The tenth Transat Québec St-Malo on June 30, 2024 got underway with very unstable weather conditions, including a thunderstorm that forced a postponement of the start. While this weather temporarily disrupted the sailors’ plans, it delighted the photographers who came to capture the event. Above, a view of Quebec City taken from Île d’Orléans.
Click on the link for more photos of the province of Quebec and the Quebec City/Ile d’Orléans region in Summer on my blog.
A fisherman sits quietly in the river of the Jacques-Cartier national park casting his line, while his companion watches from the shore. Here, everyone has as much space as they want to enjoy their hobby.
Some photographers use Photoshop’s “dehaze” function to keep the background sharp to infinity. I prefer to retain the natural feel of the scene. The violet-blue landscape visible at the top of the shot helps to capture the distance.
People prepare for their outing in the huge ancestral canoe known as a rabaska. In the foreground, but no longer visible in the photo, was originally a group of vacationers launching an inflatable raft. But all these people were distracting from the main subject. Tight framing eliminated this obstacle.
I use the frame-within-a-frame technique to present the multicolored reflections of the river in the photo above. There’s blue, orange and green, outlined by two vertical trunks on either side of the photo and an oblique branch at the top.
I use the same technique in the shot below, but in a less obvious way, as the frame in the foreground remains blurred. Attention is immediately drawn to the canoeists who are just finishing their trip and getting ready to dock.
Click on the link for more photos of the province of Quebec on my blog.
Normally, a 3:2 or 4:3 ratio is used to display in vertical mode. But the 16:9 aspect ratio of the photo above shows both the reverberations in the water and a significant portion of the landscape. So, whatever the conventions and what makes purists happy, we use what does justice to our first impression.
What caught my eye in this scene? The very wide range of green tones, the alternation of light and shade in the landscape and the reflections, the roundness of the deciduous trees and the tips of the conifers, the atmosphere of the place and, last but not least, the human presence. All this can be seen in a fraction of a second, and the shot is taken before the canoe enters the shaded area on the left.
The photo above shows a historic chalet in Jacques-Cartier National Park in Spring. It’s no longer available for rent, but it’s a great asset for photography enthusiasts. At this location, paddleboarding is safe thanks to a very weak current.
On the same day and on the same river, but a few kilometers upstream, a group of people attempt their first descent in an inflatable boat on a rougher stretch of water.
The first group takes the plunge, while the second watches, waiting its turn and trying to learn from the others’ mistakes. Occasionally, paddlers get stuck on top of a flat rock flush with the water, and have to use their initiative to free themselves and continue their journey. Sometimes canoeists find themselves in the water, and Sépaq staff have to help them out.
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A single-day visit to Île d’Orléans for a photography session was enough to capture a wide variety of cloudy conditions in April 2024. In spring, when unstable, humid air crosses the mountain range north of the St. Lawrence River, you can expect anything on the island. Above, a kitesurfing enthusiast practises his art between localized showers. All he cares about is strong winds.
A few kilometers from route du Mitan, colourful houses and a bit of blue-sky contrast with the showers elsewhere on the island. You can see that the cloud layer in the distance is not very thick.
Above, a towering cumulus (TCU) approaches the St. Lawrence River in the late afternoon from the north. It is likely to cross the river towards the island, if it has not lost some of its strength, in the meantime, due to subsidence, the phenomenon that forces air to compress and warm as it is forced down a mountain range.
The shape of the clouds in the photo above gives a good indication of the strength of today’s winds. You can hear it whistling through the ropes and between the masts of the sailboats at the marina in the municipality of St-Jean, île d’Orléans. At the time of my visit, some owners were preparing their boats for the warmer periods of May.
I really like the scene above, but I admit that some might find it dark, if not sinister. It was this slightly disturbing aspect that caught my attention and that I tried to capture.
In this last photo, the sky is practically clear. It is then easier to obtain better contrasts. A pseudo-HDR treatment brings out the paintwork on a boat that has seen better years.
Click on the link for more photos of Quebec City and Île d’Orléans in Spring on my blog.
The province of Québec offers in 2024 a free admission to Parc national de la Jacques-Cartier a few days a week. This means more visitors than ever before head for the park. Hikers seeking absolute peace and quiet should opt for the paid days.
Even so, if you look carefully, it’s always possible to spot a lone walker, as in the photo above. Most people take the marked trails for ease, but others, like the individual above, venture out on snowshoes near the Jacques-Cartier River, which is completely covered in snow at this time of year.
Approximately three kilometres from the Discovery and Services Chalet is a bridge. From here, the hiker can capture some very beautiful scenes. In winter, an interesting effect can be achieved by positioning yourself close to the banks.
This scenery relaxes me so much, yet there are no spectacular elements. Rather, all the components are in perfect harmony: reflections in the water, some bluish snow here and there, brushes and a few leaning trees lit from the side by a soft late afternoon light. As the large trunks occupy the majority of the scene, I chose a vertical format for the photographic composition.
Above, the landscape attracts the eye with its combination of horizontal, vertical and oblique lines, as well as its alternating black and white in the foreground. I positioned myself to include in the scene a large branch that enters the photo from the top right-hand corner.
The foreground features open water, snow-covered ice, pure ice and snow-covered ice again. In the middle ground, coniferous and deciduous trees. In the background, a forest revealing the snow on the mountain floor. I’ve left only a hint of sky, as the latter offers no particular interest on this cloudy February day, other than to add some white to complete the alternation of colours.
Click on the link for more photos of the City of Québec and Île d’Orléans in Winter on my blog.
The photo above shows two ferries shuttling between Quebec and Lévis through the ice in winter 2024. It doesn’t take much to immobilize a ferry in ice, but this year the layer is fairly thin due to a very mild January.
Taking advantage of a ferry crossing that has cleared a section of the St. Lawrence River, a crew is training for the Quebec Winter Carnival’s ice canoe race, which takes place every year between Quebec City and Lévis.
Above, the ships continue their work at dusk. The routes recently taken by the vessels can be seen. I took the photo from the Dufferin Terrace with a tripod-mounted Canon 5 DSr camera.
Click on the link for more Winter photos of Quebec City and Île d’Orléans on my blog.
Every week brings a slight change in the vegetation and snow cover of Parc national de la Jacques-Cartier. Earlier this week, I was there as a light snow fell on the region. The ice doesn’t yet completely cover the river, but you can see in the first photo that it now surrounds the rocks in the middle of the stream.
Click on the link for other pictures of the province of Quebec on my blog.
While in L’Islet, a stop at the Musée maritime du Québec is a must. Above, the icebreaker Ernest Lapointe, responsible for clearing the St. Lawrence River between Montreal and Trois-Rivières for 37 years.
Also on the grounds is the famous HMCS Bras d’Or. This hydrofoil was created in Canada during the Cold War to monitor Canadian waters against possible Soviet submarine intrusion. As this museum boat explains, “it was compulsory to have a dual pilot’s licence for aircraft and navigation in order to operate this self-supporting winged craft“.
A little further east, we reach Pointe-au-Père, in the Rimouski region. Here you’ll find Canada’s only submarine museum.Visitors can tour the interior of the HMCS Onondaga, used until 2000. Travelers pass through 17 stations to learn about life aboard a submersible.
The mechanic worked for periods of two months at a time, monitoring the engines in this noisy, diesel-smelling environment. A German spy disembarking from a submarine at night in Gaspésie was spotted in a bus because it smelled strongly of diesel.
Above, a shot of one of the rooms in the Museum of the Empress of Ireland. Her sinking in the St. Lawrence River was the second most costly in human lives after the Titanic. Among all the objects recovered from the wreck is this porcelain skeleton that one of the passengers had in his cabin.
Click on the link for more photos from the province of Quebec on my blog.
In November, in downtown Quebec City, green still predominates on the grounds of properties, even if the trees have lost their leaves. But a short twenty-minute excursion north to the Parc national de la Jacques-Cartier reveals the arrival of winter.
Fifteen centimetres of snow already cover the ground and, after kilometer 10 in the park, the road becomes inaccessible to cars. At the main kiosk, there’s a large parking area for those wishing to continue on foot along the surrounding trails. You’ll come away more relaxed, and with a few photos.
Click on the link for more photos from the province of Québec on my blog.
The photograph shows a view of the fertile land along the St. Lawrence River in the Kamouraska region. A public observatory allows visitors to admire the panorama.
In the evening, in Rivière-du-Loup, these two kayakers enjoy the tranquility of the St. Lawrence River as they indulge in their favorite sport.
This HDR shot of a unit at the Auberge de la Pointe in Rivière-du-Loup features seven superimposed photos, for a total of 354 megabytes of data. This ensures that the sky is correctly exposed and that the rooms in the foreground are not completely obscured.
Near the Rivière-du-Loup – Saint-Siméon ferry, the rocks here and there take on an orange hue. It’s a nice contrast to the blue sky.
The journey takes us to Saint-Siméon on a calm seaway. A Canon EF 11-24mm F/4 USM wide-angle zoom lens captures the scene without exaggerated distortion.
Above, Île-aux-Lièvres from the ferry. The multiple cloud layers create streaky effects on the St. Lawrence River.
Here’s a shot of one of the corridors of the Auberge Châtelaine, in La Malbaie. One of the reasons to stop by is the excellent breakfast included after a good night’s rest. No fat bacon or greasy potatoes here: just homemade bread and jams.
Click on the link for more photos from the province of Québec on my blog.