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198/365: Grand Aurora.

Well, I try to avoid posting similar photos two days in a row, but as the day went on yesterday that aurora borealis got stronger. Right up to K7 territory, so instead of going to bed at a decent hour last night I found myself at 1AM sitting beside a road near Grand Valley, Ontario … about a half hour north from home. I had to make my way up here as the northern sky has the lights of Orangeville and Bolton which is no help for spotting the northern lights from N43. These lights were powerful enough that I could see them with my naked eye. The photo above is aimed just below Ursa Major.

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197/365: Siding Aurora.

Well, midnight came and went while I was visiting Nuit Blanche North. That meant I was now onto day 197. Good thing too because we didn’t get back home until 5:15 AM and that means we slept most of the daylight hours today. Now, one of the reasons we we home so late was that after staying in Huntsville until 1:30 AM, we were aware of a potential magnetic storm producing auroras visible as far south as New York State. We were considerably farther north than usual, and had a mostly clear sky so rather than heading straight home we made our way outside the lights of Huntsville and looked for an unobstructed view of the north sky. I found it at Siding Lake, just southwest of the town where I parked the car crossed a set of (rarely used) train tracks and setup the tripod with a couple legs in the water of the lake. Since I was trying to spot auroral activity that my naked eye wasn’t finding I didn’t play around – the photo above is 30 seconds at ISO 3200. You can see bright green “clouds” just over the horizon that I believe are auroral activity. The glow off to the right is Huntsville. 

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196/365: Nuit Blanche North.

Heard about this festival on Thursday, and quickly put a plan in place to day trip here for Huntsville’s “Nuit Blanche North” festival. I always enjoy the Toronto one, and I always enjoy a trip to Huntsville so this was a win-win. The predictions of an aurora in the night sky also helped tonight. This photograph is a closeup on exhibit #12 at the festival, ‘Home Sweet Home” by Helen Kotsonis. The art here features house shaped lanterns inspired by interviews with people about what “home” means. After viewing this we enjoyed a fire show with buskers by the town docks and much more. I’ll definitely be coming back to this festival in the future. 

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195/365: Shadow of the Bridge.

Went geocaching with the BFL Crew in Hamilton. The “7.4 million dollar bridge” geocache was our target for the night. I’d seen this bridge, which connects the Red Hill Trail over the QEW, lit up at night and knew I would want the camera for this visit. This is a photo from the west side of the bridge looking east toward the lake. The inspiration from this particular photo came from Paul who set up there first. He spied the neat effect of the lights on the bridge being shadowed on the smoggy air. Naturally I was keen to see how I could explore that through the lens as well. 

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194/365: RIM is falling.

Had to try out my new Triggertrap, so I decided so try the sound trigger. Here I’ve got a lovely collection of Blackberry phones doing what they do best. Crashing. I had the Triggertrap set so it would go trip the camera based on sound increasing and then grabbed a handful of (decommissioned) Blackberrys and tossed them at the desk, where I had pre-focused the camera. I am going to have a lot of fun with this thing. 

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193/365: Queen Anne’s Bug.

Took a stroll through the Willow Creek Ecology Centre park in Norval on the way home. I may pay a few visits to this little gem. Here, I’m just playing with the live view focusing and auto-iso (which I tuned to favour faster shutter speeds – more noise but more sharp vs less noise and more blurry shots). 

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191/365: Trigger Happy.

Today’s photo is a quick one, showing one of the newest gadgets I’ve picked up. I ordered this back in February when it was just a kick-starter project. It is a TriggerTrap v1, and it’s going to be useful for some photography that needs the right timing. I can trigger the camera based on sound changes, light changes or even a laser pointer. Later I’ll be able to trigger my camera flashes using the same device but that cable is still in the mail. 

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190/365: One London Abstract.

Headed back to Sunfest in London’s Victoria Park again today, and enjoyed even more world music from the likes of Five Alarm Funk, Calypso Rose, Matuto, and more. Now, just like yesterday I probably took another 1,000 photos of musicians doing their thing on stage but I don’t want to post the same thing twice in a row. So…. here’s an abstract of One London Place as seen from the park. This is a glass tower that dominates London’s skyline, particularly from the park. It was interesting to see the different cloud patterns and changes in sunlight reflecting off the building. 

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189/365: Les Tambours de Brazza.

Visited London’s “Sunfest” world music festival at Victoria Park today. After wandering from stage to stage during the day, we settled in at the Kiwanis Memorial Bandshell for the evening performances. The last performance of the night was by Les Tambours de Brazza, which concentrates heavily on percussion drums. They have the music and dance down pat with that and it was both primal and awesome. I highly recommend watching these performers if you get the chance.