There are dogs that have a more difficult life than the dog above. For many years, this dog has accompanied his master who works as a coachman in Old Quebec.
This picture was taken with a hand held camera using a shutter speed of 1/60, which is very little considering the 200mm focal length. Normally, with 200mm, a photographer would have to use a speed of 1/200. But the light was not ideal and the ISO already at 3200. I stabilized my position as best as I could by using one of the Château Frontenac’s wall, which is solid enough!
The lens used was a Canon EF70-200mm f/2.8L IS II USM mounted on a Canon 5DSR camera.
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The strange composition of the picture above was only possible because the lady was suspended in the air by a rope surrounding her body. The interaction between the two people is vertical: the young woman observes the man who looks somewhere else.
In the picture below, a woman stands in equilibrium upside down on one hand. Both pictures were taken during RDV Quebec 2017, while an impressive crowd was visiting Quebec City lower part of the town for the tall ships rendez-vous.
The light is always interesting when a picture is taken just before the nightime or the sunrise. The scenery above was captured in Old Quebec during Summer 2018. The use of a lens requiring very little light, like the Canon EF85mm f/1.2L USM mounted on a Canon 5DSR made the task easier.
I wanted to ensure that the people were not mere shadows and that the water effects in the fountains were visible. The shutter speed was adjusted to 1/50 and the ISO set at 6400. The aperture was limited to 4.5 to respect the shutter speed. Photography is always a matter of compromise…
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The 2018 Grand Prix Cycliste de Québec took place on September 7th on a beautiful day. The cyclists had to repeat a 12,6 km pattern across Old Quebec and the Battlefields Park sixteen times, which amounted to 201,6 km.
The circuit’s height difference from start to finish was 186 meters, for a total difference of 2976 meters. It is the Australian Michael Matthews who won the race during the final sprint.
Here are a few photos that I took with a Canon 5DSR camera. I used a Canon 14mm 2.8L ultra wide angle lens and a Canon 70-200 2.8L IS II USM telephoto lens.
The Grand Prix Cycliste Québec 2018. The cyclists are passing under the St. Jean Gate.
The Grand Prix Cycliste Québec 2018. Turning on St-Louis street.
The Grand Prix Cycliste Québec 2018. Turning on Côte de la Fabrique.
The Grand Prix Cycliste Québec 2018. The cyclists are passing under the St. Louis Gate.
The Grand Prix Cycliste Québec 2018, in front of Place d’Armes.
The Grand Prix Cycliste Québec 2018. The car from each team is never far behind the racers.
A few official photographers at the UCI World Tour Quebec 2018.
The Grand Prix Cycliste Québec 2018. The winner, Michael Matthews, from the Sunweb team, raises his fist.
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This picture of the Château Frontenac and Dufferin Terrace was taken during the Quebec Summer Festival 2018. From where I stood, near the Citadel, I could hear the crowd present on the Plains of Abraham during Patrice Michaud’s performance.
The picture was taken with a full frame Canon 5DSR camera equipped with a Canon EF70-200mm f/2.8L IS II USM. The focal length was set at 70mm. As the sun was setting, an ISO set at 200 would have caused the moving persons to be blurred. It was thus necessary to set the ISO at 4000.
Working without a graduated filter to attenuate the background light, I had to correct the exposure at +1, otherwise the middle ground would have been too dark and it was the main subject of the picture. I then slightly reduced the clear tones of the sky with Photoshop for a more balanced result.
The focus was done manually while the camera was installed on a tripod. The aperture was limited to 4.5 to limit the exposure time so that a compromise could be found between an acceptable depth of field and the moving people. This allowed for a shutter speed of only 1/15 sec, even in a relatively low light.
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In Canada, we cannot take the picture of someone who is the main subject unless we have obtained her permission. This is even more important with a child, where the authorization of the parents is required. But in the case of the picture below, it is different: it is a child whose face seems to belong to somebody else!
The child with a man’s face. Terrasse Dufferin, Quebec City.
I took this picture and enlarged it in the camera to understand what I was seeing. I realized that the child was holding the image of an adult man directly in front of his face.
The child with a man’s face (enlarged photo)
There was a group of adults that were standing nearby. One of the man called the child, who rapidly stepped down from the statue. They told me that the picture held by the child represents the sensei of a karate club that came all the way from British-Columbia for a national competition of Shotokan style karate being held at Laval University in Quebec City. The mystery was solved!
Tom White designing Easter eggs in Old Quebec (2016)
While I was walking in Old Quebec, I stopped to watch Tom White, a local artist, work on his hand-made Easter eggs. We talked for a few minutes and he agreed to let me take a picture of him at work.
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Digitally modified photo of Place d’Youville in Old Quebec
This digitally modified photo shows a part of Place d’Youville, in Old Quebec.
I wanted to capture the church in the background, which seemed to be squeezed between two bigger buildings. It became the principal subject of the photo and it was positioned according to the rule of thirds. This rule is far from mandatory in photography but it often provides interesting results.
I liked the repetitive effect of the windows on each side of the picture and the fact that there were diagonal lines that lead the eye to the church. The vegetation in the foreground added a nice touch to the scenery. There was only one thing missing: a human presence.
With a little patience, three girls stopped on the sidewalk and started to talk, exactly where I wanted them to be. The wet sidewalk on which they stood helped to reflect the ambiant light and also lead the eye to the church, the principal subject in the photo.
I rarely digitally transform a photo in such a drastic way. The reason was simple: normally, when the ambiant light is not favorable, you can sometimes use the black and white setting. However, the light on that day did not offer the required contrasts to get sufficiently interesting results.
I did not want to leave Place d’Youville without having captured the energy I felt there. I opted for a radical option after having cropped the image in order to keep only the essential features.
The picture was taken with a Canon 5DSR full frame camera.
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These teens from Quebec City work hard at walking on the side of a stonewall near the St. Louis Gate in Old Quebec. Their efforts deserved a picture.
The picture was taken from far away, that is from a point located on the other side of the St.Louis street.That way, they did not realize that they were being photographed, which allowed them to stay natural. That is one of the principles of street photography.
Behind the people is Quebec City’s lower town. The city lights are visible since it was close to 9 PM when the picture was taken.
I was able to take a sharp picture from really far away only with the help of a Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II USM telephoto lens mounted on a Canon 5DSR full frame camera that is equipped with a 50.6 megapixel sensor. Some significant cropping was then necessary to bring the action even closer to the viewer.
On the picture above, there is a sign indicating that the Quebec Summer Festival does not garantee an access to any sites. Under normal circumstances, this makes sense.
Part of the crowd waiting to enter the site for the Metallica show at the Quebec Summer Festival in 2017
But to say such a thing to the crowd who came to see Metallica would have been quite a challenge : « Ladies and gentlemen, as the person in charge of the Quebec Summer Festival, I would like to take the opportunity to remind you that the ticket you bought does not garantee an access to any specific site. A sign has been posted to that effect and the people at the beginning of the waiting line for the Metallica show can actually read it. Today happens to be such a day where you do not have access to the site. But there are other shows in town, so have a good festival and have fun! »
But all went well and the Metallica show, as well as the other shows presented at the Quebec Summer Festival were a success in 2017.
On a more technical side, the full-frame camera used to take the huge crowd was a Canon 5DSR equipped with a Canon EF 85mm f/1.2L II USM lens. The top of the St.Louis Gate, on Grande-Allée, was the perfect place to capture all those people waiting for Metallica.
For other photos on the province of Quebec and also Quebec City, click on the following links from my blog:
