City Daily Photo Theme Day: Photo Of The Year

The first day of each month is always a theme day for members of City Daily Photo, and as is always the case with January, the theme happens to be Photo Of The Year, a theme chosen by Jack. You can see which favourite photos other members chose from at this link.

As usual, I can't narrow it down to one, so here we start roughly chronologically through the year. Winterlude is our February festival marking the best season of the year, and ice carvings can be found in Confederation Park as part of the celebrations. This one was my favourite ice sculpture.

Another major Ottawa festival is the Tulip Festival in May. This first shot is from the tulip beds on Parliament Hill.

This second tulip bed is across the Ottawa River in Gatineau, facing the Hill and the Ottawa skyline, from the grounds of the Museum of History.

This bust of one of our former governor generals, Lord Elgin, was on display inside the museum as part of a temporary exhibit. I wasn't supposed to be taking pictures (again, sorry, didn't see the sign until I was leaving), but the way the bust is lit like this had such a dramatic look to it.

In June, we had our annual weekend Doors Open, which sees more than a hundred buildings of significance opened to the public to come and have a look at. This year I stopped at Earnscliffe, the official residence of the High Commissioner of Great Britain. Back in the day it was home to our first Prime Minister, John A. Macdonald, who died in one of its rooms.

I stopped a couple of times at Rideau Hall, the official residence of Canada's Governor General. The first shot is from the outside. The second shot is within the Ballroom.

It seems appropriate to end this with a curtain call. Allison Blakley is a member of the Ottawa Dance Directive, and here at Arts Court, she was putting on a performance mixing together a child's bedroom, the pinata, and Beethoven's Sixth Symphony as part of the one night Nuit Blanche arts festival. Allison's take on Fantasia was my favourite act of the evening, and her expression just makes the shot work marvelously.