La Machine –Long Ma (Three Photographs)
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The story behind La Machine was in my post on Monday. This is the dragon horse Long Ma, by far the more popular of the two beasts. I was lucky we had few crowds at this opportunity. I was using a Nikon 70-200 mm and Fuji 16 mm, a good combination for this type of shooting (I do not yet have a telephoto for the Fuji but I really like the 16 mm lens). You can see here the scale of this machine, stretched out over three stories tall, and walking easily two stories. In future posts you will see Long Ma wade through the largest crowds Ottawa has seen in many years.
Downtown with the Unexpected (Two Photographs)
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I saw a group of cab drivers standing around staring at a tree, turned out to be a female downy woodpecker. This is the first time I have seen a bird like this, or for that matter any interesting birds in the concrete jungle. This reminds me I have to send a note to the Museum of Nature to suggest they put decals on their windows so the sparrows don’t fly into them, sends an ironic message about a nature museum.
La Machine – Kumo (Three Photographs)
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La Machine was a massive example of street performance, featuring a spider “Kumo”, and a dragon horse “Long Ma”. For four days these beasts (often rising over three stories) roamed Ottawa, meeting up and fighting. Long Ma was searching for his lost wings (ironically on the lawn of the Supreme Court). Over four days 750 thousand people viewed this production. The performances went late into the night so that in effect people could see them 24/7. These shots of Kumo were taken the day before the events just after they were assembled. More to come.
Cropping (Two Photographs)
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Cropping raises all kinds of questions, including should I crop? As cameras have an aspect ratio that will not fit most frames that alone makes cropping pretty much a standard. Macro Photographers crop almost all the time. There are “rules” for cropping (of thirds, golden triangle etc.). There is also cropping for drama, etc. Often excluding a piece of the whole makes little difference to our minds in grasping what a subject might be. There is even a school of photography where getting as close as you can without losing the ability of your audience to understand the subject e.g. in portraits cropping close and focusing more on the face than the other parts of the head. Personally I think experimenting with cropping never hurts.
Hummingbird Moth
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A friend told us about these moths and took my wife and I on a fairly long drive so we could see one, that was some years ago and ever since we have been interested in seeing more of them. This one decided to land on a bush directly in front of me. I crept up on it and got a few shots before it flew off into the long grass. The same size as a hummingbird and almost as fast and acrobatic, an interesting find on any day.
A Certain part of Town (Three Photographs)
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I’ve been wandering the streets when I can to capture the things that catch my eye. I was on my way to lunch when I took these in a well off, if not the toniest part of town (the latter make it difficult by having no sidewalks or parking, but I’ll get there). It’s a part of town that has “new” in it preceding a British name, and the area photographed here reminded me of New England, a sort of reiteration of an iteration. Nice homes, friendly people who stopped to talk, overall a worthwhile experience for my camera and I.
The Most Important Thing in Birding is Birds (Three Photographs)
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I hear birding is having a renaissance. I am hoping that the recent scarcity of interesting birds will not discourage people. The heat, the rain and some forest management seems to have scared off a significant number of birds in the two reserves I visit most. The other day, apart from distant gulls, chickadees high up in the trees, a skittish robin and few loud geese there were none of the more exotic birds, even the normal music of the birds was muted. Moreover in places where we see many dozens of squirrels and chipmunks, we saw one. I am hoping this is temporary and as the weather settles down things will return to normal.
