The Peace Tower

One of my favorite place in Ottawa is Par­lia­ment Hill. I work nearby, which I thought was kind of cool when I first started: after all, it is the polit­i­cal cen­ter of Canada.

The Par­lia­ment itself is a beau­ti­ful build­ing. The grounds offer great view of the Ottawa River and Que­bec, right across.

But the best part is the Peace Tower, the cen­tral tower which was built to cel­e­brate the end of World War One. It’s free to take the ele­va­tor up to the top, right below the huge clock. And the view is… amazing!

Inukshuks On The Ottawa River

Remic Rapids, on the Ottawa River, is home to an orig­i­nal artis­tic project: the “art of bal­ance”, by local artist John Ceprano.

Every year, John cre­ates beau­ti­ful sculp­tures, plac­ing stones one of top of the other. They are sim­i­lar to the tra­di­tional Inuit sym­bols: the inuk­shuks. And every year, as the water rises and win­ter begins, the ice nat­u­rally dis­man­tles the art.

Building Reflections

Ottawa’s city cen­ter is basi­cally divided into the busi­ness dis­trict and the touris­tic dis­trict. And one thing I absolutely love in the for­mer is the huge build­ings with mirror-like facades.

These build­ings reflect any­thing: the sky, the clouds, other build­ings, passersby…

Ottawa Busker Festival

The 17^th Ottawa Busker Fes­ti­val took place in the same street where the Texas Style BBQ was a few weeks ago. Sparks Street was closed and hun­dreds of peo­ple gath­ered to watch acro­bats, jug­glers and entertainers.

Oh, and for once, it didn’t rain.

The per­form­ers were really good and really engaged the audi­ence, which had quickly gath­ered in the pedes­trian street. Def­i­nitely a great place for street photography!

The Experimental Farm

What a sum­mer! It has been pour­ing every day for the last two months and we are all com­plain­ing about it. Canada is all about the weather: win­ters are long and cold, so we need some nice weather dur­ing the summer.

Mean­while, I’m roam­ing in the city with my cam­era. I took a walk in the cen­tral exper­i­men­tal farm the other day, between two down­pours. The farm is cen­trally located and sur­rounded by the city of Ottawa (that’s how much space we have here!). Thanks to the rain, the crops are grow­ing fast and the col­ors were quite nice.

The Ottawa Locks

A cou­ple of months ago, I took pic­tures of the Locks At Dusk. The water was unusu­ally quiet, offer­ing great reflections.

Last week-end, Gail came to Ottawa and we both took tons of pic­tures on Par­lia­ment Hill and at the locks. This time, we arrived in the mid­dle of the actions: a bunch of boats were cross­ing from the Rideau Canal to the Ottawa River.

Happy Birthday, Canada!

This Canada Day is a bit spe­cial to me since I will become a Cana­dian cit­i­zen this Fri­day. So I walked around, from Par­lia­ment Hill to the Byward, from Rideau Street to Kind Edward, tak­ing pic­tures and enjoy­ing a small burst of patri­o­tism. Hope you don’t OD on Cana­dian flags!

Texas Style

Sum­mer is def­i­nitely here: hot and humid weather, checked. Peo­ple on hol­i­days? Checked. Canada Day and a bunch of cool fes­ti­vals com­ing up? Checked. Out­door BBQs? Checked.

North Amer­i­cans love BBQ. Well, the tra­di­tion is best hon­ored in South­ern US, but Cana­di­ans like it too. And every year, the Sparks Street BBQ con­test attracts a lot of peo­ple. Eleven teams from across Canada and the USA “com­pete” for the best ribs and the best chicken pieces. It is a lot of meat — basi­cally, a veg­e­tar­ian nightmare.