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Articles in Snapshots

Sunset on Mackenzie King Bridge

October 15, 2011 – 8:05 am | 20 Comments

Last Sat­ur­day, sun­set came to me. After a drink in the Byward, I was cross­ing Macken­zie King Bridge to go for sushi in Chi­na­town when I noticed the tall build­ings in the down­town core were set against light pink hues. I started shoot­ing (the friend I was with was patient!) and a few min­utes later, when I turned around, the Parliament’s dark sil­hou­ette stood out against the orange and yel­low background.

Fall Colours at the Park

October 12, 2011 – 8:00 am | 26 Comments

This Thanks­giv­ing week­end was amaz­ingly hot, with tem­per­a­tures in the mid-20°C. Our street was just empty: I bet a lot of peo­ple went to the cot­tage or to Ottawa golf club! It’s hard to believe …

Watson's Mill

October 3, 2011 – 8:15 am | 10 Comments

When I first came to Canada, I used to laugh at what locals con­sid­ered “his­toric”. These stores boast­ing to have been in busi­ness for a mere twenty years and these “old” build­ings dat­ing back to the 1950s didn’t exactly impress me. The apart­ment I grew up in in France was at least a cen­tury older!
This is not to say that there aren’t inter­est­ing pieces of his­tory in the region—Watson’s Mill is one exam­ple, and it’s actu­ally pretty old, dat­ing back to 1860.

Night Owls

September 28, 2011 – 8:10 am | 33 Comments

Dur­ing sum­mer, days are long and sun­set is late, so I’m rarely down­town Ottawa after night falls. But as days are becom­ing shorter, I decided to go hunt for night shots while the weather is still nice.
Last Sat­ur­day was one of these days. It was in the mid-twenties and I left home around 7 p.m. to roam the down­town core with my cam­era. Half of the city had the same idea—by Sep­tem­ber, we are all clutch­ing at the last bits of summer.

Entertainment Week — WWE and Pearl Jam

September 21, 2011 – 8:05 am | 13 Comments

Last week was enter­tain­ment week for us: we had tick­ets for two shows in Ottawa, Mon­day Night RAW and Pearl Jam.
When I first saw wrestling on TV in Canada, I dis­missed it right away: “it looks fake and I bet it’s fixed!” I was later informed that indeed, the fight fol­lowed a spe­cific “chore­og­ra­phy” and that the out­come was deter­mined in advance. This is not the point of WWE any­way. It has to be watched as the­ater: char­ac­ters chal­lenge each other, adopt gim­micks and por­tray roles.

Summer is Over

September 19, 2011 – 8:20 am | 18 Comments

Stand­ing on the lakeshore, wind blow­ing in my hair and pro­duc­ing white­caps on the lake, the hori­zon just a flat line in the dis­tance, I felt like I was at the sea­side. Only the heady iodine smell of sea­weeds was missing.

Barrie and Balm Beach

September 14, 2011 – 8:10 am | 24 Comments

Balm Beach, the first beach we stopped at, seemed to be stuck some­where in the 1980s with a few old-fashioned beach toys stores along the sand. Feng and I bought an ice-cream and a drink and the total came to $1.75—not quite Toronto prices! On the beach, peo­ple played volley-ball or were read­ing and not a sin­gle per­son had a cell phone in hand. Cana­dian take the out­doors seri­ously and most cars in the park­ing lot either had a canoe strapped to the roof or a boat in tow.

Toronto, Here We Are Again

September 12, 2011 – 8:05 am | 24 Comments

Labour Day in North Amer­ica always takes me by sur­prise, mostly because it is months after the rest of the world cel­e­brates Inter­na­tional Work­ers’ Day on May 1st. But in a coun­try where hol­i­days are given spar­ingly, a three-day long week­end always calls for a short trip.