8 Love Locks' Flat

Both the Ottawa Citizen and the Centretown Buzz did stories about the love locks on the Corktown Footbridge in advance of Valentine's Day. Come to think of it, so did I.

What I didn't post was this photo from the same day, showing a chain of "love locks" (I suspect this set is just regular locks...), with the canal-side pavilion "8 Locks' Flat" in the background:

I have a lot of photos of the canal and of the footbridge, as you can imagine considering the Pedbridge blog I used to document the bridge's construction in great detail, and considering I was on the naming committee for the bridge!

[Look for more one-photo posts under the label Singles]

Six Sixty Three

This house on Gilmour Street is number 663, or as the number plate on the house says, "Six Sixty Three". Back in December, it was all decked out in festive paraphernalia:

At nighttime, it was quite the spectacle. There were only two or three houses in all of Centretown that approached this level of illumination:

Just for fun, here's an animated GIF of the two images (it took a bit of wrestling to get them to mostly line up):

When filing the above photos yesterday, I discovered that 663 MacLaren, just a block to the north, is also rather distinctive in its own way:

I've been very busy lately, and blogging fell by the wayside. Having heard no complaints, I've been in no hurry to get back into the habit.

Merry Christmas

Most of the construction sites downtown (or at least the ones near Elgin) have installed decorative lights on their tower cranes. The first to do so was Morguard at the 150 Elgin office tower behind the former Friday's roast beef house:

On top of the building is a mock Christmas tree in lights. They also had a hallowe'en themed banner on their building back in October. Some festive folks there!

[Look for more one-photo posts under the label Singles]

Happy Canada Day!

Happy Canada Day, everyone! Don't forget to check out the fireworks; there are plenty of great places to see them from.

One year I was in front of the Confederation building on Canada Day during the fireworks. (It wasn't a great place to see the fireworks from).

I'll be off working at CfSC's Bike Park during the upcoming Bluesfest, which will take up all of my time for the next two weeks or so. So apologies in advance if my blogging falls behind.

[Look for more one-photo posts under the label Singles]

Rink of Dreams

As has been widely reported, the Rink of Dreams is now open on the Laurier side of Ottawa City Hall, on Marion Dewar Plaza. It's refrigerated, so it will still be open this weekend even if weather forces the canal to close. It's also free to use.

Mayor Watson is hosting a Family Day skating party this coming Monday from 11am to 2pm, with free hot chocolate. Details available on Jim Watson's website

[Look for more one-photo posts under the label Singles]

Lansdowne Christmas Market

The Ottawa Farmer's Market is having its final Christmas Market in the Aberdeen Pavillion today, from 9am to 3pm. I went to the previous one two weeks ago, and was surprised by the number of vendors:

I was told that many farmers couldn't make it because the December market dates were scheduled after they had planned their planting seasons. Nevertheless, there were nearly 100 vendors last time!

In related news, the Glebe's roadwork is finished for the season, and Kettleman's, the infamous Glebe bagel shop kitty-corner from Lansdowne Park, is back open after closing for renovations a few weeks ago. Be forewarned, though: walk, bike, or maybe bus there. The traffic on Bank Street (and, for that matter, inside Kettleman's) is quite heavy! Nevertheless, support local farmers, artisans, and businesses by making a quick trip to the nearest farmer's market to Centretown, and the last one at Lansdowne this year.

As always, admission is free to the Lansdowne Market, but parking is in effect. They will exchange your parking chit for a $5 voucher at the info table if you do manage to drive there.

[Look for more one-photo posts under the label Singles]

Monument to Canadian Fallen in Korean War

It's quite easy to walk all around Centretown and not pass by this monument on the Mackenzie-King Bridge to Canada's fallen in the Korea between 1950 and 1957. On the front of the statue is written "We will never forget you brave sons of Canada," and inscribed around it are the names of the 516 Canadians who died in that conflict.

The monument was opened in September 2003 by then-Prime Minister Jean Chrétien and Korean ambassador Chang Hi-Ko. It was designed by Vincent R. Courtenay, a Canadian Korean War veteran, and sculpted by Yoo Young Mun.

In front of the monument is a plaque describing the significance of the imagery (click to view full size). The children are carrying maple leaves (symbolizing Canada) and roses of Sharon, the national flower of Korea.

The edges of the plaque and the monument are connected by two rows of pavers that meet at a point. According to the plaque, the resulting angle points in the direction of Busan, South Korea, where an identical monument sits at the site of a United Nations memorial cemetary that contains the graves of 378 Canadians.

The names wrap around to the back of the monument, where additional relief repeats the English moto banded around the front, and an inscription on the stone indicates that the Korean Granite plinth was provided by the Government of the Republic of Korea.

Ottawa City Hall: my new haunt

[Edit: I left City Hall in October, 2015, after four years working in the Somerset Ward office for Diane Holmes (2011-2014) and Catherine McKenney (2014-2015)]

Mayor Watson decorated City Hall's heritage building (which is the part of City Hall that houses his office) for Hallowe'en, and it looked great! It appears that I only have one previous Hallowe'en-themed post, which also included a photo of City Hall, back from the first year of this blog.

Sorry for the gap in posts; I've been busy at a conference, and getting settled in to my new job. In case you hadn't heard the news (or the Buzz), I stepped down last month as president of the Centretown Citizens Community Association to take a job in the office of Councillor Diane Holmes.

Two weeks ago I was busy at a conference and didn't have time to prepare any blog posts for last week, which was my first week at the new one. A complicating factor is that I'll be part-time at both, and the transition is a bit time-consuming.

Nevertheless, I already enjoy being back on Elgin Street, after my office moved away last year. Commuting to City Hall will give me a chance to cross the neighbourhood a few times a week to keep an eye on things, and keep my camera on them too. Similarly, commuting to my West office will have me crossing Bronson Avenue a couple of times a week and keeping an eye on Chinatown, Little Italy, and the rest of the former Dalhousie ward.

It's a lot to handle, but keeping all those balls in the air is a challenge I'll enjoy.

Happy Hallowe'en!

[Look for more one-photo posts under the label Singles]

Top of the Rideau '77

While visiting family overseas at the end of August*, I digitally scanned the photo albums so I could have a copy. Since my grandparents had been stationed in Ottawa in the mid 1970s, some prominent Ottawa landmarks made their way into the background of some of the photos.

This small set of photos depicts a boat parade on the Rideau Canal in May of 1977, presumably for the tulip festival. The photos were taken from alongside the Rideau Canal by the NAC, looking across the canal to the east side. Here, for example, is Union Station (now the Government Conference Centre):

A less prominent building was also photographed that day: Canada Post's Ottawa Station A (Station B is at Sparks & Elgin), located on a part of Besserer Street that's now buried under the Rideau Centre:

My first HDR!

Okay, the short version is that I'd expected to spend much of the weekend preparing a supply of posts for the coming weeks, but instead got caught up with other things.

However, I did get a couple nighttime shots of the stained glass windows backlit at the Peace Tower Church on Bronson and MacLaren (formerly Erskine Presbyterian). As I normally do with nighttime shots, I took a few different exposures (since the camera's LCD screen doesn't reliably tell you if it came out right). But this time, I did something different from my previous nighttime posts...

This time I compiled a couple shots into an HDR (high dynamic range) photo! While I understand the concept—that you combine the dim parts of bright photos and the bright parts of dim photos to get a photo that isn't too over- or under-exposed—I thought you had to have a fancy camera.

Then a couple weeks ago Justin Van Leeuwen posted an awesomely vivid HDR shot of Bonkers Sports Bar in Hintonburg. The key is that he says in the description he did it with his point-and-shoot. So tonight as I was looking through the various exposures of this photo, I figured I'd try it out. Googling brought up this instructable on composing HDR photos with the GIMP. As a result, I don't have to choose between the shot where the stone is too dark or the one where the windows are overexposed. Now I wish I hadn't deleted the extra nighttime exposures from the canal this year!

While I prefer a minimalist approach to postprocessing (most photos I don't do anything to before posting them), only making adjustments to make things look more like they do with the eye, others like Chinatown's Robin Kelsey like to play around to show things in a way the eye can't, making frequent use of HDR, various light filters, and lately his fisheye lens.

As for why the single post instead of the promised longer one, I ended up taking about 400 photos this long weekend. Mostly of things around town--including many parts of Centretown not yet in my photo collection--and of the new Longfields station out in Barrhaven on my way back this afternoon from a family Easter brunch. I would have taken even more if I'd gotten to the Ottawa Congress Centre open house on Saturday, though it was pretty rainy most of the day anyway.

In essence, I spent most of the weekend taking photos and a bit of time sorting them, when I had planned to spend a lot of time assembling my sorted photos into posts to ensure a good supply for the coming weeks. As much as I'd like to do that today, the weather forecast is too good to be spending Easter Monday indoors! Out with the camera!

[Look for more one-photo posts under the label Singles]

The ice people drinketh

Many Centretown businesses take part in the annual Winterlude celebrations, which take place on the first three weekends of February. Many participating hotels will have an official "Winterlude" ice sculpture outside their front entrance. Other businesses, like the Sir John A pub on Elgin Street near MacLaren, host ice scupltures, like this one of two skaters enjoying a drink:

Of course, the biggest Winterlude attraction is the 7.8-kilometre long Rideau Canal Skateway, the world's largest skating rink. Unfortunately, both the canal and this sculpture have suffered from this week's midwinter thaw. In their stead, why not check out my many previously-posted photos of the canal, under the label "Canal".

[Look for more one-photo posts under the label Singles]

Images of Centretown Greeting Cards?

I'm not the type to send Christmas cards to everybody I know, but the last couple of years I've given out a few handmade cards with photo prints of winter scenes from the Rideau Canal to family and close acquaintances. Here's the set I'm giving out this year, from photos I took last winter (many of them are visible in posts with the label Canal), with customized greetings inside.

I'm thinking of producing them in larger quantities and offer the sets for sale to Images of Centretown readers next year, if there is enough interest (with a portion of the proceeds going to the community association). Leave a comment or drop me a line at centretown.ottawa@gmail.com if you would be interested in this for 2011.

[Look for more one-photo posts under the label Singles]

Happy Holidays

I've got a lot of good series that I'll be working on over the holidays. Look for them to come out in the new year. In the meantime, I'll be enjoying a break from a hectic month of community association meetings.

Here's a photo of workers adding the crowning star to the Christmas tree at 150 Slater, which is nearing completion. See the live webcam for the site here

I previously posted a series on the demolition of the former buildings there and the excavation of the site. You can see those and other posts on the site at the 150 Slater label.

[Look for more one-photo posts under the label Singles]

A bit higher

160 Elgin, a.k.a. Place Bell, renovated their entrance earlier this decade, to be a bit more inviting to pedestrians.

Earlier this month, they were adding some decorations for the holidays. Unfortunately, the giant wreathlike "160" is obscured by the flaring lower canopy.

[Look for more one-photo posts under the label Singles]

Halowe'en in Centretown

I've got a bunch of Hallowe'en-related photos that I'd like to share. At Lansdowne park a while ago, there was a Wacky Waving Inflatable Arm-Flailing Tube Man ghost, which made me laugh:


Centretown is great for Hallowe'en, with all its old buildings. We've got dark character-filled alleyways:


We've got old Victorian houses with full moons hiding behind them:


We've got a haunted, 150-year-old high school:

And a spooky, castle-like museum (repost):

Heck, they even installed lights recently under Pretoria Bridge for those who are afraid of the dark!

One household on Florence has done a great job decorating their yard for Hallowe'en. Here's a day shot, so you can see what's going on (as always, click a photo to view full size). The inflated ghost has a clear stomach with little bats flying around a black cat. Very cute!


Here's the same display at night:

And as if City Hall didn't scare you already, the windows on the Elgin Street side of City Hall's Heritage Building were all populated with jack-o-lanterns, seen through the gates surrounding the Human Rights memorial which is being renovated:

I'll be out around Centretown and haunting the Glebe tonight.

Have a Happy and fun Hallowe'en!