October 18, 2010 by Gail
Arrived home from Ottawa in the wee hours, but since I spent most of the weekend in Montreal I’m posting several shots of the one thing I associate the most with this fair city: food! The photo of the antipasto above was taken at Olive + Gourmando in Vieux-Montreal, the ones below were taken in Ottawa from our take-out of smoked meat from Schwartz’s Deli and bagels from St-Viateur. More food pics coming to a screen near you…
Posted in Canada, Food + Drink | 4 Comments
August 24, 2010 by Gail
Just like the rock sculptures here, my daily life can resemble a precarious balancing act to keep the volunteer/work/freelance ratio intact. Some days it’s harder to maintain than others. Managing today was relatively simple: one patient drop-off, The Firm, pick up film, subway to meeting in Scarborough, home to emails, editing, writing and whatnot. This is a personal website, not a commercial venture, but for my own reasons I like to write something daily and post some photos. It’s like my daily vitamin and how I unwind from the day. (I don’t take vitamins, but you know what I mean…)
I was pleased to finally see the images from the last two rolls of film shot while I was in Ottawa earlier this month. Picking up film is exciting! It’s all a surprise, especially when the shooting/developing intervals are longer. For any film users out there who don’t know about Shoppers Drug Mart film developing, $2.99 is all they charge to develop a roll of film and put it on CD. It’s simply the best deal around. It was the only way I could afford shooting 18 rolls of film in Havana, Cuba, at the end of 2006. It makes shooting film less of a luxury.
Back to the photos, the artist behind the rock sculptures is a fellow named John Ceprano, who happened to be there while we were so I got him on film just before the sky opened and poured on everyone at Remic Rapids:
More information about the sculptures can be found on Ceprano’s website here.
More from Remic Rapids (I like the reflection):
An abandoned barn in Wakefield, Quebec:
My favourite shots taken in Gatineau Park, Quebec:
To see all the photos in the “Analogue in Ottawa” set, click through the Pictobrowser below or view them as a full-screen slideshow in Flickr.
Posted in Art, Canada, Linkage, The Great Outdoors | No Comments
August 12, 2010 by Gail
What is it about trains that make me stop and take photos? Is it the Old World charm? A nod to the power of the Industrial Revolution? The singularity of a journey on one track with no traffic or real intersections? The steadiness, the speed low enough to take in surroundings (excluding the TGV in France and bullet trains in Japan, of course)? All of the above?
Whatever it is, I sure do take a lot of train photos. These three were all shot on film in Wakefield, Quebec, last Saturday.
This is (one of) the last steam-powered train left in Canada and there are only 1-2 scenic rail departures a day, so we were very lucky to be near the tracks at all when it went by, but we were doubly lucky to have cameras at the ready. Thanks, H!
Posted in Canada, film photography, Linkage, Local Colour | No Comments
August 10, 2010 by Gail
“God Knows What” is the name of this bluegrass band that was playing in the middle of a covered bridge in Wakefield, Quebec, last Saturday, just when we happened to come by. I looked for a website for them, but couldn’t find one. I thought it was a funny name for a band; maybe they’ll Google themselves and find this post.
I was going to name this post “It Just So Happened…” because plenty of funny things happened on Saturday that made me think there are some peculiar forces at work in the universe to make my life more colourful than it already is, but somehow “God Knows What” stuck.
Anyway, we were on this covered bridge shooting film when the band started to set up and announced themselves as performers for “Mo’s Birthday”. Of course we’re thinking, “Who’s Mo?” Then a woman came up to us and invited us to join in the dancing.
“Who’s Mo?” we asked.
“That’s me!”
“Oh! Happy Birthday!”
Isn’t that a great thing to do on your birthday? Dance with your friends to live music (and invite strangers to join in) on a covered bridge over a river. As someone who makes an effort on her birthday to do memorable things such as travel, I think this is a novel idea!
Posted in Canada, film photography | 1 Comment
August 9, 2010 by Gail
Home from Ottawa.
Ridiculous hour.
Driving patient to chemo for 7:20. Bed is calling.
Posting one film photo, one of my faves from Wakefield (Quebec).
Would’ve made this a haiku, but brain shutting down in 3, 2, 1…
Posted in Canada, film photography | No Comments
May 24, 2010 by Gail
We saw a lot today: farms, Stratford, cows, Kitchener, rolling hills, Guelph, Mennonites in carriages pulled by horses, covered bridges, uncovered bridges, a racetrack, and the Cheltenham Badlands.
The only thing I wanted to do when I arrived home was download the memory cards and take a shower, even though I passed crowds of people walking down to the beach to catch the fireworks — the beach that’s just down the street from my house. Yup, Nerd Supreme over here.
Weekend photos thus far are best viewed as a [slideshow], or [thumbnails], or in the Pictobrowser below:
Posted in Canada, The Great Outdoors | 1 Comment
April 7, 2010 by Gail
It’s always great when you can get people to do action shots, especially jumping. Sandy and Neesa discovered a new kind of workout in Quebec City — my photo shoots!
“Jump together!”
“Kick higher!”
“Throw your arms back!”
“I need you to land here!”
Makes me sound like a tyrant, doesn’t it? This is about as bossy as I get.
Doesn’t it look strange to see people wearing t-shirts with snow on the ground? It got up to nearly 30C in Quebec City while we were there, but there were still piles of snow lying around, which looked bizarre because we were melting.
Posted in Canada, Friends, Photography | 5 Comments
April 6, 2010 by Gail
I arrived home from Quebec City in the wee hours, tired after 8+ hours of driving but very — very — grateful that I was able to get five of us there and back without any car trouble at all. The whole story about the car can be found here.
I have a lot of photos (natch), but after late nights, packing around a bag full of equipment in hot weather (it got up to almost 30C!) up and down the hilly terrain of Quebec City’s Old Town, plus all the driving, work today, and a wedding client meeting right after, I’ve lost track of where one day finishes and the next begins.
But Quebec City is as charming as ever, and I’m glad I went! I’ve got a few stories from the weekend, but photos are what you came for, right? Working on that…
The painter in the Old Town vaguely reminded me of Montmartre in Paris. I also tried to position myself to capture the girl sitting in the window to the left of the painter. Little did she know, the girl on the right balanced the photo out nicely.
And here’s something unusual these days: self-portraits with a tripod. In Quebec I stayed at a friend’s house while he was in Europe. He’d bought a lot of photographic equipment since my last visit and set up a studio in the basement. I picked up the first prop I could find (this big white floppy hat) and took a bunch of self-portraits with my flash mounted camera left at 1/10th power through a white umbrella. I also took some really goofy ones and printed them out with my portable photo printer… he should get a kick out of those. I’ll post the goofy ones later, after I try and catch up on the backlog.
Posted in Canada, Gail at Large | 3 Comments
April 3, 2010 by Gail
Posted in Canada | 2 Comments
December 1, 2009 by Gail
I think you can always tell a ‘Gail at Large’-shot horizon because it’s guaranteed to be crooked. Can you tell this is Ottawa? Here’s a larger version. Zhu says she’s never seen the water this low.
Be glad you’re seeing this on a screen and not anywhere near me. No, I don’t have H1N1 or another flu or anything remotely debilitating, but my nose can’t decide whether it’s running or taking some downtime (or on strike!) and my eyes are streaming like I just chopped some onions. I was editing all night until 6:30 this morning, which probably didn’t help. I’m too old to be lectured about it, though, it’s called freelancing.
Why, hello December. I hope you pass quickly.
Posted in Blah Blah Blah, Canada, Music, Videoclips | 6 Comments
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