transitions

This Might Be It

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TheRapidsinMarch4_FrostedBranches

TheRapidsinMarch2_goldeneyes

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TheRapidsinMarch7We might have reached the final crescendo of winter cold. Maybe? This might be it for mornings starting out at -25c. How beautiful they can be, though. The clarity of the cold. And a stage set for…ducks. Those goldeneye ducks will push up against the northern iciness as long as there is open water. Surely there are more hospitable places to spend the winter but every year it seems as though there are just a few more of these birds that can’t resist this beautiful river.

The thermometre is rising now. We are destined to feel temperatures above zero in the next few days. It will be especially sweet this year.

Part of me, though, already misses this frosted landscape.

[photographs from yesterday morning]

© Karen McRae, 2015

‘The Tangled Garden’ *

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The-Tangled-Garden(click on image for a larger and more detailed view)

*the modern, gritty, winter version.

Which is not at all like the *original Tangled Garden that inspired the title: a painting made almost 100 years ago, all brush strokes and rich autumn colours. The image here is urban: all road salt and gravelly snow at the edges of the concrete city. ‘Painted’ in 1/20th of a second at the press of a button.

But it would be very difficult to create this image again. The landscape and the light change continually. The synthesis of camera movement and car speed would never quite be the same. To me there is something hopeful and lovely about the whole gritty mess; a push and pull between the focused and blurred, between earth and snow. I like, too, how the subtle flecks of gold graze some of the vegetation – the last bit of light before it falls away. And the idea of painting with a camera, and making images that we might not actually see otherwise (but perhaps still feel).

© Karen McRae, 2015

Something in the Air

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Light-and-Shadow_-River'sEdge

It has been -20c for a month and a half.

This statement may be an exaggeration but only a slight one. If one wanted to know for sure they could always check here, but why bother. It feels like it’s been -20c for a month and a half. Even for a winter lover it’s a bit cold.

The birds have had enough. I hear them calling for spring in their songs. Perhaps even insisting on it. At least, these sound like spring songs I am hearing. Yes, I am hearing one now…? And the feathered ones seem especially active. But it could be that they are just trying to keep warm.

Nature is pressing on, though. I see the bluejays picking at tight winter buds and catkins on some of the trees (how do they still manage to produce those in this cold?!). The sleepy pussy willows are likely growing those fur coats they need for early spring – I haven’t checked yet.

Anyway, there is something in the air besides -20.

Dozens-of-Waxwings1A flock with dozens of Waxwings, spotted yesterday.

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© Karen McRae, 2015

The Undergrowth (mostly)

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GoldFeathers

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SeedpodLight1Snowshoes and late afternoon.

[Just before the sun slipped its hands over the horizon it reached out for the undergrowth and the tiny transparent seed pods (wild mustard, maybe?) caught my eye as they were momentarily lit up like mini lightsabers. At first I dismissed these images but when I came back to them they seemed to have a real sense of the intimacy and magic of the woods in late day.]

© Karen McRae, 2014

The Jagged Edges of Winter

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It seems the river has been pitching itself against the shoreline in the cold and wind, frosting whatever it could manage to touch before its own edges are too frozen to move. Unfortunately, by the time I managed to get out the light was very dull, but at the moment there is new snow falling, and by morning the landscape will be transformed again. These fringes of the seasons can be so fleeting.

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© Karen McRae, 2014

Sketches in Silver and Gold

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Autumn-Gold

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Just a couple of days with warmer temperatures and the earth has gobbled up all the snow. It won’t be long before the landscape is blanketed in white again but in the meantime we are back to silver and gold. I made these photographs yesterday from the passenger seat of a car. The skies were a heavy grey but I love these moody colours of autumn.

© Karen McRae, 2014