Papillons en liberté

Butterflies Go Free – a spring exhibit at Montreal’s Botanical Garden.

Ice Cloud / Nuage de givre

More new artsy things in downtown Montreal… This is kind of a follow-up to yesterday’s Place-des-Arts post, since the photos were taken just outside, on the same evening. I didn’t put everything together because I felt each place deserved its own post.

The location is called Place des Festivals and, as the name says, it is where several festivals (mostly of the music variety) are now held. It was also renovated recently and includes a long strip of sidewalk fountains in summer, as well as different urban art installations throughout the year (when there are no festivals). The following photos are of a display called Ice Cloud (Nuage de givre) which was set up there from December 15 to February 2nd, and consisted of rows of hanging water “containers” reflecting lights onto the snow at night.

My next stop at Place des Festivals? The High Lights festival in a week or two. More photo opportunities!

Patterns of Place-des-Arts

The hallway of Montreal’s newly-renovated Place-des-Arts includes a big video wall with several screens creating various coloured patterns, while the extra-shiny black ceiling reflects the whole thing. When I saw it for the first time, I stood there watching the patterns change for several minutes and, of course, photographed it. There were several colours involved, but I decided to go monochrome and thus focus on the patterns. One of the displays also had running text through it (the word “charabia” repeatedly, which means “jibberish” in French) that can be seen ever so slightly in the second picture… And, I couldn’t resist getting a few silhouettes of passers-by in there, too.

A photo contest winner is me.

I somehow forgot to post this news here, which is pretty silly of me.

Each month, PhotoLife (a Canadian photography magazine) has a different theme for their email newsletter photo contest. The theme for December 2011 was “Winter Forests”, and I won with the following photo:

I had been runner up in one of their contests before, but this was my first actual win. The prize was a Fujifilm Finepix F550EXR, which I may start taking with me whenever a dSRL is not possible / not allowed. (As soon as I receive it.) It was pretty sweet seeing my photo and my name published in the January 2012 newsletter, too!

Cat tails, of the plant variety.

These photos were also taken last year, the same day as the ones in my previous post. Since we were walking on a small frozen lake, we came across some cattails (also known as typha, bulrush, reed mace, corndog grass, etc.) I couldn’t resist tweaking these a bit, too.

Some are also available in my Shop.

Winterland.

This year, like last year, Christmas will be spent with my boyfriend’s family in a cozy cabin by a lovely, snowy lake. They rented the cabin last year, and loved it so much they booked it for this year too. On Christmas morning we went for a walk on the frozen lake and I took some photos along the way. I didn’t think much of them at first, but this week I decided to dig up the RAW files and rework them a little, so I’m much happier with them now since they fit the style I’ve developed throughout the past year. I’m hoping to get some more shots of the area during our stay this year, even if we don’t have all that much time since we are arriving the 24th and leaving the 26th to go see my family…

Photos available individually or as a set in my shop.

Spooky Halloween Cat

It has been a while since I posted something here… Not off to a such good start with this whole blogging thing, but I do have several new posts on the way!

In the meantime, here are a couple of photos of a black cat I encountered on the street this weekend, just in time for Halloween. He had the biggest fangs I’ve ever seen on a cat, and looked quite frightening until I approached him and he started purring. Turns out he was very friendly and only looked imposing.

Still made for some spooky photos, though.

[Photos available here: nancyfphotos.etsy.com]

A day at the fair to end the summer

“Expo Quebec” is Quebec City’s big 10-day-long fair, during which there are games, rides, animal judging, various shows, sand sculptures, concerts and probably other things I’m forgetting. It happens each year around mid/late August. This year was its 100th anniversary and I went for the first time, mainly because Twisted Sister were performing… I spent the afternoon there and took the opportunity to play a few games (it had been a long time since I’d done that) and snap a few whimsical photos. Some were taken with a Lensbaby to test it out, others with a regular lens.

The Lensbaby worked quite well for these photos (especially for the pirate boat and skee-ball game), but I’m not sure I’d use it for everyday photography…

On to the photos:

Prizes. I’m a pro at those water gun games, so I won us an orange dragon and a monkey with a banana on its head. Not that we needed more plush toys around the house. Also, Skee-Ball should be renamed Impossi-Ball. Because that’s what it is.

The ferris wheel at various times throughout the day.

And some of the other rides… Can anyone tell me why those carousel horses have to look so angry?

[click to enlarge photos]