Men and nature must work hand in hand

Men and Nature must work hand in hand. The throwing out of balance of the resources of Nature throws out of balance also the lives of men. We find millions of our citizens stranded in village and on farm - stranded there because Nature cannot support them in the livelihood they had sought to gain through her. We find other millions gravitated to centers of population so vast that the laws of natural economics have broken down.
Prophetic words from Franklin D. Roosevelt's address to Congress on the Use of Our National Resources, January 24, 1935.  


Washington DC is full of memorials and inspiring words of past American leaders. What will it take to convince our current political leadership to heed these words? 

November Freeze

November is a month that is hard to like; in fact it's my least favourite month of the year. The days are short and getting shorter. It's too cold to cycle and too soon for snow. However, looking on the bright side, walking is good and sights like this are available not far from the city centre.

Taken from the Mirador (lookout) at 2:45 in the Parc naturel du Mont-Bélair on November 8th this stream is just beginning to to freeze over while the warm afternoon light highlights the reddish vegetation of the bog.

I like! Go back to my post on September 10, 2010 for another look at this parc.

Canon 7D with 15-85mm lens at 24mm; ISO 100, 1/50sec at f/ 10

Plage Jacques Cartier after Sunset

Standard Time and the sun sets at 4:20 pm on November 7. Paulette and I were walking and shooting photos along our favourite piece of the Saint lawrence called Le parc de la Plage-Jacques-Cartier.


I took this silhouetted tree twenty minutes after the sun had set. I like the colour contrast between the cool dark blue sky and the warm salmon colour along the horizon and reflected in the water. The lamp light (which had come on just minutes before this shot) adds another dynamic element to the composition.

I took the picture in RAW mode with the white balance in the camera set to daylight (5400K). To remove the resulting overly warm colour-cast I reduced the temperature to 3400K (typical sunset value) to achieve this more faithful rendition.

For the sequence of photos leading up to this moment go to my flickr album. Hope you enjoy them.

Andrew

Late Fall Beauty

Our friends Denis and Judy live in Randboro, a small hamlet near Sawyerville, by Cookshire and twenty minutes from Lennoxville in the  beautiful Eastern Townships. Mid-morning on a day threatening rain, Denis took Paulette and me along the east fork of the Eaton River to show us some of the spots he returns to paint year-after-year, especially during spring breakup. This old sugar maple hangs on to the last of its intensely red leaves (October 17). By now the leaves have fallen and been carried off by the river.

Canon 7D, 15-85mm zoom at 15mm, 1/80 sec, f / 7.1, ISO 200, hand held

This photo is similar in composition to A.Y. Jackson's 1914 painting entitled the Red maple (which hangs in the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa)

Dawn and dusk at Severn Lodge

1/30 sec, f/7.1, ISO 100 camera on tripod

According to Scott Kelby(author of The Digital Photography Book) there are only two times of the day that pro photographers take landscape photos: 15-30 minutes before sunrise and 30-60 min after sunset. I quote, "These are the only times of the day when you get the soft, warm light and soft shadows that give professional quality lighting for landscapes."

I would say these two photos of the very friendly Severn Lodge illustrate this rule. The lighting is soft, warm, atmospheric and magical.

To see a series of fourteen photos visit my flickr album Dawn and Dusk.

5 sec, f/7.1, ISO 100 camera on tripod

Kamouraska Sunset

Tent erected, wine opened, Paulette, I and friends Richard and Lise walked to the shoreline of the Saint-Lawrence for a ever-changing spectacular light show.

With my Canon 7D set on a small and sturdy travel tripod we watched the sunset and lingered for another hour taking pictures, mostly at the widest end of a 15-85mm,  f/4 zoom lens.

For an eleven-shot sequence go to my flickr album Sunset over Saint Lawrence.

Aiguille du Midi, Chamonix Mont-Blanc

This was a bonus (and last) shot of the Aiguille du Midi taken on the day of our departure from Chamonix Mont-Blanc. We were having a sleepy six am breakfast when Paulette pointed out the first rays of sun touching the mountain ridge. Grabbing my well-oiled and much-used Canon 7D I stepped outside and captured this all-too-fleeting scene.

Canon 7D, 15-85mm lens at 85 mm: 1/100 sec at f / 5.6, ISO 200

For a twenty photo series of the mountains of Chamonix Mont-Blanc go to this link.

Enjoy.

Lyon

Paulette and I are back from a month visiting France. We returned with many fond memories and 3000 photos of Lyon, Provence, Parc des Écrins and Chamonix Mont-Blanc. Lyon is a medieval city traversed by La Saône et Le Rhône and twenty-eight bridges.

I took this Passerelle du Palais de Justice with les Pentes de la Croix-Rousse in the background. I gave it a panoramic look by cropping the sky and the water for a 2.39:1 aspect ratio.

Of course everybody (except me) knows that Antoine de Saint-Exupéry , author of Le Petit Prince, is a native son of Lyon and commemorated in statues and place names (the airport abbreviation is LYS for Lyon-Saint-Exupéry). 


Shooting up from the ground against the bright sky produced a very contrasty, silhouetted image of Saint-Exupéry and his petit prince. Using Lightroom, I first increased the exposure as much as possible and secondly added a fill light to recover some detail in the figures. Taking the picture from the top of a twenty-foot ladder would have produced a better result; fortunately, I don't carry one when I travel.

Chimney Pond to The Knife Edge

Chimney Pond nestles in the Great Basin on the eastern slope of the Katahdin Massif. Here is a campground, a ranger station, a source of drinking water and a base camp for exploring the higher elevations.  The calm water reflects the saturated greens of the Maine forest and soothes the hikers' spirits. Over the three days we bunked in Baxter State Park, I went down to this pond time and again to watch the changing light and try to capture its beauty. This is my favourite close-up view (focal length = 95 mm); the foreground filled with a range of greens and reflected deadwood and the bright 4:30 pm sky removed from the background. 

Two and a half hours of relentless scrambling up Dudley Trail transports you from Chimney Pond to Pamola Peak and the famous Knife Edge Trail. Gone are the lush vegetation and soothed spirits. Hikers are faced with hard rock, unlimited views down to the east and west and potentially dangerous winds and exposure to lightning. However, on a fair day, this 1.2 mile ridge walk along to Baxter Peak (5267') is a most enjoyable and spectacular hike.

40% Chance of Thunderstorms

Our annual walk/picnic at the north end of île d'Orléans (Point Argentenay) started under a warm and humid conditions when I took this bucolic shot of two horses hanging out along the fence. 

An hour later we pulled up logs and driftwood along the gravel headland of the island and sat down to a potluck picnic still with no sign of a storm.

It wasn't until the end of our ten kilometre loop as we started driving home that these impressively dark storm clouds loomed over the island and the mountains of the north shore. I took the above photo from the Chemin Royal not far from Saint-Jean-de-île-d'Orléans.

Crossing the island on Route du Mitan towards Sainte-Famille we stopped at the height of land to admire the distant hills. While I tried to capture the irregular bolts of lightening on "film" this tractor and hay wagon came up from behind and presented me with this composition.

As Louis Pasteur famously said, "In the field of observation chance only favours the prepared mind". In this field I was happy to be carrying my Canon 7D.

Last Look

Ten days ago I re-travelled the path by the Cap-Rouge River for another look at spring's finest colours. I photographed these trout-lilies (Erythronium, dent-de-chien) elbows propped in the soil for a ground-level shot. For this effect I set my zoom lens's widest angle of view (15 mm or 24 mm equivalent) and cropped the picture to a cinema widescreen panorama (2.39:1).

In this an un-cropped normal view (50 mm or as it looks to the eye) of the Cap-Rouge River looking north back to one of its several bridges. By now theses pale greens have mostly darkened and dulled into a summer uniformity.

June brings other photographic pleasures and challenges: time to head back into the mountains and other vistas.

Spring Energy

Indian Poke (False Hellebore, vérâtre vert, Veratrum viride)

May 10 along the Cap-Rouge river; our favourite and most frequently walked path and best place to watch for early spring flowers. Besides the fiddleheads,  Indian Poke is the most conspicuous and fastest-growing plant in the moist soil. Its bright yellow-greens leaves of early spring turn a dull green as it grows quickly to a metre tall.

Bloodroot (sanguinaire, Sanguinaria canadensis)

Bloodroot, a member of the poppy family, grows very close to the ground and has very showy but transitory white petals. A week after this picture was taken all that remains are the pale lobed-leaf that surrounds each stalk.  


Ten days later on May 20, we re-walked our river path, Paulette with her binoculars and I camera in hand. Stay tuned for another spring-flower post. (Now that our living room has a nice fresh coat of paint it should be soon!)

Inviting Foregrounds

Those of us who live in Quebec City (on the north shore of the St. Lawrence) rarely see its true old-world beauty. Last Thursday, Paulette and I joined our walking group (the TamaLOUPs) for a three-hour promenade and chilly picnic along the south shore bike path. As we headed west from Lévis towards the Pont du Québec, I kept turning back to see when I had a foreground element that would lead the eye into the background and the spectacular Château Frontenac atop the cliffs. The Canadian Coast Guard boats are a little distracting but, with no ice to break, this is where you find them! 

Canon 7D, EF 70-200mm f/4L lens at 113 mm; 1/1250 sec at f/5.6, ISO 100, hand held

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Friday, we went to see the snow geese at Cap Tourmente. With temperatures below freezing not a goose was to be seen; a first in all our many visits there during the spring and fall migrations. Mont Sainte-Anne stands invitingly behind le Marais de la Petite-Ferme. Again the foreground helps leads the eye towards the main subject in the distance. The snow and ice in the marsh with the snow-covered ski trails reinforce the cool, early-spring feeling in the photo.

Canon 7D, EF-S15-85mm lens at 59 mm; 1/400 sec at f/8, ISO 100, hand held

Click here to see the snow geese from April 12, 2010

St. Patrick's Parade

Saturday, March 26, 20 000 people braved the cold and wind along rue St. Jean to cheer on the second annual St. Patrick's Day Parade. Colourful pipe & drum bands from Montreal, Boston, NYC and Quebec City mixed in with community groups and schools.

I'm not particularly a parade-loving person. However, armed with my 70-200 f/4L Canon lens, I zoomed in on all sorts of happy faces and bright greens, flashy reds and military finery. A high early-afternoon sun created strong shadows and made metering tricky. I shot in the full sunny areas and cropped the photos to eliminate  the darkest shadows and finished with a good number of keepers.

To see more go to my flickr site - link.

Oh, and the Irish beer after the festivities with Paulette, Monique and Phil added to my merriment.

Photos Afoot to Photos Ariding

It's minus 3 C (-9 with the wind chill) and there's still plenty of snow about. Yesterday Paulette and I explored la Montagne Fendue on snowshoes (link). Today I couldn't resist going for a spin on my new deVinci Silverstone road bike.

Here's a picture of the blue bomber in our backyard supported by at least two feet of crusty snow. Came home with frozen hands and feet, pleased that I could manage the clipless pedals and curved handlebars.

I'm ready to hang up my MSR Ascents and climb aboard my deVinci for more outdoor fun. Not sure though how compatible my camera will be with biking. I'll let you know.

The Parc national du Mont-Mégantic was named an International Dark Skies Reserve in 2007 and so is the place to go for dark nights and bright stars in Quebec. You can see the astronomical observatory in the distant left background.  Paulette and I snowshoed up the steep trail to Mont-Saint-Joseph with our friends Marc and Édith and further along a ridge to a lookout and this view.

I cropped the original picture from the normal 2:3 aspect ratio (producing standard 4x6 prints) to a movie theatre widescreen aspect of 2.39:1 (picture is 2.39 times as wide as high). This is even wider that the new HDTV ratio of 16:9 (or 1.77 times as wide as high). This aspect ratio doesn't change the angle of view of my camera lens but simulates a more dramatic panoramic view.

Canon 7D, 15-85 lens at 15 mm, 1/800 sec, f/8, ISO 200

Below is the view from our rented chalet cropped to the same movie widescreen format. Go to flickr for a few more pictures of our weekend around Mont-Mégantic- link

Parc national des Monts-Valin

I posted this photo last February as part of a series taken when Paulette and I went snowshoeing in this Quebec park just east of Lac St. Jean. I also submitted it to a Photo News contest called Snow Days. It's been viewed by many people but most exciting was a comment from Michel Roy, "wow, super". I consider this high praise coming from an extremely talented professional photographer.

Check out Michel Roy's flickr site. Stunning images!

Junction Creek, Sudbury

My first photo outing of January 2011 took me, Blaine and Richard to Junction Creek, Sudbury. We focused on a stretch of open water and a congregation of hundreds of mallard ducks grooming and feeding along the icy shore. 

Suddenly the sun found an opening in the clouds and the ducks came alive; bright orange feet, emerald heads and sparking white snow. 

Minutes later a snow flurry blew across the sun creating the lovely speckled panorama you see below. 

Canon 7D at 85 mm, 1/250 and 1/400 sec, ISO 200, f/9, hand held