Country Gospel Concert

As one of the town's designated Canada 150 Event photographers. I headed out to town hall on Saturday evening to shoot the Country Gospel Concert.

The even was pretty well attended, largely by the older set, so the rather sedate country style with a bit of twang went over pretty well.

I stayed for the first half and, of course, took quite a few photos of this group from Renfrew a few of which I post below.  Sorry, I can't give you names.

It was fun to get out again although the low and mixed concert lighting is always a challenge,

Our Early Mothers Day

Once upon a Mothers Day, many years ago, we made the mistake of going out for breakfast. And the large crowds caused us to vow never to do it again. Since then, we usually go out for breakfast a few days before Mothers Day. This year, events transpired to make it a lunch instead of breakfast, so we headed out of town to Laws & Orders, home of the Rhippo Burger, which I'm sure is a very large burger.

Laws & Orders is a popular burger and fries type of place that burned down last year but reopened in a brand new building this year.

There is a deck for eating out in nice weather, but it wasn't nice that day, so we ate inside. It was interesting to see that the deck door was a garage door to make access very easy.

Some of the menu as well as the pickup window is shown below although the larger menu was off to the left, and I neglected to take a shot of it. I can't fathom anyone managing 2 Rhippo burgers, which must be very large, and 1 lb of poutine in 20 minutes. I'm not even sure if they should make the offer in case someone might try to do take them up on it and cause themselves to get sick.

The meal was standard fare; there was nothing wrong with it, but I don't think I would be tempted to make the drive again as burgers and fries aren't all that difficult to find closer to home.

I did like this little piece of art, using licence plates to make a map of Canada.

After lunch we continued our long rural drive to Balderson where we had an ice cream cone and also took some peanut brittle home.

So, it was a happy early Mothers Day outing.

Night on the Town

Carleton Place held its first Night on the Town evening. Part of Bridge (ie Main) Street was cordoned for vintage vehicles as well as a few vendors. What with the autos, the theme was Retro with the notion to wear vintage clothes from to 50s, 60s and 70s etc.

Since most of us don't have such attire hanging about, I didn't see too much vintage clothing, but it was a very nice night, so quite a few people came out and wandered about.

The cars were gleaming.

And people were happy.

But the most rewarding photos that I took were of a flower bed on a side street as we walked back to the car.

It was good to get out on the town for a short while, especially with the nice weather after it had been gloomy all day. And it is gloomy again this morning.

Oh the weather outside is ...

OMG! Seriously folks, it's May 8th, and I woke up to snow.

That was at 5AM, but it's now past 9AM, and it's still snowing. On the plus side, it's also melting, so there is actually less accumulation than earlier when I took the twp following photos: both from upstairs, with the first out front and the second out back.

At least it is light snow and better than the recent days of abundant rain which has caused all sorts of problems. Fortunately, my town seems to be managing well enough, but there are certainly flooding problems around and about.

In Renfrew up the Ottawa River

In Gatineau, down the Ottawa River, just across the river from Ottawa

In Constance Bay: a part of Ottawa

Farther downriver in Montreal where you also have to deal with the St Lawrence River

I could go on, but you get the idea. As far as I know, there is no danger to life, just to property, but it is still somewhat sobering.

The good news is that although there is more rain in the forecast this week, it does seem as though it will be light.

At the Sugar Camp Once Again

It's pouring out — again! but it did abate for much of the day yesterday, so we took the opportunity to head out to Wheelers Sugar Bush with friends.

You may be able to glimpse the bird feeder beyond Ivy's head below, and while we munched a lovely Rose-Breasted Grosbeak came and fed for ever so long. We just looked, enjoyed and didn't take pictures — for once.

As usual, we briefly toured the boiler room. The season is over, but there were many barrels of maple syrup in the the left foreground, only a few of which are visible, but you get the idea.

We didn't remember seeing this cross-stitch before.

While the others toured the museums, I walked the trail in search of photo ops, hoping to catch the faint leafing out that begins in this season. I snapped quite a few, but with a gray day, they were poor, so I trashed them all when I got back home.

I did, however, take this photo although I have shot similar ones in the past. White Rose was a one-time Canadian company, and you all know about the famous Model T.

I shot it as an HDR, which I won't bother explaining right now, but it served to help me boost the exposure in the gloomy garage.

Now, it's pouring again, which reminds me of a line in the kids' gospel chorus, The Wise Man Built His House Upon the Rock: "the rains came down and the floods came up." It is becoming a serious concern in some areas. I have never seen the like.

A Blustery Walk in the Park

My goodness, it was windy on the weekend, but while waiting for my women, I had a chance to spend a few minutes in a park in Ottawa, right by the Ottawa River. So, I did what I do and snapped a few pictures.

It was a bit of a gloomy day, so I brightened up this photo of the curving path.

There were a few Canada geese about. I walked close by some of the (not this one), and they seemed to be less skittery of people that those in our town park. I assumed that they are more habituated in this busier park.

I stumbled across my first blossoms of spring. It wasn't much, but it was something.

Despite the blustery winds, there was more than one picnic taking place. After a long winter, who can wait?

I came across a tiny waterfall and without a tripod or neutral density filter, I decided to experiment with a photoshop technique to fake a long exposure my taking about 20 images of the same subject. It worked.

For comparative purposes, this is what the single median of my 22 images looked like. There's quite a difference between the two versions.

Since most of my blog readers don't have Photoshop, I won't share the technique here, but you can read about it on my Flickr post if you wish.

Confirmation

It has been confirmed! How the cat got fat, I mean.

One tends to suspect that a cat doesn't get fat eating kibble, so we always had a hunch that Lady Arbuckle had been pampered with edible human tidbits.

Well, we ordered a pizza on the weekend, and she became quite excited and insistent.

Case closed.