Monday, March 03, 2025

Boardwalk this way

Where's my ruler?
Boynton Beach, FL
February 2023
This photo originally shared on Instagram

In a world rocked by chaos, there is order in lines, where the predictable rules of geometry make it easy to know where we stand, where we’re going, and how we’ll get there.

There’s a certain sense of comfort in the ruler-straight, an honesty to it, a feeling that someone cared enough to build it right the first time, a trust in all that plays out before us.

That word, trust. We could all use more of it, no?

#boyntonbeach #florida #greencay #wetlands #throwback #travel ##naturephotography #landscapephotography #boardwalk #geometry #perspective #monochrome #photography #apple #iphone #shotoniphone

Related:
Green heron at rest, February 2023

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Sunday, March 02, 2025

A single tree stands guard

Sentinel
London, ON
December 2024
This photo originally shared on Instagram

I have a bit of a weakness for single trees standing in the middle of nowhere.

I’m also somewhat partial to fog. The thicker the better.

Put the two together and magic happens. At least to me. It’s a scene that is felt as much as it is seen, where the mournful blanket of murky air seems to suck all colours and sounds out.

It’s the perfect antidote to a life that often overwhelms, a perfect place to go when the pressures of the outside world become too great.

There’s no pressure here. No unkindness. No bullying, either. Which makes this unassuming spot an ideal candidate for #TikkunOlam.

Because repairing the world comes in many forms. Indeed, any form at all. What’s yours?

#ldnont #london #ontario #canada #tree #fog #winter #weather #wx #optimistpark #naturephotography #landscapephotography #silhouette #monochrome #photography #nikon #nikonphotography #nikon_photography


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Saturday, March 01, 2025

#TikkunOlam photography goes to the dogs

Sorry, no news for me
London, ON
February 2025
This photo originally shared on Instagram

Let’s not mince words: yesterday was an especially hard day for Planet Earth after the supposed leader of the free world abandoned any remaining pretence of, you know, freedom.

It was one of those days that becomes historic for all the wrong reasons, and anyone who had been ignoring the screaming alarm bells coming out of Washington can ignore them no longer.

Which is why I think it’s time for some more #TikkunOlam photography (or, since we’re hashtag-motivated around here, #TikkunOlamPhotography.)

The mission is simple: share a photo that can help repair the world. It could be anything, really. Like this overhead view of Calli the Wonderschnauzer relaxing on her favourite rug.

Photography, to me at least, has always offered something of a refuge from chaos and worry. This is more true now than ever before. So let’s break out the pixels, then, and spread some joy.

Your turn…

#ldnont #london #ontario #canada #calli #callitheschnauzer #dog #actofdog #schnauzerpuppy #schnauzersofinstagram #schnauzergram #schnauzers #dogsofinstagram #instapuppy #photography #apple #iphone #iphone16 #shotoniphone

Related:
Be the light, please, December 2018
Canada Day, Eh? July 2007

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Friday, February 28, 2025

Remembering when there was colour

Palette
London, ON
October 2022
This photo originally shared on Instagram

I looked around the neighbourhood yesterday and couldn’t find much colour.

So I hope you don’t mind my dipping into the archives from October 2022 for a tiny photographic reminder that shades of inspiration remain just as vibrant in our memories.

We just have to go digging for them every once in a while.

#ldnont #london #ontario #canada #throwback #medwayvalley #autumn #colour #trees #leaves #gameoftones #naturephotography #landscapephotography #photography #apple #apple #iphone #shotoniphone

Related:
#FindTheLight, Part 1, October 2020
#FindTheLight, Part 2, October 2020

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Thursday, February 27, 2025

Ontario votes. So do we.

Where we make democracy come alive
London, ON
February 2025
This photo originally shared on Instagram

It’s election day in Ontario, and I’m not sure why voting is so deeply personal to me.

Maybe it’s because it’s a basic right that’s denied to so many.

Or it’s the most fundamental means of ensuring our voices are heard in a fair and just society.

Or the simple act of casting a ballot is a quiet protest against the kind of anti-democratic rampage we’re seeing play out south of the border.

Or it’s the source of too many pinch-me moments where I get to walk over to the voting location with her.

Let’s go with the last one, then. We should all be so lucky to cast ballots, walk the neighbourhood streets, or simply dissect the ways of the world with our best friend.

#ldnont #london #ontario #canada #ontarioelection #onpoli #vote #elxn #ontariovotes #family #everything #apple #iphone #iphone16 #shotoniphone

Related:
Wanted: 2 new mayors, October 2013

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Wednesday, February 26, 2025

Deliberately blurred

Bokeh forever
Dryden, ON
December 2024
This photo originally shared on Instagram

I think I was four years-old when I learned the intricacies of focus and optics.

I had weirdly developing hips, and spent lots of time in hospital. I remember staring out the window for hours at a time, day and night, the Montreal landscape playing out below my 6th floor perch.

I also remember learning how to unfocus my eyes, and how fascinating everything looked when I deliberately made it blurry. It was especially trippy at night, the lights of the city melting into overlapping, multicoloured shapes.

Then as now, blurriness wasn’t necessarily something to be avoided. If you screwed your eyes up just so, the world became a wonderland - which, to a kid in a decidedly frightening place, turned out to be something of a self-made blessing.

Fast forward a few decades and that admittedly odd childhood experience continues to echo in my everyday life. When I shoot with my camera-camera, I’ll often pop the lens into manual focus mode, then deliberately throw it out of focus. The fuzzier the better.

I guess it’s my way of remembering what it was like to learn to see things through a different lens.

Because not everything needs to be perfectly precise.

Because in a world that doesn’t always play fair, it’s perfectly acceptable on occasion to see things not as they are, but as we want them to be.

#dryden #ontario #canada #throwback #travelgram #christmas #tree #led #lights #blur #abstract #photography #nikon #nikonphotography #nikon_photography #photography

Related:
Life is a blur, August 2020
Bokeh and color, March 2018
Life moves too fast, August 2012

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Tuesday, February 25, 2025

Yellow bus on a foggy morning

Into the unknown
London, ON
December 2024
This photo originally shared on Instagram

In the middle of a fog so thick it literally sucks the colour from the street, along comes a school bus to inject some life back into the scene.

There are many lessons here:
  1. Kids are our future, so let’s keep our eyes out for them.
  2. It doesn’t take much to inspire complete strangers. A little colour is often all we need.
  3. Even when things look their bleakest, there is still hope.
Whatever we’re riding and whatever the weather, the lessons are universal.

#ldnont #london #airport #ontario #canada #tree #fog #winter #weather #wx #onstorm #yellow #school #bus #naturephotography #landscapephotography #streetphotography #photography #nikon #nikonphotography #nikon_photography


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Monday, February 24, 2025

Diversity in a snowy forest

Feel the quiet
London, ON
November 2022
This photo originally shared on Instagram

Deep in the woods after a blizzard has come and gone, the trees struggle under the weight of a thick blanket of snow.

Except it isn’t really a blanket at all. Some branches are indeed completely covered, while others have barely a dusting.

All different. Delightfully so.

So I stand in the middle of the silent valley, awestruck by the variations playing out around me, the diversity of it all, the tiny and unique stories being told in hushed verses and subtle tones, just waiting to be discovered.

Nature gets it. Humanity never will.

#ldnont #london #ontario #canada #medwayvalley #forest #tree #snow #winter #weather #wx #onstorm #naturephotography #landscapephotography #monochrome #photography #canon #canonphotography #canon_photography


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Sunday, February 23, 2025

Peering into strangers' windows

Every window tells a story
London, ON
June 2024
This photo originally shared on Instagram

Windows should be so simple. In theory, that is. Mostly flat panels of glass that let the light in and keep everything else out.

In practice, though, there’s a lot more going on as I stand on the street and stare skyward. Dozens of neatly arranged windows look down from above, each one concealing an individual story, or person, or family.

Entire narratives play out behind single panes of glass. And depending on the weather or time of day or even our own mood, we might catch occasional glimpses of them from the outside.

But even then, there’s virtually no way for anyone standing on the outside to ever truly know what’s going on on the inside, to ever appreciate the subtle nuances of a life when all we get are brief glances before the shades get drawn.

I feel so small down here, pondering the invisible lives secretly playing out high above. I feel so naive thinking it’s the glass that keeps us from learning more.

#ldnont #london #ontario #canada #building #architecture #architecturephotography #buildingporn #architectureporn #downtown #springbank #wonderland #streetphotography #monochrome #photography #nikon #nikonphotography #nikon_photography


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Saturday, February 22, 2025

Peering into the foggy abyss

Uncertainty ahead
London, ON
December 2024
This photo originally shared on Instagram

More often than not, the things we cannot see prove to be the most compelling of all.

#ldnont #london #airport #ontario #canada #tree #fog #winter #weather #wx #onstorm #naturephotography #landscapephotography #streetphotography #monochrome #photography #nikon #nikonphotography #nikon_photography

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Friday, February 21, 2025

Canada > U.S.A.

A nation built on ice
London, ON
February 2017
This photo originally shared on Instagram

Sorry/not sorry to our American neighbours.

Winning the 4 Nations Face-Off tournament by downing the U.S. team in overtime was much more than a simple hockey thing. It was a moment of national pride, and a broader signal to our one-time ally to the south that your orange-makeup-bathed leader will not push us around.

So, to be blunt, Felon 47, bite us.

Canada is a country, not a state. Respect us.

Our Prime Minister is not a governor. Respect him, or whoever else might soon hold the office.

Hockey is our game, not yours.

Stick to golf. We all know you cheat.

#ldnont #london #ontario #canada #hockey #sports #sportsing #photography #throwback #blackberry

Related:
They play hockey here, February 2021
Is it bulletproof? February 2011
Off to the penalty box, November 2010
Hockey Night in Canada, February 2010

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Thursday, February 20, 2025

Finding refuge in macarons

Sweet salvation
London, ON
February 2025
This photo originally shared on Instagram

Not going to lie: some days it’s difficult to scan the headlines and not feel a sense of existential dread.

Today is one of those days. Particularly so.

It’s hard to watch a Hitler-wannabe president replicate the Nazi playbook almost to the letter as he bows to dictators and throws allies under the bus.

It’s equally difficult to watch an Islamist death cult murder children in cold blood, yet the world shrugs. Even blames the victims.

And it’s quite the experience to open my inbox to messages from random morons online who target me because I’m a Jew. Easy for them to do, I guess, when they’re hiding behind a keyboard.

So please don’t mind if I snap furtive photos of colorful macarons under glass at the grocery store. Call it my rather trivial attempt to find joy in the margins, to seek out colour amid the murk, to avoid the forces of darkness for just a moment.

We all cope in our own way. This is mine.

#ldnont #london #ontario #canada #TikkunOlam ##grocery #store #farmboy #shopping #retail #macarons #dessert #colour #stilllife #photography #apple #iphone #iphone16 #shotoniphone

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Wednesday, February 19, 2025

New balconies over Richmond

Offset
London, ON
November 2022
This photo originally shared on Instagram

Some things are black and white, while others are subtle shades of grey.

I’m not sure which one I’m dealing with here, but that’s never the point, anyway.

Simply looking up and around and being engaged with the world around us. That’s the goal.

At least that’s what I keep telling myself.

#ldnont #london #ontario #canada #building #architecture #architecturephotography #buildingporn #architectureporn #downtown #richmond #streetphotography #monochrome #photography #canon #canonphotography #canon_photography

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Tuesday, February 18, 2025

Waves in the snow

Windswept
London, ON
February 2025
This photo originally shared on Instagram

The scene: The edge of a nearby park. There’s a sidewalk somewhere around here, but it’s been buried hip-deep by three winter storms and wind so bitter I can barely feel my fingers.

I’ve wandered here ostensibly to watch the sunset, but the skies refuse to cooperate. So I shift focus to the windblown snow that seems to stretch to the horizon. I’m entranced by the texture, carved oh so carefully by Mother Nature’s breath, the waves casting gentle shadows across the pillow-like surface.

My fingers throb with pain as I desperately try to stave off frostbite. I haven’t gotten what I wanted yet, but leaving now would be an admission of failure. So my mind races for some quick composition ideas before I have to bail for the warm safety of home.

I find something I like and take one last image just as my rational brain snaps back into gear and convinces the rest of me that, no, a photo isn’t worth grievous physical injury.

Or maybe it is. Maybe it’s a Canadian thing, but sometimes a simple act of meteorological defiance is just what the soul needs.

#ldnont #london #ontario #canada #optimistpark #snow #frozen #winter #weather #wx #onstorm #abstract #street #stilllife #streetphotography #texture #monochrome #photography #apple #iphone #iphone16 #shotoniphone

Related:
Winter still sucks, February 2020
The silence of snow, November 2019

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