Anne of Fall Rapshody

It was the opening weekend for the Gatineau Park Fall Rapshody and the colours were in full splendor. The month of September having been very wet and gloomy with rain on 24 of the 30 days, it was a nice change to have the opportunity to capture some of the scenery and enjoy the sun.

In the loving company of my fiancé we went for a walk at the Mackenzie King estates and enjoyed the evening light adding to the radiance of the multicoloured leaves.

The Mackenzie King estates is a great wedding or event outdoor photography location in the Ottawa – Outaouais region. I enjoyed getting Anne to pose for me along the different visually pleasing benches, rock walls and arches that are scattered all along the grounds.

We really enjoyed this photo session together and it was a refreshing experience to direct Anne into the different poses with the wondrous foliage in the background.

Enjoy the gallery!
Alain Pratte

A walk in the Gatineau Park.

The forecast was rain for the whole weekend but I guess the Weatherman missed the 5 to 6 hours of variable cloudiness Saturday afternoon.  We decided to take advantage and went for a 3 hour hike in Gatineau Park to admire the fall colours and of course to capture some of those special moments.  The picture above was taken from the Pink Lake observatory, although I did not think of using a polarizing filter the blues and the particular greenish tint of Pink Lake turned out pretty nice.  If you wish to read and learn more about Pink Lake you can visit the National Capital Commission Website.

Pink Lake parking was full so we had to drive on deeper into the park to find ourselves another trail to go hiking on.

We found parking at the Lauriault Trail and decided to cross the street to check out Mulvihill lake,  where on the lake shore I spotted this frog sunbathing on some pine needles.  I start taking some pictures of the little amphibian with my 18 – 105 mm lens but I was not getting the results I wanted so I swapped to my 70 – 300mm lens and was able to compose and capture this great image.

I must have shot about about a hundred pictures during the hour we spent on the shores of Mulvihill lake, yet in post production I was only content with one image of the lake.  I had to crop some of the lower part of this landscape image to remove the sky’s reflection in the water foreground which I found to cause a distraction to the tree reflections that I intended to portrait.

After walking the Mulvihill lake trail  I suggested we head home but Anne’s son, Zak was not ready yet, he wanted to continue walking so we crossed back to the Lauriault trail and set out to try and see the falls which was about 1.5km from the parking.  When I came to the maple tree pictured above I started taking pictures from a distance trying to capture the beautiful saturation of red and orange but none of them satisfied me until I explored various angles and eventually walked up to the tree and looked up, composing my image from a single branch against the green foliage of another tree.

This picture is for the love of my life, Anne whom I convinced to take advantage of the day even though she was recovering from an awful cold.   She pointed out the mushroom on the dead log, suggesting to me that this would make for a great picture.

We never made it to the falls and had to turn around because I had my suspicion that the return hike would have it`s toll on my little four and a half year old friend, Zak.   Although we did not get to see the falls I did capture this Maple leaf semi floating in a stream.   It was a great walk with quality time spent together, enjoying the fabulous Autumn colours nature has to offer us.

Enjoy the pictures.
Alain Pratte

Autumn Colours 2009

It’s my favorite time of the year, not too warm, not too cold and the Fall colours are out.  This year is even more fun because I get to capture the moments with my DSLR.

I had the chance to capture a few pictures last weekend that show the start of the season and the trees starting their multicolour changes.  Here is a few landscape images taken in Cantley QC.

Last chance for a swim before the waters get too cold.  This image was taken during a short nature hike in the Mont-Cascades village.

As you go down into the valley of Mont-Cascades before hitting the South face ski slopes this farm land rests in a picturesque setting.

The curved line of dried cut grass caught my attention creating a pleasant composition for this image drawing the eye to focus towards the forest of changing colours.

I’ll be adding a few more pictures to my fall 2009 collection as the days get colder and the colour changes unfold.

Enjoy
Alain Pratte