HDR photo of the Saint-Jean-Baptiste district in Québec, June 2023.
Above, a photo of the Saint-Jean-Baptiste district in Quebec City, taken in June 2023. Five photos of 50.6 Megs each in RAW format and with different apertures make up this HDR scene.
After adjusting the basic HDR photo using Photomatix software, I worked with an image processing software to optimize the final result without exaggerating hue and saturation, which is not always obvious in photography today. Finally, I converted the whole thing to JPEG format for distribution.
Joe Fafard’s sculpture photographed during Spring in Quebec City.
Nature comes back to life with the arrival of Spring. This is a good season for black and white photography. In the case of the photo above, the melting white snow uncovers a dark colored ground. The almost black main subject also stands out against a fairly light horizon, so this can only help the photographic composition.
I imagined the effect of the photo when transformed into black and white, with this continuous alternation of light and dark from the foreground to the horizon.
The horse, now free of snow, is galloping past the trees. The multiple trunks seem intertwined with the horse and give the illusion of a ghostly apparition. To avoid too much confusion, however, I had to make sure that the horse’s head and tail were clearly visible. A vertical shot was better because of all the branches that fill the first third of the picture and seem to be part of the horse.
The Old Quebec in winter is always exciting to photograph. The continually changing weather presents new opportunities that must be seized. Moreover, for the same weather system, each hour that passes also offers a different luminosity. The photographer is spoilt for choice.
For the picture above, taken with a Canon 5DSr, I positioned myself in a place that is normally off-limits during winter. That’s why you can only see my footprints in the snow. But hey! The risk was minimal and the angle of view perfect to capture the Château Frontenac.
The street lamp emits a light that needs to be corrected in the camera. Instead of “AWB”, select “tungsten”. This adjustment allows you to reflect exactly what you see, rather than ending up with tones that are too contrasty. HDR photography allows for some correction of large contrasts in brightness.
The lights on the roof of the Chateau Frontenac illuminate the snow falling around the building. This snow makes for interesting sky tones, even though the blue hour has long since passed.
In terms of the photographic composition, the low wall and fence serve as the entry point into the photo. The lamp post is located at a point respecting the rule of thirds. The building on the right blocks the view and invites the eye to continue its exploration to the left of the photo, which leads the viewer to the Chateau Frontenac.
The photo below, taken a few minutes later, uses the stairs as an entry point into the photo to quickly lead the eye to the Château Frontenac. In this case, a vertical format lends itself better to the scene.
The Château Frontenac, winter 2023.
The snow on the railings and steps adds an alternating black and white effect. Otherwise, everything would be quite dark and we would lose a little interest. A nearby street lamp provides enough ambient light to illuminate the scene; however, I was careful not to include the light source directly in the photo, as it distracts the viewer from the main subject.
In winter as well as in summer, I use a tripod to reduce camera shake and improve resolution in low light conditions.
A great way to add color to your holiday photos in big cities is to use store decorations. On this street in Old Quebec, a shopkeeper installed a small shrub filled with tiny white and purple lights.
You simply position your camera through the lights, taking care to focus on the main subject. By limiting the aperture of the camera, you get a decorative blur effect in the foreground.
You don’t need digital processing software to add color to photos. Use existing merchant setups!
End of December 2022. It’s hot in Quebec City. The city was first swept by a storm that left hundreds of thousands of Quebecers without power, some for more than a week. A heat wave then swept through the province of Quebec for several days.
One positive aspect of this warm air is that it melted the thick layer of ice and snow that had accumulated on the roofs of homes during the December 23 storm, resetting the clock for the remaining portion of the winter to come.
But when it comes to winter sports, it’s a different story. One had to walk around town on the last day of 2022 to see the changes in just a few days.
Passing by the public skating rink maintained by the municipality on the Battlefields Park, I took this picture that sums up the situation: a warm rain falling on the snow and accelerating the melting to the point where a thick fog sets in, puddles of water several centimeters thick covering a layer of ice.
I use this water to add the reflections of the skaters in the photographic composition. Fortunately for them, the sportsmen benefit from a mechanically cooled ice rink to continue practicing their favorite activity.
I took this picture of the houses in Old Quebec one day before the great storm of December 23, 2022 that left hundreds of thousands of Quebecers without electricity. At the time the picture was taken, the winds were already blowing pretty hard and the windchill factor was around -20C. The tripod had to be held securely to avoid unnecessary vibrations.
The scene captured during the “blue hour” consists of three photos superimposed in order to obtain an HDR result .
As I finished the shoot, I saw a young couple walking up the snowy slope in the foreground in the photo above. The young man approached me and asked me to make a video of the proposal he was about to make to his girlfriend on his cell phone. She didn’t know anything about it.
He got down on one knee, proposed and she said yes. Then came the ring, the kisses and hugs. Without gloves to hold the cell phone for several minutes, I was hoping for the most concise ceremony possible. A few moments later, half frozen, he came back to get his cell phone. Everything had gone as he had planned. You never know what to expect when you go out for a photo shoot!
There are only a few leaves left in the trees of this clearing in Quebec City, but the scene retains all its charm. The broken tree cuts the landscape diagonally and guides the eye to the center of the photo where a small pond reflects part of the blue sky.
For me, this peaceful place represents the opposite of what we keep seeing as a standardized representation of autumn, without losing interest.
HDR photo of the Château Frontenac and surroundings at dusk 2022
Here is a view at dusk of the Château Frontenac and the surroundings of Old Québec. Even before taking a first shot, you can anticipate that the illuminated tower of the castle will distort the reading of the camera sensor, because it is much brighter than the surroundings.
To correct this frequent error in advance, it is best to look for an HDR (High Dynamic Range) effect by taking five photos with complementary apertures which will then be compiled in an appropriate software.
The most important challenge for this night photography photo was however to avoid taking pictures of too many tourists walking in the foreground. When they are in five close-up photos, people form what are called “ghost images“. You see them in duplicate or triplicate, half decomposed. They are useful when comes the time to add special effects, but this is not the case in the scene above.
The Fall colors are particularly intense in Quebec towards the end of the first week of October. Rather than sticking to pure landscape photography by framing only the trees and mountains, one can choose to include in the foreground the result of the work of one or more people. Far from distracting, the addition of people or objects related to everyday activities often increases the interest of a photo.
In the photo above, an apple grower from Île d’Orléans is spreading out his harvest.
Cyclists turning for côte Gilmour in Quebec City in 2022
An interesting vantage point to photograph the Grand Prix Cycliste de Québec is at the intersection of Grande-Allée and the avenue leading to the famous Gilmour hill. The cyclists are riding at high speed and must brake hard before making a sharp left turn to begin the descent to the portion that will take them along the St. Lawrence River. There are no obstructions for the photographer at this point.
2022 Quebec City Grand Prix Cycliste
To capture the effect of the cyclists’ movement, the shutter speed must not be set too fast, preferably between 1/125 and 1/160. Otherwise, everything looks immobile, even the wheel spokes.
Quebec City Grand Prix Cycliste in 2022
Positioning yourself immediately after the curve allows you to capture a long line of bicycles. You can focus on the cyclists on the right in the viewfinder and leave the line of cyclists around the curve out of focus. To do this, make sure that the chosen aperture will blur the background. It is also important to follow the movement of the cyclists with the camera. If you stand still, all the riders will be out of focus, as the shutter speed is too slow for the high speed of these riders.
Cyclists racing on Grande-Allée in Quebec City 2022
An occasional close-up obtained through cropping allows us to see details that we would otherwise miss. In the case of the photo above, it is clear that not only is the rider in the front relaxed, but he has also recently crashed, with his right arm still in recovery. Sometimes we also see the result of deformities in the knees of cyclists following numerous surgeries.
Quebec City Grand Prix Cycliste 2022
The cyclists want to maintain their position in this tightly packed group that must maneuver in a small space. With a telephoto lens, one can see the facial expressions change as they approach the turn for the Gilmour hill. Note the concentration on the faces of the cyclists in the foreground…
Grand Prix Cycliste in Quebec City in 2022
Following moving cyclists with a camera remains a difficult art to master. Several pictures are taken before a successful one is achieved. Fortunately, film photography is behind us and we don’t worry as much about missed shots. The important thing is to have fun and try to get a little better with each photo session!
