Summer Drives Alongside The Ottawa River

 Yesterday I mentioned that in early August I went out to Nepean to take part in a first aid course. Along the way, buses pass along the parkway for a good stretch of the Ottawa River, with Gatineau on the far shore. This is upstream from Island Park and the Champlain Bridge. On the first morning I pointed my phone out the window and took several shots.

The following morning I did the same, with different skies. Later in the day there would be rain.

Viewpoints From A National Capital Summer

I have some odds and ends from the last several weeks in Ottawa. I start with this view of the grounds of the National War Memorial downtown, with Parliament Hill beyond it. The military sentries are at post during the day.

Nearby, outside the Chateau Laurier is a bust of the photographer Yousuf Karsh, who was the preeminent portrait photographer of the 20th century. For the second half of his career, he had his studios inside the hotel. Recently a portrait he took of Winston Churchill, hanging in the lobby, was stolen, making the news.

A classic Canadian scene- the Rideau Canal as seen from the Mackenzie King Bridge over its last stretch, with the National Arts Centre, Parliament Hill, the Chateau, and the Government Conference Centre lining its banks.

In early July there was a heritage festival down at Lansdowne Park with various activities going on. They included this busker on stilts.

And they included antique firefighting vehicles, all well cared for.

One evening in July there was a rainbow to be seen.

This huge mural is on the side of an apartment building downtown.

Passing through Victoria Island one day, I paused at the old mill, now long since fenced off. The Peace Tower was framed in one of the open windows at left.

At the beginning of August, I had to go out to Nepean on a couple of days for a first aid course. This church, All Saints Lutheran, caught my eye.

Close by, the overpass of the 417 freeway looking east. Nepean is one of the cities that was amalgamated into Ottawa as a whole- effectively the amalgamation of the former region of Ottawa-Carleton. This created a geographically very large city, but much of it remains rural, outside the urban centres.

Buskerfest was back downtown this year. Because of my first aid course, I missed much of it. These two shots were taken during the group finale show on Sparks Street. Checkerboard Dave is in the middle of a routine, while other buskers are sitting nearby in the background.

Changing Viewpoints Upon The Ottawa River

It has been my tradition for some time now to go out to the Portage Bridge as it crosses the Ottawa River from Ontario into Quebec, from Ottawa into Gatineau. I do this twice a month to document the view downstream from the bridge as conditions change during seasons. Landmarks seen in this frame include the Alexandra Bridge, Nepean Point, the National Gallery, Parliament Hill, the Supreme Court of Canada, and Victoria Island at the extreme right. Today I show how things have unfolded over the last few months.

To begin, here's a view of how things were in the first half of March, with ice still downstream from the bridge on a cold day.

A few days later, in the middle of March, the skies were different, but the ice was starting to break up too.

In early April much of the ice was clearing out, with some still visible below the Hill and around the Alexandra Bridge.

Late in April things looked different on a brooding day.

I crossed the river around the middle of May to head into Gatineau to photograph tulips over there, and this was how things looked on what had been, until then, a rainy day.

A few days later, this was how things stood.

In the first half of June I returned.

Near the end of June I took another shot.

Early in July I returned.

Late in July, it was a brooding kind of day when I came back.

A very different day in the first half of August.

Finally, this last one was taken earlier this week, in the last days of August. The blue sky to the east was deceptive; there were storm clouds to the north and to the west.

A rarity for these posts, looking in a different direction on this bridge, but here are some of those storm clouds to the north as the bridge heads into Gatineau. Cirque de Soleil has one of their traveling shows happening, hence all the white tents.

City Daily Photo Theme Day: My Superpower

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

This one stumped me, so I took the easy way out. I'm a comic book fan, and my primary shop in Ottawa for picking them up is called The Comic Book Shoppe. The establishment has two locations, one downtown and one out in Nepean. Obviously the downtown location is a lot more convenient for me. Several months back there was a fire in an adjacent unit that forced the closure of the place; the store staff moved in for a time with their counterparts in Nepean pending repairs at their downtown location. Several weeks back a temporary location downtown reopened while the reconstruction continues through to year's end. This location some blocks north of the regular store is appropriate- it once housed a book store. One morning I took this shot looking in before the place was open.

The place is still something of a work in progress, with new issues on the table in the foreground, while other items are shelved in the background.

Several posters adorn the outside windows. They include one for the X-Men.

And another for Spider-Man, a variant cover by the artist Simone Bianchi, I believe, featuring Wolverine- who I tend to refer to as the Drunken Hobbit.

Around the corner, this large poster ties into a storyline in the Batman titles.

And this group poster features members of the X-Men, in a storyline from several months back called Inferno. Let's just say the X-Men have gotten pretty weird in their world view and leave it at that.

Aside from my weekly habit, I've got a good number of graphic novels on my bookshelves at home, and figured I'd show a handful. More of them are from the Marvel side of things, which fits in with my weekly reading, but I do have some DC material. This is one of them. Infinite Crisis was one of those big events from a few years back; DC periodically feels the need to reset their continuity- this one tweaked continuity more than did a full reset.

A series I picked up at the time it was being released, and I picked up the first volume of the collected series recently. Gotham Central is set in the world of the Batman, but focuses on the detectives of the city's major crimes squad; the Dark Knight barely appears. Think Homicide Life On The Street set in a comic book world, and that's its tone, with two great writers.

For a number of years DC had an imprint called Elseworlds, which told self-contained stories setting characters in a different time or concept. Batman seemed to be a natural fit for the model, such as this special one shot: Batman: The Blue, The Grey, And The Bat. In it Bruce Wayne is a Union cavalry officer in the Civil War sent west to Nevada by the President to look into the disappearance of Union gold. 

There were a number of projects, largely self contained, by the writer Jeph Loeb and the artist Tim Sale, set in the world of Batman's early years. I picked up The Long Hallowe'en when it first came out as a thirteen issue miniseries. It told the story of a series of murders taking place over the course of a year on specific holidays, with the backdrop of Gotham crime families giving way to the madness of incoming villains.

One of the best miniseries I've ever read, and it has a What If sort of theme. Neil Gaiman took the concept of Marvel's 60s' creations and transplanted them into the Elizabethan Era in the miniseries 1602. 

I first picked up the series Thor off the newstands on a whim with the issues collected in this graphic novel. Worldengine tells the story of the Asgardian god of thunder at a low point, joining forces with an old adversary and taking on a mad scientist trying to bring about Ragnarok- the ending of the world. Years later I would find out that the colourist for these issues happens to be Linda's daughter. Small world, isn't it?

And still my favourite ever comic book story: Kraven's Last Hunt is a deeply psychological tale pitting Spider-Man against an enemy who's become deranged in his obsessions and who hits him in a way that cuts deepest- burying him alive and taking his place. I met the artist Mike Zeck at a comic convention here some years ago and thanked him for the story.

My favourite Avengers tale is Avengers Forever, a limited series written by the regular writer of the title at the time, gathering together a group of Avengers from different eras and sending them on a quest through time with the fate of humanity in the balance. 

This is my most recent purchase for a trade paperback, of a series I'm picking up each month. Moon Knight is an unusual character: a vigilante with dissociative identity disorder who protects those under his care and admits that he hates himself- but keeps going anyway. The series is an intense character study that packs a punch.