Parliament Hill in the Spring

Today's photograph shows the Parliament Buildings and Supreme Court building in Ottawa, taken from one of the lookouts on the Alexandria Bridge over the Ottawa River. I love the look of trees in spring with their new leaves and flowers, and the soft evening light makes the trees on the slopes of the hill almost glow.

. . . Rob Williams
http://www.robwilliams.ca

Trillium in the woods

I have been busy over the past couple of weeks photographing some of the wildflowers in the forests, and spring tulips at Ottawa's famous Tulip Festival. While I'm working to process the backlog, I thought I would show some of the work as it gets processed. Today's photograph is a Large Flowered, or White Trillium in the woods west of Ottawa. It was taken with a 12-24mm lens (@24mm) focussed only a couple of inches away from the flower.

. . . Rob Williams
http://www.robwilliams.ca

Recent Work: An outing in the rain

Spring seems to be moving at lightspeed towards summer. New leaves are out, spring wildflowers are blooming, and just this last weekend, the first apple blossoms appeared. Even though there was rain in the forecast, I didn't want to miss anything, so I went out with my camera despite the weather. Fortunately, when I arrived on site, the rain had stopped, and I was able to take some photographs in the wet forest. This outing was much warmer than my winter outings, but it still takes an effort to get out of the house in bad weather. Persistence pays, not just in the photographs, but with a great feeling of spending time in the forest as it recovers from the winter.

. . . Rob Williams
http://www.robwilliams.ca

New Growth

It's really amazing how fast the spring plants grow once the snow has gone. The weather has been hot for spring, and the plants have sprouted with amazing speed. It seems like only a few days ago, the trees were bare, and the forest floor was nothing but crushed fallen leaves. I photographed these wild leeks this morning, as well as the trout lily below -- my first spring flower of 2008.



. . . Rob Williams
http://www.robwilliams.ca

Recent Work: The villiage of Pakenham from the five-span stone bridge

This photograph shows the village of Pakenham in eastern Ontario from an arch in a five-span masonry bridge over the Mississippi River (the Canadian version is much smaller than it's American cousin). The bridge was built in 1901, and is evidently the only stone arch bridge in North America with five masonry arches.

. . . Rob Williams
http://www.robwilliams.ca

Spring, finally.

Spring is finally here, at least for a while. The massive snow pack is melting, and the rivers are filling up. Fortunately, the snow isn't melting too fast, so the risk of flooding isn't too high around here. The photograph above is from the Hog's Back Falls which is on the Rideau River inside Ottawa's city limits (for other photographs of these falls, see http://www.robwilliams.ca/recent.htm). Ottawa is actually in the middle of a fault zone, and Hog's Back is located where a fault line crosses the Rideau River. It's a small but spectacular falls in the summer, and the volume of water in spring is amazing.

This photograph is a combination of a photograph of the water using a slow shutter speed (1/10s), with a photograph with a high shutter speed (1/500s). It combines the smooth lines of the blurred water with the sparkle of the high-speed image.


. . . Rob Williams
http://www.robwilliams.ca