City Daily Photo Theme Day: Entertainment

 The first day of each month is a theme day for members of City Daily Photo, and for April, that theme is Entertainment. Check out how others are interpreting the theme right here.

I start with some Winterlude content from February. I was in Confederation Park one night late in the festival, and on stage, buskers were playing with glow sticks to fiddle music. One was on stage at this point.

His partner joined him.

The following day, a visit to Jacques Cartier Park over in Gatineau was in order. Arriving, I noticed the DJ on this elevated stage. She was doing an activity in which she was playing music, telling the audience to dance- and to freeze in place when the music ended.

Then she started playing Cotton Eye Joe. I moved away as quickly as possible. That song is a crime against humanity.

When I was leaving, I came across this busker getting his act started.

Back in January, I attended a screening of The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers at Lansdowne Park. It included a live orchestra and choir doing the music. I took shots as the orchestra was warming up, and then again during the end credits.

These two I take from the archives, originally posted in 2017. The National Arts Centre is very much the heart of culture in the city, a national institution. That year they opened an expansion onto the building for Canada Day, and that day, walking around and exploring was possible. I took this shot from the balconies high above Southam Hall, the largest of the performance spaces within.

This was another one of the performance spaces, Asper Theatre.

This last shot was taken in late October in Southam Hall. I attended a concert of classical music and film score cues, all with a very Hallowe'en vibe. Before things got underway, the musicians were warming up their instruments. And all of them were in costume.

Along The Shores Of The Chaudiere Falls

 More today from this visit to the Chaudiere Falls.

It is a delight in any season.

The Falls In Late Winter

It was time for a new header. This one dates to last May, taken in Commissioners Park during the Tulip Festival. 

A few days back, on the last day of the winter, I paid a visit to the Chaudiere Falls, where the Ottawa River meets a series of islands between Ottawa and Gatineau, and where the main channel tumbles down falls and cascades, a total height of fifteen meters and a total width of sixty meters. It is ringed by a ring dam which diverts for hydro purposes. 

The Chaudiere Bridge is immediately downstream. Also visible in the distance are the Portage Bridge and Parliament Hill.

I have not been up here in winter, albeit in late winter. Not everything was accessible, but enough was that it was worth the trip.

I was able to approach between two of the old industrial buildings.

Check out this video.

More from here tomorrow.

The Last Gun To Fire

 We begin today with Canadian Headquarters Staff, by William Nicholson in 1918.

World War Two saw the rise of nosecone art. A number of examples are found here.

Canadians In The Snow is by James Morrice, done in 1918.

Battlefields Of Ypres was painted by David Young Cameron in 1920.

This is new, as well as more contemporary. Blackfood artist Adrian Stimson painted two indigenous soldiers, Master Corporal Jamie Gillman and Corporal Percy Bedard during the Afghan War. Between are panels, with cedar, tobacco, sweetgrass, and sage, emblems of indigenous peoples.

Across is this artifact, where one enters and exits the permanent collection. Canadian soldiers ended the First World War at Mons, Belgium, giving two field guns to the town and saying they were the last guns to fire on the enemy before the armistice. At the centennial of the ending of the war, Mons returned this one to Canada, and it now resides here. A fitting place for it.