In an amusement park in the United States, this vacationing couple caught my attention because of the animal motif stools that they were sitting on. When stomachs are grumbling, people pounce on the first available seat. Great for street photography!
For other street photography pictures posted on my site, click on the following link:
It is essential to always carry a camera in order to profit from the rare opportunities and coincidences offered in everyday life. This is now getting easier with the miniaturization of cameras and the popularity of intelligent cellular phones.
The street photography above, that I took in London in 2015, offers a good example of an ephemeral subject that a street photographer should not miss.
A policeman posted in front of an embassy is having a chat with a citizen. This normally innocuous situation is suddenly rendered more interesting because of the difference in size and the relax attitude between both interlocutors. They have almost the same posture and are dressed in the same colors. Here, the skin color is not the dominating subject although it certainly adds some interest.
This street photography represents a good example of contrasts in photography.
For other street photography pictures posted on my site, click on the following link:
Here is a photo of an aviation postcard representing the Nice – Côte d’Azur airport in 1965. It is part of a collection that you can view on the present web site, under the link :
Its title is : « Au soleil de la Côte d’Azur, Nice – vue aérienne de l’aéroport » which translates into « Under the Côte d’Azur, Nice sun – aerial view of the airport ». It is a postcard that was mailed on September 19th 1965. You can see two aircrafts belonging respectively to Air France (Caravelle) and KLM. It was a time where security at airports was minimal and when people did not expect that at any moment an unstable person would transform into a terrorist and attack innocents in public places, like what happened two days ago in Nice.
The author writes : « […] Nous quittons Nice ce soir pour St-Malo et nous y resterons quelques jours » which translates into « […] We are leaving Nice tonight heading to St-Malo where we will spend few days ». Having been to St-Malo myself in 1978, I take the opportunity to post a photo of that region dating from that period, just to show the beauty of France and encourage people to continue to travel in that country and continue to benefit from its diversified countryside.
We returned in France in 2013 and some of the pictures that were taken during that time are posted in the present website, under the link :
My thoughts go out to the French people.
Here are some photos of Toronto that were taken in February 2016 with a Canon 5D MKII DSLR camera. The photos were all saved in RAW and JPEG files to facilitate any additional work that could have been required with an image editing software.
Architecture and photography both offering unlimited possibilities, I did not impose any limitations. The primary goal was to profit from any opportunity that would arise while profiting from the softer light offered by the winter season.
The first article with regards to photography in Toronto that was published on my website showed only one subject: the CN Tower. It was published during Winter 2016:
In the present article, I develop other angles of Toronto which is a city in constant evolution and where you can find multiple styles of architecture. In the picture below, a recent rain shower helped to add unexpected reflections.
Some architectural subjects are naturally imposing. This is the case when all you have to do is look straight ahead, enjoy what you see and immediately try to compose an interesting photo.
A good example is the interesting reflected shapes that can be seen on the windows of a building. I could not help to take the picture below as I was surprised that a windowed building could send back images that were so totally different from each other. I am curious why there is so much distortion between the windows…
Instead of taking pictures of the newly designed Art Gallery of Ontario, I used its reflective properties to capture something a lot older, which was the design of the row of older houses on the other side of the street.
It is also possible to add variety and fun to a photo session by looking for special shapes, angles or contrasts that are not already obvious.
As I was walking downtown, I passed by the Brookfield head office. The architecture of this relatively new building is quite interesting. The architects were able to preserve the facades of older surrounding buildings by integrating them and assigning each one a role inside the new construction, possibly because the city required their protection in case of any new development.
But it is only once I was leaving the sky rise that I found the idea for the next photo: a vertical wide-angle shot from which all lines would be straight, all this possible by using the advantages of the Canon 5D MKII full frame sensor coupled to a Canon 14mm 2.8L wide-angle fixed lens. Image sharpness was insured through manual focus, a tripod, a remote trigger and the mirror lock-up function.
The last photo is essentially about contrasts: the colour contrasts (light and dark) and the density contrasts that one can find in different constructions of Toronto.
In the foreground, we see the aquarium, with its pale and inviting colours, as well as lots of space where only few people are visible. In the background, there is the exact opposite, with very dark high-density condo towers, very close to each other, where every inhabitant hopes to have an interesting view on the Lake Ontario. All this in a photo divided in two parts and cropped very tightly to increase the differences and eliminate any visual distractions.
For more articles in the category « Photos of Canada », click on the following link : Photos of Canada
On June 24th 2016, during the National Holiday of Quebec, the new Pierre Lassonde pavilion of the Musée National des Beaux-Arts du Québec (MNBAQ) on Grande Allée in Quebec City was inaugurated. This pavilion, that has been expected for a very long time, will allow the Museum to expose art that had to be stored, up to now, due to lack of floor space. This new pavilion will double the exibition space.
Many political personalities were present, among them the Prime Minister of Canada Justin Trudeau and Quebec’s Prime Minister Philippe Couillard, as well as the MNBAQ director Line Ouellet. International actuality caught up with the Canadian Prime Minister during his presence in Quebec and he had to comment on United Kingdom’s exit from the European Union (Brexit) which was voted on the precedent day.
The Pierre Lassonde pavilion architectural project, valued at about $103 millions, was the result of an international competition won by the American architectural firm OMA from New York. Fifteen thousand people were expected to show up for the inauguration. Instead, thirty thousand people visited the pavilion to get a glimpse of the creation directed by the architect Shohei Shigematsu.
Lots of compromises to limit the expenses had to be made, like in all serious projects. Nonetheless, the pavilion is a success and I am eager to see what kind of atmosphere will be generated this coming winter when the light shines through the glass panels and colors the snow around the pavilion. This new building, with its original architecture and the light that emanates from it, already adds a new dynamic when night falls on Grande Allée.
For those of you who are interested in photography, here are some details about the photographic equipment used for my photos : they were all taken with a DSLR Canon 5DSR camera. The Canon lenses that were used were : EF 14mm f/2.8L II USM, EF 50mm f/1.4 USM and telephoto lens EF 70-200 mm f/2.8L IS II USM. The use of a flash being forbidden inside the museum, I had to carefully adjust the ISO, speed and aperture settings, especially where the use of a tripod was not authorized. For those occasions, the EF 50 mm f/1.4 USM was of great help.
For other photos on the province of Quebec and also Quebec City, click on the following links from my blog: