Winterlude in Ottawa

Ottawa’s annual Winterlude is underway down at Confederation park, Dows Lake and Jacques-Cartier Park in Hull, Quebec. In addition to the world’s longest skating ring on the Rideau Canal, Winterlude is also well known for it’s snow and ice sculpture competitions. Tuesday night, Alain Simard, Barbara Mckenzie and I spent a couple of hours ‘freezing our batteries off’ as we photographed the ice sculptures. Yes, it was the coldest night this year as temperatures and the windchill drove down to -30 celsius. At that temperatures, camera batteries last no longer than 90 minutes. Putting them into an inner pocket warms them up again, and they are ready to go for another 90 minutes. Another major concern is moisture: when you leave a warm building, any moisture on or in the camera, needs to cool down to the exterior temperatures before you can shoot.

Regardless, we were prepared and I snagged some great shots. The sculptures were illuminated with lights cycling through 5 different colours. Each colour set off the highlights of the sculptures in different ways. In other words, you had to stand there for upwards of 5 minutes waiting to see which light would work best with your current composition.