Archives
“Sometimes, staying alive solely depends on keeping your head in place and your senses alert” ― Susana Fortes Yes, this doe is alert indeed. She was crossing the road as I drove along the road to Fort Stewart this past weekend. I pulled over as she casually walked up the embankment to join her three fawns, who were busy grazing just outside the forest. She sat an watched , always attentive, twitching at… Read More
Here is my contribution for Tuesdays of Texture for week 34. A while ago I started a series of Studies in Wood. This is just one of the subjects of that series. This particular specimen can be found in Bryant Park, just behind the new York Public Library. If you are interested, here’s my original post from March. You’ll find lots of other interesting texture posts over at DE Monte Y MAR – do head on… Read More
“There is so much to say about a past. It’s a vein of gold through a mountain, leading to an incontrovertible stone heart of truth. But the future is a horizon – a faintly visible line that will promise much, and always remain too far away to touch.” ― Aliya Whiteley At first, I had no idea what to title this image. It was made at the end of another day of… Read More
Here is this week’s 52 Week Photo Challenge: Week 1 – Black and White. This is another new challenge that is starting up from The Girl That Dreams Awake. If you don’t know her, you should check out her blog. This is my second entry and I’ve used an image I posted several months back as one of my daily posts. Click here if you want to know more about the image…. Read More
“After the wet spring, everything that could turn green had outdone itself in greenness and everything that could even dream of blooming or blossoming was in bloom and blossom. The sunlight was a benediction. The breezes were so caressingly soft and intimate on the skin as to be embarrassing.” ― Dan Simmons This is an image of the same thistle I shared a few days ago. The previous image showed more of the… Read More
“The single greatest lesson the garden teaches is that our relationship to the planet need not be zero-sum, and that as long as the sun still shines and people still can plan and plant, think and do, we can, if we bother to try, find ways to provide for ourselves without diminishing the world. ” ― Michael Pollan This specimen came from my flower beds. In fact, this was the first blossom… Read More
“What we do see depends mainly on what we look for. … In the same field the farmer will notice the crop, the geologists the fossils, botanists the flowers, artists the colouring, sportsmen the cover for the game. Though we may all look at the same things, it does not all follow that we should see them.” ― John Lubbock It’s strange how some of these fairly common wildflowers grow only in specific… Read More
“Once in awhile, you pick the right thing, the exact best thing. Every day, the moment you open your eyes and pull off your blankets, that’s what you hope for. The sunshine on your face,warm enough to make your heart sing.” ― Sarah Ockler One of my first attempts at this technique involved bringing a daylily cutting into my studio and experimenting with lighting and camera settings. I was so pleased with… Read More
This week’s submission to Norm 2.0‘s Thursday Doors. Thursday Doors is a weekly feature allowing door lovers to come together to admire and share their favourite door photos from around the world. I went for a tour of the University of Toronto campus last weekend, knowing there would be some great doors. Surprisingly, having grown up in the Toronto area, I have never done a deliberate tour of the campus. The variations in… Read More
“What I’ve always found interesting in gardens is looking at what people choose to plant there. What they put in. What they leave out. One small choice and then another, and soon there is a mood, an atmosphere, a series of limitations, a world.” ― Helen Humphreys I’m not getting tired of these flower images yet and I hope my viewers feel the same. This is yet another image made using my portable… Read More
Here is this week’s 52 Week Photo Challenge: Week 1 – Black and White. This is another new challenge that is starting up from The Girl That Dreams Awake. If you don’t know her, you should check out her blog. I was saving this image for one of my daily posts but could not resist putting it out for this challenge. I’ll post it again at a later date with the story behind… Read More
“Yellow is a very favorable vibration for mental or intellectual activity, as it promotes a clear state of mind. Yellow heightens your awareness and alleviates depression, sadness, or any kind of despondency.” ― Tae Yun Kim This bright yellow Gerberia daisy is one of hundreds given out this past weekend at a huge wedding ceremony. Our town mayor got married on Saturday in a very large and public ceremony to which the… Read More
I saw a post by Norm 2.0 this morning and thought I’d like to play along through this contribution to the ‘Tuesdays of Texture’ stream hosted by Narami at De Monte Y Mar. Textures are everywhere and I can hardly turn of the desire to document them. The image above appeared in a northern Ontario parking lot after an intense rainstorm. The ‘wash’ had ‘classified’, the sand into distinct layers, based on their… Read More
“For millions of years flowers have been producing thorns. For millions of years sheep have been eating them all the same. And it’s not serious, trying to understand why flowers go to such trouble to produce thorns that are good for nothing?” ― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry Here’s a new one, studio style wildflowers. I was able to get my portable background to work and I’m looking forward to being able to capture… Read More
“We don’t realize that, somewhere within us all, there does exist a supreme self who is eternally at peace.” ― Elizabeth Gilbert My wife and I discovered this magical place a few years ago on a “fall colours” tour of the area where we spend our summers. I was following the local waterways, looking for a few named waterfalls when I came across this place, who’s location I will not divulge. The… Read More
“There is a hidden message in every waterfall. It says, if you are flexible, falling will not hurt you!” ― Mehmet Murat ildan As many of you who follow my blog might know, I love moving water and waterfalls. A few years ago, I set out to discover and document the many waterfalls and cascades in the area where I camp. My journeys have taken me down some long, little travelled trails,… Read More
“To be creative means to be in love with life. You can be creative only if you love life enough that you want to enhance its beauty, you want to bring a little more music to it, a little more poetry to it, a little more dance to it.” ― Osho Now at number five in this series, it may be time for me to take a short departure from this and… Read More
“One passionate heart can brighten the world. From person to person the chain reaction burns through us — setting heart to heart ablaze, and lighting the way for us all!” ― Bryant McGill Here I am at photo four of this expanding project “Ordinary Flower in a Different Light”. Today’s subject is an Annabelle Hydrangea from our front garden. This incredible flowering shrub is quite the sight when fully in bloom. Some… Read More
“The trick to forgetting the big picture is to look at everything close-up. The shortcut to closing a door is to bury yourself in the details. This is how we must look to God. As if everything’s just fine.” ― Chuck Palahniuk Image number three in what has become my “Ordinary Flowers in a Different Light” series. Interestingly enough, this was a single blossom on one of my finicky clematis plants. They… Read More
This week’s submission to Norm 2.0‘s Thursday Doors. Thursday Doors is a weekly feature allowing door lovers to come together to admire and share their favourite door photos from around the world. I’m finding lately that it’s not just the doors, but the reflections in the windows that are quite interesting. These doors are the entrance to the Faculty Club of Montreal’s McGill University. I had to resort to my iPhone for this… Read More
“If people refuse to look at you in a new light and they can only see you for what you were, only see you for the mistakes you’ve made, if they don’t realize that you are not your mistakes, then they have to go.” ― Steve Maraboli I may just start a series called “Common Flowers in a Different Light”. Since I started experimenting with this studio technique, I’ve found myself… Read More
“It is in the darkest hour, when we are faced with our deepest most wrenching fears, that we are given the greatest strength. The choice is whether we succumb to the fear or rise with courage to face our truth and shine our brilliance as our sword of valour.” ― Monika Zands I keep reminding myself to look around me, carefully, appreciating the common things. Recently, I’ve been doing some macro work… Read More
“When you feel life at crossroads, you need higher perspective view.” ― Toba Beta This image is a throwback to last summer. I was at a business meeting on a high floor of one of Toronto’s office towers and kept being captivated by the view, spread out before me like a buffet. I just kept being drawn to the lines of the buildings and the gorgeous sky. At lunch, I took the opportunity… Read More
“The simple things come back to us. They rest for a moment by our ribcages then suddenly reach in and twist our hearts a notch backward.” ― Colum McCann Sometimes, it’s the simple beauty that is so close and so familiar that we take for granted, rather, seeking something exotic and exciting in so many aspects of our lives. I’ve found myself in this situation so many times with respect to my… Read More
“We live and breathe words. …. It was books that made me feel that perhaps I was not completely alone. They could be honest with me, and I with them. Reading your words, what you wrote, how you were lonely sometimes and afraid, but always brave; the way you saw the world, its colors and textures and sounds, I felt–I felt the way you thought, hoped, felt, dreamt. I felt I was… Read More
“If you will stay close to nature, to its simplicity, to the small things hardly noticeable, those things can unexpectedly become great and immeasurable.” ― Rainer Maria Rilke Just east of Bancroft, Ontario is a north-south connector road known as Boulter Road, which, naturally takes you to, and through, the small town of Boulter. The road travels north from McArthur Mills and offers spectacular views of the high rolling hills so typical… Read More
“She is free in her wildness, she is a wanderess, a drop of free water. She knows nothing of borders and cares nothing for rules or customs. ‘Time’ for her isn’t something to fight against. Her life flows clean, with passion, like fresh water.” ― Roman Payne This week’s submission to Norm 2.0‘s Thursday Doors. Thursday Doors is a weekly feature allowing door lovers to come together to admire and share their favourite… Read More
“The river moved so swiftly and yet it had no purpose other than to flow, just flow.” ― Gioconda Belli During a recent backcountry drive, I tried to retrace my route to a little gem of a park I found a few years back. There is no road sign identifying the park, just an unmarked road that leads to a beautiful groomed park on the shores of Papineau Creek, near Maynooth, Ontario…. Read More
“Writing is something you do alone. Its a profession for introverts who want to tell you a story but don’t want to make eye contact while doing it.” ― John Green This must be the most photographed tree in Markham, a community just south of my home. This oak stands at the top of a convenient mound, nicely isolating the tree from any distracting background. It’s not a true ‘solitaire’ by my… Read More
“When one tunes in into nature’s frequency, life becomes change, change becomes hope!” ― Aniekee Tochukwu Ezekiel This has been a year of change and experimentation for me. It’s all been fairly carefully thought out and exciting. I’ve experimented with new photographic techniques, such as macro photography and new ways of editing, like using some Photoshop plugins to create paintings from my photos. I also experimented with some new varieties of plants in my… Read More
Ed Lehming Photography 
Recent Comments