City Daily Photo Theme Day: Me

The first day of the month is a theme day for the members of City Daily Photo. For June, that theme happens to be Me. How are others interpreting this? Have a look right here. 

As I am busy here with my Tulip Festival series for a few more days, have a look at my writer's blog today for a post about Ottawa Race Weekend, the running event which took place here last weekend. And a reminder to those readers in the local area- Doors Open Ottawa is this weekend, with sites ranging across the city, including out in the rural outlying areas. 

For this theme, I start with a shot of myself taken in February during Winterlude. I came into Ottawa's City Hall one weekend day and found displays in the atrium from two national museums and several local ones. Included in all that was a pilot's seat from a military plane, courtesy of the Canada Aviation And Space Museum. One of the staffers manning the table display took a photograph of me in it.

As part of Canada 150 last year, there was an event held here downtown called Kontinuum, put on by a production company called Moment Factory. A multimedia show, it took place in a future LRT station beneath the city over the course of the summer. I came through on several occasions and enjoyed it Before going in, the visitor was given a card to use to scan their own image, which would also be incorporated into the show. That card contained a download code one could use on the website to retrieve their own image, either as a jpg or a gif. I downloaded a number of mine as stills before the site closed up at New Year's, and here they are, watermarked with the event name and featuring some colourful takes from my numerous visits.

This, meanwhile, dates back to Winterlude, where a trailer was set up in Confederation Park with items promoting the Black Panther film. That included the chance to get yourself photographed with T'Challa himself. A photographer took the shot, sent it off watermarked to your email, complete with the Panther right beside you- even though he wasn't physically present when I was standing there.

And I finish with a recent one, another movie tie-in. One of the shops at the Rideau Centre mall had a promotional display outside for the Star Wars film Solo. I thought it fit the theme quite well, so I sat down and had my picture taken.

City Daily Photo Theme Day: One Colour

Happy Easter! Again, I'll likely be quite scarce, but will start catching up after the holiday weekend.

The first day of each month is a theme day for members of City Daily Photo, and for April, that theme is One Colour, as it is properly spelled. :)

 You can see how others are interpreting the theme here. For my take on this theme, I decided on blue.

I begin with two images taken in 2017. Kontinuum was a multimedia show put on to mark the country's 150th anniversary year. A future LRT station downtown became the setting for this light and music show that ran for several months. I visited on several occasions, and the main part of the show took place in the station platform area, where shimmering and changing lights illuminated the space, and dazzling images flashed on transparent screens set between the two platforms. Later this year, the LRT east-west line will run through this station as part of a major expansion of the system.

Moment Factory was the production company that handled Kontinuum, and later in 2017, for a month in the fall, that same company pulled off another multimedia show to celebrate the anniversary year. Miwate was done in collaboration with the Anishinaabe First Nation. The Chaudière Falls on the Ottawa River were illuminated in a light and music show in the evenings, providing public access to these waterfalls for the first time in a century. A ten minute show would take place, with music of a First Nations character accompanying the shifting lights and colours that showed the falls in a completely different way. This photograph is taken from one of my visits.

This shot dates to December, and comes from Parliament Hill. There were certain events being held around Christmas on the Hill, including the opening of a skating rink on the front lawn. Something else that had been taking place on the weekends involved this teepee, erected with the West Block behind it, which was here for various activities with an educational emphasis. Lit up blue in the evenings, it stood out well against the Gothic architecture beyond.

The National Arts Centre is a short walk away. As part of an expansion done for the anniversary year, a large glass enclosure was added around part of the building, including a glass tower. That tower has a second purpose, its glass panes illuminated at night with images of upcoming perfomances and images of the country at large. I featured a post about it earlier in the year and held two shots back for this theme, taken both outside and inside.

My remaining shots for the theme date to February, and involve Winterlude, the big celebration of winter that happens here each year in Ottawa and Gatineau. I was in Confederation Park one evening before a concert, and the blue lighting around me lit up the snow. I'll show you that concert in the Music theme day later in the year.

Confederation Park hosts ice sculptures, both in the open air and under shelters. They're lit up at night, some with slowly changing colours, and others with a steady colour. Blue was prominent among those colours.

Canada 150: The Celebration For The Country

In the lead up to our anniversary year, the government at large had various Canada 150 projects in mind. So too did the cities of Ottawa and Gatineau. And so too did the community; library branches hosted Canada 150 groups with their own ideas for the event in the year or two beforehand. For myself, I decided that my Canada 150 project would be to document the year in the national capital region as much as possible. That included a number of events that were added onto the usual course of the year, and which kept me busy- I was glad to be able to make use of my writer's blog as an additional publishing spot when things were exceedingly busy. 

Today I have a reflection on the year past with more shots of the anniversary year, beginning with this shot taken on Parliament Hill on New Year's Day, 2017. A concert had been held the night before.

One early Canada 150 event the city put on was called Crashed Ice. A speed skating track had been placed along the Ottawa Locks of the Rideau Canal in the weeks leading up to the early March event, and a group of slightly insane speed skaters rocketed down the course on a couple of exceedingly cold nights, much to the delight of onlookers.

Yesterday I made mention of La Machine, the urban theatre event with giant machines facing off against each other among various landmarks in the city. This was from the finale, with the dragon horse proving triumphant over the spider. Both machines are visible here. The event was put on by the city, and proved to be quite a success in how it drew people in.

Populace was the title of an exhibit held outside the Museum of Nature during the summer to mark the anniversary. A pottery guild here in Ottawa placed ceramic feathers, English roses, and fleur-de-lys sculptures in the grass on the east side of the property.

Canada's Table was an event that I covered in the writer's blog, taking place in August on what turned out to be a lovely day. Restaurant owners collaborated with chefs from the region and the country as a whole in a thousand place setting, four course meal on Wellington Street in the shadow of Parliament Hill, an event benefiting charities, yet another celebration of Canada 150. I photographed it as preparations were underway in the afternoon.

On a late June day near this same spot, I happened to be in the downtown core one day when I came across an official function taking place on the street. This was on a national day for our indigenous peoples. Prime Minister Trudeau was speaking, and can be seen in this shot in the center of the shot, above the heads of onlookers. The former location of the American embassy, across from the Parliamentary district, has been turned over to the First Nations of Canada for their use as a cultural center in the heart of Canada's political power, one more step in the ongoing process of reconciliation. I put this photo up at my Facebook page that day, after listening to the Prime Minister speak. It's the first time I've seen him in person, and he is a good speaker. It's nice to have a government leader in the job that you don't have to be ashamed of.

Canada 150 saw the renewal of the permanent gallery at the Museum of History in Gatineau. It reopened for Canada Day, with the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall attending the ceremony. The spaces here have been extensively reorganized with an emphasis on telling the story of Canada from its very beginnings, interweaving the story of indigenous and settlers throughout. I found the end result very well done. This is a wide view taken from my visit. 

Kontinuum was a multimedia exhibit that ran through the summer in what will be an underground LRT station beneath the city core in 2018. Lights and music made for a fascinating walk through what will eventually be typical infrastructure when the east-west system comes online. It felt like a sci-fi movie, and I visited it numerous occasions, especially towards the end of the run as I'd moved into a new place a couple of blocks away.

Ottawa Welcomes The World was an event that ran through the year at Lansdowne Park, allowing embassies from various countries to present themselves to visitors. I found it enlightening and entertaining, visiting many of these events during the year. I posted some of the series at my writer's blog, and others here after the packed schedule of summer had ended. Below are some of the events: musicians on stage during the Ireland event, an artist at work during the Columbia event, and candombe dancers who were part of Uruguay's presentation.

MosaiCanada was another major event, held in Gatineau at Jacques Cartier Park. I attended the topiary exhibition several times, enjoying the sculptures. Two of them are here: puffins and musk oxen, representing two very different parts of Canada.

And I conclude, as I did with yesterday's post, with two images from Miwate, the light show that illuminated the Chaudiere Falls. Canada 150 was an event that will certainly live on in many memories; the anniversary year was quite a milestone, and I enjoyed documenting things as I went along.

The Matrix

Concluding my series on Kontinuum today, here's one more look at the main station. I have a good number of shots from other visits to this show filed away in archives for potential use for theme days, so odds are you may see some of them down the line.

The last part of the exhibit is of course the wall where you can scan your card and have your digital self appear. When the images dissolve after thirty seconds or so, it feels like watching your Matrix counterpart vanish. 

Here I am, just about to dissolve into the digital void.

The card, which basically is the size of a bookmark, could also be used to download your image into a gif or jpg from the website itself, with the resulting image watermarked with the event's name. This is one of me from another visit-  I could have used one of these for that photographing the photographer theme day. I hope you've enjoyed these Kontinuum posts. 

Geometric

Here we have more from Kontinuum today, with the fantastic lights and shapes on the translucent screens set between the two track beds.