Thanks, Donald, for the terrific photos of Ottawa . . . and Montreal . . . Western New York . . . ancient Rome, etc. I think what I like about your photos is that they are photos of touristy places that are often done in a non-touristy, maybe "scholarly," way. By that I mean they show the famous places of general interest but from more interesting and informative angles. For instance, I suspect that if you were to take a photo of the entrance to Disneyland, you would also take a photo of whatever quotidian structure might be directly across the street from the entrance to Disneyland -- which I think is really interesting and useful info (at least to me).

What I also like about your Ottawa photos is that the I got to see more of, and learn more about, the Rideau canal -- which has always intrigued me. (Although I didn't even know it's name, location or function, I remember cutting out photos of it from a magazine in the late 1980s to help illustrate a project I was doing.)

One of the nice things about a canal like the Rideau (and also, so it seems, about the canal that makes up River Walk in San Antonio), is that it is apparently feasible to put the pedestrian walkway in very close proximity to the water -- I suppose because there is no need to worry about flood protection or great changes in water level due to tides. Yet although the water is as quiet as a pond, the body of water does, in fact, actually lead somewhere -- so it is thus an interesting body of water to take a boatride on, or walk along.

I think I've also seen photos of people ice skating on the canal -- and again this seems like special fun because the ice skating "rink" is really a "path" that goes somewhere.

- - - - - - -

I didn't get a chance to comment on your recent art book post, but I had wanted to mention that it seems to me that, even with the current economy, we are nevertheless really living in affluent times --with one of the indicators being the incredible availability of photos, especially color photos, of art AND architecture that were not nearly as readily available (I don't believe) even in affluent 1950s or 1960s. (And, of course, in the last ten [?] years or so, the internet and high resolution monitors, printers, etc. have greatly increased this availabilty even more!)

I say this because I remember in the late 1960s when I took a college course on modern architecture, the instructor complained (and although I was only an naive undergraduate then, even now I suspect he was right to complain) that there really weren't that many books available on the topic, especially ones with good photos.

And, in fact, one of the things that struck me at the time is that it seemed that whatever architectural book one did find (in a bookstore or in a library) it always had the same TIRED black and white photos of the same buildings. For instance, there was a building in Boston by Alvar Aalto that was much admired at the time, and it seemed that each and every book that had an illustration of it had the same one or two tired black and white photos -- photos that really didn't do the building any justice, by the way. (Although I'm not that much of an admirer of the building, when I did get to see it in person, I was very surprised at how much better it was in person.)

Now part of this may not have been technology or lack of affluence -- but rather a lack of curiosity or imagination. Even today it seems one can get only get one photo of Louis Kahn's Salk Institute of La Jolla. But my guess is that if YOU were to go there, we would get to see what the place is really like!

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While Ottawa does seem to be beautiful, it doesn't really seem to me (at least from these photos) to be a beautiful (GENUINE) "city." It's more like a beautiful (pseudo-city) "seat of government," like Washington, D.C. While this may seem like a churlish comment, one thing that I think is important to keep in mind is that real cities can, and sometimes do, have their own kind of beauty -- but oftentimes people seem intent on imposing the easily photographed beauty of pseudo-cities (really "cemeteries" for living bureaucrats and visitors) upon REAL cities -- which, as mentioned, can, and often do, already have a different kind of beauty all their own. (This was one of the problems with 1950s urban renewal.)

- - - - - -

Also, a tentative stab at an an explanation of why bold and sometimes weird stripped down orthodox modern architecture tends to shine more in photos, while more detailed ornamented traditional architecture may shine more in drawings:

If this is really true in the first place, one of the reasons may be that pretty much any building can come across well in photos where the building is surrounded by a lot of open space / greenery (see these pictures of traditional buildings in Ottawa) -- BUT modernist buildings tend to be surrounded by open spaces more often and also NEED to be surrounded by open space to be visually effective; while traditional buildings are less likely, in the post "city beautiful" world, to be surrounded by open space, and better able to work in a crowded, real city, context anyway, but this is difficult to capture in a photo (and "easier" to capture in drawings, which unfortunately don't carry the "punch" of photos).

Posted by: Benjamin Hemric on October 12, 2008 10:02 PM

Benjamin Hemric: While Ottawa does seem to be beautiful, it doesn't really seem to me (at least from these photos) to be a beautiful (GENUINE) "city." It's more like a beautiful (pseudo-city) "seat of government," like Washington, D.C...

Or like Bonn and Canberra. Good call, Benjamin. You've got it exactly.

Posted by: PatrickH on October 13, 2008 3:49 AM

Dearest darling Sister:

The denizens of my neighbourhood do seem to match me in the mental oddity department (at least) and exceed me considerably in their physical eccentricities. If you were to grace our town with your presence, and you saw me walking down Bank Street by my building, you'd go, "Who's that normal-looking guy? Seems out of place here."

I, of course, would then disprove your assertion of my normality by jumping you right then and there. Pooooo-lice!!!

Sister, I am intrigued by your casual comment that you were friends with Pierre Trudeau. That is sooo cool. Mind spilling any details (at your place, if DP's wary of a thread hijack)?

Posted by: PatrickH on October 13, 2008 3:55 AM

Benjamin -- Thank you for your kind remarks about my photography.

If those overtones you mention are present, it's not normally by conscious design. When I take pictures I try to make the framing interesting (something not easy with a small digital camera when sunshine obscures the viewer image). And if I can exploit light and shade to increase drama, I'll do that too. But that's about it unless I happen to see something interesting in the way of subject juxtapositions.

Most of the images I post are not cropped or Photoshopped. Cropping happens when I have to square up a tilted image, but that cropping is usually minimal. At least once I had to brighten a dark image, and will do that again when I feel the photo is essential to my essay.

Posted by: Donald Pittenger on October 13, 2008 1:12 PM

One of the nice things about a canal like the Rideau (and also, so it seems, about the canal that makes up River Walk in San Antonio), is that it is apparently feasible to put the pedestrian walkway in very close proximity to the water -- I suppose because there is no need to worry about flood protection or great changes in water level due to tides.

Slight correction - the San Antonio Riverwalk (we were there last month) is built mostly along a loop of the San Antonio River, not a canal. There's a smaller section that indeed is along a canal, but it's away from the main tourist area. Flooding isn't an issue because large gates can be lowered to close off the Riverwalk loop from the main course of the San Antonio River.

Posted by: Peter on October 13, 2008 2:36 PM






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