Backyard Larch

I said before that the larch is my favourite fall tree.

This Japanese larch has stood in our backyard, close to our deck (getting closer and closer as it grows taller than the house), for the past twenty-five years.

At this time of the year it is the only colourful tree in sight. All the deciduous leaves are down and collected and, with Eastern Standard Time, the sun sets today at 4:20 pm.

Thank goodness for the larch's bright golden needles and the year-round birds it attracts (Black-capped Chickadees, White and Red-breasted Nuthatchs, Northern Cardinals) as well as the nomadic Finches (Purple Finch, Common Redpoll, Pine Siskin).

Canon 7D, 50mm f/1.8 lens at f/7.1 and 1/320 sec

The larch tree (Larix laricina Tamarack Larch) is my favourite fall tree (slightly ahead of the sugar maple and the red oak). It is our only deciduous conifer and changes to this incredibly rich warm gold colour after most of the other deciduous trees are stripped bare of their leaves. It therefore provides the last hurrah before we must endure the bleak month of November.

These beautiful larch trees stand at the edge of a raised bog along Tilton Lake Road on the way to Clearwater Lake.  I took the picture on October 19 just a day-and-a-half before my father-in-law Jean-Paul Picard died surrounded by his family. 

J-P was a great lover of all things "wood". He built his Manitoulan home of wood and finished the interior with local cedar. He took great pleasure building (and watching) fires in his wood stove and in a large outdoor fire pit; a place where the family gathered in the summer to tell stories, sing songs and drink beer. He also loved being in the woods at Burwash Lake to hunt and fish. In his early days in Temagami he worked in the lumber industry when selective cutting was the norm instead of the exception it is today. He had the old-fashioned value of reusing and recycling. He was reluctant to cut down a living tree and I once witnessed him giving hell to a MacMillan Bloedel employee for their practice of clear cutting old growth forests in British Columbia. 

One of my favourite memories of Jean-Paul dates from 1994 when J-P, Paulette and I took a boat to Meares Island off Tofino on Vancouver Island to walk the Big Tree Trail and see the giant "Mother Earth" Western  Red Cedar. I can still see his big grin and bright eyes as I took his picture dwarfed by this giant in a land of giants. I will miss him.

Parc National de la JACQUES-CARTIER

This has been a fabulous fall to get out into the woods and enjoy the splendor of the autumn colours: shades of orange, gold, scarlet and burgundy.

This is a view north up the Jacques-Cartier River valley taken from the first lookout (256m above the valley floor) along the trail called "Les Loups". I like the way the eye is drawn up the valley and the tapestry of warm colours at the lower altitudes slowly transforming to darker, cooler greens higher up.

To see views from the two other lookouts go to my Picasaweb album.

Springtime in Québec

This spring Pierre Delisle, a very informative guide, helped us see the history behind the scenic beauty of our home city. In five delightful hours we tramped around Old Québec up-and-down the twenty-three staircases that link upper and lower town. The oldest dates back to 1660 (L'escalier Casse-Cou) and the most recent (Le passage du Roi) from a few years ago.  
We admired 

• frescos (La Fresque des québecois seen above), 

• steel sculptures of galloping horses entitled "Do ré mi fa sol la si do", 

• monuments of the fathers of Québec (including Monseigneur de Laval), 

• views of the Château Frontenac from the Plains of Abraham, 

• a Martello Tower built by the English and never used to defend the city, 

We picnicked in the Parc du Chevalier-du-Moulin tucked away on a hill overlooking rue St-Louis and stopped for a drink at the café Krieghoff on Cartier before heading home. A good day!


Go to flickr to see a mini-ablum of 22 photos taken during our walking loop.
Check back to June 2010 for a blog entry headlined with a photo of Québec City. 

Ten Year Anniversary

Ten years ago Michelle wrote:

          An avid nature lover,
          always game for a trip
          or a good time with family or friends,
          André embraced live unconditionally.

April 13, 2002, during an early morning walk with Moka, stilled stunned and numb by André's death, a "V" of snow geese flew low overhead. We interpreted their loud, cheerful honking as a message from our son. The next day more migrating geese appeared as we left La Souvenance with Louise and Claude.

Every year since Paulette and I head to Cap-Tourmente and mingle with the flocks. This time Louise and Press joined us. Without fail we are comforted by the presence of the geese and feel a closeness to our son.

Click here to see the April 12, 2010 blog post on Cap-Tourmente.

Go to flickr for more photos of geese-in-action at Cap-Tourmente.

Pack Ice / La Banquise

The combined influences of the Saint Lawrence River tides, its current and the local weather result in an ever-changing composition of snow and ice.

Each year Paulette and I snowshoe along its north shore with a group of friends and each year I go crazy taking pictures while trying to keep up with the group.

Here are two of my favourite panoramic shots taken under heavy gray clouds and very flat light. In Lightroom, I adjusted the white balance and added a little punch by increasing the overall contrast and darkening the blacks.

For a ten shot photo sequence click this link to my flickr album.

Click here to go to my first posting of Photos Afoot on the same subject.

Winter Carnival For All Ages

Quebec City is enjoying its winter carnival. The young "tubers" and the not-so-young snowshoers find themselves at CFB Valcartier enjoying the clear cold air at the Centre Plein Air Castor.

New snow had fallen the day before and continued on-and-off today (February 2). I like these two panoramic shots as you can see the snow flakes against the dark trees in the background. The colourful winter wear also contrasts with the almost B&W winter tones adding warm elements to the two scenes.

I took both pictures in RAW with the white balance set to automatic. In Adobe Lightroom I corrected the overcast picture of the tubers to 6300K (a cloudy setting) and used 5600K for the snowshoers (close to a daylight setting) as the sun had returned after lunch. Using RAW makes it simple to make adjustments like this.

Click here to see more pictures from this day on picasaweb.

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