An icy, successful failure

Blur!
London, ON
January 2025
This photo originally shared on Instagram

Question: what happens when you don’t check the camera’s settings before stepping out onto the front porch to shoot the icicles?

Answer: an unplanned 8-second handheld exposure in all its blurry glory. In other words, an abject failure of a shot.

But is it really?

I was fully prepared to delete this one, just another of the countless photos that understandably never see the light of day. For all the precision of modern cameras, where even in manual mode it’s hard to mess up an exposure, leave it to me to find new ways to screw up a pic.

But the longer I hovered over the image after I imported it into Lightroom, the more I decided I liked it.

It screamed abstract to me, a chaotic mess of light and texture that could only exist in that singular, imperfect few seconds. Or a reminder that not all plans are meant to work out, and it’s perfectly fine to end up far away from your original destination.

So let’s call it a happy accident, then. Or an unplanned failure. Or maybe something I should deliberately shoot for the next time I pick up a camera.

Maybe there’s something to this failure thing after all. Maybe the very word, failure, needs a new definition.

#ldnont #london #ontario #canada #ice #icicle #drip #abstract #blur #winter #weather #wx #night #naturephotography #landscapephotography #doorstep #photography #nikon #nikonphotography #nikon_photography

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Rage, rage against the dying of the light

Deep into twilight
London, ON
January 2025
This photo originally shared on Instagram

It’s been 32 minutes since the sun disappeared beneath the cloud-covered horizon, so I’ve hung around the frozen park just in case the grey skies decide to allow the light to break through one last time.

It’s called hopeless optimism, and apparently I suffer from a severe case of it.

I hold the camera in my hand, my fingers aching from the cold, and while my mind says it’s time to pack it in and head home, my feet decide otherwise, and stay planted in the hard-packed snow.

Suddenly the clouds shift just enough to expose a gentle orange glow in a tiny speck of sky just down by the treeline. It isn’t much, but I raise the camera and snap off a few frames before it winks out for good.

The barely-there light show is over in around 30 seconds, but it turns out to be the only 30 seconds I need.

On the slow walk home, I think about the notion of patience and time. Because if time is the only true gift we’ve all been given, it might make sense to consider spending it with more care. With or without a camera in our hands.

#ldnont #london #ontario #canada #sunset #cloudspotting #weather #wx #silhouette #bokeh #dof #optimistpark #naturephotography #landscapephotography #photography #nikon #nikonphotography #nikon_photography

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Do not go gentle... November 2021