Category Archives: Documentary

St. James United Church

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St. James United Church is a National Historic Site of canada and part of Quebec`s religious heritage. It traces its beginnings to the seven members of the Montreal`s first Methodist congregation formed in 1803. The Methodist began as a reform movement within the Anglican Church.

The present building is the congregation`s fourth home. it was built in 1887-1888 after the congregation decided to move uptown from St. James Street. At the time of construction, it was the largest Methodist church in Canada with seating for 2.500. The exterior is a Victorian gothic image of a french cathedral.

The interior is designed in the Akron style, popular with North American Presbyterians, Baptists and methodist in the late 19th centyry. The church sheltered soldiers en route to Europe in the two world wars and Montreal had its official inter-faith memorial service at St. James for the September 2001 attack on the World Trade Center in New York. The congregation hosts a variety of outreach programs for the homeless, the elderly, and the poor. It offers a home to several social organizations and choral ensembles.

 

Notre-Dame-de-Bon-Secours Chapel

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The Notre-Dame-de-Bon-Secours Chapel is a church in the district of Old Montreal in Montreal, Quebec. One of the oldest churches in Montreal, it was built in 1771 over the ruins of an earlier chapel. St. Marguerite Bourgeoys, the first teacher in the colony of Ville-Marie and the founder of the Congregation of Notre Dame, rallied the colonists to build a chapel in 1655. In 1673, returning from France, Bourgeoys brought a wooden image of Our Lady of Good Help; the stone church was completed in 1678. It burned in 1754, the reliquary and statue being rescued. After Montreal was conquered by British forces during the French and Indian War, the church was attended by Irish and Scottish troops and families, and saw fundraising to build Saint Patrick’s Church, Montreal’s first anglophone Catholic parish. In the 19th century, the chapel came to be a pilgrimage site for the sailors who arrived in the Old Port of Montreal; they would make offerings to the Virgin in gratitude for her “good help” for safe sea voyages. In 1849, Mgr. Ignace Bourget, Bishop of Montreal, gave the chapel a statue of the Virgin as Star of the Sea, which was placed atop the church overlooking the harbour. Emphasizing the connection of the chapel and the port, the chapel is often called the Sailors’ Church. The chapel now also houses the Marguerite Bourgeoys Museum, dedicated to the life of St. Marguerite Bourgeoys and to the early history of Montreal and the chapel site. Below the chapel, the crypt is being excavated as an archeological site, which visitors can see. First Nations and French colonial artifacts have been discovered, along with the foundations of the first chapel and the fortifications of the colony. The church’s prominent spire can also be climbed, offering views of the Old Port and Saint Lawrence River. In 2005, Marguerite Bourgeoys’s mortal remains were brought back to the church, where she now lies in the sanctuary.

Quebec City

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Quebec City is the capital of the Canadian province of Quebec and is located within the Capitale-Nationale region. It is the second most populous city in Quebec after Montreal, which is about 233 kilometres (145 mi) to the southwest. As of the 2006 Canadian Census, the city has a population of 491,142, and the metropolitan area has a population of 715,515. The narrowing of the Saint Lawrence River approximate to the city’s promontory, Cap-Diamant (Cape Diamond), and Lévis, on the opposite bank, provided the name given to the city, Kébec, an Algonquin word meaning “where the river narrows”. Founded in 1608 by Samuel de Champlain, Quebec City is one of the oldest cities in North America. The ramparts surrounding Old Quebec (Vieux-Québec) are the only remaining fortified city walls that still exist in the Americas north of Mexico, and were declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1985 as the ‘Historic District of Old Québec’. The city is a major cultural centre of the French-speaking world, as well as an important tourist destination. Various festivals are held annually including the Summer Festival, and Winter Carnival. The city’s most famous landmark is the Château Frontenac, a hotel which dominates the skyline. The National Assembly of Quebec, the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec (National Gallery of Quebec), and the Musée de la civilisation (Museum of Civilization) are found within or near Vieux-Québec. Quebec City is one of the oldest European settlements in North America. While many of the major cities in Mexico date from the sixteenth century, among cities in Canada and the U.S.A. only St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador; Harbour Grace, Newfoundland and Labrador; Port Royal, Nova Scotia; St. Augustine, Florida; Santa Fe, New Mexico; Jamestown, Virginia; and Tadoussac, Quebec were created earlier than Quebec City. Quebec was founded by Samuel de Champlain, a French explorer and diplomat on July 3, 1608, and at the site of a long abandoned St. Lawrence Iroquoian settlement called Stadacona. Champlain, also called “The Father of New France”, served as its administrator for the rest of his life. Throughout its over four hundred years of existence, Quebec City has served as a capital. From 1608 to 1627 and 1632 to 1763, it was capital of French Canada and all of New France; from 1763 to 1791, it was the capital of the Province of Quebec; from 1791 to 1841, it was the capital of Lower Canada; from 1852 to 1856 and from 1859 to 1866, it was capital of the Province of Canada; and since 1867, it has been capital of the Province of Quebec. The administrative region in which Quebec City is situated is officially referred to as Capitale-Nationale and the term “national capital” is used to refer to Quebec City itself at provincial level.

 

Old Montreal

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Old Montreal (French: Vieux-Montréal) is the oldest area in the city of Montreal, Quebec, Canada, dating back to New France. Located in the borough of Ville-Marie, the area is bordered on the west by McGill St., on the north by Ruelle des Fortifications, on the east by Berri St. and on the south by the Saint Lawrence River. Following recent amendments, the district has been expanded slightly to include the rue des Soeurs Grises in the west, Saint Antoine St. in the north and Saint Hubert Street in the east. It also includes the Old Port of Montreal. Most of Old Montreal was declared an historic district in 1964 by the Ministère des Affaires culturelles du Québec.


 

The Notre Dame Basilica

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Notre-Dame Basilica ( Basilique Notre-Dame de Montréal) is a basilica in the historic district of Old Montreal, in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The church is located at 110 Notre-Dame Street West, at the corner of Saint Sulpice Street. It is located next to the Saint-Sulpice Seminary and faces the Place d’Armes square.

The church’s Gothic Revival architecture is among the most dramatic in the world; its interior is grand and colourful, its ceiling is coloured deep blue and decorated with golden stars, and the rest of the sanctuary is a polychrome of blues, azures, reds, purples, silver, and gold. It is filled with hundreds of intricate wooden carvings and several religious statues. Unusual for a church, the stained glass windows along the walls of the sanctuary do not depict biblical scenes, but rather scenes from the religious history of Montreal. It also has a Casavant Frères pipe organ, which comprises four keyboards, 97 stops, over 9000 individual pipes and a pedal board.

In 1657, the Roman Catholic Sulpician Order arrived in Ville-Marie, now known as Montreal; six years later the seigneury of the island was vested in them. They ruled until 1840. The parish they founded was dedicated to the Holy Name of Mary, and the parish church of Notre-Dame was built on the site in 1672. The church served as the first cathedral of the Diocese of Montreal from 1821 to 1822.[2]

By 1824 the congregation had completely outgrown the church, and James O’Donnell, an Irish-American Protestant from New York, was commissioned to design the new building. O’Donnell was a proponent of the Gothic Revival architectural movement, and designed the church as such. He is the only person buried in the church’s crypt. O’Donnell converted to Catholicism on his deathbed perhaps due to the realization that he might not be allowed to be buried in his church.[3]

The main construction work took place between 1824 and 1829. The sanctuary was finished in 1830, and the first tower in 1841, the second in 1843. On its completion, the church was the largest in North America. A new pipe organ was built in 1858 by Samuel Russell Warren.

The interior took much longer, and Victor Bourgeau, who also worked on Montreal’s Mary, Queen of the World Cathedral, worked on it from 1872 to 1879. Stonemason John Redpath was a major participant in the construction of the Basilica.

Because of the splendour and grand scale of the church, a more intimate chapel, Chapelle du Sacré-Cœur (Chapel of the Sacred Heart), was built behind it, along with some offices and a sacristy. It was completed in 1888. In 1886 Casavant Frères began building a new 32-foot pipe organ at the church, completing it in 1891. It was notably the first organ with adjustable-combination pedals to be operated by electricity.

Chinatown

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Chinatown ( 多倫多華埠) is an ethnic enclave in Downtown Toronto, Ontario, Canada, with a high concentration of ethnic Chinese residents and businesses extending along Dundas Street West and Spadina Avenue. First developed in the late 19th century, it is now one of the largest Chinatowns in North America and one of several major Chinese-Canadian communities in the Greater Toronto Area. There are approximately six Chinatowns in Greater Toronto, including in the cities of Markham and Mississauga.

Toronto’s Chinatown is one of the largest in North America. It is centred on the intersection of Dundas Street West and Spadina Avenue, and extends outward from this point along both streets. With the population changes of recent decades, it has come to reflect a diverse set of East Asian cultures through its shops and restaurants, including Chinese, Vietnamese, and Thai. The major Chinese malls in the area are Dragon City and Chinatown Centre.

Ben Johnson

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Benjamin Sinclair “Ben” Johnson, CM (born December 30, 1961), is a former sprinter from Canada, who enjoyed a high-profile career during most of the 1980s, winning two Olympic bronze medals and an Olympic gold, which was subsequently rescinded. He set consecutive 100 metres world records at the 1987 World Championships in Athletics and the 1988 Summer Olympics, but he was disqualified for doping, losing the Olympic title and both records.

Old City Hall building Toronto

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Toronto’s Old City Hall was home to its city council from 1899 to 1966 and remains one of the city’s most prominent structures. It is at the corner of Queen and Bay Streets, east of the new City Hall in the centre of downtown Toronto. It has a distinctive clock tower which heads the length of Bay Street from Front St. to Queen.

Old City Hall was designated a National Historic Site of Canada in 1984.

Work on the Romanesque Revival building designed by E.J. Lennox began in 1889. It was constructed of sandstone from the Credit River valley, grey stone from the Orangeville area, and brown stone from New Brunswick. The rugged, towering façade is cliff-like.

Kleinburg city

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Kleinburg is a small unincorporated village located in the city of Vaughan, Ontario, Canada.In its early days, Kleinburg was dependent on its many flour and wheat mills, located off the Humber River. The large housing developments began in the 1950s in the west and continued in the 1970s southeast of Kleinburg, in 1993 in the south, 1998 sporadically in the northeast, 1990s south of Kleinburg and the 2000s to the north. Kleinburg has always been a small, quiet town, attracting many affluent visitors and residents. During its major expansion in the 1990s and early 2000s, many new large homes have been built. The homes north and west of Nashville Road typically cost more than one million dollars. Older, larger and more established properties are valued more than this, while homes built near conservation areas and the Humber River are by far the most expensive.

The Endless Column – Constantin Brancusi

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Constantin Brâncuşi – February 19, 1876 – March 16, 1957) was a Romanian-born sculptor who made his career in France. As a child he displayed an aptitude for carving wooden farm tools. Formal studies took him first to Bucharest, then to Munich, then to the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. His abstract style emphasizes clean geometrical lines that balance forms inherent in his materials with the symbolic allusions of representational art. Famous Brâncuşi works include the Sleeping Muse (1908), The Kiss (1908), Prometheus (1911), Mademoiselle Pogany (1913), The Newborn (1915), Bird in Space (1919) and The Column of the Infinite (Coloana infinitului), popularly known as The Endless Column (1938). Brâncuşi is considered a pioneer of modernism.

Oltenia Eterna Terra Nova

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Cateva fotografii de arhiva cu Adrian Paunescu asistand pe stadionul Ion Oblemenco la partida dintre Universitatea si rivala de moarte, Dinamo, din aprilie, 2009. Cadrele de mai sus, sunt realizate in timpul imnului Universitatii Craiova.

Multumim pentru cel mai frumos imn!!!!!!

CN Tower

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A night photo with the CN Tower.

Here are few details about this new wonder of the world.

The CN Tower, located in Downtown Toronto, Ontario, Canada, is a communications and observation tower standing 553.3 metres (1,815 ft) tall.  It surpassed the height of the Ostankino Tower becoming the tallest free-standing structure on land in the world for the next 31 years.

On September 12, 2007 the CN Tower was surpassed in height by Burj Khalifa (formerly known as Burj Dubai). It remains the tallest free-standing structure in the Western Hemisphere, the signature icon of Toronto’s skyline, and a symbol of Canada, attracting more than two million international visitors annually.

CN originally referred to Canadian National, the railway company that built the tower. Following the railway’s decision to divest non-core freight railway assets, prior to the company’s privatization in 1995 it transferred the tower to the Canada Lands Company, a federal Crown corporation responsible for real estate development. Since local residents wished to retain the name CN Tower, the abbreviation is now said to expand to Canada’s National Tower rather than the original Canadian National Tower; however, neither of these names is commonly used.

In 1995, the CN Tower was declared one of the modern Seven Wonders of the World by the American Society of Civil Engineers. It also belongs to the World Federation of Great Towers, where it holds second-place ranking.

The demolition

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About 200 gipsy people lived in a colony in Potelu, a neighbourhood in south-eastern Romania, close to Craiova, far away from civilization… In August 2010, the French government decided to take action against the illegal gypsy people in and forced them back to their countries. The Romanian government reciprocated by taking severe action aganist the gypsies in Potelu… 20 bulldozers shaved the ground and 30 buildings were demolished. In a matter of hours, people no longer had a place to live… When asked to comment on the severity of the actions, the mayor casually explained that “the owners did not have the proper building permits.”

Valea Jiului – Mina Petrila

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After the ‘90s, there were about 45,000 coal miners working in the Jiu Valley. That is no longer the case today. As it is no longer profitable to extract coal, the European Commission recently proposed to closed most of them down and lay off the miners. The remaining “lucky” 8,700 miners who made it through this restructuring exercise, continue to go 1,000 meters underground every day. The ones that were not so “lucky” continue to be un-employed, with limited chances of finding employment elsewhere…

Bijuteriile Timpului – Colectie de ceasuri

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Sala „Ştefan Ciuceanu“ a Muzeului Olteniei Craiova gazduieste expoziţia „Bijuteriile timpului“. Vizitatorii pot admira ceasuri de epocă, surprinzătoare prin mărime şi formă, inedite prin mecanism, ceasuri de buzunar, de mână, de birou, de voiaj, pendule, ceasuri de gât sau de încheietură pentru doamne, ceasuri din secolele XVIII, XIX şi XX, ceasuri din Germania, Franţa, Elveţia şi, desigur, din România.

Biblioteca CN Carol I detine 400 de volume de patrimoniu

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Dispune de un fond de carte impresionant, cu peste 80.000 de exemplare. Este una dintre cele mai vechi şi prestigioase biblioteci şcolare din ţară. Aproximativ 400 de volume sunt cărţi vechi, de patrimoniu, dintre care 40 au o valoare în plus datorită autografelor cărturarilor care sunt pecetluite pe filele de început…

Articolul complet pe www.gds.ro

Herculane spa resort

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Cerna Valley, not far from Timisoara, but very far from the grandeur of yesterday, still standing upright, sad, humiliated and with an uncertain future, Herculane known to us as a first resort spa in the country and probably the most famous in Romania.

When the Romans came to see us the way to Sarmisegetusa, stopped here and, charmed by the beauty of the place, amazed by the healing water springs, considered miraculous, it began to fit him and he’s dedicated to Hercules demigod hero, as evidenced by documents of that time.

Today, unfortunately, is far from the Herculane been away from the grandeur of the old times, far away to be called a town, or much worst, a spa resort.

The fires from Salcia village – Holy Thursday

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Ashes Thursday takes on a a special meaning in a southern Romanian village called Salcia. Here, there is a parrallel village, of the dead, called Serbia, where on Ashes Thursday villagers re-create a reunion of the two worlds: the living and the dead. Legend goes that the souls of the dead return to earth to warm up and meet with family members. So villagers go start lighting up fires before sunrise. First, fires are lit in front of each house; then, the tradition is to lay chairs around the fire, so that the ones that are gone can rest and spend time with their families. Once the reunion ritual is complete, villagers proceed towards the cemettery, with torches in hand, where they continue to light up fires at each individual grave.

Rasarit de iarna

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Una dintre fotografiile mele preferate. Realizata cu vreo 2 saptamani in urma, pur si simplu, am tinut-o si nu am stiut ce sa fac cu ea.

Insa azi, fiindca mai toata ziua ascultai Robie Willians – Angels, m-am hotarat sa o postez pe blog.

Nu vreau sa fac filosofie, insa in goana noastra nebuna de zi cu zi, stresati de probleme financiare, de criza de care ne-am saturat ca de mere acre, oare cati dintre noi ne mai oprim sa privim ceva frumos? Chit ca pentru o secunda din zi…

Foarte putini. Si realizam, sau nu, insa ne trece viata de-a-n p….., uitand sa ne bucuram de frumusetea naturii.

PS. nici eu nu ma asteptam la lectia asta.

De preferat sa fie ascultata  si melodia amintita mai sus …

De maine revenim la fotojurnalism :) destul cu chestiile astea ciudate :D

Prima ninsoare

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Prima ninsoare din Craiova. Nu foarte multa zapada, insa destula cat sa surprind cateva cadre dragute … Poate in zilele urmatoare, daca va mai ninge, voi posta si alte fotografii.

Iluminat de sarbatori

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Cateva fotografii de aseara, 1 Decembrie, cand luminile de sarbatori au fost aprinse in Craiova.

Fara trepied, un timp de expunere destul de lung, fara acces la cele mai bune unghiuri, cam asta a iesit. O sa revin insa, cu tot ceea ce trebuie, pentru niste fotografii mai OK