Night Photography in Port Arthur - Canon EOS R

I have been wanting to get out at night to take some street photos for quite some time. Finally, I got the chance to do so, and it was with my wife Anne, which made it 10x better. With rain forecast for later in the evening we headed to downtown Port Arthur and started our walk. The camera and lens I brought with me was my awesome Canon EOS R paired with the 35mm F2. I contemplated bringing the 50mm 1.2 but opted for the stabilized 35mm. I think it ended up being a good choice.

It was great having Anne come along with me, obviously because I love the company. But also, because I had a model! I didn’t know how many keepers I would come away with but it ended up being a fairly successful 45 minute adventure. By far, my favourite photo of the the walk was in the parkade. On one level, there were no cars and extremely dramatic lighting. I got Anne to look up and exposed for the light and I knew it was going to be epic even before reviewing the image.

We eventually left the parkade and continued walking around the downtown area. The EOS R performed great and I’m glad I brought the 35mm lens. I use the 50 the most and it was good switching it up a bit.

Once we were done our walk we headed to the local grocery store to get a few things. I, of course, documented that as well. Surprisingly, I came away with some good shots there too. Then again, I have shot a lot of photos of Anne in grocery stores over the years so ….

I’m already looking forward to our next walk at night. I think we might venture down to Fort William.

Downtown - Exploring the Parkade

I'm always looking for different places to photograph in often the same place, if that makes sense. For instance, I headed to downtown Port Arthur with my camera in hand and decided to try and explore somewhere completely different. As soon as I got out of the car, I turned around and noticed the parkade. Done. I had never actually been in the parkade before so I was interested to see what I could find. 

Of course, once I entered, I headed straight to the top floor. There were absolutely no cars and it was mostly snow covered. It didn't strike me as the busiest parkade, at least on the top couple floors. The view of the city from the top was ok, not the greatest though. If it were a couple floors higher I could have really gotten some great cityscape photos. With that being said, I think they are building a parkade right next to the hospital and perhaps it will eventually be higher. Time will tell! 

So, after walking around the top a bit I started to make my way down, making sure to check out the view on each floor. There was a light snow that day so it actually provided some interesting photos with the snowflakes. As I mentioned before, it was a very empty parkade so I took advantage of that with some of the photos. One with a woman walking and a few other shots with cars and just overall emptiness. 

It was almost time to head home, but before I did I made sure to actually walking around the downtown for a few minutes to see what I could come up with. My camera of choice was my Fuji X-T1 and the 35mm 1.4, for those of you who are interested, assuming anyone actually reads these blog posts...

Friday Afternoon in Downtown FW

Since I have walked around downtown Fort William quite bit, I figured I would try to venture to different areas this time around. Aside from going down different streets, one of the things I sought out to do was head on over to the parkade.Once I got there, I found an entrance that actually had access and I was off to the races. 

Upon entering, I headed to the 3rd floor. I figured I would make my way up to the top eventually, but first, I had to get a feel for the parkade. I can’t remember the last time I was ever actually in there but it was pretty much what expected. I wanted to make sure there weren’t any security guards walking around as I know in the past, if they see someone walking around with a camera, it piques their interest. 

The coast was clear so I walked all around looking at the views and also any things that caught my eye in and around the parkade. There is a certain calming effect I get when walking around alone taking photos. With that being said, I do find myself either talking to myself most of the time or other animals. In this case, there were plenty of pigeons hanging around that I had one or two conversations with. I probably shouldn’t admit that I guess. 

My favourite photo from up in the parkade was the one of the church across the street. Just the way it turned out with the very faint reflection of the window in which I shot through. I also got a few discreet photos of people walking and going about their day. Of course, it’s easy to get candid photos like that when you are 4 or 5 floors up. 

The rest of the walk went by pretty fast and seeing as how I was starting to get cold I headed a bit sooner than I would have wanted to. I still came away with some good photos. As usual, I used my favourite street camera, the Fuji X-T1 and 35mm 1.4 combo. It just works so perfectly.