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“The lilac branches are bowed under the weight of the flowers: blooming is hard, and the most important thing is – to bloom.” ― Yevgeny Zamyatin It’s hard to believe that May is almost over. It seemed a long time coming and has passed all too quickly. I also tend to measure time in familiar events. An example is tied directly to lilacs. When my wife and I married twenty-six years ago,… Read More
Alliara petiolata What at first glance looks like a scraggly weed, growing in profusion along railway tracks, turns out to be a beautiful, interesting plant close up. I find myself guilty, of late, of not taking the time to look at some of the more mundane plants that grow in my area, north of Markham, Ontario. This is a prime example. I’ve seen vast patches of Garlic Mustard but never taken the… Read More
Tiarella condifolia The above is another of what I categorize as the ‘second’ wave of spring blossoms. This, like the others I’m posting are predominantly white. The foamflowers are quite abundant this year. I really had no idea how beautiful they were till I got in close. Nikon D800 Tamron SP AF 90mm f/2.8 Di Macro 1:1 (272ENII)@90mm 1/80 sec, f/16.0 ISO 400 or more images like this, please visit my Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/EdLehming or… Read More
Cardamine piphylla With rainy days, busy workdays, as well as event filled weekends, I seem to have missed several days of spring blossoms. Despite this, the ‘next wave’ of blossoms is now starting to show. These tend to be primarily white flowers, starting with trilliums, which are well advanced as I write this. These Toothworts are plentiful, yet I seem to have overlooked them in previous years, unless this is an exceptional cycle… Read More
“If only these treasures were not so fragile as they are precious and beautiful.” ― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe I got out for a quick walk at lunch today and came across these delicate blossoms. I’m not sure of the exact species, but it looks like some form of wild cherry, perhaps Pin Cherry. The light was just right to use my portable background to isolate the blossoms from the background, giving the… Read More
“The flower that wilted last year is gone. Petals once fallen are fallen forever. Flowers do not return in the spring, rather they are replaced. It is in this difference between returned and replaced that the price of renewal is paid. And as it is for spring flowers, so it is for us.” ― Daniel Abraham Several days ago, I posted an image of a plant known as “Dutchman’s Breeches” and mentioned… Read More
“A picture held us captive. And we could not get outside it, for it lay in our language and language seemed to repeat it to us inexorably.” ― Ludwig Wittgenstein I was hoping to get a few more images before the bloodroot stopped blooming and was happy to see I had not missed my chance. I took my portable studio with me in hopes of being able to find a few specimens that lent… Read More
“A little piece of everywhere I go becomes a big part of everything I do.” ― Richie Norton Spring, has to be my favorite time of year. Not just because of the warming weather, but because every day has new discoveries, sometimes many. Having spent most of my life outdoors, I’m finding myself continually amazed at just how much of my world I casually ignored. Becoming a deliberate photographer has transformed my… Read More
“Each beginning is the end of a waiting. We are each given exactly one chance to be. Each of us is both impossible and inevitable. Every replete tree was first a seed that waited.” ― Hope Jahren This photo is now a few days old, but I wanted to go back to it to show the wonderful structure of the bloodroot, a native early bloomer her in southern Ontario. I have a… Read More
“It’s life that matters, nothing but life—the process of discovering, the everlasting and perpetual process, not the discovery itself, at all.” ― Fyodor Dostoyevsky Oddly enough, I’ve gone out looking for these and stepped over them, not making teh connection. Yet, this past weekend while photographing a group of Wake-Robins, I noticed this fuzzy broad leafed plant with a little ‘bud’ or nodule at the base. Curious, I took a closer look and… Read More
“We are living a life full of first experiences, from a first kiss, to the first time giving blood, to conceptual and philosophical explanations of humanity’s firsts.” ― Kat Lahr I should call this series of photographs “Firsts”, since most of my recent posts have been of the first blossoms of local wildflowers. It’s been a bit of a strange season, with a few vigorous specimens blooming a few days ahead of their… Read More
“Think of all the beauty still left around you and be happy.” ― Anne Frank A few days a ago I went to a large grove of these early spring bloomers for a few more shots of the unusual tiny purple flowers. This particular grove contains thousands of these plants and the forest floor almost looks burnt with the density of Cohosh growing here, interspersed with freshly emerging trillium and wild leeks…. Read More
“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.” ― Marcel Proust I found this interesting plant last year, growing in an isolated patch. There are no other instances of this plant in the area, so I’m wondering if it hitchhiked to its current location. It’s a beautiful but strange-looking plant. Like the common yellow coltsfoot which grows in the same area, it blooms before… Read More
“It is spring again. The earth is like a child that knows poems by heart.” ― Rainer Maria Rilke One of the unique features about the area that I live is that it is surrounded by pockets of what is known as “Carolinian Forest”, that is, many of the plants and animals in the area can usually be found in the warmer climates of Carolina, Virginia, and Ohio. This means that I have access to plants and… Read More
“Treasure the people who are willing and able to help you reach your goals.” ― Jeffrey Fry The title for this image came so easily. As I hiked the forest path, I noticed these small red leaves beginning to unfurl, backlit by the late afternoon sun. As I composed the shot, I could not help but envision them as delicate hands, reaching for something. The wide aperture of my 90 mm macro… Read More
“In this delicate and unpredictable life, the future is unwritten. Do not take someone for granted today, for once tomorrow dawns upon the indigo night the only remaining trace will be tracks in the sand…” ― Virginia Alison I really appreciate this wonderful, short-lived spring blossoms. The burst forth quickly in mid-April, bloom brightly for a few days and then are gone, a mere memory of the first warm days of spring…. Read More
“Under the Fall” Here is my entry for Del Monte Y Mar’s Tuesdays of Texture Challenge Week 16 of 2017. The ‘texture’ of water. The rolling structure and varying colour is what caused me to make this photo of teh churning water below a local dam. I wasn’t sure if i’d use it for a Tuesday Texture submission, by the more I looked at it the more I was compelled to do so. Nikon D800… Read More
“This is a story about the color blue, and like blue, there’s nothing true about it. Blue is beauty, not truth. ‘True blue’ is a ruse, a rhyme; it’s there, then it’s not. Blue is a deeply sneaky color.” ― Christopher Moore This is a plant I’ve been intrigued with for some time. It’s one of the first to emerge from the forest floor in this region and very odd in its colouration. While… Read More
“When I see a dancing butterfly, When I see a half blooming flower, Their eager wish to make this world happy, My mind dances with joy, My soul emerges in happiness.” ― Debasish Mridha The temperatures continue to warm, rain falls, off and on, and the cycle continues. New growth seems to accelerate. What was a mere bud a few days ago, now begins to show hints of its future form. This… 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. “Veteran’s Memorial Building” – Unionville, Ontario In the small Ontario town of Unionville, well, not so small as Unionville is actually part of the city of Markham, sits this beautiful old building, which I thought was a church, until further inspection…. 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
“It is strange how new and unexpected conditions bring out unguessed ability to meet them.” ― Edgar Rice Burroughs Many-coloured Polypore, to be more precise. Finally, after several weeks, waiting for the ice to come off the trails and for some of the muck to dry up, I hit the trails today. My goal was to find some sign of new life. I was let down on that front, much of the forest floor… Read More
“I can assure you that the life outside the front door is bright and full of life” ― Sunday Adelaja I could not resist publishing this bright little fellow today. It’s dull,cold, and dreary outside and I’m thinking back to last week, when the sun shone through, briefly. WHile on a short stroll to get a breath of fresh air, I came across this Chickadee, also enjoying the bright sunshine from his… 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
“Time leaches the colors from the best of visions. The world becomes grayer. Entropy beats us down. Everything fades. Everything goes. Everything dies.” ― Robert Silverberg Back outdoors again, in the midst of a January thaw, too much of a thaw, actually. As I set out on the trails, expecting ice, which I was prepared for, I was faced with deep, slushy, wet snow, tough to walk in and impossible to grip,… Read More
Here’s my contribution for this week’s Tuesdays of Texture over at de monte y mar. This is just one of a growing series of studies I have done by photographing trees and logs. There is infinite variation in colour and texture. I’ve walked past this log more times than I can count and nearly always stop to look at it, as it slowly decays. This particular day, the light was just right to… Read More
“I just like to be alone sometimes, no I’m not angry, no I’m not sad. I just like to be alone. It’s how I recharge” – Unknown I’m still finding myself reflecting on some of the wonderful moments of late December 2016, including the many solitary hikes on our local trails. I was amazed that there were no other hikers out on several beautiful days after Christmas. The trails had obviously had use… Read More
“The purest and most thoughtful minds are those which love color the most.” ― John Ruskin The last week of December, 2016 was simply stunning. A soft, continuous snowfall had blanketed the world around me in pure white. Snow stacked up on objects that, surprisingly, bore its weight. Such was the case with this Staghorn Sumac in the meadow just north of my home. I decided a mid-morning walk with my camera… Read More
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