Reticulation

March 11, 2014October 31, 2014 | drawandshoot

[A multi-layered double exposure]

Night Light

February 12, 2014 | drawandshoot

Sometimes when I feel like my work or ideas are getting monotonous I try to think of my camera as a sort of sketchbook and think of ways I might capture ‘sketches’ of the landscape rather than more ‘representative’ photographs. I’ll try using double exposures, long exposures and/or maybe camera movement to get a different sort of feel happening.

These are a few images from a snowy winter evening when I went out to just play. No expectations or specific ideas – in my mind I was simply sketching the night and following my intuition as I experimented. I made setting adjustments as the camera gave me feedback. At times I used flash to capture the snowflakes and elements in the foreground along with exposures lasting several seconds, and at times also moving the camera to see what might happen.

In the first image you can see that I was moving my camera up and down which created light trails from a light source on the other side of the woods. A strange image but there is something about it that I find oddly appealing. Perhaps it reinforces the idea that a camera is a tool with endless possibilities and every so often I need to be reminded of this.

I wasn’t initially planning on posting these as they seemed to be more about process than result – technically they are quite noisy – but I sort of like the soft-focused, grainy look of them and in the end they really are sketches of a snowy winter night.

Inside, Outside

October 22, 2013 | drawandshoot

Final Flight

October 9, 2013 | drawandshoot

All my words, too, have taken flight.

September Songs

September 18, 2013 | drawandshoot

Sliver-thin Layers and Double Exposures

July 30, 2013August 8, 2013 | drawandshoot

Sliver-thin layers and double exposures. From the series Surface, Submerge.

I suppose this image doesn’t seem to have much to do with the rest of this post but it is woven in with a fine thread…

In the past few months I have been very fortunate to be included in a couple of wonderful publications and I thought I would mention this as a way of perhaps introducing these magazines to anyone that might be interested.

The first is a gorgeous publication from the Netherlands called “Flow Magazine” and they included this blog(!) in an article all about nature blogs. (*Although the article is in Dutch, Flow Mag has recently started issuing international copies of their magazine in English. Also, I recommend checking out some of those other nature bloggers listed if you have the time.)

You can find a copy of that article here: Flow Magazine ‘Groene Bloggers’

I am honoured, also, to have art from my ‘Surface, Submerge’ series included in the latest print issue of Art & Science Journal along with some other very accomplished artists.

You can find that article here: Surface, Submerge
As well as print issues, Art & Science Journal has a very beautiful and interesting blog.

Many thanks to both of these publications for the recognition, and for allowing me to ‘reprint’ these articles [*copyright of these articles remains with each publication]. I hope you get a chance to check them out – click on the images below to be brought to their home pages.

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!

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.