Snowbirds reach retirement age. Sort of.

Magic
London, ON
September 2024
This photo originally shared on Instagram

Canada’s famed Snowbirds fly the Canadair CT-114 Tutor aircraft - and yesterday marked 65 years since the type’s first flight.

That’s right, kids: they’ve officially reached retirement age.

For all the bellyaching around our air force’s demo team flying planes the current pilots’ grandparents might have flown, the very fact that they aren’t front-line fighters is yet another one of those quirky traits that makes them as beloved as they are.

Because when you don’t have huge thrust-to-weight ratios and digital fly-by-wire systems at your disposal, you have to get creative both on the ground and in the air.

Here’s to decades more of making Canadians - the country, never a state - proud. Fly safe, Snowbirds.

#airshowlondon @airshowlondon #ldnont #london #airport #ontario #canada #skydrive #rcaf #snowbirds #canadair #rcaf #ct114 #cl41 #tutor #avgeek #aviationphotography #planespotting #instaplane #photography #nikon #nikonphotography #nikon_photography

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Her first sunset

Day one
London, ON
December 13, 2024
This photo originally shared on Instagram

Dear Claira,

One month ago today, you found your way into the world.

Because you come from a family of storytellers, I gave a lot of thought to how I would begin to tell the story of you. And as the sun moved across the sky on that milestone day, I thought the days’s sunset would be an appropriate place to start.

See, you may not know this about your Zaida, but I like to take pictures so that I’ll remember what certain moments not only looked like, but felt like. And because I’ve been staring at skies and clouds since I was not much older than you, lots of those photos are of sunrises and sunsets.

So I thought the first sunset of your life would be a good place for us to start.

As I stood here 1,800 or so kilometres away from you, I stared at the deepening blue knowing you’d soon be able to share your own stories of the sky with me.

And we’d always have this one scene to hold onto, the one that started it all.

Happy first-month-birthday, little one. Always know that when you’re looking up at the sky, I am, too.

Love you forever,

Zaida

#family #everything

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Raindrops on my window

Stormy afternoon
Pointe Claire, QC
August 2024
This photo originally shared on Instagram

Planet Earth’s week starts off stormy, so it seems appropriate to reflect the mood with a view out the window.

Sometimes we can see the way through, and other times we can’t. Often, as is the case with this image, the outcome depends on how we choose to view the scene.

In this case, I deliberately opened up the aperture to minimize the depth of field and throw the background out of focus. I could have gone the other way, but chose not to.

That visibility thing, then. It can be a choice if we allow it.

And if we’re lucky, it applies beyond photography, too.

#pointeclaire #montreal #quebec #canada #throwback #thunderstorm #storm #weatherphotography #sky #clouds #cloudspotting #weather #wx #window #droplet #nature #abstract #naturephotography #landscapephotography #photography #nikon #nikonphotography #nikon_photography

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A spooky morning in the woods

Protection from the unknown
London, ON
December 2023
This photo originally shared on Instagram

On an early winter’s morning, I peer deeply into the foggy woods and see what I think is spookiness.

At first glance, it isn’t hard to appreciate how a scene like this might make a great horror movie poster background. But that initial sense of foreboding seems to soften the longer I stand there.

There’s a sense of peaceful quiet here that stands as an antidote to the four lanes of traffic that border it. The craggy trees, now devoid of their leafy cover, still manage to embrace the sky above the forest floor, protective of everything underneath.

And if you close your eyes and just listen, the soft soundtrack of the forest soon begins to play its subtle tune. It’s there. We just have to lean in a little.

Indeed, as I cover my lens and head for home, I smile at the notion that I was once scared of the woods, but no longer am. The walk home, among streets overrun with traffic, will be infinitely more dangerous than anything I might have encountered under the trees.

Why, again, am I not hanging out here more often?

#ldnont #london #ontario #canada #medwayvalley #heritage #forest #tree #trees #fog #weather #wx #naturephotography #landscapephotography #photography #nikon #nikonphotography #nikon_photography

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Brrr
London, ON
January 2025
This photo originally shared on Instagram

Canadian winter coping mechanism:

1. Go for a wander just after sunrise.
2. Look for frozen puddles in the dim shadows.
3. Stare at them.
4. Take particular care to avoid being mowed down by smartphone-addicted motorists.

Maybe you’re not Canadian and maybe the notion of things freezing in winter is foreign to you. No matter, because tiny, short-lived wonders are happening everywhere, usually in the shadowy margins where nobody bothers to look.

So look. We could all use more opportunities to have our eyebrows raised and our spirits lifted.

#ldnont #london #ontario #canada #water #gutter #ice #frozen #winter #walkabout #weather #wx #onstorm #abstract #street #stilllife #streetphotography #monochrome #photography #apple #iphone #iphone16 #shotoniphone

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Light from a buried car

That night-time glow
London, ON
January 2025
This photo originally shared on Instagram

The scene: a long-lasting lake effect storm has left a thick blanket of snow along a narrow band of communities downwind from Lake Huron. Ours is one of them.

On the street near our house, my wife’s car sits covered with an obscenely thick amount of the white stuff. My mission is to clean it off and move it into the driveway. Sounds pretty straightforward.

But nothing is ever completely linear when I’m involved. And as I approach the car and ponder how I’ll fetch the snow brush out of the car without becoming a snowman in the process, I hit the button on the key fob to unlock the doors. This turns on the car’s lights, which now shine a friendly yellow and white glow through the thick snow.

I stop myself and just stare at the soft, diffused light. After a few seconds, the lights time out and shut down. I hit the fob again, and slowly walk around the vehicle looking for a fun angle.

I keep at this for a while, turning the lights on, then composing in my mind in the few seconds before the timer turns them off once more. Eventually, my phone buzzes, as Debbie is in the house wondering if there’s something wrong with her car.

So I shoot quickly before cleaning the car and moving it into the driveway, as I should have done first thing. But as my long suffering family knows, I can get hit by what I call a photographic vision virtually anytime. Which means everything gets put on hold while I ponder the possibilities. Eyes are rolled, sighs are heard, and every once in a long while I’ll end up with a photo that freezes the moment and seals the memory.

It’s a ridiculous way to live, but it’s become a bit of a refuge from a planet that isn’t always so clean and pretty. If taking abstract pics in the snow - or wherever else - brings moments of calm, I’m in.

#ldnont #london #ontario #canada #winter #snow #weather #wx #onstorm #night #stilllife #abstract #photography #apple #iphone #iphone16 #shotoniphone

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A cold, comforting blanket
London, ON
January 2025
This photo originally shared on Instagram

I don’t have it in me to complain about the weather, not while parts of Los Angeles are burning.

Because someone else always has it worse than we do.

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Lie back and look up
London, ON
July 2024
This photo originally shared on Instagram
 

I’m sharing this as a reminder to myself to step off the treadmill of life every once in a while and stare up at the clouds.

Sometimes we’ll see something in them and sometimes we won’t, but that was never really the point, anyway. No one keeps score.

What matters is that we take the time at all. And maybe this applies to more than clouds. I’ll have to ponder that one a bit more.

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

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When waves peak

Curly
Port Stanley, ON
September 2024
This photo originally shared on Instagram

Stand on the shore long enough on a windy day and a few things soon become apparent:

1. Waves spend most of their lives mostly invisibly crossing vast bodies of water.
2. They reach their most impressive state in the very last seconds of their existence.
3. Their lives end with a literal bang, crashing out onto land before becoming a mere memory.

I can’t help but think there’s a real-world analogy in this, a broader, higher-order meaning, if you will.

But as I try to commit a few of of these rollers to pixels, I remind myself to stop overthinking everything.

Indeed, sometimes it’s more than enough to just stand in the wind and feel the spray on my face.

#portstanley #beach #ldnont #ontario #canada #throwback #great #lake #erie #water #waves #monochrome #naturephotography #landscapephotography #photography nikon #nikonphotography #nikon_photography

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Danish, close-up

Leading lines
London, ON
December 2024
This photo originally shared on Instagram

Because we could all use a little more sweetness in our lives.

Right?

#ldnont #london #ontario #canada #dessert #danish #breakfast #food #foodporn #kitchen #stilllife #photography #apple #iphone #iphone16 #shotoniphone

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A dog walks on a snowy night

This way, Dad
London, ON
December 2024
This photo originally shared on Instagram

Wherever she leads, I will follow.

I trust her to know the way. She trusts me to always be there whenever she looks back.

#ldnont #london #ontario #canada #winter #snow #weather #wx #onstorm #calli #callitheschnauzer #dog #dogs #actofdog #schnauzerpuppy #schnauzersofinstagram #schnauzergram #schnauzers #dogsofinstagram #instapuppy #night #monochrome #photography #apple #iphone #iphone16 #shotoniphone

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So. Many. Lines.
Winnipeg, MB
December 2024
This photo originally shared on Instagram

More often than I dare admit, I’ll take a lousy photo. The lousiness is deliberate, however, because what I’m really trying to do is remember the moment I shot it.

To better explain this notion, allow me to take us back to the airport, or more precisely Winnipeg’s Richardson International Airport.

It’s a couple of days before Christmas, and my lovely wife and I are in the terminal waiting for our flight back to Toronto. We’re in the middle of a crazy trip home from Northern Ontario that involves more legs than an octopus.

A pea-soup fog has enveloped the airport as nasty weather warnings both here and at our destination threaten to further delay our trip. Good times.

But I’m with her, and we’ve always rather enjoyed difficult journeys as long as we’re together. And we’ve found a delightfully comfy couch near the gate. Calmness amid the storm, if you will.

When Debbie sets off in search of snacks, I find myself staring up at the ceiling because, well, that’s my thing. Soon enough I settle on the boring squared pattern on the ceiling overhead and decide it’s time to capture it somehow.

Which explains how I end up lying on the big comfy couch shooting straight up while the friendly-looking silver-haired couple sitting across from us looks on with a curious mixture of bemusement and suspicion.

This happens whenever I engage in spontaneous photography in public spaces. It looks weird, I know, but it’s a benign, funny kind of weird instead of the creepier kind. At least that’s what I tell myself.

I hope it brings a little brightness to others during an otherwise grey point in time. I hope they’re making indelible memories along the way, just like I am.

#winnipeg #manitoba #canada #throwback #airport #ywg #travel #travelphotography #travelgram #monochrome #abstract #geometry #photography #apple #apple #iphone #iphone16 #shotoniphone

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A wingtip traces the horizon

Between the clouds
Somewhere over Lake Huron, ON
December 2024
This photo originally shared on Instagram

As the early morning flight cruises above one cloud deck and below another, the rising sun decides to paint the distant horizon in shades of orange and salmon that no camera could ever hope to accurately capture.

Every flight offers up its own unique story through the scratched plastic windows, its own reel of wonder, there for the taking for anyone still awake.

It lasts for a blink, a perfect combination of the weather conditions, Air Canada’s scheduling department, and NavCan’s air traffic control guidance that put this Airbus A321-200 in this exact position at this exact moment. It isn’t lost on me that this moment, where the fences on the wingtip gently trace the glowing horizon line, will never happen again.

As photographs go, it’s a hastily grabbed snapshot. But as I tuck the smartphone away I wonder about all the other magic moments that happen just outside our windows.

Maybe we’re high in the sky or driving across town. Or maybe we’re just hanging out in the house. But there’s no realistic way to take in every last moment that plays out on the other side of the glass. We all have things to do, lives to lead, and precious few opportunities to stare out the window and drink in the view. Inevitably, we’ll miss more than we see.

But despite headlines suggesting the contrary, life isn’t a numbers game, and no one’s keeping score. And in between all the moments when we’re too busy to look out or up - or to look at all - we’ll find those occasional opportunities to witness sheer magic.

We just have to allow ourselves to look out the window every once in a while, wherever those windows might be.

#toronto #ontario #yyz #winnipeg #manitoba #canada #ywg #throwback #travel #travelphotography #travelgram #aircanada #airbus #a321 #avgeek #plane #flight #flying #aviation #photography #apple #iphone #iphone16 #shotoniphone

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Life at a crossroads

Which way?
Dryden, ON
June 2024
This photo originally shared on Instagram

Eventually we all arrive at a crossroads.

There are no wrong directions. Just pick one, and go.

#dryden #ontario #canada #throwback #roadtrip #travel #travelphotography #travelgram #highway #road #sign #photography #nikon #nikonphotography #nikon_photography #photography

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Focus on the helper
London, ON
January 2025
This photo originally shared on Instagram

This is what the eighth night of Chanukah looks like in our house and in so many others.

There’s a certain sense of bitterness associated with this night, because it represents a culmination of sorts - the brightest it’s going to get - and an ending, as tomorrow night there will be darkness.

Long after the candles burn down for the last time, I’ll often flip back to the imagery of this night, the photos and memories reminding me to seek the light and shine it on - and for - others no matter what the calendar might say.

Chanukah isn’t considered one of Judaism’s so-called major holidays, but its story - miraculously overcoming impossible odds to survive and thrive - feels like it deserves a bigger platform.

Because the world was dark when an outgunned group of Jewish defenders prevailed over an overwhelming force, and it’s dark now in ways that echo our turbulent history. A holiday that celebrates light feels like an appropriate thing to hold onto for the entire year.

So I will. And I hope I won’t be the only one.

#ldnont #london #ontario #canada #chanukah #hannukah #howeveritisspelled #jewish #holiday #stilllife #photography #apple #apple #iphone #iphone16 #shotoniphone

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At least it looks sweet
London, ON
December 2024
This photo originally shared on Instagram

We often wish others a sweet new year, because to some of us sugar seems to be the universal ingredient for a life well lived. At least it is in the movies, if not in nutrition textbooks.

I like my treats just as much as anyone, so I definitely won’t disagree with this admittedly kind, well-intentioned tradition. I can always put on a few extra kilometres on the bike to burn off the sugar.

But there’s always a but with me, and the back story of this image might help explain.

See, these cupcakes LOOK like the very embodiment of sweetness, arranged in perfect, colour-correct order just inside the store entrance. I could stand there all day and take in their perfection.

Yet they come with a small warning sign just off to the side: for display purposes only, not for purchase or consumption. It’s so tiny, in fact, that it’s easy to miss.

And as I stare at an ideal visual that in reality is far from ideal, I wonder about all the other messages we consume that suggest one thing, but deliver quite another.

We’re all ultimately selling something, whether it’s a store-bought cupcake or ourselves. It couldn’t hurt to keep that in mind, as not everything is always as it seems.

And we might want to think twice before we take that first bite.

#ldnont #london #ontario #canada #grocery #store #loblaws #dessert #shopping #retail #stilllife #photography #apple #iphone #iphone16 #shotoniphone

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