Photography enthusiasts seem go on and on about light, but it really is what makes the picture. If the lighting isn’t good, even vivid colours go flat. I prefer natural light, but I also like to take photos at night because it’s an entirely different atmosphere to the same scene during the day.

Some pics from Beaver Lake, on Mount Royal (Montreal):

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As you probably guessed, there are no beavers here. And it’s hardly a lake, more like a pond… just like the similarly beaver-less Beaver Lake in Vancouver’s Stanley Park — which is more like a bog.

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My cousin Wagner, who took us up here, just called it “The Chalet”, which is more in keeping with a winter theme and not difficult to imagine as a buzzing hive of activity when Beaver Lake turns into a skating rink.

For natural lighting, nothing beats the drama of a mix of brilliant summer sunshine and charcoal grey pending rainstorm:

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Both of these were taken off St. Catherine Street during the Jazz Festival.