Happy Canada Day!

I didn’t know there was an event at Columbia Ice Fields from our school, I always did previous Canada Day celebrations in either downtown Kitchener, or back home in Ottawa.  I was pleasantly surprised to see the line of food trucks and gathering of performers.

Paige had signed up to be a volunteer face painter at the booth (albeit she only painted two faces, one of which was mine), and I took this opportunity to walk around and photographed some of the crowds. Unfortunately, not many shots were very good due to the cloudy day, but I managed to get a couple of good candid shots.

I think I actually enjoyed the atmosphere much more since this was a smaller crowd, it wasn’t as intense, and the people seemed a lot more intimate. I even had the chance to sit on the grass and let the wind blow through me for a good half hour, which was the most relaxing thing I had done for a long time.

Fireworks were fantastic though.

I’ve wanted to try focus pulling ever since I saw a photo by one of the members of our photography club. She did a focus pull to infinity while fireworks were happening, and it created a very interesting shape, like a palm tree. I knew that if I wanted to try this, Canada Day would be the perfect time for it. The results were great, and the colors turned out really nice (because I had forgotten to set the white balance). There is only one “proper” fireworks photo because I had spent the rest of the time experimenting with focus pulling, and I still like the focus pulled result more than the actual fireworks photo.

-Tao