Category: Photo of the Day

Tulips, kids, fuzzy puppies – talk about an easy week for taking pictures!

Do you even need a narrative for this? First there was one silly kid on a stump.

Then there were three silly kids on some steps with a puppy.

Then the puppy rolled around in some flowers.

Oh, did someone say flowers?

Then I had to go back and revisit one shot because I knew I had it almost right but not quite right.

What’s that, you say? More puppy? Well alrighty then.

It doesn’t get any easier than that, does it?

So, how ’bout that weather, eh? We had seven months of winter, two transitional weeks of spring and BOOM! Summer in May. And I am totally fine with that.

I don’t know whether it is the warmer temperatures or long hours of sunshine or just the fact that I’ve finally shaken the ennui that’s been dogging me for months, but my world was incredibly photogenic this week. (If you follow me on instagram, you’ll see what a prolific week it was.) Here’s my favourite signs of spring summer this week:

Hard to believe the daffies were still just waking up last weekend, but they were.

On Sunday, we celebrated the triumph of summer over spring with one of our favourite fair-weather activities, a ride down to McHaffie’s flea market near Morrisburg. We didn’t actually buy any of these things, but I loved each of them. Raise your hand if you had a suitcase record player like this when you were a kid. *raises hand* Mine was green.

I already told you how amazing We Day was, but I still owe you a post from the boys. It’s coming, I promise!

We are spending a LOT of time in the backyard. She’s an excellent fetcher!

And then not only did the daffies wake up, but the tulips did, too!

I’ve been wandering around, Instagramming downtown on my lunch breaks. These were all from the same day, but I thought they were shareworthy. The scaffolding on the National Gallery is fascinating to me. Apparently they are turning the scaffolding (necessary for repairs on the window seals) into some sort of secret art exhibit to be unveiled later in May. I’ll keep you posted! In the interim, I think the scaffolding is a bit of an art project in itself!

The Ottawa River may yet spill her banks enough to flood the bike path at the base of Parliament Hill, but I’m pretty sure the basement of the Parliament Buildings will remain safe and dry.

Bikes! (I chose this one as the official photo of the day.)

And last but not least, we paid our first visit with Bella to the dog park in Manotick. It’s still pretty mucky and I am not yet ready to let her off leash lest she (a) make a run for the river or (b) run off home with a better family. While Bella was a little overwhelmed by all the other dogs, Lucas loved the park!

So apparently it’s summer now. What are YOU doing this weekend to celebrate?

Winter seemed so reluctant to leave us this year, with a long, cool and slow start to spring, so when the flowers arrived in riot of colour this week, it was almost shocking. Already? Well yeesh, it’s almost May, yes already! As you’ll see, I was helpless to resist each new arrival, each of which popped up literally overnight in my unkempt but still lovely garden.

(That last one is my favourite! It’s now the wallpaper on my iPhone. 🙂 )

On my day off I had 40 minutes to kill before picking up Lucas from school, and so on an impulse I parked in a little lot I’d driven by a million times before and took my camera for a little hike near the Rideau River. I found an AMAZING location for family portraits – how has this been around the corner from me for three years and I never noticed it before? Also a lovely spot to take the boys (and the dog!) for a wander as soon as the trails dry up just a wee bit more. I was enamoured by this big old tree, patiently waiting for spring in the sunshine.

Bella sort of fits the “nature” theme this week. While she had clearly been missing the banks of snow during the messy and wet transition to spring, now that the yard has dried out she has absolutely loves being able to play outside. She is, to our initial dismay, an inveterate digger — but it only took about half an hour to teach her that digging in the sand under the playstructure was allowed and even encouraged, while digging in the lawn makes the lady of the house shriek like a banshee. Quick learner, she is!

And finally, just some pretty blue skies, an ethereal cloud and some maple buds, overlaid with texture for a bit of a painterly feel.

Spring! YAY!

🙂

April really is the cruellest month when it comes to weather, if not photographic opportunities. From snow to a humidex and back down to snow again.

After a long winter, it was finally time to pull out the sidewalk chalk. Lucas has been playing hopscotch at school, so he asked me to make one at home for him after his turned out a little, um, small.

Can you guess who wrote in the numbers? (Hint: not me.)

Then we had the first scilla and crocuses peeking up and we enjoyed those very much!

It’s been fun watching Tristan take a bit of responsibility with Bella, both in taking her for walks and engaging her when she’s in need of a little play.

The current theme of the photo workshop I’m taking with Harry Nowell is longer exposures. I keep forgetting to pull out my tripod and my filters to help me slow down the exposure, but I did find a slow shutter app for my iPhone and I used that for a one-second exposure of the Mill to make the rushing river water look smooth like this.

Much as I’m excited for the arrival of all of spring’s greenery, I do love how the light pours into the house this time of year before the leaves come out and provide their lovely shade.

This may be my favourite shot of the week. Bella was off in the corner of the porch and I wanted to get a shot of her coming toward me so I sat down and lined up my iPhone then called her. When she saw I was at puppy level she not only came over but – well, you can see the enthusiasm in her approach! All four feet off the ground!

It’s freezing again this morning, but at least each ridiculous leap back and forth lands us a little bit closer to summer. Once we get past the chance of snow this afternoon. April isn’t cruel, it’s just plain crazy.

It looks like I completely forgot putting up a post last week for the daily photos, which were pretty much all puppy pictures anyway. So here’s this week’s photos and a few leftovers from last week, too.

I love this photo of Simon and his best buddy, snapped quickly in the school parking lot after school. Much as a cringe when people compliment my camera (“your camera takes lovely photos!”) I have to admit that a good camera can turn even the quickest snaps into a wonderful portrait!

Poor kids can’t even eat breakfast in peace without someone turning a lens on them…

… so I spend a LOT of time taking pictures of the not-much-more-patient-with-my-camera pets! 🙂

A tired puppy is a good puppy. We have done a LOT of walking these past few weeks!

Bella and Willie have not exactly become friends, despite Bella’s best intentions. (Intentions to chase Willie all over the house, that is!)

I was making a recipe that called for two cups of wildebeest, but wouldn’t you know it, we ran out of wildebeest just last week, so I substituted a lemon and a cup and a half of cat.

I was delighted earlier this week to discover what I thought were crocuses (croci?) blooming in the garden, but apparently these are mini-irises. Who knew? Anyway, poor things are now buried under 10 cm of snow and ice pellets. Hope they’re hardy!!

And while the vast majority of Ottawa (and most of Eastern Canada, likely) complained bitterly about a snow storm in mid-April, Bella alone was delighted. Born on Christmas day, she’s only ever seen snow-covered ground, and I think she’s been perplexed by its absence this past week or two. You can see how delighted she is to have her snowy ground cover back!

It’s a good thing I ran out of pictures, because as I type Bella is walking around the living room clearly looking for mischief. Here’s hoping next week’s photos are filled with more flowers and less snow! 😉

I managed to avoid taking a whole week of Bella photos again, but I was so busy working with her on housetraining and other doggie manners that I missed taking a photo a couple of days this week, and relied on quickie iPhone snaps to fill in a few more gaps.

Some photos just beg to be taken, although I do wish I’d had a little more time to play with this and maybe try to remove that glare from Beloved’s glasses. In a house full of boys, Bella has easily stolen the role of Daddy’s Girl.

Of course, part of my dog training regimen has been teaching her to pose for the camera.

Have you heard about the wild turkey problem in Barrhaven? We saw them for the first time a few months ago, and when I saw this pair stopping traffic on my way home from doing errands early one Saturday afternoon, I had to stop and snap a few photos. I thought I had a really great video of them attacking a Mazda as it backed up and tried to drive around them (they really are fearless!) but apparently I’m a better photographer than videographer – I didn’t manage to turn on the video button. Just another couple of turkeys on the fowl prowl in suburbia…

And look, more signs of spring – buds on the birch trees in the back yard!

And last but certainly not least, one of the surest signs of spring: Easter egg decorating!

Hope your Easter was filled with spring and sweet treats!

You can hardly blame me. (Almost) an entire week of puppy pictures? For one thing, she’s already grown since we got her, and I’m glad I’ll have more than the two or three photos I have of Katie’s entire first year. Also, cute puppy is the low-hanging fruit of the daily photo world. Finally, the kids are breathing huge sighs of relief that I finally found someone else to follow around the house with my camera.

I think this is where they get the expression “puppy dog eyes” (sorry about the watermark in this one – sometimes I’m too lazy to go back and adjust them when they fall in a poor spot like this):

Mixing it up with a take on the “from where I stand” meme, with puppy shenanigans:

Maybe a little bit of B&W?

This was her first on-leash walk, which went pretty well. Things pretty much went downhill from here. She’s finally gotten acclimatized to playing outside in the yard, but she hates going for walks (which is unfortunate, since it’s one of the things I was most wanting out of a dog.) It’s come down to me carrying her down the street a ways, and allowing her to pull me back to the house in a desperate scramble. I’m hoping with practice and warmer temperatures (and puppy class next week) the walking-on-leash thing will improve. It also didn’t help that I was carrying her down the driveway Thursday morning before work and hit a patch of ice, launching both of us into the air before we crashed collectively to the pavement. Where exactly is spring?

Speaking of spring, and the non-arrival thereof, here’s the only non-puppy shot of the week – dawn on the first day of spring in the backyard. Lookit those tulips and that green grass – the very picture of spring, don’t you think?

Remember I said I was taking an online photo course with Harry Nowell? The topic this month is taking photos without looking through the viewfinder. I was trying to take low-angle photos of Bella playing in the living room, but she ran towards me to jump on me every time I hunched down, so I pre-focused the camera and put it on the floor, and just reached over and pushed the shutter a few times. The ones of her playing didn’t turn out but I love this one of her sitting and watching me! (Note to self, clean floors before next photo session.)

Last but not least, you can see how Willie is adapting to life with Bella:

Funny to see the tables turned on Willie, and to see Bella pestering him the way he used to pester Katie. 🙂

If you’ve got a great new camera, it only makes sense to find something cute to take pictures of, right? And since I utterly lack adorable and patient photo subjects (not really), you can understand why I rushed out and got us a puppy, right? Cuz this week was all about two things: March Break and puppies.

In case you missed it, this is Bella:

And this was Bella’s first day with us:

I come by my love of dogs honestly, and Bella didn’t waste any time bonding with Granny and Papa Lou. Is this not a picture of doggy love? I think it’s my favourite of our first few days with Bella.

While the arrival of Bella pretty much torpedoed any out of the house activities we might have pursued in the last half of the March Break, we did manage to get out and have some fun before she joined us. The boys knew we were actively considering a new pet, and had been begging for a visit to the Ottawa Humane Society since they had been to a birthday party there earlier this year. So off we went to pet the kitties and look, just look, at the other animals. They didn’t have any young female dogs available, but there were three adorable baby Willies in one of the cat pens.

By the way, the birthday party at the Humane Society was excellent – this is definitely on our roster of ideas for the future!!

And we also paid a visit to one of our favourite March Break haunts, the Log Farm sugar bush off Cedarview.

My mother brought me these tulips last week when we all thought spring was actually on the way. (Clearly we were mistaken, it’s currently about -10C outside and apparently there’s 15 cm of snow in the forecast.) Anyway, I love how she brought them to me with a comment about knowing how much I’d enjoy taking pictures of them. She was right!

And way way way back to last weekend (seems like a month ago from here!) someone had a birthday party:

Phew, considering we didn’t have anything formal planned beyond the birthday party, this was a hell of an exciting March Break!!

The past two weeks have been filled with highs and lows, sickness and love, tears and play. I was so devastated by losing Katie last weekend that I couldn’t bring myself to put together my weekly post of photos, so here’s two week’s worth for the price of one.

Most of last weekend we were reeling from losing Katie, so we decided to bring the kids out on a family sledding afternoon to try to get away from the empty-feeling house for a while.

It was the first time I’d been able to put my new camera through its paces. After waiting months to buy it, I finally saved up enough of my photography income to invest in a full-frame camera, the Nikon D600. Ironically, in the days after I bought it we were so rocked by snow and sickness and then the loss of Katie, I really didn’t take more than three or four photos with it until the first part of this week. It’s a gorgeous camera, though, and I think we will be the best of friends.

It takes pretty good cat pictures, so I suppose I can make it work.

I’ve been twitching to try it out for portraits of someone other than the family, and my friend Steve needed a new avatar. Perfect!

I was carrying a basket full of fresh laundry upstairs when I came around the corner and saw the light bathing Lucas and literally dropped the basket where I stood so I could grab my camera. Not that I need much of an excuse to be distracted from folding laundry, but I think the light in this one is pretty delicious.

These are a couple from earlier last week. The big boys have been taking music lessons and were offered the opportunity to perform in the semi-annual recital. Tristan declined, but Simon played a lovely version of Ode to Joy for parents and grandparents in the church basement. These are the moments I’d dreamed of, way back when the idea of kids was just an abstract and not a noisy, chaotic technicolour experience.

Snow. Sigh. If it won’t go away, you might as well embrace it, right? Snowball fight!!!

These last photos are all about why I love Ottawa. I was off on an errand and came across a pair of gentlemen doing oil paintings on the Mackenzie King bridge over the Canal, and asked if I could take a photo. One smiled said yes, go ahead and take a few, and can I have a copy? I said sure, and gave him my card and snapped a few photographs.

Also on the bridge, he’d set up this little art installation (this is an Instagram photo.)

When I got home, I googled his name, and found his blog post about making these paintings and some photos from his perspective. His name is Patrick John Mills and he’s a local artist and gallery owner. How fun is that?

Even when winter is cold and dark and seemingly endless, there is colour, and beauty, and light. Sometimes you just have to go looking for it so it can find you.

I read in the Citizen that we now have two full hours more daylight than we did on the winter solstice, and that the sun is now half way to the highest point it reaches in the summer sky. Clearly, there are signs that spring is pending – one of the greatest joys of February, in my mind, is finding a spot sheltered from the wind and turning your face soak up the growing warmth of the sun.

But dang, winter in Ottawa is long. Lucky for me, it is also pretty. One might even say spectacular. Is this not the quintessential Canadian winter photo? Skaters on the lake under a cold winter sun. I love this one!

I wish I’d had my macro lens to zoom in on the delicate frost crystals on this spruce tree. I haven’t seen frosted tips like this since the 1980s!

And here’s the other end of the Rideau Canal. I can’t even guess how many pictures I’ve shot of the Parliament Buildings, but I particularly loved the sky in this one, and the colours.

It was still colder than -10 when we decided to break out the bikes and play in the road for a bit. (Sadly, they are once again snow packed with more snow on the way. Spring is coming, right?)

I’ve been submitting photos to other stock agencies as well as Getty Images, and this one in particular was looking for a mom in her 40s on a computer. Um, I can suck up my massive discomfort with self portraits to try that! This was one of the outtakes. I am still massively uncomfortable with it, but other people seem to like it. I entertained myself by calling it “Laughing(stock)”. I slay me!

January through March are a quiet time for the portrait business, so I was twitchy to get out and start taking people pictures again and was delighted to be hired again to cover the Family Day festival at Old Navy in the Rideau Centre. (Aside from being a fun way to see a lot of my bloggy friends, it’s a great yardstick to measure my own personal progress. I have become a much better photographer just in the last year, if I do say so myself!)

Half of the assignment was to capture the event itself, which was a blast. I couldn’t believe the size and energy of the crowd by the time the kids were dancing to Gangnam Style (for the 3rd time) and even doing the Harlem Shake.

And the organizers had this fun idea of turning the kids into superheroes flying over a cityscape. I’ve thought of doing something similar to this – may have to steal this idea! (I tell you, though, climbing up and down the merchandizing ladder to take these shots left me with quivering quads of jello for three days!)

And speaking of events, last but certainly not least, somebody FINALLY had his fifth — and first ever! — birthday party on Sunday!

It was so funny, three different employees said variations of “our boss says you’re a blogger” to me – and I hadn’t mentioned it to anyone at all when I booked the party. I was saying on Facebook that this must be what a restaurant critic feels like when she visits a new eatery. I knew my experienced mom’s guide to Ottawa birthday parties was popular, but I didn’t realize it had taken on a life of its own! Mark my words, it won’t be long now before I walk in to a place and demand, “Don’t you know who I am?” 😉

And finally, a quick aside: you might notice that I’ve changed the CSS on my blog template so the photos have a drop shadow instead of a light grey frame. Is it displaying okay for you? It works on my Mac, but not on my work computer, which only last week was upgraded from Windows 3.x, so that doesn’t really surprise me. But is it rendering okay for you? What do you think?