City Daily Photo Theme Day: Joy

The first day of each month is a theme day for members of City Daily Photo. For December, that theme is Joy, and you can see how others are interpreting this theme here.

For this theme, I felt that Miwate fit the requirements of the theme, as it was joyful to watch. That was the name of a music and light show done by the production company Moment Factory in collaboration with the Anishinaabe First Nation, held in the fall of 2017 as part of the Canada 150 celebrations. It involved illuminating the Chaudiere Falls, which stand in the heart of the Ottawa River between Ottawa and Gatineau, in a ten minute show that carried on through the evenings and was quite popular. The lights, mounted upon the dam behind the falls and other spots, brought the waterfalls to vivid life. Miwate captured the imagination of visitors, and I visited on numerous occasions. These shots were from one of those evenings, and I left them aside for future use. I also filmed videos; if you'd like to see one, click here, though you might want to turn the volume down somewhat- the audio on that camera was a bit harsh.

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.

City Daily Photo Theme Day: Best Of The Year

The first day of each month is a theme day for members of City Daily Photo, and January 1st is always a retrospective of the year that has come before, with best of the year or photo of the year being the chosen theme. Take a look at how other members around the world are selecting their choices for the theme here.

I have a number of different choices, and I'm starting with our Winterlude event, an annual celebration of winter held in February in both Ottawa and Gatineau, with snow and ice sculptures, skating on the Rideau Canal, and many more activities. Confederation Park hosts a series of ice sculptures, both sheltered and out in the open. Perhaps the best time to come see them is at night when they are lit up. This first large one marks a centennial for Canada- the hundredth anniversary of the pivotal Battle of Vimy Ridge, which happened during the First World War and was the scene of a bloody victory for Canadian troops over German soldiers. The Memorial is incorporated into the ice in two ways, both on the main structure and in the reproduction of one of the many sculptures that adorn  the Memorial itself in France, standing closer to the visitor.

This is a mermaid sculpture, one of a number of sculptures held under shelters elsewhere in the park.

The National War Memorial is one of my favourite photo subjects in the city. 2017 was the centennial year for the battles of Vimy Ridge and Passchendaele, two critical moments in Canadian history, as well as the 75th anniversary of the Dieppe Raid, a dark day for Canadian servicemen in the Second World War. April 9th marked the centennial of the first day of Vimy Ridge's four day battle, and there were commemoration services in France and here; I attended the Ottawa ceremony. The evening before, I also attended a vigil ceremony at the Memorial, where images of the era were projected onto the monument and cadets stood at post around the Tomb Of The Unknown Soldier. That is the final resting place of an unknown Canadian serviceman who fell in action at Vimy.

I was also here on Remembrance Day in November for the national services, and at the end of the day, I happened to be in the right place at the right time as a pair of active servicemen came up to the Tomb to place their poppies and give a final salute. The image really stood out to me.

In May we have the Tulip Festival, which is a legacy of the Second World War and which takes place each year on both sides of the Ottawa River. In this case, these beds are in Jacques Cartier Park on the Gatineau side of the river.

2017 also happened to be the 150th anniversary of Canada's Confederation, something that has been marked across the region and the country all year- I will have more of that in a retrospective tomorrow. On Canada Day I was out and about taking in a lot of the celebrations; these were fireworks taken at the end of that day.

One of the Canada 150 events that really made an impression was called La Machine, in late July. This was urban street theatre involving a company from France bringing two giant machines, a spider and a dragon horse, and over the course of four days having them move through the streets of Ottawa and engage with the city in their marches and confrontations. It captured the imagination of so many people, and I covered it extensively. If you'd like to see the whole affair, just click here for the first post of the series of seven posts I did on the series, including videos.

Another Canada 150 event that really drew people in took place over in Jacques Cartier Park starting around Canada Day and going into October. MosaiCanada was a topiary exhibition featuring over thirty sculptures. My favourite, a First Nations version of Mother Earth, is seen here in two perspectives.

And I finish off with another Canada 150 event called Miwate, a partnership between a First Nations group and a lighting production company called Moment Factory. The Chaudiere Falls, in the heart of the Ottawa River, was opened to public access after a century plus of being isolated by the presence of industry, and for a month from early October into early November was the scene of a light show in the evenings. The falls were illuminated in a ten minute light and music show that was magical to watch. I did some videos at the time; if you'd like to see it, click here.

Twilight Has Descended Upon The Old Year

It has been my habit to post sunsets on the final day of each year, and so is the case for this New Year's Eve. My first two shots were taken on the same evening, September 22nd, the first day of fall here in the northern hemisphere. I saw the setting sun over the Rideau River at Billings Bridge in this first shot- it was just descending at the horizon when I got this first shot. Two fishermen were out in a shallow part of the river, no doubt in hip waders.

A few minutes later, I'd walked up to cross the Bank Street Bridge over the Rideau Canal to the north, and caught this twilight view.

These two date from the same day in early October, first with the sun set at Central Park in the Glebe.

Later, this was the twilight view looking west from the Garden Of The Provinces And Territories downtown.

I took these two on the same evening in October, coming up along the Ottawa River near the War Museum for this sunset shot before heading off to an event nearby.

The event in question was Miwate, an illumination of the Chaudiere Falls in the midst of the river. This was the final view of twilight while waiting to go in.

This is a view from the Bank Street Bridge over the Canal in late October.

While this one was done in early November.

I took this at the National War Memorial on the evening of November 11th, Remembrance Day, after placing my poppy on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

Early in the month when I was in Barrhaven, I was in a shopping area at dusk and took this view looking west. An airplane can be seen at the right on final descent; the airport is east of Barrhaven.

My final sunset shot was taken a few days ago. I headed behind Centre Block on Parliament Hill to take a western view at dusk over the Ottawa River. The dying light of day looked lovely in the frigid conditions as the river continued the process of freezing over. Happy New Year!