21: Snow

 
Taken today up in the country.  Had over a foot of snow last night, so everything is very nice, and snow covered.  The sun is just starting to come out, so I think it would be a good time to go for a walk

I'm on a different computer with a different monitor, so I have no idea how the post processing looks.  Just some levels and curves.

20: Leacock 132

Had my camera with me at school today. This is where three of my classes are. Seating capacity is about 630 or so. On the left, there's a whole other mezzanine type section. It's quite big, and you can see part of the screens they put their presentation on.

What bugs me most about the size, is that kids think they can then do whatever they want in the back, include listen to music, talk to each other, and talk on their cell phones (I'm not kidding!).

So, there you have Leacock (the building) 132 (the room number). Not an amazing photo I realize, but school work is starting to pile up, and most of what I shot today were photo assignments for one of the school papers I shoot for. I got to take pictures of Robert Milton, former CEO of Air Canada today. I couldn't stay for the talk though. There was another photog there. Needless to say, I kept staring at his camera. Had a nice lens, too.

19: Multi Tasking

I am so lucky to have a wonderful and willing model!!

One has to love decent $6.95 Portugese wine bought in Ontario!

18: Icy City

First, trying a bigger picture for Chuck who noticed my pictures were getting really small. Hopefully this will be a bit better. Thanks for pointing this out!

Today's weather report said about 5 degree Celsius with rain. I thought, cool! Melt and get rid of some of the snow and ice on the ground. Good stuff. NOT!!

Freezing rain was the recipe for today, turning the city into solid ice. Pouring freezing rain, and a woman and I at the bus stop couldn't even get into the bus shelter because a little hill of ice was so slippery, we couldn't get over it and into the shelter.

An intersection on a hill at my university was so bad, pedestrians were literally stranded until the fire department came and set up a makeshift rail so they could cross the street. It made the evening news!

To top it all off, during my biology lab, there was a fire alarm. Tons of students, in lab coats, with no umbrellas and regular coats, slipping and sliding around trying to figure out what the heck is going on and where we're suppose to go. I managed to find solace in another building, but it took a while to get there because of the ice.

All in all, ridiculous day, and to people who say global warming and irregular weather patterns are not influenced by global warming, I say you should phooey on you.

I missed the infamous ice storm in the early part of 1998, but with only one day of freezing rain, I can't even imagine what it was like with almost a week of this stuff.

All this to say, I wanted a picture of today, and this was the best I could do. Long exposure from my porch, and I know there is that lovely branch in the picture, but I'm to lazy to clone it out. You can't really tell, but the sidewalk is solid ice, and most of the street is not pleasent either, except for where the tires travel. A car also passed through during the exposure, giving me those light streams on the street. So, that what the day was like in a nutshell.

17: Redpath and Arts Buildings

Don't laugh. After doing Neil's advanced editing contest, and following various threads on gradients, I decided to try my hand at putting a gradient in the sky. As you can see, I was only semi successful. There is some funny stuff around the clouds.

I used magic wand to select out most of the sky. Made a new layer via copy. Keeping the selection, I switched to feathering at 30 pixels, then used grandient tool on the selection with a colour I picked. I think I set opacity at 30 or so.

Well, there you go. Not great, not ridiculously terrible either.

Feel free to tell me an easier/better way to do it.

Oh yes, and this is McGill University, again. DrNick's, my boyfriend's, and William Shatner's alma mater. One day it will be mine as well. Unless I flunk all my courses, which is why I will go back to studying now. The Redpath building is on the left with the red banner, and the building with the smoke is the Arts building. And the white stuff is snow, for those warm weather folks who may have forgotten ;-)

16: Graffiti

Graffiti on a service door in a Montreal metro system.

I'm for tagging as an art form. I've seen some amazing murals done by graffiti artists in various cities in various places. Some of it is legal, some isn't. This, however, I find annoying. It serves no purpose (in my mind), and just makes more work for the maintenance crew.

I feel todays youth does need to speak out and make their mark, but in a meaningful way, and not through some random, meaningless tagging.

15: Taking a Chance

Well, today was one FRIGGIN cold day!!  It had gotten really warm on Thursday and Friday (10 degrees Celsius) and then got really cold by Saturday evening.  My boyfriend, being the adventerous person he is, went out on the frozen parts of the river.  The river was thick enough where he was, but it did crack a little bit on his way back to the bank.

It was -15 or so, but with the windchill, it was very cold.

We did get to break in our new snow shoes a bit, though, which was fun.  And it was sunny!