Tag: tips in photography

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Photos of Canada Photos of Quebec

The Parc national de la Jacques-Cartier during winter.

Hiker entering the Jacques-Cartier National Park's forest, Winter 2024.
Hiker entering the Jacques-Cartier National Park’s forest, Winter 2024.

The province of Quebec 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.

Jacques-Cartier National Park's landscape, Winter 2024.
Jacques-Cartier National Park’s landscape, Winter 2024.

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.

November in the Jacques-Cartier National Park in Quebec, 2023
November in the Jacques-Cartier National Park in Quebec, 2023

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.

Photo of the Jacques-Cartier national park, Winter 2024.
Photo of the Jacques-Cartier national park, Winter 2024.

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.

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Photos of Quebec

The carnival and the Dufferin Terrace slide.

Bonhomme Carnaval on the Dufferin terrace in 2024.
Bonhomme Carnaval on the Dufferin terrace in 2024.

Bonhomme Carnaval regularly strolls along the Dufferin Terrace in Old Quebec to greet passers-by, and he never fails to attract many curious onlookers who rush to give him a hug. Further along the terrace is the famous slide, so popular with tourists. You have to queue for a long time before you can get your place on a toboggan.

The slide of the Dufferin terrace during the Quebec City winter carnival 2024.
The slide of the Dufferin terrace during the Quebec City winter carnival 2024.

The photo above shows the Dufferin Terrace slide in the early evening. I used a tripod to keep the ISO at 200 for a sharper image.

The Dufferin Terrace slide during the winter Carnival in Quebec City.
The Dufferin Terrace slide during the winter Carnival in Quebec City.

You can see the fun in the children’s and adults’ eyes when full speed is reached. For the photo above, the focus was taken on a precise point on the slide before the festival-goers were visible in the camera lens. When people reached the predetermined spot, I triggered the shutter. This made it easier for the autofocus system to focus on a fast-moving target.

Click on the link for more photos of Quebec City and Île d’Orléans in winter on my blog.

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Photos of Quebec Ship photography

The Norwegian Joy in Québec City

The Norwegian Joy cruise ship docked at pier 22 in Quebec City in 2023.
The Norwegian Joy cruise ship docked at pier 22 in Quebec City in 2023.

The Norwegian Joy cruise ship, which weighs close to 168,000 tons, is one of the biggest ships to dock in Old Quebec in autumn.

The Norwegian Joy cruise ship docked in Quebec City in 2023
Le navire de croisière Norwegian Joy amarré à Québec à l’automne 2023.

It can accommodate 3,852 passengers and, for onboard service, there are 1,851 crew members – almost one employee for every two holidaymakers. The ship was built in 2017. Despite its young age, it benefited from renovations in 2020.

Sliding down the tube on the Norwegian Joy cruise ship

Sliding down the tube on the Norwegian Joy cruise ship

In the photo above, you can see a transparent tube raised above the upper deck in the top left-hand corner. With an enlarged photo, you’ll see that people are sliding down this water slide upside down. The shot below will help you get a better look at the guy in the red and blue swimsuit speeding by. The camera’s shutter speed had to be set to 1/2000 to avoid motion blur.

Sliding down the tube on the Norwegian Joy cruise ship 2023
Sliding down the tube on the Norwegian Joy cruise ship 2023

That day, I was only carrying a Canon EF 11-24 mm f/4 USM zoom lens. I had to crop the photo a little to enlarge it, but you can still see the scene quite well. Part of the tube gives the sportsman the impression of suddenly plunging to the ground, as the installation protrudes over the sides of the ship.

Looking for dangerous goods on the Norwegian Sky cruise ship in Quebec City
Looking for dangerous goods on the Norwegian Sky cruise ship in Quebec City

While people are enjoying themselves on the upper deck, a whole team is busy refueling the ship and ensuring its safety. In the photo above, a dog can even be seen going around the pallets to detect any dangerous or illicit products.

The Norwegian Joy cruise ship in Québec.
The Norwegian Joy cruise ship in Québec.

Here’s a final photo of the Norwegian Joy, taken from inside a recently built cedar gangway near Quay 22 in the Port of Quebec. The sun filtering through the rungs provides a beautiful play of light, all captured by a Canon EF 11-24 mm f/4 USM zoom lens set to 11 mm. The effect is further enhanced by the pseudo HDR mode offered by digital processing software.

Click on the link for more photos of Quebec City and Île d’Orléans in autumn on my blog.

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Photos of Quebec

Nature around Québec City

The Domaine Cataraqui early morning in fog.
The Domaine Cataraqui early morning in fog.

If you get up early enough, you can capture the morning fog. The photographic composition respects the rule of thirds, especially regarding the lone tree, my main subject. I included the picnic table to signify the presence of human activity in the vicinity. This often adds interest to a scene.

Flowers on the Plains of Abraham, Quebec City. Summer 2023
Flowers on the Plains of Abraham, Quebec City. Summer 2023

Above, I’ve captured flowers by limiting the aperture of the Canon EF 85mm f/1,2 L II USM lens. The flowerbed is on the Grey Terrace in the Parc des Champs-de-Bataille. The emphasis is on the middle row, leaving the others out of focus to create a different effect.

Picking blueberries in Saint-Nicolas.
Picking blueberries in Saint-Nicolas.

There’s no shortage of space in Quebec when it comes to picking berries. Although it doesn’t appear so in the picture, the Vire-Crêpes business had many customers on its grounds that day. But the estate covers such a large area that it offers people a fairly private zone.

Blueberries in Saint-Nicolas.
Blueberries in Saint-Nicolas.

This last photo shows a blueberry plant from Saint-Nicolas, south of Quebec City. The fruits require more time to reach full maturity, but the different colours visible at this stage of growth makes for a more interesting shot.

Click on the link for more photos of Quebec City and Île d’Orléans in summer on my blog.

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Photos of Canada Photos of Quebec

Photos of Quebec City in summer

The bar Ste-Angèle in the evening in Old Quebec.
The bar Ste-Angèle in the evening in Old Quebec.

On a late summer’s day, these citizens from Old Quebec chat peacefully under the Ste-Angèle bar’s wall-mounted luminaire.

Citizens of the Saint-Jean-Baptiste district en route to the opening of the Festival d'été de Québec 2023
Citizens of the Saint-Jean-Baptiste district en route to the opening of the Festival d’été de Québec 2023

As the day draws to a close, many residents of the Saint-Jean-Baptiste neighbourhood head to the Plains of Abraham for the 2023 Quebec City Summer Festival.

The Scott grocery store in Old Quebec.
The Scott grocery store in Old Quebec.

The setting sun hits the side of these Quebec City buildings, creating two areas of very distinct luminosity. Such extremes pose challenges for the camera. By using a Raw file rather than a JPEG, it’s much easier to correct the brightest and darkest areas.

Relaxing in Old Quebec.
Relaxing in Old Quebec.

In the summer of 2023, a South Korean tourist takes a short break in Old Quebec after a busy day of walking inside the ramparts of the old city.

Click on the link for more photos of Quebec City and Île d’Orléans in summer on my blog.

Categories
Photography Photos of Quebec

Photographing Old Quebec.

An Old Quebec view with the Château Frontenac in the distance using a Canon 11-24mm zoom lens.
An Old Quebec view with the Château Frontenac in the distance using a Canon 11-24mm zoom lens.

Luck plays a significant role in the acquisition of an original shot. To put chance on our side, we need to go on photo expeditions frequently, whatever the weather, and seize opportunities when they arise.

For this outing in Old Quebec, I thought I’d use a Canon 11–24mm f/4L USM super-wide-angle zoom lens. It allows you to get very close to a tall building and obtain vertical lines without the top of the structure disappearing.

Indeed, many high-performance zooms require the utilization of image-processing software to produce an almost perfect vertical effect. But doing so cuts off the top of the edifice.

So, I was looking for a different perspective to shoot the Château Frontenac. I saw it more in the background, as a point of arrival for the eye, rather than taking up all the space. Even as a small edifice in a photo, you recognize it before any other structure.

To do this, I chose an architecturally interesting building as my starting element. It reminded me vaguely of the Flatiron Building in New York. Naturally, it’s not as high and offers that rounded effect when captured in wide-angle format.

I’ve observed a lot of representations of Old Quebec so far. However, I don’t recall previously noticing the street and the old edifices in this way. Usually, the building in the foreground is partially visible.

Lost in the analysis of the ideal angle, I heard a strange engine sound. On my left, a vintage car was moving slowly and would pass in front of the Canon 5DSr lens in a few seconds.

I quickly lifted the camera and placed it in the right spot. The auto was already gaining speed and I had to seize the opportunity. This vintage car blended perfectly into the scene. Only the slightly more contemporary station wagon indicates a more recent picture.

Modernity and the past still come together in harmony in a developer-protected Old Quebec. To capture interesting pictures, you need to get out into the old town frequently.

Click on the link for more summer photos of Quebec City and Île d’Orléans on my blog.

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Photos of Canada Photos of Quebec

Old Quebec in Summer.

Summer 2023 in Old Quebec.
Summer 2023 in Old Quebec.

Some companies organize themed guided tours of Old Quebec at dusk in summer. The guides dress up in costume and regularly follow the same routes. With a little patience, a lantern-wielding person can be included in a photo, as well as the old stone houses and the Château Frontenac. This adds another interesting detail to the scene.

The picture above presented several challenges, some of which have been solved. Ideally, the HDR method would have provided a better control of luminosity, but the hostess holding the lantern would have disappeared in the process carried out by the Photomatix software. This person played an important role in the scene, so I decided to take just one shot, but in RAW format to optimize the sky light correction in post-processing.

I wanted to use the smallest aperture possible to get a precise focus from the foreground to the Château Frontenac. But due to the lack of adequate light and the movement of people towards the camera, I had to maintain a sufficient shutter speed, even at ISO 6400. Unfortunately, the aperture suffered a little.

So, this is a photo full of compromises, where you do the best you can with the situation and the photographic equipment available.

Click on the link for more Summer photos of Quebec City and Île d’Orléans on my blog.

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Photos of Quebec

The Saint-Jean-Baptiste District in Quebec City.

HDR photo of the Saint-Jean-Baptiste district in Québec, June 2023.
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.

Click on the link for more summer photos of Quebec City and Île d’Orléans on my blog.

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Photography Photos of Quebec

A Canon lens avoids the garbage.

The Basilique-Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Québec , April 28th 2023.
The Basilique-Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Québec , April 28th 2023.

A sixteen year old Canon 14mm f/2.8 L lens that was narrowly saved from the garbage allowed me to take this wide angle photo of the Notre-Dame de Québec Basilica-Cathedral in Old Quebec.

The visit being improvised, I did not have a tripod. So, I put the full frame camera Canon 5DSr directly on the ground. However, the lens was pointing straight ahead, preventing me from capturing the architecture and colors of the vault. I put my wallet and the lens cap on the floor to provide support for the camera to point towards the ceiling. Considering the circumstances, the result could have been worse.

Two months earlier, this 2007 Canon 14mm lens broke and could not focus automatically or manually anymore. I had sent it to Canon in Toronto. The company had written back that the lens was beyond repair and that I would unfortunately have to get a new one, at an estimated cost of $2700.

With nothing left to lose, I took the chance to have it repaired in Quebec City in a small workshop that repairs just about everything. The technician only needed a few hours of work on the lens and I received a bill for $200 plus taxes.

It was explained to me that the big camera companies do not repair equipment that is fifteen years old or more: they declare it “irreparable” when a few hours are all it takes for an experienced and competent technician to do the job.

The breakdown came just in time as the technician retired within a few weeks…

Click on the link for more pictures of Quebec City and Île d’Orléans in the spring on my blog.

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Photos of Quebec

Spring in Quebec City

Joe Fafard's sculpture photographed during Spring in Quebec City.
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 all-metal animal is part of a set of eight horses created by Joe Fafard, a renowned Saskatchewan artist and Officer of the Order of Canada. The City of Calgary and the Calgary Stampede donated the sculpture to Quebec City and it is located along Champlain Boulevard near the Cap Blanc stairs, just before entering Old Quebec.

Click on the link for more photos of Quebec City in the spring on my blog.