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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Saturday, August 31, 2024

Bird flies into a northern sky

Stretch your wings
Sault Ste. Marie, ON
May 2024
This photo originally shared on Instagram

Just before day turns to night, a single bird climbs into the sky and turns toward the fading light, her ultimate destination known only to her.

We’re at the halfway point of our own journey, and as I stand by the window and watch her fade into the distance, I silently wish her safe passage.

Because we all deserve to arrive safely, don’t we?

#saultstemarie #ontario #canada #throwback #travel #sunset #cloudspotting #bird #gull #flight #nature #naturephotography #landscape #landscapephotography #nikon #nikonphotography #nikon_photography #photography


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Friday, August 30, 2024

A mural struggles to be seen

Whitewashed
London, ON
August 2024
This photo originally shared on Instagram

So when an alleged criminal allegedly painted virulently anti-Semitic statements in multiple locations in our neighbourhood earlier this month, one of his alleged targets was a large mural that had been gracing the outer wall of a convenience store for years.

(For the record, I despise the word “alleged” in all its forms. Onward.)

It had been signed by the dozen or so community groups that had participated in its creation, and it was a beacon of kindness to the neighbourhood and adjoining school. I smiled every time I walked past, and I know I wasn’t alone, as I’d often come across others just staring at it.

Art moves people, people. Truth.

But the prospect of a mural tainted with “JEW CAMP C” in massive white paint wouldn’t play well with the hundreds of kids returning soon to the school next door (its back walls were also thoroughly defiled, in case we’re keeping score), so the owner understandably had it painted over in white.

If we’re being brutally honest, I wanted to cry when I first saw it. Imagine a symbol of collaboration and community-mindedness being utterly ruined by the hateful acts of a hateful man. Not alleged.

Yet in all darkness there is light, and this moment of sickening rage has spawned a fascinating next chapter. I was approached by a concerned neighbour while walking my dog. Conversations have ensued. Emails have flown back and forth. Community organizations have weighed in. And next week some of us will be meeting with our very remarkable city councillor for a chat over tea.

Will it get our old mural back? No. But will it spawn something else? Possibly. And we owe it to ourselves to see where this might go.

Someday I’d like to stand on that same sidewalk alongside the no-longer-alleged, long-since-convicted perpetrator of this crime. I’d like him to take in the splendour of whatever it is that our neighbours ultimately recreate there. I’d like him to appreciate what he’s taken away, the hurt and fear that he’s caused, and the fire he’s unleashed in its wake.

Because hatred never wins. We simply can’t allow it.

#ldnont


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Thursday, August 29, 2024

Tea time in a Tim Horton's parking lot

Recyclable-plastic Canadiana
Morrisburg, ON
August 2024
This photo originally shared on Instagram

We’ve been on the road all day, headed back to our onetime hometown for a long-overdue visit.

Traffic on Canada’s busiest highway has been insane, with accidents, construction, speed traps, and a fully engulfed truck fire. No injuries, thank goodness, but still.

We pull into an OnRoute rest stop to refuel Stella (sorry, Debbie’s car) and ourselves. After the good folks at the Tim Horton’s coffee shop take pity on us and share their caffeine, we head back into the early evening sun.

As we walk through the parking lot, now covered in deep shadows, I’m hit by a photographic brainstorm. We load the car up and I engage in a bit of carside still-life photography while my ever so patient wife smiles sardonically and waits for me to shoot yet another weird photo.

Strangers stare that odd stare that we’ve seen so many times before.

I take one image and am immediately happy with the result because it telegraphs a moment with her that I’m not ready to forget. Whether the day is easy or hard or somewhere in between, I’ve been using strange pics as placeholders for as long as I’ve known her. And she’s never failed to understand the why.

This day has been a hard one. Challenge lays ahead of us, at the other end of the long road where we now find ourselves. But somehow, a simple timeout from the grinding trip reminds me - indeed us - why even the most difficult moments are to be cherished just as much as the easiest ones.

Photography as road trip catharsis sounds reasonable to me.

#morrisburg #ontario #canada #onroute #parkinglot #stilllife #highway #roadtrip #travel #timhortons #apple #iphone #shotoniphone #photography

Related:

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Wednesday, August 28, 2024

The right side of a bird, literally

Sorry I can't be more still
Port Stanley, ON
June 2024
This photo originally shared on Instagram

If you’re going to take photos of me without permission, please ensure you get my best side.

#portstanley #beach #ldnont #ontario #canada #great #lake #erie #bird #gull #flight #nature #naturephotography #landscape #landscapephotography #nikon #nikonphotography #nikon_photography #photography


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Tuesday, August 27, 2024

A moment in a stormy cemetery

Reflective memories
Laval, QC
August 2024
This photo originally shared on Instagram

As thunder rumbles in the distance, my wife and I walk through the soft grass of the cemetery to visit the graves of her parents and my dad.

It’s quiet here save for the birds circling slowly high overhead, their cries joined by the sound of the winds whispering through the trees that try - and fail - to shade this place.

I have a complicated relationship with these enigmatic plots of land. I don’t visit my loved ones as much as I come here to reflect, because I’ve always felt the memory of them is separate and distinct from what was once their physical being. Maybe I’m wrong, but it seems to help me deal with the temporary nature of this life thing.

We leave stones as markers that we were here, that the lives this place now honours are tangibly remembered, and they left their mark on the rest of us. The sky reflects off the polished marble, an ever changing scene invisible to those now buried here.

Soon enough the thunder gets louder and it’s time for us to leave. We’ll return, of course, but the things that mattered most about these giants who gave us life will stick in our hearts and souls every moment between now and then. We don’t need to actually be here to cherish them, but it probably doesn’t hurt to drop in for a reflective reminder now and then.

Memories are complicated. So are lives, particularly when and after they end.

#laval #duvernay #montreal #quebec #canada #cemetery #apple #iphone #shotoniphone #photography #family #everything


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Monday, August 26, 2024

Seussian sunset, 10 times fast

Hard to describe
London, ON
August 2024
This photo originally shared on Instagram

If Dr. Seuss had the power to paint the sky, I imagine it might look something like this.

If Dr. Seuss had the power to paint the sky, maybe we’d look up more often.

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


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Sunday, August 25, 2024

Helper dog

You gonna let me take a crack at that thing?
London, ON
August 2024
This photo originally shared on Instagram

A photographer is only as effective as the assistant who keeps things on an even keel during a shoot.

As may be apparent in this scene, my assistant lacks opposable thumbs. Come to think of it, her language skills are unclear, and I don’t think she knows how to shoot in manual mode.

But she helps in other, more subtle ways. She’ll quietly graze the grass beside me as I look around and ponder the possibilities. She’ll nose-bump the back of my leg when she thinks I need a moment of comfort. She’ll whine when she thinks it’s time to head home.

It’s weird to think that the mere presence of a dog can change the way we take photos - or, by extension, see the world - but I’ve come to believe precisely that.

The lack of opposable thumbs really isn’t a liability at all. In fact, it means she leans on her other priceless skills as she creatively figures out new ways to help her peeps.

Maybe we’re not talking about dogs at all.

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


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