Red on white

January 30, 2009 | Filed Under General | Leave a Comment 

The first day of spring in Canada is rarely the first spring day. Much of the land remains locked in snow and ice. After the long winter of 2008 this cardinal paused near the Rideau River to ponder seeds scattered out of camera range beneath the branches.

Remembering the sumacs

January 26, 2009 | Filed Under General | Leave a Comment 

In the white of winter, I remember sumacs rising out of the rocks by the lake, how impossibly crimson they were, reaching to the sun by the glittering water along the north path. They leapt to our lenses that day in the clear October air.

‘My name is Donnie’

January 23, 2009 | Filed Under Black and White, General, Portraits | Leave a Comment 

Afterward, when the shouting stopped and he turned away, and the coat and boots were gone, it was the eyes that remained, dim lights in a dimming day. What agonies men can suffer and go on living. I thought of him long after the chairs were stacked, and floor was mopped and the lock clicked shut on the door.

Inauguration Day

January 20, 2009 | Filed Under General | Leave a Comment 

“We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.” - Abraham Lincoln,  4 March 1861

First Line Road

January 12, 2009 | Filed Under General | Leave a Comment 

The sun gleamed all day until I went at mid-afternoon, only to see it fade behind a curtain of clouds as I drove past the farms and fences along First Line Road. Then, for a few short moments, the sky opened in the west beyond this field and the sun shone through again.

The last hour of a winter day

January 6, 2009 | Filed Under General | Leave a Comment 

I live near the Rideau River and often visit Long Island Locks, about half an hour south of  Parliament Hill. Pleasure boats gather here in summer, rising and descending through the locks, which are part of the Rideau Canal system connecting Ottawa and Kingston. It is a busy place at the height of the season. But in winter all is silent, except for the traffic of the few local residents. This was the late afternoon sun reflecting back the frozen Rideau today at Long Island Locks.

Henry David Thoreau - 7 Jan 1852

We never tire of the drama of sunset. I go forth each afternoon & look into the west ¼ of an hour before sunset with fresh curiosity to see what new picture will be painted there - what new panorama exhibited - what new dissolving views - can Washington Street or Broad-Way show anything as good? Every day a new picture is painted and framed , held up for half an hour - in such lights as the great artist chooses & then with drawn — & the curtain falls.