Friday, April 04, 2025

Demented birds

Fly away
London, ON
March 2025
This photo originally shared on Instagram

Every time I hold a camera in my hand, I learn something new.

As an example, I offer up this highly imperfect shot of random ducks ripping holes in the sky.

I didn’t set out to shoot them. Instead, I had been focusing on another flock quietly playing on a floating log when this other group of birds decided to ruin the serenity of the moment.

The camera wasn’t remotely configured for a spontaneous high-speed pic, so I shifted my gaze and did the best I could in the 1.2 seconds I had before they disappeared for good.

As you can see, it was mission only partially accomplished. The shutter speed is too slow. The composition is somewhat off. The entire exercise feels less than stellar.

Yet I love the image.

Not because it’s perfect. Far from it. But because it telegraphs a moment I don’t want to forget, where I went from zero to oh-my-GOD in a blink. Where it was just me and some demented birds playing with light in the late afternoon sky.

So what did I learn?

That perfection matters less than we think.

That successful storytelling is often less an exercise in technical precision than it is about seeking simple joy.

That the experience of capturing an image extends well beyond the resulting two-dimensional collection of pixels.

That looks matter, but feelings matter more.

Those demented birds sure know their stuff. I should hang out with them more often.

#ldnont #london #ontario #canada #springbank #bird #ducks #unlimited #flight #naturephotography #wildlifephotography #naturephotography #photography #nikon #nikonphotography #nikon_photography

Related:
I've got your six, March 2025
Party of birds, September 2023

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Thursday, April 03, 2025

When storms move in

Threaten me. Save me.
London, ON
April 2025
This photo originally shared on Instagram

The skies threatened last night as the leading edge of a continent-spanning storm moved into our region.

Not too far to our south, millions of Americans hunkered down for a night of tornado warnings and fear.

By the time darkness fell, the threat north of the border had degraded to little more than sleep-interrupting thunderstorms, but it was still sobering to realize how thin the line has now become.

So while the dog sniffed for treasure in the soaked grasses below, I watched a single bare tree blow in the strengthening winds. And I was struck by the duality of the scene, of a sky that both threatens the very existence of the tree, yet provides all the ingredients for it to grow in the first place.

And still, despite it all, the tree stretches to the sky.

#ldnont #london #ontario #canada #jayceepark #tree #weather #wx #onstorm #naturephotography #landscapephotography #monochrome #photography #apple #apple #iphone #iphone16 #shotoniphone

Related:
Running in the sky, March 2025
Under an angry sky, August 2021

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Wednesday, April 02, 2025

No joke. Dog.

So, about that treat you were talking about?
London, ON
March 2025
This photo originally shared on Instagram

I’ll be blunt: I despise April 1st with the heat of a thousand suns, and I awake this morning relieved that it’s over for another year.

I don’t know the origins of April Fools’ Day. And while I could easily edumacate myself on it with 90 seconds of online research, my white-hot derision compels me not to.

Perhaps this makes me look and sound like the old man screaming at the kids near his lawn, but there’s nothing funny about a joke that we know is coming. If we’re looking for pure comedy, the hackneyed, forced, derivative examples on display every April 1st will never qualify.

The journalist in me feels it degrades the craft. With legions of social-media-fed morons already casting doubt on the credibility of the entire industry, why on Earth would a legitimate business platform risk its brand integrity by sharing an obvious lie?

There’s enough misinformation floating around as it is that we hardly need a day dedicated to it in the name of so-called humour.

And the bullying-masked-as-a-joke vibe that dominates the day feels like everything our parents never wanted us to become as adults.

So please consider this photo of our dog, Calli, as something of a day-after palette cleanser. She isn’t trying to be anything she isn’t, nor is she attempting to force her humour on the rest of us.

She just…is. And the things that make her funny are the things that come naturally to her.

Thank you for attending my rage-induced TED Talk.

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

Related:
Go on, I dare you, March 2025
Random dog photo time, October 2024
Helper dog, August 2024
That Schnauzer stare, December 2023

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Tuesday, April 01, 2025

Waiting for kickoff

Game on
London, ON
November 2011
This photo originally shared on Instagram

Before the game is played.

Before the players take the field.

Before the lights flood the stadium.

Before the fans show up.

Before the cheers echo off of the concrete.

The stands sit empty.

Waiting for new stories to be told.

For winners and losers to be decided.

#ldnont #london #ontario #canada #throwback #td #stadium #uwo #football #sports #sportsing #geometry #monochrome #photography #nikon #nikonphotography #nikon_photography

Related:
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Monday, March 31, 2025

Fun with curved glass

Wonderland for carnivores
Thornhill, ON
March 2025
This photo originally shared on Instagram

More often than I dare admit, I’ll take a time-out from the everyday and take weird photos.

Why? Because life can be hard, and weird photos can be quite the antidote.

And here’s the thing: it doesn’t just work for me, because I can see total strangers crack the occasional smile when they think I’m not looking.

Today’s example comes to us from the meat department of the Sobeys store in Thornhill, just north of Toronto. This particular display feels like an amusement park funhouse, a riot of angles and reflections that present themselves only if we look inside the glass in just the right way.

Maybe it’s a simple escape from the more serious pressures of Planet Earth, or maybe it’s a broader metaphor for life. Or maybe it’s just a strange composition that marks a moment that I want to hold onto.

It can even be all or none of them. It’s the not knowing before the image is even created that makes us pick the camera up in the first place.

#thornhill #toronto #ontario #canada #grocery #store #sobeys #shopping #retail #random #glass #perspective #stilllife #photography #apple #iphone #iphone16 #shotoniphone


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Sunday, March 30, 2025

Step aboard

Follow the light
London, ON
April 2018
This photo originally shared on Instagram

Trains will never not be magical.

That is all.

#ldnont #london #ontario #canada #throwback #viarail #stainless #steel #train #track #perspective #downtown #travel #redlight #reflective #photography #nikon #nikonphotography #nikon_photography


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Saturday, March 29, 2025

Ethereal rays from the heavens

Angled
London, ON
July 2012
This photo originally shared on Instagram

Storms will come, skies will threaten, fear will descend on us all from above.

I’m guessing this is as true in everyday life as it is in everyday photography, which likely explains why I stand transfixed as the threatening clouds move toward me from the horizon.

It’s a moment born more out of curiosity than fear as the formations dance in the sky, leaving ample room for the sun to fight its way through, stubborn rays reaching down to the earth below.

If the skies were less chaotic, they probably wouldn’t be as memorable.

Skies. Life. They’re more similar than we might have once thought. So I take a few more frames before turning for home under the first fat drops of the coming storm.

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

Related:
Be. The. Light. September 2023
Smoke and light, July 2022
Muted landscape, November 2011
Crack the sky, February 2009

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Friday, March 28, 2025

It only looks frozen

Time, stopped
London, ON
October 2017
This photo originally shared on Instagram

Most kids will happily play in the dancing waters of the neighbourhood splash pad.

Some kids will never really grow up, and will bring their cameras back when they’re older.

It’s how we remember moments that slip by too quickly.

#ldnont #london #ontario #canada #throwback #water #fountain #frozen #gibbonspark #monochrome #photography #nikon #nikonphotography #nikon_photography

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Thursday, March 27, 2025

Play ball again

Field of dreams
Toronto, ON
September 2024
This photo originally shared on Instagram

I’ll admit I’m not the world’s most ardent sports fan.

I don’t religiously watch every game, mourn every loss, or debate every unfair call.

I don’t wear the merch, or hold my breath as teams either battle for a playoff spot or fade into mediocrity.

I don’t dissect each game in excruciating detail, or follow statistics with religious zeal.

I find the notion that “we” won somewhat amusing given “we” weren’t on the field or the ice.

I’m such a non-fan that I often jokingly refer to the entire exercise as sportsing. Because it’s a game, not life and death.

Despite my relative antipathy toward professional team sports that are more business than sport, anyway, I appreciate why so many folks get it.

The mere act of walking into an arena or a stadium is as resonant as an adult as it was when we were kids. These places are beautifully and massively scaled temples of civic life, where countless stories will inevitably play out, and indelible memories will be shaped in the crucible of competition.

And as Toronto’s Blue Jays return to the Rogers Centre for their season opener later today, I’m taken back to my most recent visit there as their last, forgettable and regrettable season wound down.

It was magical then, and it’ll be magical again, regardless of any game’s result or where the team ends up in the standings. You don’t have to be a superfan to appreciate what makes the entire exercise as special as it is.

Maybe none of this is life and death, but it’s still worth holding on to in its own way.

Maybe something as seemingly simple as a game can bring light to the lives of those who watch.

I’m glad I’m not the only one who still believes.

#toronto #yyz #ontario #canada #throwback #bluejays #mlb #rogerscentre #stadium #skydome #baseball #sports #sportsing #photography #apple #iphone #shotoniphone

Related:
No fans here, January 2021
Expensive blue seats, October 2017
Done deal, September 2004
'Spos - almost done, September 2004

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Wednesday, March 26, 2025

Talking about 23andMe with the CBC

 As 23andMe seeks bankruptcy protection, millions of customers wonder what happens next. I’ll be joining CBC Radio stations across Canada this afternoon to discuss the risks - and what can be done to minimize them.

UPDATE:


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Meeting the one-eyed fish

Chicken or fish?
London, ON
March 2025
This photo originally shared on Instagram

The scene: Costco, Friday afternoon.

I’ve come here to pick up some fixins for dinner, including one of their legendary BBQ chickens that mercifully haven’t been price adjusted since the second Bush Administration.

I arrive at the chicken counter only to find it empty. Fresh chickens spin hypnotically in the high-tech ovens behind the display, but it’ll clearly be a while before they’re cooked and ready.

In typical Costco fashion, other shoppers are already lining up. Since I have a natural aversion to random lineups - and they’re roasting enough chickens in those ovens to feed a small nation - I decide a spontaneous smartphone photo shoot would be a better use of my time.

The fish freezers are mercifully devoid of people, so soon enough I’m peering at frozen sea bass and attempting to avoid the reflections off the clear plastic. The struggle is real.

I get a few stares along the way, which makes me smile, because photographic joy deserves to be shared, even in concrete suburban warehouses.

Eventually the chickens are ready, and the line-standers snap up their $7.99 bags almost as quickly as staffers can place them under the warming lights. I slowly circle back, looking for more spontaneous moments along the way.

There’s always another chicken to take home. Moments we get to hold onto - however strange they may seem - are an entirely different matter.

#ldnont #london #ontario #canada #grocery #store #costco #shopping #retail #frozen #fish #stilllife #photography #apple #iphone #iphone16 #shotoniphone

Related:
Not-quite-forgotten fish, September 2024
An icy fish tale, January 2023
Fish. Stacked. November 2021
Octopus on ice, May 2021

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Tuesday, March 25, 2025

Don't look up

Prehistorically atmospheric
London, ON
November 2024
This photo originally shared on Instagram

Predators are everywhere, even in the skies above.

But if we wait them out, soon enough they’ll be replaced by something else.

And, inevitably, by darkness, then a fresh morning sky.

I’d like to imagine all of this is an analog for hope, both in the sky and anywhere else.

And as threatening as things might look in the moment, everything is temporary, and all skies eventually clear themselves out.

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


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Monday, March 24, 2025

The setting sun burns the stagnant water

Before it evaporates...
London, ON
March 2025
This photo originally shared on Instagram

It’s just a filthy puddle in the middle of a muddy baseball field, a common and easily overlooked scene as winter gives way to spring.

But show up at just the right moment and look at it just so - maybe through a squinted eye or two - and it’s a different story.

The sun can make even the ugliest things look magical. But I’m guessing we have to get out there if we’re going to see anything more than a filthy puddle in the middle of a muddy baseball field.

Otherwise it’s as if it never happened in the first place.

#ldnont #london #ontario #canada #sunset #reflective #optimistpark #naturephotography #landscapephotography #photography #nikon #nikonphotography #nikon_photography


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Sunday, March 23, 2025

Stared down by a white goose

It's not polite to stare
London, ON
March 2025
This photo originally shared on Instagram

So I’m walking through the park with my camera when I come across a gaggle of geese in a clearing by the river.

Most of them are Canadian geese, and they’re being their typically ornery, oh-so-un-Canadian selves, pecking at each other for no apparent reason, and hissing to reinforce their point - whatever that point may be.

Among the crowd is a single outlier, a brilliantly white domestic goose. She isn’t so much angry as she is stern, using her piercing stare to keep all the other geese in line. Even the tiny ducks mixing into the crowd seem afraid of her, and stand quietly beside the water, obediently waiting for her next move.

At one point she stops what she’s doing and looks directly into my soul. Perhaps it’s a warning, or a promise, and I’ll admit she kinda frightens me. So I rack off a few frames through my thankfully long lens before I decide no photo is worth the perpetual scorn of an obviously angry bird.

As I slowly walk back to the human-shaped world, I scan the photos on my screen and stop at this one. That stare. I can’t tell what she’s thinking, but I decide it doesn’t matter.

I’ll never know her mood or intention. But for a fleeting second on a muddy riverbank, we strangely connected. I looked into her world and she looked back into mine. We didn’t speak the same language, but I still felt like she was trying to say something to me.

As I put the camera back in its bag, I muse to myself that perhaps this moment has echoes for the human world, too. Maybe we should be looking for moments with those we know will never understand a word we say.

Indeed, maybe communication doesn’t simply involve words.

#ldnont #london #ontario #canada #springbank #bird #goose #flight #naturephotography #wildlifephotography #naturephotography #photography #nikon #nikonphotography #nikon_photography

Related:
Geese aplenty, August 2023
Flight into the wind, September 2018
Your goose is cooked, October 2011
Wounded bird, December 2006

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Saturday, March 22, 2025

Icicles melt in only one direction

No going back
London, ON
February 2025
This photo originally shared on Instagram

Some things become obvious after watching a melting icicle for a long enough period of time:
  1. Gravity moves in only one direction.
  2. It is the law.
  3. Eventually it will claim the entire icicle.
There is likely a greater truth to this, or some kind of broader meaning well beyond the physics of a melting icicle. But it’s too early in the day to ponder such things, and the dog is waiting patiently by the front door.

#ldnont #london #ontario #canada #icicle #droplet #winter #weather #wx #naturephotography #landscapephotography #monochrome #photography #nikon #nikonphotography #nikon_photography

Related:

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