Photo of the Week 2023-09-18

 

' chicory dew '

Roadside chicory blooms along the cottage road on a dewy morning

 

DJE

Photo of the Week 2022-03-07

Purple and Gold, the colours of royalty

 

' Regal Pageantry '

When I photograph out over Lake Huron, I quite often used a longer focal length to capture at least one image without any of the headlands or islands present. Some time after I began this practice I was introduced to the Seascape photography of Hiroshi Sugimoto, his exploration of the boundary between sea and sky.

"Water and air. So very commonplace are these substances, they hardly attract attention ― and yet they vouchsafe our very existence. The beginnings of life are shrouded in myth: Let there water and air. Living phenomena spontaneously generated from water and air in the presence of light, though that could just as easily suggest random coincidence as a Deity. Let's just say that there happened to be a planet with water and air in our solar system, and moreover at precisely the right distance from the sun for the temperatures required to coax forth life. While hardly inconceivable that at least one such planet should exist in the vast reaches of universe, we search in vain for another similar example.  Mystery of mysteries, water and air are right there before us in the sea. Every time I view the sea, I feel a calming sense of security, as if visiting my ancestral home; I embark on a voyage of seeing." 

                                                                                                                       - Hiroshi Sugimoto

 

I've contributed a number of images to a flickr group "Following Sugimoto" dedicated to the genre, this is yet another.

 

DJE

Photo of the Week 2021-07-19

 

It might be a bit surprising how new gear with new features can inject new energy into the photographic journey ...

Oh I love new gear just because it is new gear, but my recent return to using macro lenses and wide apertures with shallow depth of focus has been aided by the availability of an articulating LCD screen on the back of my new camera. Previously, I had been required to perform some interesting contortions in order to be able to see through the camera viewfinder or view the rear LCD to accomplish the precise focus I wanted. This resulted in some laughable scenarios where my forehead could be planted in the cedar duff covering the forest floor as I worked to get an upward angle on a wildflower, or where strange grunting and groaning noises could be heard in the vicinity of a low slung tripod set close to the ground for that bug's eye view.

Things are much easier now. Oh, I still need to get down on my knees for a lot of the wildflower images, but other than a bit of additional hunching over to shade the articulated LCD and zoom in for that perfect focus, it's a new day, a new way for my nature macro photography and here is another example of the results ...

colourful viper

Until you stop and take a close look, Viper's Bugloss appears to be just another roadside weed. Actually, it produces very intricate, colourful and interesting flowers that bud pink amongst a hairy green tuft before turning purple and stretching their pink stamens far out where the bees and other insects do their pollination routine.

 

 

DJE

Photo of the Week 2018-06-11

Just wrap yourself in the magnificent blanket of evening's calm ...

mirrored magenta

Dinner complete, dishes done, kitchen tidied up ... we headed down to the shore and lit a fire. A canoe of animated youths returned home, shore-side activities came to an end, voices across the water faded. We let ourselves be wrapped in the blanket of evening's calm.

DJE