Articles tagged with: Snapshots of Ottawa
Pow Wow in Ottawa
A couple of years ago, I attended the National Aboriginal Day celebrations on Victoria Island, by Parliament Hill. I was introduced to Aboriginal’s culture and had a great day among the performers. This year, I spent most of the time watching the pow wow competition where dozens of kids, men, women and elders took turn performing traditional dances. The costumes were simply amazing! The atmosphere was great too, people were relaxed and welcoming… a photographer’s dream.
Picture of the Week: 33°C
Believe it or not, it actually gets very hot in Canada in the summer. It surprised me too when I first came here. I thought the temperature would be in the twenties degrees Celsius, at most!
Summers in Ottawa are typically hot, humid, hazy and stuffy.
Naked!
For a conservative government city, Ottawa has many little quirks. For instance, Four-Twenty aka National Pot Smoking Day is celebrated on Parliament Hill and there is a yearly Zombie Walk (where you can meet zombie hockey players and people with a bad headache). We also have interesting alternative places such as the Prince of Wales Bridge… and let’s not forget about “Maman”, the huge spider.
I’ve just added one on the list: apparently, Saturday was Naked Bike Ride Day. And by “naked”, I don’t mean without a helmet. I mean naked.
Picture of the Week: Fender Bender
In Ottawa, a sure sign of spring is the number of convertibles and fancy cars you spot on the road. It’s also hearing the police and fire sirens, and seeing the paramedics zigzagging in the traffic.
For some reason, there seem to be more car accidents during spring and summer—strange, considering the weather conditions are much better than in the winter.
Doors Open Ottawa
Last year, I visited the Supreme Court and the Paramedics Headquarter. This year, I opted for a building I always walk by but never truly paid attention to: the Government Conference Centre, which was also Ottawa’s central railway station until the 1960s. It’s located right in front of the Château Laurier, nearby the Rideau Centre and now serves as the place of many political and cultural discussions and negotiations, including the repatriation of Canada’s Constitution, G20 Conference in 2001.
Picture of the Week: Lost Something?
When you get into photography, you learn to see the world differently. The great part is that walking purposelessly around the city never gets boring. Sure, buildings mostly stay the same (unless you happen to live in Asia where huge skyscrapers pop out overnight) but people and street scenes are endlessly entertaining.
And The Tulips Bloomed!
I know, I know, it’s slightly pathetic, I’m raving about spring a month after everybody did. But this is Canada, we don’t really do spring, we go from freezing to boiling in less than a day.
May has been a very rainy month—we were starting to feel like on Noa’s Ark. I mean, this was my daily commute! But suddenly, on Rapture Day no less, the sun started shining and the thermometer went up dramatically. It was the best end of the world ever.
Tulips at Dow's Lake
See, the good side of participating in photo contests? Occasionally, you win.
That’s what happened to me a little while ago: I won the 2010 ESAI Photography Competition. Not only I was flattered, but the prize was really sweet—a $350 gift card from Henry’s, a Canadian camera store.
