Category: Photo of the Day

The days are getting shorter and the light is low in the sky, but it’s been such a beautiful, mild autumn that almost all my pictures were taken outdoors this week.

On the weekend, I had the great pleasure of meeting the Pietersma family. Have you ever seen the Victorian tinsel and gorgeous tin stars that Lee Valley Tools carries at this time of year? I am totally addicted to the stars and they’re one of my favourite holiday decorations (that may creep out into the house for everyday decorations one of these days!) After our session, I was delighted to find out that this family makes all those stars and the tinsel. Isn’t that awesome? It’s not every day you meet a tinsmithing family! (And also? Incredibly charming. I hope my boys grow up to be as polite as these big boys were, and the twins were good as gold as well.)

No big story to this one. It’s a vine snaking over the brick wall of one of the many cobblestone courtyards in the Byward Market. I just liked the colours and form.

Speaking of colours and form, more low-hanging fruit — erm, leaves.

I saw this tableau out of the corner of my eye and very surreptitiously grabbed this picture shooting from the hip. I loved the pattern of the boots but didn’t want to freak out the strangers wearing them by being obvious about taking pictures of their feet!

I wonder if there’s anything worth examining in the fact that I am fascinated by things that grow in ditches? I’ve admired these weedy things for weeks. I love how the setting sun plays in the puffiness of whatever they are — kind of a cattail/wheat/bullrush thing? (I am such a city girl.)

We had such a good time on Halloween that I ended up with a bunch of snapshots, and only mediocre ones at that, but together they paint a pretty good picture of the fun we had. (Halloween this year further reinforced my theory that it’s actually still 1975 in Manotick. The boys ended up with things like full-sized chocolate bars and cans of pop in their loot bags, and at one point a pumper truck from the Ottawa Fire Department was driving around the ‘hood handing out candy! And also? I beamed with pride for days after watching how well-mannered they were in trick-or-treating, and hearing people comment on their well-manneredness and cuteness. We’re doing something right!)

And speaking of Halloween, did you hear about the Giant Pumpkin Rampage?

It was an epic struggle but Farmer Brown finally managed to get the giant pumpkins back into their cages under lock and key. God help us if they ever escape again…

🙂

You’d think if there were a weekly theme to the colours in my pictures the week before Halloween, those colours would be orange and black, but I’ve got more of a green and red and gold thing going on this week. Maybe it’s that whole “Christmas starts earlier each year” thing again? That seems to be a bloggy theme this week!

There was nothing Christmasy about our visit to Millers Farm to pick pumpkins, though! I am totally in love with their little pumpkin house – isn’t it great? (Except, it must be extremely crooked, because it’s still driving me a bit crazy that I couldn’t make all four sides of the frame line up with the edges of the photograph no matter how much I tinkered!)

This is something a little different, but I love how it turned out – the reflection of autumn colours and late-afternoon sky on the Rideau River. I’m looking around for somewhere to hang this one in the house – but I’m starting to run out of wall space!

I’d like to hang this one on the wall, too. I found this little pile of vintage books in a corner of an antique shed and was immediately drawn to both the colour and the composition. I played with some Kim Klassen textures to finish it off.

I have two leaf shots this week. (The leaf season is quickly coming to a close!) I’ve taken a bunch of leaves-on-steps shots over the last couple of years because my eye is always attracted to them — but I can never seem to make them work. My eye likes the subject but the camera apparently feels differently! Anyway, this is good enough, but only barely.

This one has been done to death, by me and just about anyone else who likes to take pictures of autumn leaves (low hanging fruit!) but I still like how it came out. The sun is shining bright and low in the sky behind the leaf, giving it that nice glow and bringing out the detail of the veins and making the edges pop, but I kept the angle low to keep green grassy background completely framing the leaf and to keep the sun from flaring. I’m using my 50mm f1.4 lens “wide open”, which gives the grass in the background that nice smooth blur, but the plane of focus is so small that you can see the right edge of the leaf has wandered out of focus because I was focusing on the left side. It’s probably a difference of a couple of millimeters, but enough that it’s no longer as tack sharp as the other side. Oh well.

Peppers from the Byward Market. I liked how the ones near the edges were mostly solid colours and the ones in the centre seemed to be the mixed-colour ones. Yum!

And finally, if you know Ottawa you probably recognize this location. It’s the main entrance of the Canadian Museum of Nature, one of the city’s best places for families. In addition to the stunning architectural details on the door itself, I was drawn to the difference in scale between the very big door and the very little boy.

Think I can wrest a few more leaf and fall colour shots out of the season before the snow falls? Tune in next week to find out!

(Are you interested in the technical “how I did this” and “why I did this” explanations? Or are they pedantic? I can never decide what kind of details to include in these posts.)

Wow, this week I posted the 300th picture in my second 365 project! Funny, now that I’ve relaxed my own rules a bit (it’s okay every now and then to post a picture today I took earlier, for example) I’ve taken all the angst out of the project and enjoyed it a hell of a lot more.

Speaking of bending rules, this is a stretch even by my own standards, but Saturday was so crazy at the Blissdom Canada conference (I still have that last post pending, I’ll get to it eventually, I promise!!) that I would have loved to set this up and take it myself, but it was just easier to hand off the camera. So this is a sort-of, not-quite, stretching the rules to the breaking point addition to my 365 project, taken with a little help from Sarah at Mom Central: me in the giant bouncy chair in the Fisher-Price suite at Blissdom:

Speaking of busy and Blissdom, I didn’t put up a 365 post last week because I’d already posted a lot of the pictures from the (very photogenic!) weekend, so here are two lonely leftovers from last week. I loved the dramatic sky churning up over the farm in this one, so I processed it in black and white to emphasize the shapes and lines.

Someone on Flickr called this one Catasaurus Rex, and I thought that summed it up just about right. 🙂

After the intensity of the weekend, I couldn’t be more grateful for the quiet solitude of this leafy tunnel through the trees. (I desaturated it a bit to make it feel calmer. The riotous greens and yellows were a little too energetic!)

We took the boys to an antiques and collectibles show on the weekend. Imagine my squee of delight when I found this collection! They were ridiculously overpriced, though, and I can’t justify spending more than a couple of dollars on cameras that will only be used as props and toys, so I didn’t end up taking any home with me. (Also, I already own one of at least four of the cameras shown in this picture!)

I didn’t realize until I was putting this post together that I spent at least two days looking skyward with my camera this week. I like how you can see the individual maple leaf outlines in this, and the range of colours on the tree. Did you know that the yellow and orange fall colours are simply the absence of the green chlorophyll, but the red is sugar trapped in the leaf?

I never stop being in awe of the Parliament Buildings, but it’s hard to find an angle that hasn’t been done to death. I like this first one and think that hint of cloud cover is what makes the shot, but wish I’d backed up just a wee bit more to get that back gargoyle in the frame.

And speaking of frames:

This was a quick shot on a busy day, but the light on the pumpkin stems caught my eye enough to make me grab the camera.

And speaking of eyes, is this not the definition of “evil eye”? He’s a caiman, and he almost bit my leg off as I was traversing a swamp in the Amazon jungle we met him thanks to the traveling show from Little Ray’s Reptile Zoo at the boys’ school Halloween party.

I enjoy writing these weekly posts because I can often see themes emerging, and love how they present themselves. This week’s pictures, though, exactly reflect the disjointed busyness that was the week itself. A little bit of this and that, with no time to stop and think about any of it.

Here’s hoping this coming week is a little calmer, if not a little more thematic.

I was really, really excited and really, really nervous by the time Saturday rolled around last week. I’d been in contact with a sweet couple that had asked me to photograph their wedding, and by the time the wedding rolled around I actually had butterflies in my tummy. (Can I say tummy? It seems like a bit of a silly word, but “butterflies in my stomach” just doesn’t roll off the tongue the same way, does it?)

Anyway, the day was grey and freeeeeeezing cold – at least, freezing in comparison to the sunny, mild September we’ve just enjoyed. I was a little concerned that the light would be flat and dull, and the ceremony was scheduled to end just a few minutes before sunset. I kept a wary eye on the forecast all week long.

And just look at what Mother Nature gave us!

I swear, I was even *more* nervous about not screwing up the rainbow shot than I was about not screwing up the ceremony shots!! No pressure there, no siree. (Eek!) Aren’t they just an adorable couple, though? They made me feel like a part of the family during the wedding.

And then I spent the whole day on Sunday playing with the pictures I’d taken, so much so that I didn’t have a chance to take any new pictures at all, so I stole another favourite from the wedding as my picture of the day for Sunday, too. (Hey, my project, my rules!) I love love love this shot, from the light to Erin’s expression to the girliness of all those ruffles. I guess I needn’t have expended all that angst over the light, eh?

It was, on the whole, a rather dull and rainy week. Rain can lend its own flavour to a scene, though, like the drops on this web and fence. (Yes, I am fixated on a few key elements lately. Rural shots, fence shots, and textures. Fixated may not be a strong enough word for it.)

Oh right, here’s another fixation: vintage anything! (Surprise – with texture!)

You can’t really blame me for being fixated on the fall colours right now. This is such a photogenic time of year – it’s hard to take a bad picture. (Oh look, more textures!) (I really like this one. I think it’s the best texture work I’ve done recently.)

Enough with the textures? Okay, some straight-up cuteness for you. I love that he so loves flowers!

(Doesn’t he look so grown up in that one? I am always intrigued by photographs of kids where you can see the grown-up lurking inside and peeking through!)

And finally, this one with some of my favourite toys. I’m heading out to the Blissdom Canada social media conference next week (squee!) and as I make checklists in my head about what to bring (iPhone? Check. Camera? Check. Laptop? Check.) this picture came together. I called it “Road trip, vintage style!”

I dunno, you think I can fit it all in the overhead bin on the plane? 😉

Maybe it’s the warm, saturated colours that come with autumn, but I noticed that I have been completely fixated on the colour red in my pictures this week. Reds with green, reds with purples, reds with blues — it’s been a very red week!

Like this one – clearly, it was red laundry load day for this family. (As one of my friends on Flickr pondered, “Wonder if they were all red going into the washing machine?”) What is it about laundry lines? I love them, and this one in particular.

The reds are a little more muted in this one. This little pot of flowers has survived the whole season, from drippy spring to droughty summer. I fear the porch picture season may be drawing to a close!

And completely by fluke, I picked up on almost exactly the same colour palette when I found this colourful wall in the Byward Market. (I really had to resist the urge to straighten that lamp in photoshop. It’s still irking me!)

On that spectacularly summer-like Sunday we had, I had the pleasure of meeting this family of five. I’ll have a few more pictures from their portrait session to share soon. Aren’t they lovely?

It’s been ages since I’ve been out to Dow’s Lake, and they’ve got things moved around a bit. I snapped this sunset shot while I was waiting to meet with the bride and groom to be for a wedding I’ll be shooting later today. I’m so excited!

The fall colours are really starting to show off now. I loved how a quick break in a dark day gave this ordinary-looking field a bit of drama.

And finally, the only picture of the week that doesn’t feature the colour red: poor Katie, who’s face clearly says to me, “He’s TOUCHING me!” Funny, when we adopted Willie last spring, I knew that we’d have no trouble with Katie adapting to a new pet, but I have been surprised that it’s been her who is resistant to cuddling. Despite many efforts on Willie’s part, this is the first time I’ve ever seen her tolerate him cuddling with her.

I think autumn may well be the most photogenic of all the seasons!

This week’s photographs are a tribute to the beauty of the late-summer / early-autumn season we’re in. September is just such a gorgeous month. (And also? A little crazy!)

How’s this for an autumnal shot? I carried those acorn around in my purse for half a week, and then found the oak leaf 20 km away when I was finally ready to take the picture. And yes, I continue to be a little bit obsessed with adding texture to my pictures. I think this one got it right.

I simply love this stretch of picket fence. I’ve photographed it before! I think maybe the texture is a little too heavyhanded in this one, though. Hmm.

Oh look, more textures! I called this one “I heart vintage cameras.” I had the idea for a long time, but couldn’t quite force it to work in the way I’d imagined. Close, but not quite.

Nature provided her own texture for this foggy shot. Wednesday was actually my day off, the only day of the week I wouldn’t be driving through this neighbourhood at dawn on my way to work, but when I saw that delicious fog I snuck out (still in my pajama pants, no less!) to capture a few shots before I had to get the boys and Beloved off to school and work.

This wasn’t even a photo of the day, but y’all seem to love the cat pictures, and I thought it provided an appropriate post script to my last post. So did you know that when you neuter a cat, he eliminates the residual testosterone in his system by spending one to two hours every damn day running around the house before dawn like a rabid monkey? At least, that’s what Willie’s been doing. It’s his ultimate revenge, I think. Clever little bugger, knows exactly what my weakness is!

Yesterday was the first official day of autumn, and a particularly photogenic day in the Byward Market. Love all the orange tones — so seasonal!

I hemmed and hawed for a while on whether to use the storyboard or this sunflower as the picture of the day yesterday, so here’s the sunflower, too. Lovely, isn’t it? And yes, more texture!!!

These last two go back to our weekend of pre-autumn family fun last weekend. On Sunday, we took the boys and Granny to the Richmond Fair. I love it, it’s the perfect size for us. I had some fun lensbaby shots I took, which you can see on my Flickrstream if you like, but my fave of the day was this random cuteness of two adorable strangers, clearly on their first date. 🙂

And finally, speaking of adorable… on Saturday we took your recommendation and went to the Mountain Orchard for some apple picking. It was crazy busy, but we only found out when we got there that their bountiful crop this year had been decimated just a few weeks ago by a killer hail storm. We had to search hard for apples that hadn’t been pummeled, split or bruised by hail — it was really kind of heartbreaking to see all the ruined apples — but we still managed to easily fill a 10 lbs bag and have a fun day out.

And yes, those cinnamon doughnuts *were* worth the drive! Gold stars to the bloggy peeps who recommended Mountain Orchard!!

Joy and sorrow and beauty – that pretty much covers the emotional spectrum, doesn’t it? That’s what this long, exhausting week was like. As if early September weren’t crazy-making enough on its own. That’s the thing about this daily photo project — since I’ve fallen out of the habit of daily blogging, I can look back and see how the flavour of each day adds its own filter to the photo of the day.

On Saturday, we got the call that Beloved’s mother was very sick and not likely to make it much longer. She had been in the hospital for a week or so, so the news wasn’t a huge surprise, but it was still a terrible time for the family. Beloved made the trip across the province and arrived in time to say goodbye. And then, while he was still away, I got word that the older sister of a pair of very dear old friends had also lost her long battle with cancer, leaving three young daughters behind. It was a sorrowful week, and even though these losses were really only tangential to me, affecting those I loved far more than they affected me, I still felt buffeted by death and grief. It didn’t help that this was all the same weekend as the poignant flashbacks to 9/11. In the worst of it, I posted this picture, because I really did just want to curl up and hide until it was all over and we could go back to being happy again.

This one, too, was more or less on the same theme.

The funny thing about kids, though, is that they won’t hang around and wait while you wallow in your sorrow. Especially with really young kids, even when they understand the concept of the grief, they can’t live in it for long. Follow the children and you’ll find your way to life, to warmth, to beauty, like sunshine on a late-summer day.

And you can count on a mischievous cat for some distracting shenanigans. I was just walking past the kitchen when I noticed he had filched the stuffed Elmo out of Lucas’s room, and just had to drop to his level and click the shutter while he provided the entertainment. (I love the look on Katie’s face in the last frame: “You’re so gonna get in trouble for this one!”)

And there’s no real story here, except I caught sight of myself in the mirror and liked the light and the colours. Call me Narcissus. And really, this is where my camera spends the vast majority of its time, when it’s not plastered to my face. Is this what they call ‘shooting from the hip’?

I’ve been working with textures a lot lately, exploring the effects they can have on an image. This week I have two, one that I adore and one that I don’t. This is the latter – the more I look at it, the more I wish I’d dialled down the opacity a bit, especially in the darker parts of the image. It’s sort of in the direction where I wanted to go, but to be honest, I simply ran out of time and the dog needed to be walked and homework needed to be checked and lunches just weren’t making themselves. Oh well, they can’t all be winners.

This one, however, I truly love. This was my happy place this week. This one also has some texture work, but it’s much more subtle. I was dropping the kids off at daycare and school on Monday morning when I noticed this amazing vintage suitcase sitting out beside the neighbour’s trash. (Remember “crazy garbage picking wife”? Oh yes, so totally true.) I was so excited and delighted by my discovery that I actually looked over my shoulder as I loaded it into the car, thinking there might be dozens of people on my sleepy street lining up to grab my treasure away from me. These beauties sell for $50 to $100 on eBay and Etsy – gorgeous!

It was late in the day before I could stop to properly examine it. I haven’t been able to pry open the locks just yet, and it has rivets instead of screws holding them in place, so I may have to bust the locks if I ever want to open it. The concept for this picture arrived almost full formed in my head the moment I saw the suitcase on the side of the road. The only thing that caused me trouble was the map — I couldn’t find one in the house or the car. Who doesn’t have a map — any map! — stashed away somewhere? Then I remembered the various boxes of paper clutter masquerading as souvenirs I have stacked in my closet. This map of the Paris metro was in a collection that from our honeymoon that I haven’t looked at in nearly a decade. See, being a packrat DOES pay off!

I love this picture partly because it makes me laugh, but also because it was very intentional on my part, from the props to the set-up to the colours and tones. I’m usually a sort of a grab-and-go photographer, finding and catching images on the fly. I’m pretty chuffed that I’ve now come to a point where I can come up with a concept and execute it and have it come pretty darn close (in this case, maybe even better!) than the original vision. It’s now one of my favourite pictures ever.

It was a long week, for sure, full of sadness, but also of beauty and love.

Isn’t it funny how some days (weeks, months) you seem to be in a creative drought and can’t wring a drop of creativity out of your soul, and other days you can’t stop the deluge of ideas and inspiration? Lucky for me, this has been one of those weeks where I’m practically swimming in a tsunami of inspiration – I can barely keep up with it all!

It helps when you start the week with an adorable baby. I know you’ve seen these pictures already, but I had to include them in the official 365 record, right?

Aside from the soft sweetness of the baby (delicious, isn’t he?) I’m pretty pleased with myself over the frames for these ones. I’d seen something similar on another site and decided I wanted to learn how to create my own, with my little shooting star insignia.

And speaking of repeats, there’s the misadventure of accidentally enrolling the boys in dance camp. (Oops!)

And the last of the repeats for this week… I have to admit, I love this picture of Lucas and his new favourite camera, from my comparison of the Nikon D7000 and the Fisher-Price Kid-Tough Digital Camera.

But look! There’s fresh material here too, that hasn’t been blogged already. For example, the sunrises have been absolutely spectacular this week. I loved the texture in the clouds on this one. This hasn’t been processed at all, save for a little crop and a slight fix on the exposure – there’s at least one benefit to being awake and on my way to work before sparrow’s first fart.

And speaking of sky, did you notice how the clouds have been just spectacular this week? This is the totem pole on George Street, in front of the Ottawa School of Art. As I said when I posted this one on Flickr, sometimes the sky just invites you to leap up and soar away!

I called this family portrait “Happy Last Day of Summer.” I know, I know, summer isn’t officially over yet, but it’s more about how the days feel than what the calendar says, right?

And of course, the last day of summer is followed immediately by the first day of school. *wipes away tear of nostalgia*

From portraiture to snapshots, it was a very picturesque week!

I was worried that the commute from Manotick to the Byward Market every day would prove long and tiresome. It is on the long side — I’m averaging 35 to 40 minutes — but it’s such a gorgeous drive that I’m quite enjoying it. (Ask me again after a blizzard in February and maybe I’ll change my tune!)

What’s interesting to me is the sheer diversity of the drive. I start out in rural farmland, passing cows and barns, and I follow the Rideau River / Canal all the way downtown, through suburbs and down Colonel By Drive, past Old Ottawa South and the Glebe and both universities, all the way to the Market. It goes from capacious and rolling fields to the sharp concrete edges of downtown; from serenity to bustle; from wide-open spaces and the smell of nature to crowds and the competing smells of cars, restaurants and progress. (I notice these differences most keenly in the morning, because let’s face it, the traffic at 4 pm may be worse on Bridge Street in Manotick as it is on Sussex Drive!)

All that to say, the juxtapositioning of the rural and urban experience seems to have informed my picture-taking this week. There was, for example, this improbably blue barn resting quietly in a very yellow field that just begged to be photographed. I wish I’d had a more standard lens on instead of my lensbaby, to really make that colour contrast pop, but as they say, the best camera/lens for the job is the one you have with you!

In contrast, I love the effect the lensbaby had on this picture. To the left is the US Embassy (who apparently don’t take kindly to photographers, but I’ve never had a problem) and straight ahead is the glass dome of the National Gallery of Canada. I love how all the lines converge on the red pop of the flags.

And then, back to the rural thing. I think I’m fascinated by farms and barns just because they are so completely removed from my experience. When I saw the sky the morning I took this, I knew I just had to watch out for the perfect shape to silhouette and show it off. As I said in the caption on Flickr, “Phallic symbol? What phallic symbol?”

This was an idea that didn’t work out like I’d expected, but I didn’t really have anything else for the shot of the day. And didn’t these things used to be way more colourful? (We used them for the favours at our wedding.)(Not these ones.)(Although they were stale enough that they could have been.)

This is a new treasure I found in a junk shop. Can you believe it only cost me $5? What a steal! It’s a Yashica Electro 35 from 1966, one of the most popular and populist rangefinders. It was apparently the first electronically controlled camera. Best $5 paperweight ever! 😉 It’s also my favourite picture this week because I saw this style of picture somewhere else and deliberately set out to mimic it. I wouldn’t have been able to do that a year or two ago, but I did and I was pretty pleased with myself and the result.

At the risk of treading into Stuart Smalley territory, I thought it would be fun to try making some of these poster-type things I’ve seen all over Pinterest lately. I really love the sentiment!

I promise, the next one will say, “I’m good enough. I’m smart enough. And doggone it, people like me.” 😉

You might have noticed the sparse blogging this week. This past week and the one coming up mark a crazy end-of-summer transition time that encompass not only back to school for the boys and Beloved, but a new job for me, a new caregiver for Lucas, and an impromptu 24-hours-notice visit from my brother and his family. All very good things, but I kind of feel like I’m living in a whirlwind these days!

You’d never know it from the serenity of this picture, though. As the days get shorter and the nights get cooler, I’m seeing a lot of this delicious mist swirling on the Rideau as the sun crests over the trees. (I know the purple loosestrife is a pestilence, but it sure is a purty pestilence.)

Flowers like rain, even if rambunctious kids don’t.

I can’t decide if this one is overdone. The apples are great, but maybe the dollar-store fall garland pushed it beyond yummy into hokey? Hmmm, might have to revisit this one later in apple season.

As I mentioned a few times now, I’ve gone back to my old job downtown. The 45-minute commute is a bit of a drag, but I have to admit that I am excited to be back down in the Byward Market again. The energy in the Market is the polar opposite of the serene tranquility in the misty river shot above, but it’s kind of nice having both in the same day.

My very first day was also the second day that Jack Layton was laying in state for public condolences on Parliament Hill. I had hoped that maybe I could make my way over there, but first days have a mind of their own and it didn’t work out. I was, however, able to stand at my new office window and pay my respects as the 15-gun salute was fired. Such a terrible loss for all of us. I’m glad I have this picture, to remind me of the excitement of my first day and the jaw-dropping shock of this gorgeous view all playing out against the backdrop of public grieving. Rest in peace, Jack.

On the other side of the building, of course, lays the bustling Byward Market, which is both a gustatory and visual festival of tastes and colours. Harvest season is a such great time to be near the Market!

This is my niece sharing her discovery, a wooly bear caterpillar (which will become, I found out thanks to the Interwebs, an Isabella tiger moth.) I love the combination of the chipped red nail polish and the dirt on her hands — my kind of girl!

You know I’ve hung out my shingle as a family photographer, and I have to tell you, it’s turning into a fun and lucrative little endeavour. But for all the great family pictures I’ve taken, I’ve never really gotten one of my own extended family that I loved. Until now, that is.

You can see that they genuinely love each other, and isn’t that what it’s really all about?