One Last Walk

On the day before I lay you to rest,
I asked you to come with me in spirit as we took one last walk,
That walk we were planning to do,
Now that spring sun had replaced winters chill.

the sun shone, 

we saw butter cups,
heard birds sing 

I shed tears and felt you with me

As you go now to be with dad, know you have my everlasting love and thanks for everything
...and for one last walk.

Doug

Photo of the Week 2015-05-25

A short post this week ... 

I wanted to be sure to post an image this week but I'm uncertain if I'll get more time or internet access to complete this week's blog post. My mother has been hospitalized after suffering a significant heart attack a couple of days ago. Her health has been frail for some time and I'm not sure how much fight she has left. I'll be spending as much time at her side in hospital as I can.

Suffice to say, my mind is not on photography at the moment.

Impressions of Morning Aspen

DJE

Photo of the Week 2015-05-18

Now and then I take an introspective browse through my image catalogue, finding inspiration, motivation, reliving the shooting experiences, not actively searching but leaving myself open to see the images again.

With several thousand images in the catalogue, it can be difficult to decide where to start. Pointing a random finger may work but one way is to look one, two, three or any number of years ago from the current date. 

This can be an interesting exercise. Sometimes it results in dissatisfaction with much of my work. Sometimes it stirs vivid memories. Sometimes something stands out. Always I learn something

hues of blue I

When I came across the image above, I was surprised that I had only marked is with one star. This typically indicates that on first pass I saw something but then abandoned it as a candidate for further attention, yet again the image caused me to stop and evaluate.

What appeals to me is the simplicity of the image and the limited blue colour palette. What I am reminded of is how some of my most personally satisfying images prrovide the viewer with common sights, presented in an uncommon, some might say unconventional way.

For this image, the conventional composition would have been to include some of the shoreline in the image, which I certainly captured in additional images from the outing, but excluding the shoreline and using the rippled texture of the blue water leaves the viewer to use their imagination to complete this scene.

DJE

Photo of the Week 2015-05-11

I've been experimenting with my image post processing lately. It's all part of the journey. Trying new things is like creative exercise, flexing the artistic muscle if you like.

An approach that simplifies the detail in my original capture causes me to look more at the graphic elements and colours of an image. It removes reality to an extent, masks the flaws that I can become obsessed with causing me to give up on an image.  

For example, in this week's image, there are focus issues. The depth of field is too shallow, caused to some extent by me working hand held without a tripod, but also because I was shooting at a 135mm focal length at an oblique angle across a patch of trilliums, not wanting to step amongst them and cause any damage. Rather than give up on an image that I liked because the foreground and background were not in sharp focus, I decided to process the image with a Photoshop plug-in, Topaz Simplify, and create graphic photo-realistic like result.

In this, I see things that can help my photography, improve the original capture, strengthen my composition. Letting go a bit and trying something different can be a good thing. I'm not worried what others may say or think. After all, it's my journey.

By the way, I've widened the format of the blog post so the landscape format images are no longer cut off a bit on the right side when I post them large. Please let me know if you have any trouble viewing and if you see an improvement.

DJE

Photo of the Week 2015-05-04

Spring arrived over a month ago, but there are still signs of winter lingering around Tobermory.

winter ice lingers

A fallen tree along the cottage road provided wood for the first shoreside fire of the season.

A thin and even cloud cover allowed the subtle blue-magenta hues through to paint the evening sky.

... and another sunset over Lake Huron.

DJE