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

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.

Return to La Banquise

The winter season provides many advantages for the walker who loves open spaces. One of them is the pack ice (la banquise in French) that forms along the Saint Lawrence River. This is a wide angle view looking downriver and downwind towards Québec City.


I also like isolating close-up elements. Shards of ice are forced into infinite shapes by the river's tides and current. I took this picture lying down to remove the horizon and highlight the ice formation.

Liquid Light

The Saint Lawrence River has many moods. Luckily, walkers have year-round access to its north shore along the “Parc de la Plage Jacques-Cartier”. November 26 2009 was an overcast day, the colours saturated by rainfall the night before. I took this picture on the way home as sunlight pierced the cloud cover and reflected off the water’s smooth wavy surface. The highlights in sky and water are dramatically framed by the dark band of gray at the top and bottom of the image.

Click here for more pictures from this walk.

Winter Rainbow

After a three-hour snowshoe to a lookout atop the Pic Champlain (Parc du Bic) we returned to Anse à Mercier near sunset. My friends went indoors to drink beer and eat chips. I hung around with my Pentax and this is what I framed looking northwest across the St. Lawrence to the hills of Charlevoix . I love the bands of colour from cool blue to warm orange that emerged just as the sun set. The only downside was that the chips were all gone by the time I joined the group!

In Celebration of Winter

Photolife selected this picture to appear in the December/January 2010 edition of their magazine. Back in March 2009, they challenged readers to go outside and shoot winter in creative ways. I took this picture, La Banquise, on Febraury 26 while snowshoeing with a group of friends along the pack ice of the St. Lawrence River not far from Quebec City. The light was soft and otherworldly. I liked the simple lines; it seemed to me it could it could have been taken anywhere in Canada, including the Arctic.

I started this blog to share my growing interest in photography. I'll be posting more photos in the future. I hope you will enjoy some of them and respond in turn with your favourite photographs and comments.

Andrew