Montreal In Pictures

October 12 2012

It wasn’t really the best weather to go and shoot HDR landscape given the wind was gusting quite strongly, but I ended up making the relatively short trip up to Jarry Park. It’s been a while since I visited Jarry Park. This was where a group of us used to fly traction kites in the summer and kite ski during the winter…not the best location given the roads, trees and other man-made obstacles, but was close and allowed us to get our adrenalin rush when time didn’t allow us to get out to more open spaces. Seems like I still only visit Jarry Park on windy days 😉 and quite a few fun memories came flooding back on my visit today.

On the south side of the park is a small lake with a fountain and some nice landscaping of trees and shrubs.

Long exposure with Pseudo Infrared processing
ISO 100 – 18mm – f22 – 47 secs

Due to the strong wind, not only the sky and water got blurred, but so did the trees. For the above image I therefore had to merge using layers in Photoshop Elements with a standard exposure I shot.

While I was shooting a regular exposure of the above to merge with the long exposure, I decided to bracket the shots to produce an HDR version.

Jarry Park Lake
ISO 100 – 18mm – f22 – 1/125 sec (-2ev/0/+2ev)

The lake attracts quite a crowd of birds…

Jarry Park Lake
ISO 100 – 34mm – f8 – 1/125 sec (-2ev/0/+2ev)

Jarry Park Lake
ISO 100 – 32mm – f11 – 1/45 sec (-2ev/0/+2ev)

Jarry Park Lake
ISO 100 – 42mm – f11 – 1/30 sec (-2ev/0/+2ev)

Jarry Park Lake
ISO 100 – 40mm – f9.5 – 1/45 sec (-2ev/0/+2ev)

Fountain at Jarry Park Lake
ISO 100 – 18mm – f9.5 – 1/30 sec (-2ev/0/+2ev)

As I mentioned earlier the landscaping really adds to the tranquility of the park lake.

Landscaping at Jarry Park Lake
ISO 100 – 62mm – f9.5 – 1/30 sec (-2ev/0/+2ev)

Landscaping at Jarry Park Lake
ISO 100 – 18mm – f8 – 1/90 sec (-2ev/0/+2ev)

Jarry Park was best known in the past as being the home of the Montreal Expos baseball team. The park was selected as a temporary home from 1969-1972, after which they were to move to a covered stadium – which was to be the Olympic Stadium. Due to delays in construction of the Big O, games continued to be played at Jarry Park until the 1977 season.

The Expos sadly were purchased and the franchise moved to Washington and were renamed the Washington Nationals. I’m glad I at least got to watch them play once since moving to Montreal – I believe they lost to Philadelphia 🙁

The park is now known for tennis being the location of the Uniprix stadium where the Canadian Masters (Rogers Cup) tournament is played every 2 years (alternate years being played in Toronto). The Canadian Masters is the oldest ongoing tennis tournament after Wimbledon and the US Open.