© Karen McRae, 2013

After a few halcyon, summer-like days the spring blossoms are in full splendor. When I managed to get out with my camera it was mostly grey and overcast and I came away feeling like I had not been able to work the true beauty into my camera. I often find a way to work with poor light but sometimes nothing feels quite right.

There is a spectacular tree in blossom at the arboretum at the moment and you can see its twisted form in a couple of the above photographs. I photographed it from the ‘inside’ because the entwined branches drape around you in such a way that you can’t really imagine a more perfect place.

My images don’t do it justice in any way. Often, I find it necessary to spend a long time with a subject experimenting with different ways of photographing to capture a real sense of the subject or my experience of it. Sometimes going back several times in different light and conditions. But the blossoms are so fleeting it makes it difficult to do this. It is one of the challenges I love about making images, though – finding, and working with, the ephemeral.

There are times where I merge images together, layering and adding ‘ghosts’. I do this with in-camera double exposures, and sometimes afterwards in processing (in this case images 1,3,4). It is not that I want to tell an untruth with these images; more so the opposite. It is an attempt to express the sense of an experience that I have haven’t managed to capture. Adding layers to an image the way we add layers to our memories.

© Karen McRae, 2013

The spaces in-between. Not where you started from or where you are headed, but where you are. For that moment. Glimpses of passing spaces etched in your mind.

These photographs are mine but they grew from a seed that was planted in another place. Their story is here … it’s just a short train ride…

These images are cross-posted on the collaborative blog Journey of a Photograph. Please visit to learn more about the inspiration behind their creation.

© Karen McRae, 2013

Birdsong and squinting into the sun. The earth is greening.

© Karen McRae, 2013

The steady persuasion of spring where the trees meet overhead and the water divides below. You can sit in the freckled sun here, beside the water garden, and the birds will taunt you, posing only for a second before flitting off and then returning to a new perch. There are no other voices.

From the series Surface, Submerge.
© Karen McRae, 2013

Above and below: Seedheads covered in ice from freezing rain – the patterns develop as the ice starts to melt away and break up into smaller pieces.

Frost flowers develop when it is very cold and the air is quite moist. The ones pictured here formed on thin ice at the edge of the river near open water, on a night when the temperature dipped to -25C.

Above: A tiny branch with phantom ‘leaves’ on a cold winter morning.

Below: A small frost formation on a window.

The Ottawa River shifting through the seasons.

I sometimes find it difficult to shift my visual thinking/creativity away from the winter landscape in the spring. For me it holds a bit of magic like no other season. The key to these transformations is water. From raindrops to snowflakes, to ice and frost, is there anything with more imagination than water?

The landscape is mostly shades of brown now with small bits of green trying to emerge through the damp earth. The river has lost its ice. Most of the photographs here have been posted on these pages before, some even from the previous winter, so I guess this is a bit of a recap (or an ice cap), but together they attempt to illustrate, and to let go of, the season that has just passed.

Also, on Monday April 22nd it will be Earth Day! In 2013 the focus is on climate change and how it is impacting people, creatures and environments the world over. You can learn more (and participate) by going to the Earth Day website. It is our collective voices and actions that make changes.

What are your plans for Earth Day?

© Karen McRae, 2013

From the series Surface, Submerge.
© Karen McRae, 2013

A little extra winter here the past few days but I don’t think the remainder of ice on the river can last too much longer. The coming days look to be shifting into real spring.

The footprints made by a black bear who has been walking near the river were quite distinguishable in the fresh snow. It’s not too often a bear would be wandering in this area so close to the city but there are corridors of greenspace and waterways that are well used by wildlife. It’s one of things that makes this city so interesting.

© Karen McRae, 2013

© Karen McRae, 2013

Wrapped trees found along a highway. Sometimes you will see the newly planted trees wrapped like this to protect them from the harsh weight of winter. I really don’t know how effective it is.

I documented some smaller and very different looking ones last year. You can see that series here. After the drought that occurred here last summer many of the trees along the highway look as though they are struggling.

© Karen McRae, 2013