Saturday, September 07, 2024

Even rescuers need safe harbour

Shades of blue
Port Stanley, ON
June 2024
This photo originally shared on Instagram

Port Stanley’s Marine Rescue unit is housed in this lovely blue-clad building near the entrance to the village’s harbour.

While Lake Erie is the shallowest of the Great Lakes, it presents unique risks to anyone who ventures out on the waters - and the unit’s staff are rightly revered as the heroes they are.

It’s fitting that the place they call home protects them in the same way they so selflessly protect others.

#portstanley #beach #ldnont #ontario #canada #great #lake #erie #building #architecture #architecturephotography #buildingporn #architectureporn #geometry #lines #blue #sky #nikon #nikonphotography #nikon_photography #photography

Related:
Boxes in the sky, June 2022

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Friday, September 06, 2024

Dragon in the sky

Drama overhead
London, ON
August 2024
This photo originally shared on Instagram

A dragon breathes fire in the skies overhead.

And the hotter it burns, the sooner it fades.

#ldnont #london #ontario #canada #orange #sunset #cloudspotting #weather #wx #onstorm #optimistpark #naturephotography #landscapephotography #nikon #nikonphotography #nikon_photography #photography


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Thursday, September 05, 2024

Reflecting over a bicycle's wheel

Quarter turn
London, ON
August 2024
This photo originally shared on Instagram

32 minutes before sunset, I inexplicably park the bike on the sidewalk because I decide I like the look of the fading light.

Never mind I’ve only got 32 minutes of good light left and I still have lots of ground to cover before I get back home. Sometimes, that photographer’s itch makes us do stupid things.

As I shoot off a few abstract frames, swarms of bugs have their way with me in the sticky hot air of a classic southern Ontario summer’s evening. So I wrap it up and get back to pedalling.

Because I’m stubborn, I refuse to shorten the rest of the route, and am rewarded with a somewhat frightening and inadvisable ride through the forest in near-darkness. Sometimes the stupid decisions just keep on coming, don’t they?

And yet…

(I say that a lot.)

…I wouldn’t remember the ride as fondly if I hadn’t taken the break, hadn’t taken the time to smell the wildflowers, hadn’t taken the road less travelled. It would have been a ride like any other. Instead, it’ll remain burned in my brain as the one that made me nervous, that challenged me a little more than usual, that painted pictures I wouldn’t have otherwise gotten to see.

So maybe it wasn’t my stupidest decision on two wheels after all.

#ldnont #london #ontario #canada #cycling #cyclist #cycle #bicycle #bike #cyclinglife #bikelife #instabike #wheel #hydepark #goldenhour #sunset #apple #iphone #shotoniphone #photography

Related:
Wheel meets grass, August 2021
Tired old wheels, June 2020
Save Ferris, November 2019

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Wednesday, September 04, 2024

Not-quite-forgotten fish

I've got my eye on you
Port Stanley, ON
September 2024
This photo originally shared on Instagram

I’ve taken entirely too many photos of dead fish in my lifetime.

At this point I can’t even properly answer the inevitable question: “Why?”

I guess it’s because scenes like this make me incredibly sad.

And in a society that seems to revel in turning the lens the other way when faced with scenes mainstream conscience deems taboo, I choose to follow a decidedly different strategy. Some things deserve to be seen and remembered, not shoved under the proverbial rug.

Like death. Or mental illness. Or homelessness. Or drug use in public. Whatever the subject, I feel the need to zoom in, even if it might give us a rumbly in our tumbly.

Apologies for the spontaneous Winnie the Pooh reference, but we don’t live in a world where comfort is always as close as a beloved bear from our childhood. Sometimes life is hard. Sometimes the landscape we walk is brutally ugly.

And I’d like to think we can navigate it more effectively if in our mind’s eye we know what it looks like to begin with.

#portstanley #beach #ldnont #ontario #canada #greatlake #erie #water #waves #dead #fish #sand #stilllife #naturephotography #landscapephotography #apple #iphone #shotoniphone #photography

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Tuesday, September 03, 2024

Mr. Kotter was right all along

Kindness in chalk
London, ON
September 2024
This photo originally shared on Instagram

Some kind strangers chalked up the sidewalks and walkways near the local elementary school in advance of students returning to class today.

For block after block, colourful and encouraging messages now leap up from the concrete, waiting for the moment to wow countless kids who probably need all the encouragement they can get.

It’s a delightful change from the racist insanity that scarred the streetscape over the summer, and a timely reminder that light always banishes darkness.

I hope we all take a moment to think about kids and neighbourhoods and schools, because if these spaces aren’t safe for them, then they’re not safe for any of us.

And if it takes a community to look out for them and nurture them along their journey, I’d like to think most of us would step forward and play our part.

Eyes wide open, please. Today and every day.

Our future depends on it.

#ldnont #london #ontario #canada #sidewalk #chalk #backtoschool #signs #stilllife #streetphotography #apple #iphone #shotoniphone #photography

Related:
Chalk it up to art, August 2023
Little boy at play, March 2010

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Monday, September 02, 2024

Great Lake texture

It was a windy day
Port Stanley, ON
September 2024
This photo originally shared on Instagram

September always seems to arrive sooner than most months, and for years our family has evolved a rather simple tradition where we spend one of the unofficial last days of summer at the beach.

Because if you’re going to transition from summer to autumn, then you might want to stand beside a large body of water to mark the moment. Because it means far more than a flip of the calendar. (Wait, do we even flip calendars anymore?)

For many of us, it’s an ending and a beginning. Or many of both.

Which explains this photo, because when I’m at the beach I like to get all philosophical by the water’s edge. It’s a resonant place, where land ends and water begins. Or maybe it’s the water that’s doing the ending.

Whatever. It’s a border of sorts, a place where the winds blow unimpeded and the waves go to die. It’s hard to stand here and not feel moved in some way.

So that’s what I do, stand quietly for a while and take it all in with every sense I’ve got. I feel the wind on my face, the waves washing over my feet, the sound of the birds screaming overhead, their wings slicing the turbulent air and adding to the cacophony.

And sometimes I’ll take a picture. Or many pictures. Not because the world needs more beachy pics, but because I do. I need some way to remember what it feels like to stand here because soon enough autumn and then winter will repaint the landscape and all we’ll have are memories.

In fact, winter eventually arrives for us all, and part of me thinks this has nothing to do with actual months or seasons or calendars.

And when we’re shivering through the final chapter of whatever it is that we’re measuring, we’ll need memories to hold onto.

So let’s make them now, shall we?

#portstanley #beach #ldnont #ontario #canada #greatlake #erie #blue #sky #water #waves #cloudspotting #naturephotography #landscapephotography #apple #iphone #shotoniphone #photography


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Sunday, September 01, 2024

Ladder in the sky to nowhere

Hold on tight
Toronto, ON
August 2024
This photo originally shared on Instagram

Am I the only one who wonders why the fire escape ladder stops 20 feet above the sidewalk?

#toronto #ontario #canada #eglinton #building #architecture #architecturephotography #buildingporn #architectureporn #blue #sky #apple #iphone #shotoniphone #photography

Related:
Stairway to not-heaven, February 2023
Silos of history, August 2019
Rebuilding the sky, March 2019
Ladders and shadows, September 2018
Tread carefully, August 2010
Caption This 41, October 2007

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