City Daily Photo Theme Day: Best Of The Year

Happy New Year! For the first theme day of the year, City Daily Photo members choose favourite shots of the year. You can see how others are choosing their favourites at this link.

The National Capital region is blessed with several national museums. I often go to the National Gallery of Canada. One of the treasures here is the Rideau Chapel, a convent chapel moved here before the building itself was demolished. It is a work of art in its own right.

There are a series of courtyards in the Byward Market that I like going through. One February evening I was passing through. It's the presence of the woman in the shot that made it stand out for me.

February is also the time of Winterlude on both sides of the Ottawa River, and in the Byward Market, ice sculptures were on display. They were particularly vivid at night, with spotlights shifting colours on them.

May brings another festival to the region, the Tulip Festival. Both flowerbeds in these two shots are at Dow's Lake, where the biggest site of tulips is to be found.

Doors Open is held here on the first weekend of June, and this year I happened to pass through the National Arts Centre for a backstage tour. Here on the stage inside the largest of the performance spaces inside, the woman at the conductor's place is what made this shot memorable for me.

This shot was taken on Canada Day from Plaza Bridge looking over the Rideau Canal. 

During the summer I visited the Canada Science And Technology Museum for the first time. At the time it was hosting an exhibit on Leonardo da Vinci, examining his inventions, knowledge, and art from a scientific perspective. Mona Lisa, of course, was part of all that, with several copies of the painting in different exposures as part of the exhibit. As always, her smile kept her secrets.

Elsewhere in that museum, in the permanent collection, are several steam engines, including this one.

There's a pub in the Glebe area that often has funny chalkboard sayings out front. This one is from the fall.

On an October visit to the National Gallery, I photographed Dancer, by the Italian sculptor Antonio Canova. It's my favourite sculpture in the Gallery.

On this same visit I took this shot of Bernini's bust of Pope Urban VIII. Tomorrow we head over to the Quebec side of the Ottawa River to see some of my favourites from there from the last year.