Winter's coming...

pgriz · Dec 7, 2014

Lake St-Louis, before the freeze-up. View of Pointe-Claire, from Stewart Hall boardwalk. After a week of strong winds, it was nice to see the lake calm.

tirediron · Dec 7, 2014

Beautiful image; just make sure that white s**t stays on YOUR side of the Coast range!

oldhippy · Dec 7, 2014

Love the reflection. The church adds so much to the image.

limr · Dec 7, 2014

Beautiful!

Rick50 · Dec 7, 2014

Nice, Winter does have some beauty (in photo's that is).

ASA · Dec 7, 2014

I really like this one. It's very peaceful, with the muted colors and reflections. Good composition too.
I think you did a really good job on this one.

pgriz · Dec 7, 2014

Thank you all for your kind words. My wife works at the Stewart Hall Cultural center, and I picked her up after her afternoon class (which she teaches). After I brought her home, I decided to come back to the center as I noticed the stillness of the lake, and the mist over the lake seemed to be quite magical. There were several places from which I tried the composition, and this one seems the most "right". There were several visual echoes in this image for me: the trees in the right foreground were echoed by the tree at the edge of the point in the background, the reflections were near perfect, and the tree reaching for the sky echoed the human desire in building church spires to be high.

The church visible in the image is the St-Joachim Church (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint-Joachim_de_Pointe-Claire_Church for more information) and the building to the left of the church is the convent (N.-D.-du-Vieux-Moulin Convent), which is now being shut down as the old building is too expensive to maintain with the very few nuns who still remain there. It's not clear what the fate of this historic point will be.

JustJazzie · Dec 7, 2014

Everything here fits the scene PERFECTLY. Ive come back to look at it three times now. Really lovely!

snerd · Dec 7, 2014

oldhippy said:
Love the reflection. The church adds so much to the image.

This.

pgriz · Dec 8, 2014

tirediron said:
Beautiful image; just make sure that white s**t stays on YOUR side of the Coast range!

Thank you, John. You're going to be happy to know that the forecast for this year is for above-normal temperatures for the western part of the country this year.

oldhippy said:
Love the reflection. The church adds so much to the image.

Thank you, Ed. Yes it does. It's a local landmark, and it DOES catch your eye. Part of the composition work on my end was to find an appropriate vantage point that would balance the tree and the church.

limr said:
Beautiful!

Glad you like it, Leonore. Nature gave me an early Christmas present and of course, I had to open it!

Rick50 said:
Nice, Winter does have some beauty (in photo's that is).

Hi Rick. Yeah, while snow can be pretty, cold and especially the wind make it not so much fun. But on days when it is crisp but without the wind and with the sun, it can be quite pleasant.

ASA said:
I really like this one. It's very peaceful, with the muted colors and reflections. Good composition too.
I think you did a really good job on this one.

Thank you ASA, and welcome to the site. The characteristics you point out were the ones that attracted me to the scene in the first place, so I'm glad I was able to capture those in the image.

JustJazzie said:
Everything here fits the scene PERFECTLY. Ive come back to look at it three times now. Really lovely!

Thank you, Jazzie. The place from which I took this image is really beautiful, and is the scene for many cultural events and weddings, and concerts. The church that you see also features weekly presentations of classic music, either instrumental or choir. As for the actual scene, to me it was an early Christmas gift, begging to be opened.

snerd said:
oldhippy said:

Love the reflection. The church adds so much to the image.

Click to expand...

This.

Thank you, snerd. Yes, it really does. It's also a place where I often paddle my kayak during warmer times, just past the point in the foreground, and then past the point with the church. On calm days, that is. On stormy days, there is a 10-mile fetch that creates short but choppy waves that are not fun to be in.