Montreal In Pictures

Seems like quite a few people had today off work given the almost ghost like streets of downtown Montréal at 9am this morning. I hadn’t taken many (if any photo’s) during last week and with my weekly project 52 deadline today I had to brave the rain and go grab some shots.

In addition, I had a deadline to post a picture over on the Spacing Montreal blog today. I was contacted by them last week to see if I would be interested in becoming one of their volunteer contributors and post a picture a day. I won’t be taking a photo each day like I did last year but hope to be able to at least manage to post an image over there every day. They have some interesting articles on Montreal (as well as other Canadian cities), so be sure to go check it out!

With the rain starting to come down quite heavily, I made a quick tour of a few city blocks and with it being dull and overcast decided to shoot some HDR to enable some detail in the clouds to come out.

Corner rue Ste Catherine and Drummond
ISO 100 – 10mm – f4.5 – 1/45 sec (-2ev/0/+2ev)

Rue Sainte Catherine
ISO 100 – 10mm – f4.5 – 1/40 sec (-2ev/0/+2ev)

Rue Sainte Catherine
ISO 100 – 11mm – f4.5 – 1/40 sec (-2ev/0/+2ev)

Tristan store on rue Sainte Catherine
ISO 100 – 14mm – f4.8 – 1/20 sec (-2ev/0/+2ev)

Willis Piano ghost sign on rue ste Catherine
ISO 100 – 18mm – f5.6 – 1/30 sec (-2ev/0/+2ev)

I’ve actually taken a shot from about the same location as the one below before, but it never hurts to have a few additional shots at hand, plus I love the Mad Hatter sign and the juxtaposition of the old buildings on Crescent street against the backdrop of modern glass skyscrapers .

rue Crescent
ISO 100 – 10mm – f4.5 – 1/30 sec

rue Crescent
ISO 100 – 10mm – f4.5 – 1/30 sec (-2ev/0/+2ev)

I’ve been meaning to go and take some pictures of Crescent street and rue de la Montagne for a while since there is a plan by Holt Renfrew to extent the Ogilvy store that the company purchased in 2011 and transform the Hotel de la Montagne into a new hotel and condo units. The plan also led to the purchase of Thursday’s pub (a popular drinking hole on the street for many years) and a few other establishments on Crescent street, so I imagine this area will look quite different in a few years. I did come across some artist impressions of what the changes may look like on Retail Insider.

Thursday’s (now closed) on rue Crescent
ISO 100 – 10mm – f4.5 – 1/60 sec (-2ev/0/+2ev)

Hotel de la Montagne on Mountain street
ISO 100 – 10mm – f4.5 – 1/40 sec (-2ev/0/+2ev)

Side of Ogilvy store on Mountain street
ISO 100 – 11mm – f4.5 – 1/25 sec (-2ev/0/+2ev)

Place du Canada and Cathedrale Marie-Reine du Monde
ISO 100 – 10mm – f4.5 – 1/60 sec (-2ev/0/+2ev)

Since I ended up wandering down boulevard René-Lévesque I stopped and took a few shots of the beautiful Sun Life building.

Sun Life Building
ISO 100 – 10mm – f4.5 – 1/30 sec (-2ev/0/+2ev)

Sun Life building on blvd René-Lévesque
ISO 100 – 18mm – f5.3 – 1/25 sec (-2ev/0/+2ev)

Sun Life building on blvd René-Lévesque
ISO 100 – 10mm – f4.5 – 1/40 sec (-2ev/0/+2ev)

Blvd René-Lévesque
ISO 100 – 70mm – f4.5 – 1/60 sec (-2ev/0/+2ev)

Place Ville Marie from blvd René-Lévesque
ISO 100 – 70mm – f4.5 – 1/200 sec

Place Ville Marie from blvd René-Lévesque
ISO 100 – 70mm – f4.5 – 1/50 sec (-2ev/0/+2ev)

The final shot was taken on Union avenue next to La Baie department store. Now that the crane has been removed, we get a better view of the almost complete Altitude condo building which is one of the latest additions to the Montréal skyline.

Avenue Union
ISO 100 – 18mm – f4.5 – 1/125 sec (-2ev/0/+2ev)

To view images in gallery format, simply click on one of the images below.