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“Sometimes life is hard … so we have to squeeze it, touch it, play with it, and make it soft like a dough! Now it’s soft enough to be shaped in any way we want! Keep moving, touching life, as this will keep it smooth and fun!” ― Karina Fonseca Azevedo This photo as sat in my draft folder for many months. I made it with my iPhone, as I hiked a… Read More
“Abstraction allows man to see with his mind what he cannot see physically with his eyes….Abstract art enables the artist to perceive beyond the tangible, to extract the infinite out of the finite. It is the emancipation of the mind. It is an exploration into unknown areas.” ― Arshile Gorky This is where is started, my fascination with photo abstractions. Back in March 0f 2012, I was hiking the shores of the… Read More
Why we love with close hearts Why we love with souls apart Let the love flow from hearts to souls, Let the world glow” ― Megha Khare For the past few years I have found great pleasure in creating these photo abstractions, all done in camera, no Photoshop blur effects. Several years ago, I was introduced to this technique by a photographer friend who did these for a brief period. She was… Read More
“Solitary. But not in the sense of being alone. Not solitary in the way Thoreau was, for example, exiling himself in order to find out where he was; not solitary in the way Jonah was, praying for deliverance in the belly of the whale. Solitary in the sense of retreat. In the sense of not having to see himself, of not having to see himself being seen by anyone else.” ― Paul… Read More
“The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance.” ― Aristotle Art is everywhere. Sometimes, in the most surprising places, and with unexpected elements. Case in point, this algal bloom on a local pond. It looks a bit like a satellite image of some tropical forest and smells just like a horse stable. In fact, I was wondering if the local trail riding association… Read More
“See that path in front of you? That path has been laid before you, the one that you’re supposed to take, the one you’re told to take through life…just like everyone else. If you follow that path, you’ll be following all the rules, you’ll always know that you did what everyone wanted you to do and you’ll make it through… See that path in front of you? I dare you to step… Read More
“The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a green thing that stands in the way. Some see nature all ridicule and deformity… and some scarce see nature at all. But to the eyes of the man of imagination, nature is imagination itself.” ― William Blake I absolutely love the William Blake quote above. It goes beyond simply this image. Number 6 in the… Read More
“Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it. The river was cut by the world’s great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some of the rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs. I am haunted by waters.” ― Norman Maclean The above, is one of my favourite quotes. it simply resonates with me… Read More
“When you see a fish you don’t think of its scales, do you? You think of its speed, its floating, flashing body seen through the water. Well, I’ve tried to express just that. If I made fins and eyes and scales, I would arrest its movement, give a pattern or shape of reality. I want just the flash of its spirits.” ― Constantin Brancusi I could not believe the colours on the… Read More
“Sense how Even the smooth stones ache With stories of their own In the shuddering light of day.” ― Scott Hastie Emerging from their icy bondage, two stones, or is it three, rest upon their captor, as ice water flows over them. What’s the story of these stones? They sit alone, apart from others. Where did they come from? The pure ice they rest in fills a narrow but deep, steep walled,… Read More
“By March, the worst of the winter would be over. The snow would thaw, the rivers begin to run and the world would wake into itself again. ― Neil Gaiman Bubbles, trapped in ice, glow beneath the icy waters of the spring thaw, like a wraith, lit by some inner glow. Mid-February this year brings an early and rapid thaw. Cold water flows with life over frozen creeks, softening the shapes trapped below, beckoning… Read More
The photo title says it all. An image of a pine tree reflected in an ice puddle on the trail. Here we are, early February and much of the scant snowfall we’ve had has melted off, running into creeks or pooling in icy puddles. The light this day was wonderful and lit the pines up with a soft glow. It was this ‘glow’ that attracted me to look closely at the puddle and… Read More
“Art is a kind of innate drive that seizes a human being and makes him its instrument. The artist is not a person endowed with free will who seeks his own ends, but one who allows art to realize its purpose through him.” ~Carl Gustav Jung I am inspired by the art and writings of other creatives. That’s one of my reasons for blogging, connection to a larger community, people who see,… Read More
Nature is constantly amazing me. The image above is a simple shot of a frozen Duffins Creek. It looks like some marvelous abstract art piece that you would see in an expensive downtown gallery. But, this one’s free and created through the natural freezing process. If you take the time to really look, you can see how the layers may have built up, how the water ebbed and flowed between the rocks… Read More
On a cold, dull November afternoon in 2014, I stopped for a few minutes at Burliegh Falls, a set of fairly intense rapids just off Highway#28 in the Kawartha Lakes region of Central Ontario, between Lower Buckhorn Lake, above and Stoney Lake, below. It’s a very scenic location, easily accessible from the road, and therefore, very busy in the summer and early autumn. The rapids, adjacent shoreline, and calm pools below, are a destination… Read More
A switch today from my mono posts of late and a look back to a winter past, in abstract. The above is a view through the edge of the forest at Fraser lake Camp, near Bancroft. There was a bit of fog in the air and frost on the branches. The whole scene had a dreamy feel to it. Since the vertical elements were present, I decided to try a vertical pan to… Read More
In November 2014, I was walking along a ridge on the Fraser Lake Camp property, near Bancroft, Ontario and became fascinated with this line of leafless trees on the top of an adjacent ridge. They stood silloetted against the slate-gray November skies, as a narrow beam of bright sunlight lit up the yellow hay stubble just in front of them. The result was a layering of cold blues in stark contrast to the… Read More
I find myself going back to my photo abstractions frequently. They bring me great pleasure, in that I never know quite how they will turn out. Don’t get me wrong, these are very deliberate photos, and I have a vision in my mind of the outcome. But, the random elements; light, speed, colours, and focus, all add their own unexpected twist to the final composition. Case in point with the image above, I… Read More
Today’s post is just a little abstraction of a photo I made last week. With the ever warming days, many of the willows have put out ‘catkins’. This is the flower of the willow tree. Many would recognize ‘Pussy Willows’. These are the same but not as densely packed as the Pussy Willow variety and have already matured into full flower. They are still beautiful to look at. These are the catkins of the… Read More
On the spring theme of the Rainbow Trout spawn that occurs every year in this area, here’s a slightly abstract image of a trout mid-run up Duffins Creek, near Whitevale, Ontario. The image above is a time exposure of a single trout swimming against a particularly strong current at a point where the clear water in the foreground is mixing with water contaminated with clay, caused by the spring melt run-off from an adjacent… Read More
Taken last spring, during a walk along Duffins Creek. Another view of the annual trout run near Whitevale. In places, the trout are ‘stacked’ as they prepare to run up some of the shallower portions of the creek. Last year the creek was especially shallow for the time of year and there were a few deeper pools where multiple fish lined up for their run. I like this particular shot because it has a… Read More
Among my favourite photos from last year. Have you ever driven past a place dozens of times and thought, “I should stop sometime and make a photo of this”? That was the case with these poplars in Pickering. They are at the corner of side roads that I pass several time a year. But, the light is never quite right, or it’s dull and uninteresting looking. On this particular day, I had… Read More
Yet another tree abstraction. I’ve walked past these poplars many times, and every time, the light is a bit different or the foliage in the background has changed, every so slightly. This photo was made on Saturday as I went for a walk around our local reservoir. On this particular visit, the trees and undergrowth are not yet in bud and the bright red of the Red-Osier Dogwood shows clearly to the… Read More
Another one of my “Trees” series of photo abstractions. This photo was made four years ago, at Fraser Lake Camp, near Bancroft, Ontario when I was just starting to play with this technique. I re-edited it last year because I was not happy with the ‘feel’ of the image. Again, it comes down to the strong vertical elements and good light. In this case, I was following a game trail and looked… Read More
Part two of my November 2014 hike. As I said in yesterday’s post, I was actually hiking to a small grove of trees that I had photographed successfully in the past. The light conditions where not good in that location but it was spectacular on my hike in and out of the forest. The photo above is testament to that. The late afternoon sun was close to setting but bright enough to… Read More
I love doing the effect in camera. With the right light and strong vertical lines, you end up with what looks like a painting and it is never the same twice.
Ed Lehming Photography 
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