This week in pictures: Surprise, more winter photos!

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?