Miscellany + Ephemera : The Blog
There’s this pair of birch trees in the park near my house that fascinate me, and I always gravitate back to them and try to capture their essence with different lenses.
I love the combination of the white bark against a bright blue sky; there’s something reassuring about that.
Some days I relate to the one on the left that’s slowly unraveling; it serves as a reminder to me that no matter how I feel, there’s a LOT of unraveling that needs to happen before everything truly goes to pot.
They let the light in, sometimes in interesting ways.
Click the arrows while hovering over the photo to scroll through the entire project thus far, or click through to the entire album on Flickr.
When the light is right, National Gallery of Canada edition.
Continue reading “Another brick in the wall”This post not endorsed by the Union Nationale nor any other political party, for that matter.
Continue reading “Le ciel est bleu, l’enfer est rouge”A hue’s progress.
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It’s been one of those winters. Here in Ottawa, snow has been on the ground since November 12 and we haven’t seen the grass since. I have about 1m of snow in my backyard; in the front yard, the snowploughs and snow blowers and shovels have conspired to creat a 2-3m high mass. We can’t see the street from our living room.
Late winter is always gray and dreary. The pristine white of fresh snow yields to the greys and beiges of melting snow mixed with pollution.
To top it off, yesterday we got a freak storm that dropped about 10cm of wet, heavy snow in about an hour.
Sure, it’s pretty again, but really? Enough.
In protest of Mother Nature’s capriciousness I present to you an antidote to snow. Enjoy.
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The blue hour is the period of twilight in the morning or evening, during the civil and nautical stages, when the Sun is at a significant depth below the horizon and residual, indirect sunlight takes on a predominantly blue shade.
Turns out you don’t need to wait for the blue hour to get some serious blues. I went out for a walk after work today to stretch my legs and work out my shutter finger.
Arguably, this was the Golden Hour, but I’m not a stickler for that kind of thing. There’s something about the quality of the blue in the winter sky here in Ottawa that you just don’t get at any other time of the year.
Combine a crisp, cold, (almost) cloudless sky with a low winter sun and great things happen.
Shot with the Fujifilm X100F and processed in Capture One Pro.
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A blue sky is something to be celebrated at this time of year. It’s all too rare.
They say you get the blues when you’re down; I find blue in the right places uplifting. Liberating. Light.
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For the 11th photo essay of my 100 X, I present to you a short study on greens and blues, ever so slightly muted.
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There’s something about this colour palette that evokes summer, but not quite. It’s full of promise, just like springtime.
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A stranger is in our midst.
There’s this glowing yellow thing in the sky today. It’s making things turn green. Not sure what to make of it. Strange.
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Philadelphia City Hall, completed in 1901, would not be out of place in Paris. Built in the Second Empire style, the 548′ (167m) structure was designed to be the tallest building in the world–a feat never achieved, since the Eiffel Tower was completed before the city hall was finished–although for a period it was the world’s tallest habitable building.
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As seen from Broad Street South
That little statue of William Penn you see at the top is actually 37′ (11.3m) tall and weighs 27 tons! Turns out that this is the largest statue atop any building in the world, even today.
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There are a number of tall glass buildings to the west of city hall; in the morning, they reflect the rising sun spectacularly against the west side of the building which would otherwise remain obscured in the shadows.
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Located at 1 Penn Square, which is actually the intersection of Market and Broad streets, the City Hall divides Philadelphia into North and South, East and West. Pedestrians can walk though portals on each side of the building to get to a courtyard in the centre, where musicians and buskers often play.
That’s not really true, of course.
The City of Brotherly Love is quite picturesque, especially around the downtown and City Hall areas. The architecture is truly outstanding and very well maintained.
This is the time of year where if you’re looking for natural colour, you either have to look to the sky (on a rare non-overcast day) or to a coniferous tree like a pine, spruce or cedar. Otherwise, you have to satisfy yourself with a symphony of browns and grays and if you’re lucky a nice, bright birch or three shining away in the sunlight.
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Step right up
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Lean on me
There’s something about this building complex that keeps me coming back. It’s all about the mirrored glass and the light and reflections that play over them. I find it particularly compelling during the wintertime, when the sun is low and there’s more light bounce between the towers.
It’s snowing outside right now. I can’t bear to post anything snowy, white, gray or dreary today, so I’m digging into my archives for something decidedly more summer-like and colourful.
Yoga on longboards in Lake Union in Seattle. Why not?
It’s Friday. It snowed and rained all day and was otherwise miserable.
Yesterday it was a beautiful, sunny day. That’s when I captured this.
Simple lines, simple colours, simple comp. All is better now.
Have a great weekend.
