not sure if it’s because I’m shooting this week RAW and Flickr can’t handle the colours or what, but it’s really annoying!)

This is another shot of the same sunrise. I love the pink striations and that hint of crescent moon!

Sometimes, taking the colour out of a colourful thing gives it a new kind of beauty. These mums were a vivid yellow, but I processed them in black and white. They look almost like they’re glowing, don’t they?

And sometimes, there just isn’t much colour to capture. I like the earthy tones of this garlic. (Annie from PhD In Parenting sent me a tweet one day after lunch, asking me if I’d been photographic garlic in the Market. I was! I wish she’d’ve spoken up, I’d’ve liked to meet her!)

I think this one is one of my favourite pictures this week. Something about the texture of the bricks, the peeling paint, that pop of purple against the red bricks… I love it! (And I had to adjust the colour again after I uploaded it to Flickr — I really wish I knew what was causing that!)

The same morning glory, closer to the ground. I desaturated this one for effect. It works, no?

Note to self: always, always, ALWAYS carry your camera with you. You never know when you’ll need it. This is the roof of the grocery store!

I’ve driven past this house on Fallowfield dozens of times, but it took my breath away when I glanced at it with the morning light streaming down on it. Doesn’t that porch seem like a magical kind of place? It stirs my imagination every time I look at it. There’s an entire novel that wants to be written about the magical things that happened around this porch, with the glowing light on one side and the wizened, dying shrub on the other.

And speaking of magical places, check out this curio shop. I swear I’ve covered every block in the Byward Market, looking for photo opportunities, but I’ve never noticed this shop on York Street before. I could spend hours just poking about, looking at stuff and taking pictures/ I was chatting with the curator, and she said she’d be happy to keep an eye open for antique cameras for my through-the-viewfinder project for me. I love how this shot turned out — if you look closely, you can see her reflected in the mirror on the table.

Last, but certainly not least… we were at the park with friends on the weekend. Six boys with a run of the playground, and this is where I found Tristan. This is not a set up. He climbed the tree, as he is wont to do, and then sent Simon to fetch his book for him. A little quirky, occasionally overcome by antisocial tendencies, a lover of books — that’s my boy!

As of today, 240 days down and only 125 days to go. Next Wednesday, I’m two-thirds of the way done…