Canada Day 2009

On July 1st the country descended upon Parliament Hill to partake in the annual festivities. This is my third Canada day in Ottawa, my first in front of the buildings. The NCC put on their annual concert, this year K’naan, Marie Mae and Sarah McGlachlan were part of the lineup. K’naan, a Somali born artist from Toronto was amazing. He’s just released his second album Troubador, finding fans in “new global” university students such as myself.

The goal of this set was casual. I kinda just went along with my camera to capture what I could. I tried to include photos of the street atmosphere, concert, fireworks and mass exodus of drunk people. There’s a few accidental (or not) “Toronto Sun human interest” shots in there of flags and kids on peoples backs. Overall I’m ok with the work, not my best but a start. This is also a running practice of writing cutlines. Please feel free to leave your comments, suggestions, criticisms and insults.

I’m going to start posting photos from Flickr, hopefully it will save space on my WordPress account and attract people to my Flickr page.

A child sits upon his parent's shoulders watching the Canada Day concert on Parliament Hill

Thousands watch the show from on Parliament Hill

The weather was in favour of the celebrations.

Child on her dad's shoulders shows her patriotism while watching K'naan

Somali born, Toronto artist K'naan performs on Canada Day.

I had a bit of a photographic crush on this guy... he just looked so weird.

I won't pretend to know what these guys were doing. They lined up on the street in Canadian flag capes and shields spelling out "Canada"

"Two Attractive Young Ladies". The words of Sylviane (left), refering to herself and Brianne (right) in a comment about my habit of checking out the surrounding view. Canada Day wouldn't have been the same without em

This guy was belting out some wicked Santana-like tunes. I was trying to capture his intensity.

Canada Day fireworks as seen from the war monument.

After the festivities thousands poured out onto the streets of Ottawa, most were intoxicated