It’s a Dragonfly Summer

July 26, 2013July 26, 2013 | drawandshoot

The dragonflies have been amazing this year. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many. In fact, as I sit writing this post I can see them flitting around outside my window.

They have been gathering on the sun drenched bushes and shrubs allowing me to observe them rather closely (I’d venture to say that they are willing collaborators, one of them even perched on my nose for a while …). Mostly they are a yellow-green colour but there are a few other types, too, and they are all fascinating up close.

When we were canoe camping in Killarney a couple of weeks ago I saw a several cast off larval skins from dragonflies and here is one pictured below.
Dragonflies in their larval stage live underwater and when they are ready to metamorphose into adults they climb out of the water on an available reed or water plant and go through the process of emerging from their old skin.

Near the shed skin was this poor dragonfly caught in some sticky carnivorous sundews (Drosera). Sundews are rather beautiful, I will have to head to the bog one day and see if I can find some locally.

[These above 2 photographs are lacking detail as I didn’t bring a macro lens camping (all other images were taken with a macro lens), and my canoe kept shifting around – next time I think the extra weight of the macro lens would be completely worth it!]

A whiskered closeup:
(click on images to enlarge)

Nightfall

July 24, 2013 | drawandshoot

Last night I walked down to the river to watch the sun slip away – some evenings are flawless and you need to be out in them.

I was drawn to the gently swaying wildflowers (hoary alyssum, bertéroa blanc) backlit against the waning reflected light. Each of these photographs was made using in-camera double exposures and very little editing. This is what the camera saw. The images seemed to work better as double exposures, to carry more weight even though in a sense they are ‘lighter’, less literal. There are times when I think ‘abstracting’ a particular subject may express it more fully. Like the sense of a lovely summer evening sitting on damp grass and fading into the night.

How the river looked, doubly exposed. If you look carefully (click to enlarge) you will see a tiny sailboat near the horizon.

~When the Wind Holds Back its Breath~

July 21, 2013 | drawandshoot

In the stillness there are things to be seen that disappear when breathing resumes.

If you lie down on this quiet lake ~ put your ear to the cool surface ~ and look to the shore, this is what you would find. These ancient totems perpetually drawn and re-drawn by rock, wind and wave.

These creatures that are both there and not there. Embodied by both solid and liquid.

They are like the spirits of the land, I think. Reminding me of the people who first paddled these lakes, first walked this land, and lived in balance with the earth.

[All these images are (rotated) reflections on water, made during a canoe trip to
Killarney Provincial Park in Ontario.]

I Recommend…

July 15, 2013July 21, 2013 | drawandshoot

I recommend leaving the world behind for a while. Taking along light canoes and heavy packs and paddling to a new campsite every day. A campsite with a warm lake and a crackling fire.

I recommend sleeping in a tent under the stars, watching the fireflies light up the velvet night and then waking to early morning birdsong you can’t identify.

I recommend morning coffee, evening tea, and daily swims.

I recommend traveling with a diverse group of people and having a (borrowed) 6-year-old in your canoe at all times. One that tells jokes and sings songs and just might be smarter than you.

I recommend changing pace.
The pace of a paddle, a canoe, and some wilderness.

[All these images were made this past week at Killarney Provincial Park in Ontario.]

*Note: I also recommend bug spray and short portages!

sea change

July 4, 2013 | drawandshoot

Fluid Limbs

June 28, 2013 | drawandshoot

A double exposure (the figure), water reflections and merged layers. You have to learn how to swim in all this rain…

Long Days and Tall Grass

June 21, 2013August 8, 2014 | drawandshoot

(Untitled. Oil, graphite and Conté on Mylar)

It’s the first day of summer here and it feels like a true summer day with gently swaying grasses in the sunshine and strange insects in the garden.

[The first image is a painting/drawing in progress (I never know whether to call my pieces paintings or drawings – I guess they are both) and the other two images are photographs made with camera movement.]

The Rain Becomes You

June 13, 2013 | drawandshoot

A damselfly that tells fortunes…?

I think this might be a small weevil(?) of some sort, managing to hang on to the underside of a leaf with the weight of all that water.

We have had a fair share of grey and rain around here. The earth is well watered, and you could disappear in the tall green grasses. It is easy to gripe about the greyness of it all, but when the sun returns you are reminded that each drop is a transient gem.