Landing

  • Branch, Shelter

    Footpath at the Eramosa River in the Ward (Guelph) during late Winter. Out of frame: recreational trail, Rice Island, and a recreational trail.

    The paths meander through the trees. Here the snow is at its most resilient despite the current melt. It had been compacted underfoot through the Winter by those who have turned off the main trail. It is glacial and hard, but giving way soon.

    Nothing much is wholly left to chance here… or deliberation. It just is. The branches fell where they fell, by wind and rot. And far from unusual in urban wooded areas, someone has gathered the fallen branches and used them to build something. People collect, people organize, and people build. Necessity is not always the impetus but neither is chance.

  • West Beach, Part 1/x

    West beach, Port Hope, at Lake Ontario. Out of frame: uranium refinery, railway tracks, water treatment plant, and a creek.

    A skiff of snow is on the beach. It is quite cold. Beyond the shrubs is a creek that drains the ravine to the north of the tracks. The creek washes over the beach, spilling into the lake.

    The surface of the lake is beginning to thicken from the air’s chill. But it isn’t freezing yet, and may not freeze at all. Off shore, steam rises; the lake is still much warmer.

  • First Post… Land-ing

    First post… land-ing — a personal photography blog with text. It’s winter. Snowy this year. Job lost, time found… Trying to shoot more, explore more ideas, find more reasons to document, trace, capture fragments of the land around me.

    But… with the privileged eye of the camera holder comes responsibility in equal measure. Acknowledgement of the everyday, the sometimes forgotten, is the motivation behind my exploration of the things and systems around me. Photos are notes for me, jotted down… maybe to return to later. Or, as a small form of authorship within the assemblage of forces acting on the things around me.

    For me landing is learning… recognizing change and the tension that separates one state from another. Landing is about engaging my intuition, compelling intentional acts, and shedding preconceived notions. It is about reminding myself that the experience of the quotidian things has meaning, even if not readily obvious. The everyday, even if subtle… even if captured in fragments, has meaning.

    Moving, seeing, noting… landing.