Archives
“Water, in all its forms, fills the landscape. What was ice at night now flows and pools, seeping into the ground, providing nourishment to to forest. High above, moisture steams in the sunlit canopy. Spring thaw is upon us.” – Ed Lehming The forest seems to be transforming every day, shifting from its winter repose to spring activity. There are times when I simply stand in the forest, quietly, and take it… Read More
“These are the final days of fire and ice, the fiery foliage of the beeches begins to fade and drop and the ice and snow will soon be only a memory.” – Ed Lehming The forest these days is filled with contrast and transition. The trails, covered with snow and ice mere days ago are strips of ice and slush. The only snow remains in sheltered valleys and north-facing hillsides. The beech… Read More
“The ice had just begun to form on the pond, freezing it in time. Frozen, but ever so thin, letting the blue shine from within.” – Ed Lehming Another of my re-imagined images. This time a view from early December. We’ve had a relatively mild winter here with moderate wet snowfall. At this time, there was still a lot of open water, which made for some confusing images. I created this one… Read More
“As the deep cold of January takes hold, the world is transformed, but not diminished” – Ed Lehming This haunting image was made along the roadside in Ontario’s Prince Edward County. The island/peninsula location in south-eastern Ontario is made up on a thick layer of limestone. It’s the limestone that creates the interesting ridges that the water flows from and then freezes as it encounters the cold air. Limestone is also extremely… Read More
“As winter takes hold, autumn lashes out in fiery shows of golds and orange as if shouting, “My splendour is not yet spent”, her voice fading in the chill of November, another day closer to winter.” – Ed Lehming Such was the scene today as I drove home from a visit to Bancroft, Ontario. I had driven up for the day to drop of recent prints at the Artists Co-op I belong… Read More
“It’s not the endings that will haunt you But the space where they should lie, The things that simply faded Without one final wave goodbye.” ― Erin Hanson The long journey comes to an end, silently and slowly, in water. Nothing is quick for a glacier, including its ending. The ice slowly flows down the mountains, slowly melting, cracking, and disintegrating. The last vestiges float about in a muddy pond, eventually fading not… Read More
“Ice, deep, blue and tortured ice; The vault of time, and memory, long past.” – Ed Lehming Words can barely describe the feeling of standing side by side with a glacier. Ice, formed tens of thousand of years ago. Ice, that has travelled for kilometers from high mountain peaks to slowly melt into oblivion, in a muddy glacial pool. The photo hardly does it justice; layers of ice and dust, reminders of… Read More
“And this is how the forest changes, one step, one day, one moment at a time. ” ― Ed Lehming The time of change is at my doorstep. Though flurries still fill the air from time to time, the inevitable change is palpable. Paths once completely ice covered are now more passable. Mud and leaves fill the spaces between, and the ice slowly recedes. Even the evergreens are a bit brighter, as the sun… Read More
“There is always danger for those who are afraid.” ― George Bernard Shaw I could not resist the quote. I am told over and over, “Be careful on the trails, they are icy.” I get it from family and other who hike these trails in warmer days. I have never considered the trails dangerous, it’s just a matter of adjusting to the conditions. I avoid the slickest, uneven sections, particularly those on steep… Read More
“December’s wintery breath is already clouding the pond, frosting the pane, obscuring summer’s memory…” ― John Geddes Seriously, I could stop my post here with this all too appropriate quote. As I stood, gazing across the cloudy pond surface, northwest winds whipping past my face, summer was truly a distant memory. Yet, the beauty remains (and the bugs are gone). I put just a slight movement into this image, just enough to add… Read More
“I need the shade of blue that rips your heart out. You don’t see that type of blue around here.” ― Cath Crowley Bancroft is a rural town in north-central Ontario. Known as the Mineral Capital of Canada, it sits atop the rocky Canadian Shield, some of the oldest rock in the world. Towering above the town is a granite monolith known as the “Eagle’s Nest”. During milder winter days and now… Read More
“Mist to mist, drops to drops. For water thou art, and unto water shalt thou return.” ― Kamand Kojouri While the snow is gone in all but the deepest woodland areas near home, that’s not the case a few hours drive north of here. Yesterday, I drove north to switch out some artwork in a co-op gallery I am associated with in Bancroft, Ontario and had the opportunity to drive around and… Read More
“The heart can get really cold if all you’ve known is winter.” ― Benjamin Alire Sáenz Ah!, spring in southern Ontario is, to say the least, ‘unpredictable’. This past Tuesday you could go out and enjoy the sun in a sweatshirt, the next day, a parka was needed as temperatures varied widely. So, I reflect on this image from last weekend, made on the still frozen shores of Lake Ontario, near Whitby…. Read More
“The common eye sees only the outside of things, and judges by that, but the seeing eye pierces through and reads the heart and the soul.” ― Mark Twain I had no idea just how interesting something as mundane as melting ice could be. The image I chose for today is a large slab of lake ice which had begun to melt. The gradual melting process showed some very intricate crystalline structures… Read More
“Frozen Movement” “Dream delivers us to dream, and there is no end to illusion. Life is like a train of moods like a string of beads, and, as we pass through them, they prove to be many-colored lenses which paint the world their own hue. . . . ” ― Ralph Waldo Emerson Here is my entry for Del Monte Y Mar’s Tuesdays of Texture Challenge Week 14 of 2017. Please excuse the contradictory… Read More
“Painful experiences are like scars in our minds. Some have healed and been forgotten. Others are there as a reminder of what we have been through…” ― James A. Murphy, “Final Traces” As winter gives way to spring ‘final traces’ can be seen, reminding us of the winter that was. Not always fond reminders, but reminders, of what was, and is no more. We can chose to reflect on them, deliberately, curiously, or… Read More
“Winter teetered on the verge of succumbing to the returning sun, but today the breeze still preferred the touch of snowflakes” ― Rue Many miles from the tropical shores of the Sea of Cortez, which I have so fondly remembered of late, lies another shoreline. The shore of Lake Ontario. In stark contrast to the warm sands and tropical breezes of Baja, these shores, transitioning from the icy grip of winter to… 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. Not that year. Winter hung in there, like an invalid refusing to die. Day after grey day the ice stayed hard; the world remained unfriendly and cold.” ― Neil Gaiman February has been an odd one here on Southern Ontario. After the snows of December,… Read More
“One small crack does not mean that you are broken, it means that you were put to the test and you didn’t fall apart.” ― Linda Poindexter This is photo of an ice sheet below a local dam. Because of the nature of the churning water and constant movement, the ice sheet becomes a visual record of the changes in water flow and temperature though its jagged surface. I thought it made… Read More
“Silence can always be broken by the sound Of footsteps walking over frozen ground In winter when the melancholy trees Stand abject and let their branches freeze ” ― Merrill Moore So typical of the past week, this cedar bough, coated with a glass-like film of ice, the result of an evening of freezing rain and a gradual morning thaw. What drew me to this composition was the warm morning light and delicate… Read More
“My scars remind me that I did indeed survive my deepest wounds. That in itself is an accomplishment. And they bring to mind something else, too. They remind me that the damage life has inflicted on me has, in many places, left me stronger and more resilient. What hurt me in the past has actually made me better equipped to face the present.” ― Steve Goodier I made this image this past… Read More
“The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed.” ― Albert Einstein There is something magical about ice, by times. During this past week’s thaw and freezing, some interesting effects were… Read More
“Real Canada is where people wear sweaters for survival, not style.” ― Mark Leiren-Young Ice, ice, and more ice. The surreal effects of freezing rain on delicate branches. Beautiful, yet treacherous in even mall doses, making a single misstep dangerous, we soon miss the effects of friction in our world. The curious thing I’ve found when faced with this spectacle is that when everything is beautiful, it becomes difficult to separate single compositions as… Read More
“Ice contains no future , just the past, sealed away. As if they’re alive, everything in the world is sealed up inside, clear and distinct. Ice can preserve all kinds of things that way- cleanly, clearly. That’s the essence of ice, the role it plays.” ― Haruki Murakami The image I chose for today was made a few days ago, as I hiked through a local conservation area. I came across a… Read More
An image from the spring worth revisiting.
“If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant: if we did not sometimes taste of adversity, prosperity would not be so welcome.” ― Anne Bradstreet After what started off as a gorgeous March, with above normal temperatures and bright sunshine, things changed mid-month, and we got into a cycle of cold days, snow flurries, and some freezing rain. This turned the nice dry trails back to a mix… Read More
“One ought, every day at least, to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture, and, if it were possible, to speak a few reasonable words.” ― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe One of the many benefits I find when hiking is the abundance of free art nature provides me. As I walked a forest path a few days ago, the ground was just starting to melt, but it… Read More
“What is it to die but to stand naked in the wind and to melt into the sun?” ― Kahlil Gibran This year, I left a few dried hydrangea blooms in my garden. My usual ritual is to trim them all down in the fall. I’m glad I left them, they added some interest in this past, dull, nearly snowless winter, and created a nice franewirk for our recent freezing rain event…. Read More
If you should go skating On the thin ice of modern life Dragging behind you the silent reproach Of a million tear stained eyes Don’t be surprised, when a crack in the ice Appears under your feet You slip out of your depth and out of your mind With your fear flowing out behind you As you claw the thin ice – Pink Floyd This image is the second in a series… Read More
Ed Lehming Photography 
Recent Comments