Video Redux

I was sure that I had made some videos to go with photo projects that I had created for The Brown Knowser. There was my Bate Island Project. The Hog's Back Project. And, of course, my 100 Strangers project.

But these videos were not on my Brown Knowser YouTube channel.

Of course, they couldn't have been. These projects were over long before my YouTube channel was created, in late 2019. Had I only shared these videos directly into my blog?

It's surprising to me that I can forget that I had created another YouTube channel, years earlier. For the most part, it was a way for me to share family activities with friends and extended family, but I also experimented with videos that were closer to what I do on this blog.

It wasn't until December, 2019, that I decided to start a new YouTube channel that would exclude family-oriented events (which I had made private, anyway) and only post videos that would be publicly accessible. At the time, I had copied some of my videos over to the new channel—the ones that were intended for public consumption.

But I must have become distracted at one point and not moved my photo-project videos to the new channel.

It's funny how, once I had established the new YouTube channel that I had all but completely forgotten about the old one.

Last week, when I paid the old channel a visit, I discovered these videos and started copying them over to The Brown Knowser channel. But I decided to make some modifications.

When I had created a couple of these videos, I used copyrighted music. Bringing them over to my Brown Knowser channel, I decided to change the soundtracks to royalty-free music. That wasn't an issue with the Hog's Back Project video, as it used free music. But in changing the 100 Strangers video, I had to swap out the music and ended up recreating the video from scratch.

I haven't yet done the same with the Bate Island Project, but I'll likely re-do that one as well.

Stay tuned.

I've also decided to create other photo-project videos, such as compilations of my year-end, best photos of the year posts.

Again, stay tuned.

I'll leave you with the redux version of my 100 Strangers video. Enjoy!

Happy Tuesday!

On a Winter's Morning

The Next Photo Project

It's been a while since I've dedicated time to a photo project and it's high time that I've done one.

I mean, the pandemic sort of got in the way and made me want to stick around home, so going out with my camera to capture strangers, or go to the same spot every day just wasn't in the cards for me.

If you're new to my blog since my last photo project, here is what you've missed:

• Bate Island Project: I worked in an office not far from the Champlain Bridge, and in 2013 I made a year-long commitment that, no matter how many times I crossed that bridge, no matter the weather, I would stop on Bate Island, stand in the same place with the same camera and lens, and take the same photo. The resulting video that I made even made it on to CBC News Ottawa. It was a good opening photo challenge for me, despite some of the creepy folks I encountered from time to time.

• Photo of the Day: I pledged to take a photo, every day, from January 1 to December 31, 2017. The challenge was that I could never take a photo of the same thing and that the photo had to be shot, processed, and posted on social media on that particular day. It was a lot harder than it seemed, especially when I took a week off to go to Cuba. I still shot and processed a new photo every day but Internet constraints meant that I couldn't post them until I returned home.

• Hog's Back Project: this was a once-a-week challenge but was similar to my Bate Island Project. I stood on the same spot and used the same camera and lens to capture the falls at Hogs Back. I could venture to this place more than once a week but I would only submit one photo (the best of the pick) each week.

• 
  100 Strangers: this was my most-challenging project but goes down as the best one. I'm incredibly shy around strangers, so going up to one was nerve-wracking, let alone asking the person if I could take a photograph and post it on social media. This project was delayed for several months while I gathered the nerve, and on the day that I started the project, it took me more than 10 minutes to get the courage to approach my first person. Thankfully, she and her friend were super-friendly and agreed. Subsequent outings for this project, which had to be completed within 100 days, got easier but I still needed to psyche myself up to approach the first person of the day. In the end, only about 20 percent of the people I approached declined to be photographed. I ended up with 102 willing subjects, but two of those photos didn't turn out: the photos weren't flattering to the person, and I didn't wish to share a photo that would make the person cringe. At the end of the project, I made a short video.
• Black-and-White Project: using an old Ricoh 35mm point-and-shoot camera and an old Canon digital point-and-shoot device, I captured 52 images and shared them for Photo Fridays in 2018.

So, what is my new project?

It's just in the planning stages but it's going to be another daily photo challenge. I'm thinking of starting a random project, based on the music that I love. Each morning, I will play a random song from my playlist on my smartphone. Whatever song comes up will inspire the theme of the day.

I will then have the day to consider how I will capture the theme in a single photograph. When my work day is done, I will head out with my camera to capture an image.

Geez... even writing out the plans for this photo challenge is stressing me out. Or is that excitement?

I don't know exactly when I will start this project. It might be this week, next month, or at the beginning of 2022. Stay tuned.

Photo Friday: Fire and Ice

It's been a while since I stopped on Bate Island.

It's not usually along my route, anymore. My crossing to and from work, across the Ottawa River, tends to be the Macdonald-Cartier Bridge, the most easterly bridge in Ottawa. The Champlain Bridge, which is the city's most westerly bridge, isn't one I choose to cross.

But with DW's foot still mending from a bad break, following a fall last December, I am her chauffeur, must drive her to work and pick her up. And so, the Champlain Bridge is where I cross, once again.

I'm pretty good at predicting my ETA, as I leave my Gatineau office and head to DW's place of work. My last text to her, before I left work for the day, was that I should be in front of her building by 5:20 at the latest.

As I crossed the Champlain Bridge, the sun was just setting, was just falling beneath the treeline that hides the town of Aylmer, on the Quebec side of the Ottawa River. There is a mix of clear sky and cloud, and the colours are glowing a myriad of yellows, oranges, reds, and blues. Looking to the east, the downtown skyline is aglow in orange, with some office windows reflecting the suns rays.

I had to make a stop, so on to Bate Island, I went.

A couple of cars were parked in the small lot on the west end. I could see a woman, small camera in hand, standing at the fence that protected spectators from the icy water. I pulled in next to the vehicles, and pulled my camera out of the bag that was in the back seat.

I was going to be late, picking up DW, but it was worth it. For there was fire in the sky and ice in the water.

Happy Friday!

Wordless Wednesday: White Water

Photo Friday: The Hog's Back Project

Shortly after I finished my first photo project, on Bate Island, I wanted to choose another site in the city and take photos over the span of a year, but I found that something like my Bate Island Project took too much time. I stopped on the island every time I crossed the Champlain Bridge, which was usually twice a day, four times a week.

It was a huge commitment, took lots of time, in all sorts of weather, and had me encountering all kinds of people (some good, but mostly, weird).

I wasn't sure about where I wanted to go to repeat a similar project. It had to be somewhere that wasn't out of my way and was easily accessible, year-round. For the Bate Island Project, during the winter months, half of the roadway wasn't plowed, which meant that I had to blaze a trail through the snow (and we had a lot of snow over those two winters) and the cold (it was freezing both winters, too).

I didn't want to take a photograph every time I passed this spot. I wanted the option that, if the weather was rotten or the light wasn't right, I could skip a stop. I could say to myself, "not today. I just want to keep moving."

I also decided that I would only post one photograph each week, for a maximum of 52 weeks. If a vacation or other reason made me skip a week, so be it. I wasn't going to be a slave to this next project.

And so I located my spot.

It's one of the most dramatic waterfalls in the city (I can only think of three: are there more?) and the biggest fault lines in our region. It has a spot where I can stand and set my tripod in virtually the same location every time, though I have no plans to amalgamate these into another video. I started this project in the first week of January, and I will continue to the last week of December. I call it the Hog's Back Project. You can see it on my Flickr site.

I may not be writing a lot, these days, but my camera hasn't stopped.

Happy Friday!

Wordless Wednesday: Riding the Waves

Bate Island, Ottawa

Wordless Wednesday: Bate Revisited

It All Comes Together

I really can't believe it's over.

One year ago, I decided that every time I crossed the Champlain Bridge, whether I was going to work, going for a ride in Gatineau Park, or heading home, whether I was in the car or on my bike, I would stop at the same spot on Bate Island and take a snapshot of the same view.

I would always use my 50mm lens, always shoot at 100 ISO (almost always: sometimes, I forgot to reset my camera from a previous shoot). Rain or shine, hot days or downright frigid, I would take that shot.

I didn't cross that bridge every day. Some days, I worked from home or was sick. I rarely crossed the bridge on weekends. And then there were vacation days, when I was nowhere near the city, let alone the Ottawa River.

I captured 296 images over the course of my Bate Island Project. Some are good, many are bad. A few look a lot alike. But it's interesting to see how the lighting changes, how the river can be choppy or calm, how the bush fills out, changes colour, and thins again. The snow starts and ends the project, people unwittingly get in the shot.

And I have now taken those images and compiled them into a short video. Not all of the images from the project are in the video: I removed some shots that were taken with low speeds and shakey hands, or those that were so similar that it was hard to tell one from the other. I added music, and the result is one year in two minutes and nineteen seconds.

Enjoy.

Dramatic Ending

Not only has this week been the last that I shoot photos for my Bate Island Project, it is the end of Bate Island itself, the way I have known it for this past year.

A couple of months ago, I noticed that some of the mature trees were beginning to shed some of their bark. Because it was winter and none of the trees had leaves anyway, it was hard to determine if they were sick, but I knew that bark shedding was not a normal process. Unless, perhaps, they were sick or dying.

I'm not a tree expert. I don't know if these trees are oak, or ash. I suspect they are oak, only because some of the fallen, dried leaves that flutter across the snow-covered park are of that species.

About a month ago, during one of my afternoon visits, I saw that several trees were painted with a red X, below which a number was also painted. The first trees I saw were numbered in the 20s, but I saw one tree numbered 53.

A shitload of trees were going to be coming down.

This Monday, as I stopped on the island on my way to work, the trees were falling. Not of their own accord, but by about four men with chainsaws, a big truck, and a wood chipper. Some of the trees that I have walked past all year had already been taken down and cut into manageable stumps. Observing the inner core of these trees, they seemed healthy.

Now, they would make excellent firewood.

On my way home on that same day, I once again stopped for my afternoon shot, and the men were gone. But they had been extremely productive. Or destructive. Take your pick.

Bate Island looks like a war zone. Tree trunks and branches litter the pathway to my photo spot. By the end of the week, I will have a clear line of sight from where I park my car to where I set up my tripod.

Bate Island will be a wasteland.

Where I have been turning my back for the last year, few trees will remain. What marks the end of a photo project marks the end to generations of growth.

I couldn't be more sad about ending my project. I wish I had turned my lens around more often.

I have called the NCC, which oversees Bate Island, to find out why so many trees were coming down. Are the culled trees suffering from Dutch Elm Disease (if that is their species)? So many elms have come down across the city. If these trees are oak, have they befallen Sudden Oak Death? The operator for the NCC wasn't aware of the situation but has promised to look into it and call me back.

By then, I fear, very few trees will remain on Bate Island.

Update:

The NCC phoned me this morning to say that the trees that are being cut down are, indeed, ash, and are being culled as part of the citywide plans to stem the spread of emerald ash borer. The trees must be cut down before the temperatures soar and the pests migrate.

You'd think that with this cold weather, the devastating creatures would have frozen to death!

Thanks to Paul at the NCC for getting back to me.

Further update:

When I returned to Bate Island, this afternoon, to take my project photo, I chatted with some of the workers, who were loading chunks of ash trunks into a truck. They showed me borer holes in the wood and told me that the larvae was hibernating within. Only the chipping process, he informed me, would ensure their demise.

He believes some 5,000 trees have been cut down, recently, in the Ottawa area.

The Road to 50

Where one photo project ends, another begins.

This week brings the end of my Bate Island Project. My last photo will be taken on Friday, as I head home from work. Over the weekend, I will select the best shots and compile a short video to show the changing weather, the changing seasons, the changing light. The bush, so poorly positioned in the foreground, which was my guide when the cityscape was obscured by fog and snow, will sprout buds, grow leaves, colour, and lose those leaves.

No more will I keep an eye out for creepy guys and wacko ladies. I'm not saying I'll never take another photo on Bate Island, but I'll never feel compelled to.

But before the Bate Island Project ends, another project will begin. Tomorrow, I turn 49. It will be the last year in my 40s. And I thought that to mark this close to a decade, one of the best decades of my life, I would take on a true 365-day project.

I call it The Road to 50.

I will take a selfie of myself, every day, until my 50th birthday. I will try to be original with each shot, doing something unique for each day. That, on top of the fact that I hate taking photos of myself, will be doubly challenging.

But take heart: I won't be posting the photos every day on The Brown Knowser. They will be available on Flickr.

Photo Friday: Tilted

Are you getting tired of my Bate Island Project? With 258 photos of the same view, are you looking forward to the end?

With just over seven weeks to go, it'll be over soon enough.

But you have to admit: seeing how the weather has changed, how the lighting has varied, how that bush in the foreground has nearly drowned in water, budded, filled out with leaves, coloured, and gone bare again, how birds and people have come and gone in the frames, is all rather interesting.

When I chose this subject, I picked my 50mm lens because I didn't want to zoom up on Parliament Hill and I didn't want to go wide and make the cityscape insignificant. But there are times where I wished I could capture more sky.

Because, on some days, the sky has been spectacular.

Like it was on Tuesday, at sunset. The low-hanging sun set the glass on some buildings on fire, their reflection lighting up the ice on the river. Above my frame, a few lazy, cotton-ball clouds reflected warm pink and cool purple. I wanted the sky, but my project prohibited it.

So, after my project shots, I tilted my camera upward.

Much better.

Happy Friday!

Wordless Wednesday: Winter Fog

Did I Pick the Wrong Island?

It just keeps getting weirder and weirder.

I had my suspicions about Bate Island more than a year ago, when I would stop on it to take the occasional photo—a sunset, mist steaming off the cold river on a winter's morning, kayakers in the spring rush of water—before my photo project. I saw the parked cars, the men sitting in them, seemingly doing nothing. It was none of my business, so I payed people no mind.

Until Creepy Guy^*.

That early morning guy was somewhat disturbing, but he was harmless. After our strange encounter, he mostly kept his distance, but still watched me as I took my morning photo of the Ottawa skyline. And it only took me one time to point my camera at him to never see him again.

But he wasn't the only one to approach me.

Now that we have set our clocks back an hour and the days have become increasingly shorter, I find myself on Bate Island in low light in the mornings and late afternoons. I fear, soon, that my photographs will look more and more the same, as the exposure time lengthens. And with the darkened evenings, I find more cars parked on the island under the Champlain Bridge.

A couple of weeks ago, as I was headed home, I stopped to take my photo. It was after 5:00 and the sun had long set, but that point was moot, as it was overcast and a storm was imminent. The wind had picked up and the temperature was dropping, and I knew I only had moments to take my shot before the rain would arrive.

As I navigated the laneways on the island to my usual parking spot, the closest one to the bench where I stand, I passed a grey Land Rover, parked in another lot. The engine was running and a lone passenger was outlined behind the darkened glass. At first, I gave it very little attention, as it would be nowhere near where I was headed.

With my camera set atop my tripod, I pressed my cable release and began what I planned to be a three-minute countdown, when I saw the Land Rover pull up beside my car. At the same moment, the wind increased and almost blew my tripod over. I held on tightly, knowing that some shaking would appear in the image, but my photos are what they are. I take the shot, no matter the outcome.

The photo that night.

When the rain followed, in torrents, I decided that I would only count to two minutes. With the wind, the drops weren't falling as much as they were moving sideways, and I turned my body so that I could shield the camera as much as possible from getting a soaking. As soon as I counted to 120, I picked up the tripod, with the camera still attached, and made my way as quickly as possible to the car.

The hatch at the back doubled slightly as a barrier from the rain as I disassembled my equipment. I wasn't going to put the tripod in its case nor the camera in my pack, as I wanted them to dry out, away from other equipment. In the meantime, I continued to get soaking wet: my back—jacket and jeans—were soaked through. I knew I wasn't going to be comfortable sitting down. My hair was thoroughly drenched, water dripping down my face and under my clothes.

As I closed the hatch, the man in the Land Rover rolled down his window. He had backed into the neighbouring spot, so his door faced mine. "It's a bad night," he called to me.

"Is it?" I answered, "I guess you're right."

"Why don't you come inside and warm up," he casually asked.

"Why would I want to do that?"^** I asked in return, opening my car door, sitting on the heated leather seat, and locking up the car as soon as I was safely inside. I started the car, and without so much as another glance in the man's direction, backed out and drove away.

That was the end of that encounter, but this story gets weirder.

Last Thursday, I arrived at Bate Island just after sunset. The sky was slightly overcast, but it wasn't dark. I knew that if I pushed the ISO level on the camera I could take my shot without a tripod, but I try to keep the setting at 100 ISO (sometimes, if I change the level for another shot, I forget to set it back).

As I pulled into my parking spot, I saw a woman standing close to my bench, next to one of the large trees at the water's edge. She didn't appear to be doing anything: she was only just standing there.

As I walked toward my spot, I could tell that she wouldn't be in my frame. Not that it mattered: I've taken shots with people standing in front of me before. They just don't realize they are being preserved in my project.

As I neared this woman, I saw that there were two Canada Geese standing on the shore. I saw that the woman held a bag in her hand and I realized she was feeding the birds. And then I remembered that I had seen her in the park before, also feeding the birds.

Do you remember when Creepy Guy approached me a month or so ago? When I confronted him, he made a 90-degree turn and walked to a sign, pretending to read it in the darkness? I have since looked at that sign: it is similar to other signs in the park, prohibiting people from feeding the birds.

At my bench, as I began to set up my tripod, the woman approached me. "Do you have to be here?" she asked.

"I'm sorry?" I replied.

"Can I ask what you're doing here?"

"I'm about to take a photo."

"Do you have to do it here? The reason I ask is that I was feeding the geese and your arrival has startled them."

I saw that the geese, indeed, has swum out into the river, and where holding their position some 10 feet from shore.

"You realize that you're not supposed to feed the birds?" I asked her.

"Yes, I know, but these birds cannot fly. Do you have to be here?"

"As a matter of fact," I said, "I do."

"Why?"

"Because I have a photo project and I have been taking photos from this exact spot since March. So, yes, I must be right here." I continued to set up the tripod and locked my camera in place. I changed the subject: "So, you're with a wildlife organization?"

"That's none of your business," she said, seeming as insulted as if I had asked her how old she was.

"I understand, but because you said these geese can't fly, I take it your with a wildlife authority that is qualified to take care of these birds and that you are feeding them a natural food for them?" Looking at the large Ziplock bag, all I could see was bread crumbs.

"It's none of your business what I'm up to," she repeated. She turned, walked toward the water's edge, and dumped out the contents of the bag.

"I understand that this is none of my business, but I'm now under the impression that you're acting alone, feeding these birds crumbs. If your intentions are to care for these birds, it would be best to get them professional help. But it just looks like you're only interested in feeding the birds against park regulations."

"I've had enough of you," she said, waving her arms dismissively towards me. She stormed away, toward the parking lot.

I set up my camera and took my shot. The geese returned to shore and ate whatever it was that the woman had left for them. As they fed, they regularly popped their long, black necks up, eying me at the bench, seemingly wondering if I was a threat to them.

"It's okay," I said to them in a soft voice. "I'm the least you need to worry about on this island."

^* Disclaimer: I'm not criticizing any lifestyle: I may question the particular approach to that lifestyle, approaching strangers in a public place, but I would be disturbed by anyone approaching me in such manner in the middle of a park, at that time of day, under those circumstances.
^** Disclaimer: same comment as above, but I also believe it's a bad idea to get in any stranger's vehicle at any time.

I Fell Asleep

Last night, as I was watching TV and thinking that I should be writing a blog post, I fell asleep.

By the time I awoke, shortly after 11, it was too late and I was thinking only of bed, so that's where I went.

Instead of a post today, how about this morning's Bate Island Project photo?

When an Audience is Not Okay

I like to think I'm invisible.

When I'm out on the streets, I like to think that I just blend in with the crowd, and, thankfully, most of the time, I do. I'm not saying that I have any kind of celebrity status or any kind of fame, whereby people come up to me and ask, "Are you Ross Brown? That writer and blogger, and photo guy?" Cos, believe me, I have no such illusions.

But Ottawa is a small town and I know a lot of people. It's amazing how I can find myself downtown, or in the Byward Market, or in Westboro, and I'll run into people that I haven't seen in years. Or people who I haven't seen in weeks. Or months.

But inevitably, wherever I go in this city, there's a decent chance that I'm going to run into a familiar face. Back me up, Ottawans: am I right?

And yet, there are times when I want to go about my business or get to where I'm going without stopping to say hello. Without interruption.

I'm shy, after all.

But there is one place in particular where I truly wish I were invisible: Bate Island.

For the most part, I am. I will drive onto the island and pull into the same parking space, hop out of my car with my camera in hand, walk to my spot, take my picture, and then haul out of there. I don't tend to linger, unless the lighting is particularly nice in other spots, and I take a couple more shots.

But me doing so is rare, and I almost never do it in the morning.

These days, the sun is rising later, and so I arrive on the island in the waxing glow of daylight and I have to take my shots with a tripod. If the weather is overcast, it can be dark. And, last Friday, it was so foggy that I could see very little. My Bate Island Project photo, a one-minute exposure, showed nothing but the bush at the end of the island. It was a little creepy.

If I truly were invisible, I'd have no problem. I would set up my shot, take it, and leave, totally unnoticed. But for a couple of weeks, now, I've had an audience for my morning shots.

The first time I noticed him, it wasn't until I had set my camera on my tripod and had taken a series of shots, exposures from about 30 to 50 seconds. On my last, longest exposure, I happened to look around while counting out the time, when I saw him. A man, in shadow, sitting on a nearby picnic table.

He didn't seem to be doing anything. He was just sitting there, looking in my direction. In the dim light, I couldn't make out his face. He was wearing a dark baseball cap and was wearing a striped sweater. He didn't say anything; he didn't move. He just sat there.

I finished counting to 50, packed up my equipment, and headed straight for my car. This is the photo I was taking when I noticed him: you can also see it better here, on Flickr.

That was on a Tuesday morning. I don't always arrive at the same time for my morning shots, and I only arrive really early, before sunrise, a couple of times each week. It wasn't until that Friday when I returned for another pre-dawn shot.

This time, as I walked past the picnic table, I saw that it was vacant. In fact, nothing stirred that unseasonably mild morning. I set up my equipment and started taking shots. It was another overcast sky, with only a slight clearing in the east, which shed a slight purple glow to the sky over the downtown core. Here is the shot, on Flickr:

Just as I finished snapping this shot, I heard footsteps from behind me. I turned around and, only 10 to 15 feet from me, and closing, was the guy I had seen on Tuesday. He was heading straight for me.

Startled, I unclipped my camera from the tripod, threw it onto my shoulder, and picked up the tripod, holding it diagonally in front of me, like it was a weapon. I snapped the legs together so that it looked like a heavy staff.

"Good morning," I said in a firm (and probably unfriendly) voice. I had a good look at the man. He was an older man, somewhere in his mid to late sixties, with grey hair under his ball cap and a weathered face, as though he had spent most of his years working outside. He wore a dark blue windbreaker, which was unzipped, and his round belly extended beyond the confines of the jacket.

As soon as I spoke, he made a sharp 90-degree turn to my left and headed straight for a posted plaque (I've seen the plaque hundreds of times but have never actually looked at it; no doubt, it describes the trees on the island or how the island has been used in the past). Keeping my eyes on him while I retracted the tripod legs, but ready to wield it if the need arose, I watched the man make to read the plaque, in near darkness, before wandering toward the parking lot, where his car was parked a few spaces from mine.

My equipment packed, I made my way to my own car. The man was sitting in his own, with the engine off, when I jumped in my car, locked the doors, and sped off to work.

I saw the man, who I now call Creepy Guy, on the following Tuesday, wandering around the park but keeping a safe distance from me while I took my photos. Two mornings later, his car (a deep red Toyota Corolla, maybe five or six years old, with Québec plates) was pulling into the lot as I was pulling out. And last Friday, he was sitting in his car when I pulled into the parking lot. While I was setting up my camera and tripod, he got out of his car and stood by it, just watching me from a distance.

Folks, today is the third Tuesday since I had first seen Creepy Guy. Depending on when you read this post, I am either a few hours away from taking my Bate Island Project shot or have already taken it. I don't like audiences when I'm alone in a dimly lit setting. I don't like an audience that has already tried to approach me, who didn't explain his reason for coming up to me, or has attempted any communication.

But the project will continue. If I see Creepy Guy again, I'm taking his picture. I'm getting his license-plate number. And I'm posting them.

Because if I should become invisible, I want you to know where to start looking.

Project in Peril

I'm hoping it won't come to this.

When I started my Bate Island Project, I chose the theme because I thought it would be fairly easy to maintain: stop on Bate Island every single time I drive over the Champlain Bridge, stand in the same spot with the same lens, focus on the same spot and shoot.

Morning, March 22

By choosing this project, I thought it was fairly easy to accomplish because I worked a short distance from the Champlain Bridge, which I had to cross in order to get to the office. I could make a stop on the island park twice a day, something I typically did four days out of the week.

But that has changed.

My company has moved, and although I still work in Québec, crossing the Champlain Bridge isn't always the fastest route to get to work. And, on days that I want to go downtown after work, crossing at the Champlain Bridge after work is a much longer and inconvenient way to go.

Because I go downtown at least once a week, that is two fewer photos from my spot on the island.

If I were to take the fastest way to work (which would only be the fastest on days when I go into the office before rush hour), I would bypass the Champlain Bridge, making a photo an event that would only occur a couple of times a week.

I'm hoping it won't come to this.

So far, I've opted to take the long way to work just so that I can stop and take my photo. And because I've committed to this project, I'm determined to continue making my stops.

Plus, with the sun rising much later, the morning photos are becoming interesting again. And soon, now that autumn has officially kicked in, the leaves should start to change and fall.

From my September 17 set: I actually rejected this photo; for some reason, I didn't want to use the ducks.

I've already decided what to do for my next photo project, which will be a true 365-day endeavor. I'm not saying what it is at this point, but if my Bate Island Project trickles to nothing, I may start the new project sooner.

To see the photos so far for the project, click here.

Photo Friday: Grabbing Attention

As my Bate Island Project has just passed the halfway point, I have come to realize that I have taken a lot of pictures from the same spot. But so many of them seem different, as the light and weather has changed.

You can see the all of the Bate Island Project photos on my Flickr album.

On Wednesday, as I drove to work, a thick fog was slowly burning itself off with the morning sun. Stopping along Bate Island, the view was fantastic. I took my shot, but I took another shot, from a slightly different angle, thinking that I would submit it to CBC News Ottawa climatologist, Ian Black, for consideration during his weather broadcast. Every day, Ian shows weather photos from his viewers and he has shown quite a few of mine over the years.

He showed the photo that evening.

The previous photo that I submitted to CBC News Ottawa was also put on air the day I sent it. It was a photo that I took one morning, during my family vacation, when we were canoeing from Kingston to Ottawa. Before the others had arisen, I stood by the locks at Merrickville and took this shot:

You can see our tent and canoe, a gentle mist rising from the Rideau River, and a bridge, over which several long, noisy trains roared through the night. (Merrickville is not a good spot for camping.)

Within 24 hours of showing that photo on CBC, the photo received more than 1,800 views on my Flickr album and almost 80 "favourite" ratings. To date, the photo has received more than 1,940 views.

Which makes me think: yes, it's a nice photo, but it's certainly not my best. I have other photos on Flickr that I think are much better. What is it about a photo that grabs so much attention? Is it simply timing?

Thanks to all who have viewed and "favourited" this photo, and my other photos.

Happy Friday!

In Front, Out of View

Every day, it's the same thing.

Every day, it's something new.

When I first decided to start my Bate Island Project, where I stop at the same spot on Bate Island every time I cross the Champlain Bridge, put the same lens on my camera, and point at the same view, I thought it would get old really fast, that I would become bored with taking the same picture, and that no one would want to look at them.

But I was wrong.

The subject, though the same, is ever-changing. The weather, though similar on some days, is largely different. The lighting always changes. Sometimes, if I'm lucky, objects in the foreground will change: a duck or goose will idly float on the river. A gull will fly past. Once, a person sat on the rocks at the shore, enjoying the view. She wasn't even aware of me walking up behind her, snapping the shot, and walking away.

On many mornings, this spring, the geese prefer this side of the island, seemingly want to greet the sun as it ascends over the skyline, and so I wade through the gaggle, compose and capture my shot as they waddle past, at my feet.

This morning, as I walked toward the park bench that is my marker, I couldn't help but notice something new in front of where I stand. Sometime between 5:00 yesterday afternoon and 6:30 this morning, someone had erected an inuksuk.

As I approached my spot, I hoped that the top of the stone structure would fit in the frame of my daily photo, but as I got closer I knew that wouldn't be the case or, at worst, only a tiny portion of it would be visible and it would be a distraction from the shot—noise on the edge of my picture.

It wasn't. From the angle at which I stood and the building I always align with the focus sensor, none of the inuksuk appeared in my frame.

But I wanted to capture this creation. Who knew how long it would last. (Is it bad luck to overturn one?)

Here it is:

You can see some of the bush, which is always in the foreground of my photos, to the right of the photo. That's how close this inuksuk came to being part of my Bate Island Project photo.

If you want to view a slide show of my Bate Island Project photos so far, either click the photo at the right-hand column or click here.

Photo Friday: Out of Juice

On Tuesday, I was finishing up a blog post for a friend and thinking of ideas for this week's Wordless Wednesday, when I just plain ran out of ideas.

I took a bunch of shots of my Tuesday workspace, sitting at the bar at Mill Street Brew Pub. Images of my iPad and bluetooth keypad, a pint of ale next to it. As the photos progressed the level of beer worked its way to the bottom of the glass.

I know: lame. That's why I didn't use it.

I felt uninspired, out of ideas, and out of creative juices.

That, and I hit a bit of depression. Yes, that happens from time to time. I'm not a perfect picture of happiness, but I try.

On Wednesday, I wasn't feeling any better, and so I stayed quiet, avoided social media altogether.

Ditto, Thursday.

I'm feeling better today, having pulled myself out of bed at 5:30 and onto my bike, which I rode for the first time since Saturday. And it felt great. I had an energizing ride to the office, stopping only at Bate Island to take this photo for my photo project.

Last night, I had an idea for Photo Friday, but I didn't have the energy to execute it. I'll try it over the weekend, and will aim for having it next week.

I'm hoping to use this weekend to get my head completely out of the dark fog that has consumed me these past few days, and plan to get back to my picture of happiness.