At the beginning of the trip towards the St. Lawrence estuary, a cable links the Ocean tugboat with the Euronav Cap Leon oil tanker. The current and the ice push the oil tanker towards the east and the speed of the oil tanker must be controlled for the tight turn around Île d’Orléans.
Click on the link for more articles on ship photography and on ship photography technique on my blog.
These pictures were taken in October in the St-Gilles region, in Quebec. In the photo above, the sunlight was streaming through the leaves, giving the peach color even more intensity. To make the leaves the main subject of interest, I positioned myself under a branch and reduced the aperture of the Canon 5DSR to 3.5. The leaves in the foreground were now in focus while everything else became blurred, adding to the atmosphere.
The owner of a nearby house in St-Gilles had a thought for walkers and left two chairs near the water. The chairs became the main interest in the photo and are therefore in focus. The forest and the colored leaves in the background are deliberately kept blurred.
Click on the link for other photos of the province of Québec on my blog.
The St-Jacques de Leeds region, in Quebec, offers interesting opportunities for photographers who like very diversified autumn colors.
At the time this picture was taken, most red leaves had already fallen. But the contrast between the dark tones of the evergreens and the other colors still offered beautiful landscapes.
To compose the picture above, I decided to keep the trail. It leaves the main road where I stood and heads, with a few curves, towards the house. The trail starts at the left of the picture and the observer naturally follows it to the house, then to the forest in the background. With my position, I was also able to hide part of the house with the colored trees.
During late afternoon in Autumn, the light is quite softer than in Summer. It is not necessary to wait for the evening to get interesting results. The scenery above offered a natural contrast between the blue of the sky and the orange tones of the trees. I kept part of the evergreen, for its position in the foreground as much as for its dark tone, to add to the dynamism of the picture.
The tripod was necessary for the picture above. The Canon EF 85mm f/1.2L USM lens, that is normally used for portrait, requires less light than the human eye. It perfectly captured the atmosphere and the colors that were prevailing a few minutes before nightime. All the pictures were taken with a Canon 5DSR full frame camera.
This year I have searched for new sites to capture autumn colours. I drove by Val-Bélair and stopped by a house that looked abandoned. The colour of the chair and the yellow background allowed me to compose my first shot.
There are superb trees between Val-Bélair and L’ Ancienne-Lorette . The picture above represents only a section of the forest.
Val-Bélair is a region with both agricultural and city life. It was natural to compose a picture that would include a car and a tractor. The colored leaves are used as a natural frame around the vehicles. The Canon 5DSR full frame camera’s aperture was adjusted to have only the middle ground in focus.
Click on the link for other photos of Québec City and île d’Orléans in Autumn on my blog.
This young man found a quiet spot on the St-Jean Gate in Old Quebec. On the other side of the wall, at Place d’Youville, a band plays during the Quebec Summer Festival.
Click on the link for other photos of Québec City and île d’Orléans in Summer on my blog.
Those two container ships that sailed near Quebec City in July 2019 reminded me of recent news regarding the Port of Quebec‘s installations and the will to receive always bigger container ships.
To take the picture, I waited that the Quebec Express had completed his turn west of Île d’Orléans. From that moment, the photographic distance between the two container ships started to diminish. The MSC Paola’s bow became an artificial frame that included part of the Quebec Express.
Click on the link for other pictures of Québec City and île d’Orléans in Summer on my blog.
This photo was taken near the Quebec City Townhall in Old Quebec with a handheld Canon 5DSR full frame camera equipped with a Canon EF 85mm f/1.2L II USM lens.
Click on the link for other pictures of Québec City and île d’Orléans in Summer on my blog.
Ephemeral creations are part of the constantly changing portrait of Old Quebec. The public art installations are visible only for a few weeks at a time. The photography lover must stroll through numerous areas of the city in order to find and immortalize an installation before it definitely disappears!
Click on the link for other photos of Quebec in Autumn on my blog.
An outside exhibition presenting metal office furniture installed in a glass cage allowed me to show Montreal under an unusual angle. The picture was then digitally treated to give it the desired look.
Click on the link for other pictures of Montreal and the Province of Quebec on my blog.
The effects of the freezing rain that fell over Quebec City this winter were not only negative. Photographers seized the opportunity to immortalize rapidly changing situations.
In the picture above, the “blue” that is visible in the ice represents the reflection from the magnificent winter sky. On a bigger screen, the ice shows the white birch trees that were surrounding the scene.
In order to avoid any distractions, the background was kept blurred by setting the aperture to 3.5. The presence of moderate wind required a higher shutter speed, in this case 1/6400. The ISO was limited to 250, to protect the quality of the picture during the enlargment. The 50.6 megapixel full frame sensor offered all the necessary flexibility during the digital processing.
The picture was taken with a Canon 5DSR equipped with a Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L II USM telephoto lens. I only had that lens at the moment of my walk. The focal length was 200mm with the stabilizer “on” and a setting of “1.2 meter/infinite” instead of the usual “2.5 meters / infinite”.
For other pictures of Quebec City, click on the following links of my blog :