Archives
“The forces of nature affect everything. Though the mighty may resist, over time, nature still leaves her mark.” – Ed Lehming This image may be the departure, for a while at least, from my re-imagined series of photos which I have shared over the past few weeks. With spring on our doorstep, the colour shift is already underway and that change affects the colours of the modified images. I find them less… Read More
“In the forest, old is replaced by new. The old growth shelters the new, yielding just enough light to allow it to thrive, while still protecting it.” – Ed Lehming This image was inspired simply by what I thought was an interesting winter composition. Freshly fallen snow from the day before covered the young spruce trees in a planted grove of red pine. It also caused my to dig a bit more… Read More
“There are two spiritual dangers in not owning a farm. One is the danger of supposing that breakfast comes from the grocery, and the other that heat comes from the furnace.” ― Aldo Leopold I instantly fell in love with this quote. Spending any time at all on a working farm makes you realize just how precarious our food supply can be, that it requires constant work to yield any kind of crop,… Read More
“Nature is filled with surprises. It’s the unusual that we notice. That’s what I love about being in it, there is always something new to make you wonder, How did that happen?” – Ed Lehming This is a new one to me, and as I stated in the quote above, nature always has surprises for me. Now, I have seen a single variant like this. Right behind our camper and directly outside… Read More
“Like all sweet dreams, it will be brief, but brevity makes sweetness, doesn’t it?” ― Stephen King Much of the conservation land surrounding my home, including parks and hiking trails, was, at some not too distant time, farmland. It’s difficult to visualize, as I walk through now forested areas. Every now and then though, evidence of former use makes itself known. On one particular site, many perennial sweet peas can be found… Read More
“And suddenly you know: It’s time to start something new and trust the magic of beginnings.” ― Meister Eckhart The feeling is there, the air warms, and bird song permeates the mornings. Spring is afoot and new growth begins to show signs of the forest stirring from its long slumber. On a walk this past weekend, triggered by nicer weather and seeing the Coltsfoot blooming in roadside ditches, my eye was keen to… 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
“Everything turns in circles and spirals with the cosmic heart until infinity. Everything has a vibration that spirals inward or outward — and everything turns together in the same direction at the same time. This vibration keeps going: it becomes born and expands or closes and destructs — only to repeat the cycle again in opposite current. Like a lotus, it opens or closes, dies and is born again. Such is also… Read More
“I don’t think there’s anything on this planet that more trumpets life that the sunflower. For me that’s because of the reason behind its name. Not because it looks like the sun but because it follows the sun. During the course of the day, the head tracks the journey of the sun across the sky. A satellite dish for sunshine. Wherever light is, no matter how weak, these flowers will find it…. Read More
“…lace is formed from the absence of substance; it is imagined in the spaces between the threads. Lace is a thing like hope. It lived, it survived, and it was desired for what it was not. If faith, as the nuns said, was the substance of things hoped for, then lace was the outline – the suggestion – of things not seen.” ― Iris Anthony How appropriate is the name of this… Read More
“A garden should make you feel you’ve entered privileged space — a place not just set apart but reverberant — and it seems to me that, to achieve this, the gardener must put some kind of twist on the existing landscape, turn its prose into something nearer poetry.” ― Michael Pollan I thought I would try this technique on leafy plants and expand from my blossom photos. We have several varieties of… 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
“All in all, it was a never-to-be-forgotten summer — one of those summers which come seldom into any life, but leave a rich heritage of beautiful memories in their going — one of those summers which, in a fortunate combination of delightful weather, delightful friends and delightful doing, come as near to perfection as anything can come in this world.” ― L.M. Montgomery My final memory of an extended weekend away is… 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
“If you meet a loner, no matter what they tell you, it’s not because they enjoy solitude. It’s because they have tried to blend into the world before, and people continue to disappoint them.” ― Jodi Picoult I’ve been having some fun experimenting with the lilies in my yard. Yesterday, I caught them, mist covered in morning light, a bit softer and warmer, never noticing the subtle change in colour to more… 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
“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
“The best remedy for those who are afraid, lonely or unhappy is to go outside, somewhere where they can be quite alone with the heavens, nature and God. Because only then does one feel that all is as it should be and that God wishes to see people happy, amidst the simple beauty of nature. ― Anne Frank Such a menacing name for such a beautiful, delicate flower. But, the Dogbane… Read More
“While there is perhaps a province in which the photograph can tell us nothing more than what we see with our own eyes, there is another in which it proves to us how little our eyes permit us to see.” ― Dorothea Lange I find myself working with photos that did not quite communicate my vision as intended. I see so much more in my composition, but struggle to articulate just what… Read More
“Some beautiful paths can’t be discovered without getting lost.” ― Erol Ozan Back to Slabtown, who’s only claim to fame, at present, seems to be the bridge that crosses the York River. In days gone by, it must have been a thriving mill town. Today, not so much. At this point in the river’s journey, it has just passed through the Great Bend. A long, fairly slow flowing section of the river…. Read More
“A fine work of art – music, dance, painting, story – has the power to silence the chatter in the mind and lift us to another place.” ― Robert McKee I could not resist posting one more dogwood image before the season passes. The image above was transformed into a painterly image using Topaz Impressions software in Photoshop. I can’t paint well and this plug-in allows me to create images in such a… Read More
“Until a seed falls to the ground and dies, it does not become a tree that later yields many fruits and multitude of seeds. We must embrace the thought of death for us to have greater lives.” ― Sunday Adelaja We used to call these ‘giant dandelions’ as kids. Why not, they certainly look like dandelions, even the blossoms look like overgrown dandelions. The Goat’s Beard seed head, looks like a gigantic… 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
“I thought how lovely and how strange a river is. A river is a river, always there, and yet the water flowing through it is never the same water and is never still. It’s always changing and is always on the move. And over time the river itself changes too. It widens and deepens as it rubs and scours, gnaws and kneads, eats and bores its way through the land.” ― Aidan… Read More
“A lie has many colours, while white is the only faithful colour of truth.” ― Munia Khan This year has been an interesting shift for me, photographically. I tend to lean towards natural places, such as forest trails, rivers, and lakes. This year I’m finding myself also taking in more man-made gardens and cultivated flowers. Perhaps this is because I’ve been spending more time in my own backyard and going to botanical… Read More
“… the world can give you these glimpses as well as fairy tales can–the smell of rain, the dazzle of sun on white clapboard with the shadows of ferns and wash on the line, the wildness of a winter storm when in the house the flame of a candle doesn’t even flicker.” ― Frederick Buechner Yes, I know, I have lot of photos from Secord Forest, but why not. This little slice… Read More
“Do not let your difficulties fill you with anxiety, after all it is only in the darkest nights that stars shine more brightly.” ― Hazrat Ali Ibn Abu-Talib A.S Hmm, this sounds like the title for a love story involving some damsel and some adversary. This single daisy shone like a beacon in the distance, against the dark forest, as I turned a bend in the trail a few days ago. It… Read More
“A garden should make you feel you’ve entered privileged space — a place not just set apart but reverberant — and it seems to me that, to achieve this, the gardener must put some kind of twist on the existing landscape, turn its prose into something nearer poetry.” ― Michael Pollan A change of pace from all my recent flower and butterfly photos, though if you look closely, there are still flowers… Read More
“Someone was playing piano nearby and the music drifted slowly in and out of my mind like the ebb and flow of ocean surf. I almost recognized the melody, but I could not be sure, it slipped like a cool and silken wind from my grasp.” ― Chaim Potok Today’s image is another foray into the world of macro photography and I’m loving the effects and subtle details the naked eye misses…. Read More
“I must have flowers, always, and always.” ― Claude Monet This strange, flowering bush has fascinated me for some time. The blossoms form from the outside of the flower disc. I had a hard time finding good specimen this year but the photo above should suffice. The central bud clusters are rimmed with beautiful white blossoms. At first glance it would appear to be a form of dogwood, that is till you get… Read More
Ed Lehming Photography 
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