Victoria Island

Nope, not an island in British Columbia, it's right here in Ottawa.  Located just off Booth St. in the Ottawa River.  It gives a another unique angle to see the parliament buildings from if you have a decent zoom and maybe a tripod.  Jen and I went down for an hour or so just to check the place out and to see the graffiti wall located at the bottom (or is it the top?) of Bronson.  In my opinion she got the better of the pictures at the graffiti wall but I might have out did her at Victoria Island ;-)  

Sorry for the large number of photos but when you spend 15-20 minutes per panorama on a laptop it's tough not to post them.  Trust me, there are many that I didn't!

Be sure to click the image for the fullsize versions.

During the summer months there is an outfit called Aboriginal Experiences who operates on the site.  So there are several native sites to see.  For some reason every time Jen sees the camera she gets a strange look on her face :-/

 A panoramic of the view of Ottawa from the island.  Click the image for the full size, you can see parliament on the left.

A zoomed in look of the Ottawa side.

 A little different view of parliament.  As seen from the west.  The parliament library is visible on the back of the building.

 A close-up of parliament.

 The shores of Victoria Island.

 A Canadian Goose taking off.  Love the way his/her tongue is hanging out ;-)

 My pretty photographer sidekick ;-)   She's becoming pretty damn good!

 I think she saw a UFO?

 Meanwhile over at the graffiti wall, couldn't resist chuckling at this one.  Name that movie?

 Some of the more interesting artwork.

 I don't get it?  What's he smoking?  ;-)

 I found this to be the most interesting and the best art on the entire wall.

A pano of the entire area.  Still pretty dirty from the winter and everything is still melting.  Will be interesting to check back in a few months to see what artwork shows up.

A pano of just the wall itself.

Well that brings my vacation to an end.  Managed to get some serious photography in, although I'm not 100% happy with all the results.  It's a tough time of year, everything is brown, melting or dirty.  I've also had to reteach myself a few things along the way, amazing how fast you can forget the basic skills of photography.  But I feel ready for Bermuda.  I have the 2 new lenses sorted out and have a good feel for how they work.  Very happy with the Nikon 80-200mm and I'm so/so with the Tamron 17-55 which is very good when handled properly but can be unforgiving when not.  Tomorrow I'm back to work but want to try and stay in the habit of getting out with the camera more, even with the stresses going on in my life.  Jen's been great about it, she wants to get out and shoot more so we motivate each other.  She's becoming a wonderful photographer in her own right but the only place you can see her work is on Facebook right now.  So if your not a friend your shit out of luck ;-).   But we're finding more and more places in and around Ottawa.  Now that it's warming up we'll soon be hitting the Byward market and other places around the city.

I hope everyone has great week ahead!