Autumn in Montreal

The cool beauty of November

A Bit Rusty

One of the facets of Social Media that both annoys and delights me is finding people of a 'like' mind. It's annoying in the sense that you tend to gravitate towards people who share your opinion and thus compel you to harden your own opinion and denigrate the other side but it's also delightful when you run across a group that shares an approach to photography. I'm very pleased to run across a group on Facebook devoted to Rust-Art. 

I love the images that swirl out of a rusty old pipe, wall or door. Sometimes the rust is the whole image, other times it gives the accents to a composition.

Here's  a few images I've put on this remarkable page.

 

Another Hijacking - Will It Ever End?

I'm quite the hacker and hijacker!  Who knew this would be so easy?  I guess since I'm the ONLY ONE using this blog so far THIS YEAR, I can get away with it.

Below are a few photos taken in Griffintown which is one of my favorite spots in Montréal.  I only wish more of it still remained.

I'll take the credit for the photos....well no, I guess I can't.  Joe's name is on the blog and anyway, what kind of hacker signs her name?  Oops.....caught in the act.....

Jeesh!!... you leave a blog alone for  two years and someone  just marches right in and steals it! These were some photos I took in the Fall of 2012  a few months after the transformation had begun. I'm heading back next month to see what it looks like now.

Stolen Blog

I just HAVE to see some of Joe's latest photos on his blog so I've highjacked it.  Don't tell.......

Isn't this a beauty?  I just love it. 

Shhhh.

Life, Laughter and Paris

Paris in November

We generally go to Paris in the autumn.  I took these pictures in November 2007- a spectacular sunset over Place de la Concorde, so spectacular that even Parisians getting off the Metro stopped and stared.

But this year we're waiting until spring. I'd like to go in March to  see Tindersticks who'll be kicking off their European tour in Paris early that month. Tindersticks is a remarkable blend of melancholy, humour, beautiful orchestration  punctuated by Stuart Staples' wonderful baritone.

Related articles

• New Tindersticks Album, Tour in 2012 (obscuresound.com)

In An Abstract Mood

Remembrance Day

It's been a year since my last blog but I'm determined to do at the very least, a weekly posting from here on.

Remembrance Day is very much in my thoughts this morning. I'd missed the ceremony the past few years. This marked my first visit to the McGill University location. The bigger site attracted far more people than in the past at the cenotaph at Place du Canada. While it was heartening to see the large crowd, a mix of young and old, honour our veterans of  far too many conflicts, there's always of course a tinge of sadness to Remembrance Day. Let's hope we'll always feel that sense of sadness and regret, and always remember them.

Between City and Country

I'm an unabashed urbanite and I like my cities big! My wife Susan and I have been to Paris at least fifteen times with trips to New York mixed in every couple of years.

We haven't been to Paris for nine months and I'm feeling pangs of withdrawal but I do make occasional day trips (or longer) with camera in tow to some great choice locales in Quebec and Ontario trying to capture the landscape. A day or two in the country can recharge one's batteries and gives a photographer a chance to challenge himself to find something new in shooting a stream or pond he may have visited a hundred times before.

Chris Whitley (1960-2005) was a musician who also moved easily between urban and country. His discography includes solo guitar, full rock bands, jazz trios and sets with experimental German avant gardists. He'd cover songs by Lou Reed, Dylan, Muddy Waters, The Ramones, Kraftwerk and Eden Ahbez (Nature Boy) and everyone in between. We were fortunate to see him perform several times.

The sidebar video is Whitley's Living With the Law. Check out also the video for O God My Heart is ready.

Paris On My Mind

Perhaps it's because I saw a couple of interesting art exhibits today or maybe it was a passing scene or odor in the air but for whatever reason I can't get Paris out of my mind right now. We always go every Autumn but pressures of work may compel us to skip a year.

From the Artist's Book, Paris Eclectique, Joe Donohue 2005 -

I see a little girl running in the park

I can hear the music playing in the background,

feel the wind on my face and taste the rain.

I can see the light in the church apse,

smell the street on a sunny day.

I can sense the echoes of past conflicts

and in my mind's eye the history unfolds

and becomes real.

Paris is art and music,

long walks along the Seine

Shadows of the Marais and the glow

of the Champs Elysees.

I gaze upon the never ending spectacle

knowing

the memories will never fade.

Day in Val David

Last Saturday, I spent a wonderful day in Val David, just 75 kilometers north of Montreal. I went specifically to visit one show - Val David, being a world recognized ceramics center, was holding its 40^th anniversary exhibition of ceramics from local and regional artisans. It's a beautiful and varied show, well worth the visit and judging by the size of crowd, extremely popular. But for me the real treat was seeing an exhibition of art in situ set in the mountain just north of Val David.

The exhibition, Les Jardins Du Precambrien, sponsored by the Fondation René Derouin, consists of large environmental pieces spread over a 3.2 kilometre trail. Unlike Mark Twain's dictum of golf being a good walk spoiled, this is a good walk enriched, with thoughtful pieces along the trail evoking impressions of time, memory, voyages, origins and thought itself. Often an exhibition of this type gets bogged down by its own polemical stance but I didn't get that sensation here, perhaps because René Derouin, one of Quebec's greatest artists, is the Artistic Director and knows how to maintain a balance between art and politics.

This is Les Jardins Du Precambrien's 15^th year. The exhibition continues until October 11. If you're planning a trip to the Laurentians before then, fit this in your schedule.

At the risk of sounding too arty farty this time out I got to tell you I'm reading Michael Gross's Rogues Gallery, “The secret story of the lust, lies, greed and betrayals that made New York's Metropolitan Museum of Fine Art”. If you think the pursuit of Art is always a fine and noble deed, read this book.

http://jardinsduprecambrien.com/accueil.php

http://www.artcyclopedia.com/artists/derouin_rene.html

http://www.1001pots.com/

L'Institut

Shopkeeper, rue de Seine, Paris

Blog Blog Blog

Look at me I'm blogging. Can you believe it?  I can't!  Anyway, I'd like to share with you the occasional photograph, music bit or what-have-you.  Take a look.

Today I visited my good friend, Al Carpini, at his horse ranch, la Bella Vita in St Lazare. In the past couple of months Al has kindly opened the ranch up to visitors from Equitas, the human rights organization based in Montreal and has entertained kids visiting from Montreal's inner city.   It's a beautiful expansive property.  The horses are very friendly and extremely cooperative to a visiting photographer.   In the photo above, Olive positioned herself where she believed she'd provide the proper balance to the trees on the right.

Le Vieux Port

Le Vieux Port, Montreal