Archives
“There is peace even in the storm” ― Vincent van Gogh I’m one of those people who loves storms. There is something in the unbridled power of them that fascinates me. I love the many forms that the clouds take as the winds whip and shape them. There is also something glorious in the way the storm changes the light. A few days ago, after coming home from a nice dinner with my… Read More
“I promise you nothing is as chaotic as it seems. Nothing is worth diminishing your health. Nothing is worth poisoning yourself into stress, anxiety, and fear.” ― Steve Maraboli Some strange things happen when plants are stressed. One of those is a switch to dormancy and loss of the chlorophyl that gives the leaves their green colour. The result, is fall colours and shedding of leaves. In one particular patch of forest, some… Read More
“Taking time in stillness is an essential part of my every day. It saves my sanity, it grounds and centers me. I can carry that peace with me wherever I go.” ― Akiroq Brost Welcome once more to a moment in the forest, this time a warm, dry, and largely mosquito free sojourn into the green. As I hike these trails, often 10-15 km at a time, I pass many wonderful scenes and… Read More
“In times of stress, the best thing we can do for each other is to listen with our ears and our hearts and to be assured that our questions are just as important as our answers.” ― Fred Rogers Many times, I find these ‘secondary’ photos. Meaning, photos I had not set out to make. In this case, I had gone out to photograph local wheat fields, see yesterday’s post “Abundance“. As I… Read More
“Squabbling over too little is just human nature. But it says a great deal about a person, what they do with abundance.” ― Tessa Dare Today, some time spent out of the forest in in the farm fields around my home. It’s hard to believe, but it’s already late July and the wheat fields are seas of golden waves, swaying in the hot summer breezes. As I stand among the soon to be… Read More
“Shafts of delicious sunlight struck down onto the forest floor and overhead you could see a blue sky between the tree tops.” ― C.S. Lewis Light does some amazing things. As a photographer, light is everything and my eyes are quite tuned to the unique characteristics of light. Anything out of the ordinary resonates with me and automatically draws me to it. This was the case on a hot and rainy hike this… Read More
“Sometimes you just had to crawl through the dark before you could see the light.” ― E.L. Montes Butterflies can be a challenge to photograph. They are quite shy and their irregular flight makes them tough to track. But, it’s that irregular movement that makes me notice them. This wood nymph first appeared in my peripheral vision and floated around me for some time before finally landing, far away from me and in… Read More
“My love affair with nature is so deep that I am not satisfied with being a mere onlooker, or nature tourist. I crave a more real and meaningful relationship. The spicy teas and tasty delicacies I prepare from wild ingredients are the bread and wine in which I have communion and fellowship with nature, and with the Author of that nature.” ― Euell Gibbons Every hike seems to bring a new discovery. As… Read More
“Beware of those who are bitter, for they will never allow you to enjoy your fruit.” ― Suzy Kassem The gooseberries are not just bitter, but well protected. I imagine birds would do alright with these but I’m trying to picture a squirrel or some other rodent trying to deal with these spiky berries. This native fruit bearing shrub is a new one to me, even though I have hiked past this location… Read More
“When you reach for the stars, you are reaching for the farthest thing out there. When you reach deep into yourself, it is the same thing, but in the opposite direction. If you reach in both directions, you will have spanned the universe.” ― Vera Nazarian It’s late June, yet many of the plants are still growing. This fern along the trail is a good example of this. In the warm breezes of… Read More
“The beauty of that June day was almost staggering. 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 Here we are, freshly into summer. I have found myself longing to… Read More
“It was June, and the world smelled of roses. The sunshine was like powdered gold over the grassy hillside.” ― Maud Hart Lovelace I noticed, as I wrote this post, that I have not posted an image since May 31st. That’s what happens when you step away from something for too long; the time gets filled with other things. The discipline of posting every day has been a very fulfilling experience for me…. Read More
“Dogs are our link to paradise. They don’t know evil or jealousy or discontent. To sit with a dog on a hillside on a glorious afternoon is to be back in Eden, where doing nothing was not boring–it was peace.” ― Milan Kundera This is a more personal image for me. It’s an image of our dog, Cody, as he stands at the edge of Marble Lake, where we camp. We picked… Read More
“Nature knows no pause in progress and development, and attaches her curse on all inaction. “ – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe The title for this image came to me immediately. It is driven by the essence of ‘how’ I photograph. I refrain from most things man-made. Sometimes it can be as innocuous as a well groomed path through the woods, preferring to imagine things as purely as possible, untouched by humans, rare… Read More
Nikon D800 Tamron SP AF 90mm f/2.8 Di Macro 1:1 (272ENII)@90mm 1/80 sec, f/4.5 ISO 100
“The difference between darkness and brightness is how you thrive on those moments and how you use such circumstances with goodwill in your spirit.” ― Angelica Hopes Here we are nearing the end of September, and the end of summer. I was surprised to see just how much colour change is already occurring not too far north of my home. As my family and I drove through the North hastings region of Ontario… Read More
“Fall has always been my favorite season. The time when everything bursts with its last beauty, as if nature had been saving up all year for the grand finale.” ― Lauren DeStefano I’m considering starting another series based on this past weekend, enjoying the Bancroft Area Studio tour and the natural beauty of the North Hasting Highlands area, which we drove through as part of the tour. This has been a very strange… Read More
“The Green Veil shimmers richly around me, in tones of deepest emerald and muted olive; a dominating threshold between earth and sky. Yet, through this veil, gold light pierces and shimmers, lighting the path and bright undergrowth, in a dance of life and light.” – Ed Lehming I’ve been wanting to create a new series of images for some time, but the greens of summer, while lovely and filled with life, do… Read More
A beautiful, cool dawn on Bancroft’s Marble Lake. The mist swirls gently on the water’s surface, as the sun rises behind a low ridge. A pattern repeated throughout the summer, each time, slightly different. In the distance, Blue Jays screech high in the trees and the world awakens as the sunlight reaches further every minute. A new day begins.
“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.” – Marcel Proust It seems to be butterfly and bug week for me. Butterflies, especially, have been sparse this year, though small months are plentiful, yet elusive. The butterflies also serve as subject matter as flowering plants seem to be in a transition phase, many is seed and others just budding. When I went hiking during… Read More
“Miracles… seem to me to rest not so much upon… healing power coming suddenly near us from afar but upon our perceptions being made finer, so that, for a moment, our eyes can see and our ears can hear what is there around us always.” ― Willa Cather For those living in the path of today’s solar eclipse, I’m sure it will be tough to compete with the spectacle in the sky. If… Read More
“There are times to stay put, and what you want will come to you, and there are times to go out into the world and find such a thing for yourself.” ― Lemony Snicket For the past several days, I’ve watched one or two monarch butterflies on my purple coneflowers (Echinacea purpura) and I have not had my camera handy. By the time I gathered my camera and got outside, it seems the butterflies… Read More
“There’s a special quality to the loneliness of dusk, a melancholy more brooding even than the night’s.” ― Ed Gorman After a day filled with sunshine, family, volleyball, and too much food, a quick dip in the lake after the sun has set is in order. As I considered this photo of my son standing in the shallow beach waters at Sauble beach, surrounded by the incredible reflected dusk, I realized how strange… Read More
“When one with honeyed words but evil mind Persuades the mob, great woes befall the state.” ― Euripides Continuing on my “purple phase” theme, here’s a beautiful invader. Though a beautiful flowering plant, in Ontario and other areas where it was introduced as a garden flower, this garden escapee soon established itself in meadows and wetlands, crowding out native plants. It spreads through rapidly spreading rhizomes and seeds. Each plant can produce over… Read More
“Stretching his hand up to reach the stars, too often man forgets the flowers at his feet.” – Jeremy Bentham What looked like delicate thistles from a distance turned out to be Knapweed. The dunes and roadside around Sauble Beach were filled with them. It’s yet another flowering plant that I seem to have overlooked in the past. I suppose it’s because I am deliberately looking for new wildflowers to photograph and… Read More
“For a while” is a phrase whose length can’t be measured. At least by the person who’s waiting.” ― Haruki Murakami When composing this image, my eyes were first drawn to the warm and cool layers of light on the water as well as the texture of the water itself, the first caused by patchy clouds and the second, by high winds blowing off Lake Huron. The seagull, seems quite at peace i… Read More
“In every outthrust headland, in every curving beach, in every grain of sand there is the story of the earth.” ― Rachel Carson I get great enjoyment photographing plants and animals in areas away from home and the sand dunes of Sauble Beach are no exception. I came across many plants which survive well in the dry sand dunes which bound the back of the beach. Many still need to be looked up… Read More
“All human plans [are] subject to ruthless revision by Nature, or Fate, or whatever one preferred to call the powers behind the Universe.” ― Arthur C. Clarke I made this image almost immediately upon my arrival at Ontario’s Sauble Beach. The forecast was for a mostly rainy weekend and our group had resigned itself that it might not be ideal for playing our favourite beach sport, volleyball. As we drove towards the lake… Read More
“I drag myself over to the honeysuckle bush and pluck a flower. I gently pull the stamen through the blossom and set the drop of nectar on my tongue. The sweetness spreads through my mouth, down my throat, warming my veins with memories of summer.” – Suzanne Collins I don’t believe there are many fragrances that compare with honeysuckle on a warm summer evening. As I walked the narrow roadways and access points at… Read More
“The beauty of the unexpected lies within the surprise of the momentum, not only at its tipping point, but also within all the moments waiting.” ― Akilnathan Logeswaran Sauble Beach, on Ontario’s Lake Huron, is known for its sunsets. This one did not disappoint. It was the last day of a long weekend with friends and family. We had just finished our supper and packing the car for the drive back home, when… Read More
Ed Lehming Photography 
Recent Comments