Under his sister's watchful gaze

Vision squared
London, ON
August 2010
 

Some pictures kinda sit in the archives for a while before you pull them out. There's no real reason for it. If I had to guess, I'd have to blame the twin conspirators of not enough time and a growing backlog of pics to process.

Must work on that.

Be that as it may, I remember this day, 2-and-a-half years ago, rather well. It was a sweltering August day, around noon, and I had taken the kids to watch a family friend play soccer. We hung out on the right side of the chalk lines, absorbing the excitement of the game and enjoying being a part of something so elemental.

I'm not sure what I enjoyed more: watching the game or watching these two banter on the grass. All these months later, they're a lot older and wiser than they were here, but the banter continues.

Your turn: Do you remember specific days from long ago? What makes days like this memorable to you?

We found the rings of Saturn

Planetary
London, ON
July 2012
Click here to share your own Soft Light Thematic

Photography gives us the ability to see the ordinary in a decidedly extraordinary way. It forces those of us who are addicted to it to view the world through a rectangle. When I was a kid, it was literally my thumbs and fingers, a ridiculously simplistic means of reducing the world around me to something digestible.

The tools may be a little more sophisticated these days - I date myself when I admit digital photography was a pipe dream when I was a munchkin - but the basic processes haven't changed. That mindset of composing everything in that imaginary (or not so imaginary) rectangle continues to dominate how I choose to see the world.

Strange how that works. And strange how a little trick I picked up as a kid compelled me on this night to pick up the camera and shoot an otherwise forgettable light fixture in this particular way. Maybe I was inspired by ongoing news of the Cassini probe orbiting Saturn (one of the coolest space stories going, btw.) Or maybe I just needed to feel good about life. Whatever it is that makes me take pictures like this, I'm glad the addiction remains strong in me. And in you, too.

Your turn: Can you make a rectangle with your index fingers and thumbs and let us know what you see right now?

On random goodness

"Practice random acts of kindness and senseless acts of beauty."
Anne Herbert 

Thematic Photographic 232 - Soft Light

Cat's eyes
Toronto, ON
January 2013

I had such a good time with last week's theme, softness, that I thought I would choose a loosely related one for this week. Here goes:

Soft light.

I know, call me a wild man. But seriously, I was looking through my archives and realized I had been shooting lots of light-themed scenes, and all of them seemed to have a certain sense of softness to them.

I didn't set out to start a bit of an internal trend, but I guess that's the way this little photographic muse of mine seems to be playing out these days. Who am I to challenge, right?

Your turn: Thematic Photographic is our weekly take-and-share-a-photo experience. It's totally non-competitive, and expressly designed to help us expand our photographic horizons. Simply take a pic that evokes this week's theme - totally up to you to decide how to interpret it - then post it to your blog or website. Leave a comment here letting everyone know where to find it. Visit other participants to share the photographic joy, and feel free to repeat throughout the week. The more the merrier. For more background on Thematic, just click here. Thanks..and have fun with it!

I can't believe it's not butter

Like a hot knife through butter
Laval, QC
August 2012

This isn't really butter. It's cream cheese, the way it used to be before they whipped it, stuffed it into plastic tubs and charged you three times as much for it. The delightfully dense bricks of the stuff that used to force you to concentrate really hard as you carved off just enough to cover your bagel, but not too much that it squeezed out the sides when you closed it all up.

We had bagels, lox (oops, smoked salmon) and cream cheese for dinner last night. Coupled with an early morning trip to what passes for a bagel shop here in southwestern Ontario, it all had me feeling rather nostalgic.

There was even virtually no traffic on the road when we went to pick up our order - an echo of what it was like when I was a kid and my parents would send me to the real bakery for real bagels (see my earlier entry, Return to the Dirty Bakery).

Ah, memories. Good stuff.

Your turn: What are you eating for breakfast this morning?

One more thing: We're winding down our week-long look at softness. You've still got time to share your own by clicking here. I'm going to keep the theme relatively consistent into the next week: soft light. If it sounds like fun, drop in at 7 p.m. (OMG, tonight!) to see what we've got cooking.

On all that remains

"Treasure the love you receive above all. It will survive long after your gold and good health have vanished."Og Mandingo

On learning through storms

"The greater the difficulty, the more glory in surmounting it. Skillful pilots gain their reputation from storms and tempests."
Epictetus

An afternoon with my daughter

Warmth for the road ahead
London, ON
January 2013

It's an ordinary Saturday afternoon in an ordinary town. I'm running a bunch of ordinary errands with my daughter. To an outsider, this is as routine as it gets.
Yet it isn't ordinary at all. As we sit in the corner of a neighborhood coffee spot and sip our hot chocolates, we're doing something - well, let's call it nothing - that I wish we had more time to do. She's 15, an age when wanting to hang out with the 'rents is a hit-or-miss proposition.

Today she wanted to come along, so here we are, off on  grand adventure that to anyone else seems forgettable, but to us is anything but. I know she'll add today to her growing bank of memories, of days marked not by the spectacular, but by the ordinary. But to her they aren't. And that's all that matters to me.

Your turn: Ordinary things that aren't. Please discuss.

One more thing: I shot and composed this photo and entry on my Microsoft Surface. Getting a lot of interested stares here in the Starbucks. Neat.

Breakfast in the soft morning light

McMuffins, homestyle
London, ON
January 2013
For more Thematic softness, head here

On painting like Van Gogh

"If you hear a voice within you say you cannot paint, then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced."
Vincent Van Gogh

And so we paint...

Would you like a slice?

Celebrate the year
London, ON
October 2012

Cake is soft, so I'm totally using it for this week's Thematic theme (here...you're all invited.)

I'm also using it because I need a little bit of sweet. Not the sweetness associated with empty calories, saturated fats and the petroleum-based G-d-knows-what that goes into one of these things. But the sweetness that comes from being in the middle of a room filled with good people, all having a good time, because life is fundamentally good.

It is. And even if it takes an occasional dose of something that isn't exactly the last word in health food, I'm good with it. Sometimes you just have to indulge a little. Because life is too short no matter what you choose to eat, and who you spend it with.

Your turn: What are you celebrating these days?

On the elusive prosperity of kindness

"As much as we need a prosperous economy, we also need a prosperity of kindness and decency."Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg

Indeed. I wonder if anybody's listening.

Soft puppy, warm puppy

Even he skips over the cracks
London, ON
July 2012
Click here for more Thematic softness

First, I must apologize to the good folks who write for The Big Bang Theory. I know Sheldon's favorite song refers to cats and not dogs, but my house has none of the former and one of the latter, so there it is.

There, I feel better. Let's continue.

I haven't written about the furry little man in a while because I'm guessing his usual exploits - eating garbage, napping, barking at squirrels, napping some more, waking us up in the middle of the night, etc. - don't rise above the usual everyday-ness of an everyday life.

But here's the thing: I kinda dig his version of the everyday. He's had enough health issues in his relatively young life that he probably deserves his own wing at the vet, but he doesn't KNOW he's sick. He still bounds out the door for his walks with reckless abandon, still roams the sidewalk from side to side like a deliriously happy drunk, still chases jackrabbits into the bushes like he was born to hunt all day. Of course, he was, but he doesn't consciously know any of this. He just lives every day in his usual bouncy way.

Somewhere buried in this 30-ish pound of soft, warm, quivering fur there's a lesson for folks like you and me. As I walk him every day and see this fast-moving little being at the end of the leash, I need to remind myself what it is about a dog's life that humans like us need to emulate. He's been granted fewer days on this planet than we have, yet he seems to have already figured it out just fine.

On questions without answers

"Some questions don't have answers, which is a terribly difficult lesson to learn."
Katharine Graham

Thematic Photographic 231 - Softness

A good night's sleep
London, ON
January 2013

I don't have a lot of soft-themed pictures on file, but I'm hoping this week's Thematic theme, softness, inspires me to rectify that. Come to think of it, I hope it inspires you, as well!

I find it amusing that a photo - typically rendered on a flat, featureless screen or printed on photographic paper - has no sense of feeling or texture. And I'm guessing over the next week that that's what's going to be especially enjoyable about this particular theme: the challenge of making the viewer feel something through visuals alone.

I overthink this stuff. Maybe I should just get out there with my camera and start shooting. Who's in?

Your turn: Take a softness-themed photo and share it on your blog or website. Leave a comment here letting folks know where to find it. Visit other participants to share the photographic joyness (I really think this should be a word, btw.) If you're new to the wonder of Thematic, click here and all will be explained. Otherwise, enjoy the experience. And please accept my thanks for continuing to make it such a highlight.

Locked away

Hanging Dudley
London, ON
January 2013

Spend enough time going to school in Canada and sooner or later you'll have a Dudley lock to call your very own. You could probably buy a cheaper lock, but these apparently bulletproof examples of the breed haven't been updated in decades. They work so well that they simply don't need to be.

My own Dudley got me through high school, college and university. I lost track of it after then, but it remains the best $3.25 I ever spent. I'm guessing they're more expensive now, but whatever they're asking, they're worth every penny.

Your turn: What's inside this locker?

One more thing: This entry wraps up our week-long exploration of multiples. Click here if you'd like to slide something in under the wire. Otherwise, pop back after 7 p.m. Eastern tonight. We'll be launching our new Thematic theme, softness, at that time, and can't wait to see what you've got in store for that.

On sharing the journey

"It's not so much the journey that's important; as is the way that we treat those we encounter and those around us, along the way"
Jeremy Aldana

I'm rather enjoying the early morning rituals of the long drive to work, especially the quiet routine of getting everything together by the front door, then stepping out into the cold, quiet darkness. It's easy to feel highly aware of what's going on around me and how I feel as I'm going through the process.

Maybe I'm a morning person after all.

Either way, I thought I'd tweak my quote of the day tradition by starting to toss in the occasional early-morning-themed one. Just because. And this one seemed like such an appropriate means of kicking it off, because a journey isn't simply about getting somewhere. It's also about touching the lives of others we may run into between here and there. Let me know if you like it.

On being inspired by the wind

"If you live to be a hundred, I want to live to be a hundred minus one day so I never have to live without you."
A.A. Milne, Winnie the Pooh

The region's been getting pelted by some wild winter weather over the past little bit, with crazy winds, huge temperature swings and unpredictable, intense snowfall. My old hometown of Montreal even had a thunderstorm last night.

The interweb tubes have been filling up with bitter complaints about all of it. Sorry to burst everyone's meteorological bubble if they're bummed by what's going on outwise, but whining about the weather is, from where I sit, a bit of a waste of energy. We can't change it, so we may as well roll with it instead, and enjoy the fact that it makes our world temporarily new and different.

I was running an errand with our daughter this morning, and on one particular stretch of country road we could both feel the wind moving the car strongly to one side. We talked about how cool it was to be out and about on an adventure, and how stunning the horse corrals, pastures and farmers fields looked as the low, wind-driven clouds sped overhead. The sounds were ominous, and the light was spectacular, and we both agreed we enjoyed being a part of nature's drama.

On days like this, Pooh's wisdom has always resonated with me. The world outside the 100 Acre Wood can be a challenging one, but as long as you're surrounded by those who matter most, you can endure pretty much anything. It can be the windliest day imaginable (sorry, it's a Pooh thing) day, but with the right attitude, it can also be a magically memorable one, too.

Which is why I find myself hoping, on this day in particular, for countless more adventurous days like today with my best friend, and the remarkable not-so-little people we created.

Your turn: what's the first thing you do when the weather outside turns nasty? How do you batten down the hatches?

Carpet bomb

Software for your toes
London, ON
January 2013

Do you ever wish you could cover the entire room with the little sample squares from the store?

I know, I know. I've been getting into the Elmer's glue with a little too much zeal. The perils of interior decorating.

But seriously, future trend here?

(Head here for more multiple madness.)

On the power within

"Do not let the behavior of others destroy your inner peace."
Dalai Lama

Right on...