Canadian Tulip Festival

From black and white to a day of full colour.   Each year Ottawa celebrates Tulip Festival.  In 1945, the Dutch royal family sent 100,000 tulip bulbs to Ottawa in gratitude for Canadians having sheltered Princess Juliana and her daughters for the preceding three years during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands.  Now, the festival has over 1 million bulbs and has around 500,000 visitors annually.

These pictures were taken near Dow's Lake where it's reported that there are 300,000 bulbs.   I probably took around the same number of pictures :-)  Below is a small sample.  The Fuji X-T1 with the 35mm lens was a dream to carry and shoot with.   Someday I'll have to get the 60mm macro.   I have never seen so many cameras in one place, everyone had a camera, more then a few glances at the X-T1 from those carrying rather large camera kits.

Happy Victoria Day everyone!

Jen spotted this scene from across the canal, it was a stretch for the 35mm, I should have switched to the 55-200mm

Suddenly kids were screaming "BUBBLES BUBBLES!!!" and flocking to this guy.  way more exciting then tulips.