Tag: landscape photography
Notes from Fathers Day
There are two new dads in our immediate family – my two sons-in-law, Shaun and Gareth. Fathers Day this year was the first for both of them, and I wonder what went through their minds, about their new status in life, their new roles and responsibilities. Or did they simply shake their heads in wonder and surprise as they got on with the business of changing the nappies? No nappies for me, mind you – not on this particular Fathers Day, anyway. Instead it was off to Roots, at Forum Homini in the Magaliesberg, for Rob and me – the […]
Fork in the Road
When you come to a fork in the road, take it, said Yogi Berra – and if that isn’t a piece of advice befitting Samuel Becket and Waiting for Godot I don’t know what is. Kinda sums up the existential dilemma. Problem is, we live our lives forwards, not backwards, so we never know whether the choices we are making are the right ones, at least not until it’s too late, nor do we have any idea whether the road not taken would have been better, or worse, or just landed up elsewhere. Which is why, I guess, the path, […]
Photographs and Signs
The eye picks up patterns everywhere; pattern, lines, composition are the basic elements of a halfway decent photograph, along with (especially in black and white images) form and texture. Look beyond pattern, however, and what you see is signs: not necessarily symbols, which are more potent, and harder to create, but the signs – literal, enigmatic, ambiguous, suggestive – that are littered everywhere. The world in that sense is coded, as much cleverer people have pointed out. In my photographs, I find I am increasingly trying to ‘see’ beyond pattern and form and the traditional elements, to the landscape of […]
Fall, Bailieboro
For fifteen years, maybe longer, our friend Chris has been the organizer and convenor of an annual pumpkin carving. For the past couple of years, this has taken place at the farm she and her partner Paul live on in the hills above Bailieboro, overlooking Rice Lake. Friends drive up for the day from Toronto, or in the case of Mark and Heather and their two children, from Hamilton. There is always food, drink, and a walk in the woods. This year the fall colours are not yet in their full glory, but the hills and fields were still peaceful […]
Foggier – three images
Three black and white images of the morning fog on Seneca Lake in upstate New York. These might be my favourites, of the lake images…
Taughannock Falls State Park
With the Subaru resting after liposuction at the clinic – quietly parked at our cottage, with a nice view over Seneca Lake – the intrepid explorers (Hayley, Jono, me, Steve and Amelia) crammed into the Steve-and-Amelia Mazda for a day trip to Ithaca, with a stop-off en route at the Taughannock Falls State Park, supposedly to see the main waterfall, which was there, in the sense of a tall gash in the rock, but not much of a fall because there wasn’t much water. The foliage on the way, however, was more autumnal, and the climbing hills were really quite lovely, and on […]
Six Images – Watkins Glen State Park
The images here, a mix of black-and-white and colour photographs, were all taken in Watkins Glen State Park; for those of you who are interested in these things, I used a Nikon D90 and a Manfrotto tripod, and all of the photos were taken with the 10-24mm Nikon DX lens, which I am coming to love more and more, each time I use it. Not the most modern or advanced kit, but that’s hardly the point, is it? For the images where the water is blurred, I used a 2 second exposure. Images were processed in Lightroom 6, and in […]
Seneca Lake – three images
From our trip last week to the Fingerlakes, in upstate New York, here are three rather different images: one in colour, one in black and white, and one black and white with split toning. They all, to my mind, capture different moods, atmospheres, a different sense of light and temperature. See what you think.
Etosha Pan: Four Landscapes
Etosha Pan – a salt pan which lies like a vast silver sea at the heart of Namibia’s premier wildlife reserve – is hard to describe. Shimmering, lifeless, it stretches out to the horizon and reaches into the sky – until suddenly you see a troop of oryx plodding silently across it, way off in the distance, or an island rising out of the motionless ocean. The four images here focus on the pan itself, not on the wildlife; I hope with the black and white rendering to communicate some sense of the immensity, the desolation, and the spiritual beauty of one […]
