Category: Landscape Photography

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Landscape Photography

Introverted Landscape

Sometimes a landscape presents to me as extraverted. At other times a landscape will approach me with a cautious reserve.

My encounters with landscape remind me a lot of my encounters with people. I think of all those times I’ve sat in a meeting and there’s that one person who goes on and on, and in the midst of it their bluster seems persuasive, but afterwards, when I’m reviewing the minutes, I realize that, despite the torrent of words, the person has said nothing of substance. Meanwhile, there is that one person who sits quietly in the corner, unable to get a word in edgewise, who later sends an email or phones me, and I discover that their head is brimming with helpful ideas and creative solutions.

Landscapes can be like that. Some landscapes smack me full in the face with an immediate impact and I say: Wow! A lot of sunset shots affect me in that way. Then I look more closely and realize there isn’t a whole lot going on in the image; it’s the photographic equivalent of a vapid blond Fox news anchor. Or, to borrow a phrase from MacBeth, it is “full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” Meanwhile, lurking in the corner of my lightbox is an understated image that doesn’t seize my immediate attention but nevertheless lingers in my memory.

Try an experiment sometime. Take an 8 1/2 x 11 sheet of white paper and mark it with a single black dot, then show it to friends and ask them what they see on the page. Almost invariably, they will point to the dot while ignoring the overwhelming whiteness of the page. When we look passively, we are keyed to see certain things, like bright colours and stark contrasts. Only when we look actively do we begin to notice subtlety and nuance.

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Landscape Photography

Photographing in the Divide Between Order and Chaos

I was walking down the street when a youngish man approached and offered a piece of paper. You never know what you’re going to get when a stranger offers you a piece of paper. It could be a notice about a closing sale. It could be a rant about how Covid is a psyop mind control experiment. Or, as in this case, it could be a pamphlet promising eternal life with an old geezer in the sky above if only I surrender myself to the path laid down by a bronze age rabbi.

There are any number of reasons why I might find contemporary proselytism offensive. Chief among them is that Christian proselytism is intimately tied to a long history of Western colonialism and has been used to rationalize the exploitation of both people and resources. In my estimation, it hasn’t even begun to atone for its many sins, and will never begin that process until it allows a measure of humility to enter into its teachings. I receive the strident certainty of its tone as confirmation that it is deluded.

But in this instance, I didn’t even make it to that primary concern. I was too distracted by two grammatical errors. To my way of thinking, the function of grammar is a lot like the function of religion: it brings order to chaos; it makes our world more meaningful. A religious tract with grammatical errors is like a book of laws for criminals. It embraces a contradiction that not even faith can overcome.

I confess that I tend to take the same approach to the world when I have a camera in hand. I choose subjects and frame photographs and gravitate towards narratives that reinforce a world view in which order triumphs over chaos. In the distance, the world may swallow itself in fog. But here, right here, I see the world with clarity and that reassures me. Like the proselyte on the street corner, I want to share my view of the world with others. My photos may not have the same heft as a passage of scripture, but my aims are the same. More troubling is the fact that when I insist you look at the world exactly as I have looked at the world, I am replicating the colonizing tendencies of my proselytizing brothers and sisters.

Maybe my photographs would benefit from more chaos.

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Landscape Photography

Fog and Intimacy

Lone Tree in Fog, Williams Farm, Wyebridge, ON

There is something about fog that produces a sense of intimacy. Our view of what lies in the distance fades almost to nothing. All that remains is whatever stands in the foreground. I made this photograph on New Years Day. I make a habit of rising to greet the sun on the first morning of the new year, but when I got up on January 1st, 2022, I found the world shrouded in fog. After nearly 2 years of a global pandemic, attended by a growing cloud of disinformation, fog may be an apt way to start a new year.

I stood alone in a field with a solitary tree and the two of us communed for a time. To be honest, I can’t think of a better way to begin a new year. To be honest, I can’t think of many people I’d care to engage this way. I wish more of the people in my life would treat me the way this tree treated me. It didn’t challenge my thoughts and hint that maybe I’m a fool. It didn’t tell me I’m wasting my life on trivial pursuits. It didn’t tell me I’ve let myself go during the pandemic. The tree was a good listener and leaned in when I let my voice fall low.

I take it as a given that we can enter into relationships with trees. When I was young, my best friend and I built a tree house in a big maple. While we were still in the planning stages, we decided we couldn’t nail boards in place as that might hurt the tree, so we lashed everything with rope and twine. We discovered early on that we weren’t the only creatures to shelter in that tree. There were squirrels, robins, frogs, ants, beetles, lichen, and moss. That tree presided over our childhoods like a benevolent elder.

I have difficulty standing by when people cut down a live tree. It feels to me like an act of violence. I can understand why some people become tree-huggers, and I can understand, too, why industrialists adopt derisive tones when they use the term. A tree-hugger challenges everything an industrialist stands for. Despite the industrialist’s bluster, I’d rather be a tree than a chain saw.

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Landscape Photography

Abstract Forms In Snow – Evergreen Brick Works

Ice Forming on Pond, Don Valley Brick Works Park

A light dusting of snow settles over a pond as the surface water begins to congeal. This is the scene that greets me as I walk early in the season through Toronto’s Evergreen Brick Works. Where the water has frozen, the snow remains intact; where the water is still more liquid than ice, the snow melts. The result is an abstract form that floats on the middle of the pond.

This image speaks to me of the liminal space that marks the transition between two different states. Liquid and solid. Autumn and winter. Warm and cold. When can we say the transition has happened? When can we say of a stretch of water that it is now definitively ice?

The space figured here speaks of the liminal space that marks larger transitions, too. Once, this was the site of a quarry (the Toronto Brick Works) that descended deep below grade. It was an industrial space with kilns that fired the bricks which still can be found in many of the city’s older buildings. More lately, it has become the site of a reclamation project aimed at returning the quarry to wetlands, creating a green space in the heart of the city. Is there a clear line we can draw between the industrial and the natural?

Extrapolating further, we can imagine this scene as emblematic of more global concerns. For example, what are we to make of that liminal space between whatever the world was before humans arrived on the scene and this state of affairs we have come to call the Anthropocene? Although experts tend to agree that the term, Anthropocene, is warranted, they disagree about when it “officially” began. Some say it began as soon as humans stopped living as nomads and settled into agrarian communities. Others say it began with the invention of nuclear weapons.

My personal take on the matter is that it makes no sense to draw a clear line. It is in our nature to occupy liminal spaces. We don’t want to live wholly in one state or another. We are neither the before nor the after. We are all about the transition.

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Country Life Landscape Photography

Fence in Foggy Field

Fence Post in Fog, Williams Farm, Wyebridge, ON

The chief merit of this post is the alliteration in the title: three “F” words in a row is irresistible. I could have added a fourth, but then I’d be giving up my family friendly rating. But enough about rhetoric.

This is a variation on the theme of Kanso, which I’ve previously mentioned here and here, creating a scene of calming simplicity by removing elements from the image one by one until only the essential remains. Although photography in the real world often makes it impossible to remove elements from a scene (Photoshop notwithstanding), nature itself sometimes steps in and lends a hand.

In previous posts, I’ve shown how a backdrop of pure snow can render an utterly simple photo. In this instance, I turn to fog as my natural assistant. It isn’t perfect, but it helps. The fog softens the background just enough that it doesn’t distract us from the foreground, a single fence post. We can trace the line of fence posts that recedes across the field and disappears into the foggy distance.

I shot this on New Year’s Day, 2022 at Williams Farm in Wyebridge, Ontario. The scene arrived like a gift and, although I wouldn’t call myself a superstitious person, I took it as a portent of the year to come. At least as far as photographs go, I expect 2022 will be an excellent year.

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Landscape Photography

Snow Fence on Balmy Beach Overlooking Lake Ontario

Balmy Beach, Toronto, ON

In making today’s featured image, I approached the scene from the far side of Kanso. In an earlier post, I mentioned the Japanese aesthetic of Kanso, which can be understood as simplicity or clarity. As a process, it demands that the photographer remove from an image everything that is unnecessary until only the essential remains.

However, in this case I started with a simple image—a snow-covered breakwater extending into Lake Ontario (shown below)—and decided it needed something more. I moved further down the beach and positioned myself with a snow fence in the foreground. To my way of seeing, this is more satisfactory for a couple reasons. First, it adds a sense of depth to the image by creating a crisp foreground. And second, the reddish brown of the fence slats complements the blue-green of the water; the resulting contrast is more dramatic.

I don’t know if the Japanese have a name for a simple, calming image produced by adding features until we arrive at a satisfying sense of balance. If not, let’s make one up. How about Osnak? The opposite of Kanso.

Ironically, although the point of the exercise is to produce a sense of calm through simplicity or clarity, I was anything but calm when I made these photographs. There was a biting wind blowing snow and ice pellets from the west. Ice had crusted on my eyebrows and my fingers were stiff with the cold. We see none of my personal discomfort reflected in the image. The problem with Kanso (or Osnak) is that it hides the personal sacrifices I made to produce the image. Yet there are times when I would prefer it if everyone knew how much I suffer for my art. 🙂

Balmy Beach in winter, Toronto, ON
Categories
Landscape Photography

February Photography Series: Winter Scenes

Tree in Blowing Snow, Wyebridge, ON

For the month of February, I’ll be presenting a series of photographs featuring winter scenes. Fitting given that, at least in the northern hemisphere, February tends to be the most wintery month of the year. Fitting, too, given that I’m Canadian and winter is intimately bound to the Canadian identity. Urban, rural, people, landscape, macro, sport, wildlife, anything goes so long as it’s obvious from the image that I shot it in the wintertime.

To kick off this series, I offer a landscape image, tree trunk in the foreground of a snow-covered field, line of trees in the background. Blowing snow adds an atmospheric effect. Whenever I’m out in blowing snow, I wrap my camera in a plastic zip lock bag with a little hole cut out for the view finder. Basically a camera condom for extra protection. When the weather gets extreme, I have a fancier “official” condom made from thick clear plastic. It’s like the difference between Saran Wrap and a Trojan.

As with virtually every landscape image I’ve ever made, I used a tripod for this one. However, I’ve discovered something interesting about using a tripod in snow. The guy who sold me my fancy Manfrotto carbon fiber tripod told me it would be the last tripod I’d ever own, implying that the materials are virtually indestructible. Guess what? I found a way to destroy a carbon fiber tripod.

Not far from the site of this image, I drove the legs of my tripod into a snowbank and the legs splayed, driven outward by a layer of ice hidden under a light dusting of snow. I heard a crack and one of the legs went wonky. On examination, I discovered that, no, you can’t crack a carbon fiber tripod transversely like a broken leg, but if you jam it just right, you can crack it lengthwise in line with the fibers.

Incidentally, I don’t want to be taken as dissing Manfrotto products. I immediately went out and replaced my tripod with another Manfrotto. However, don’t believe anyone who tells you carbon fiber is indestructible.

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Landscape Photography

Christmas Tree

Snow-Covered Tree, Yellow Creek (Vale of Avoca), Toronto

Merry Christmas!

This is a photograph of a Christmas tree.

How, you may ask, is this a Christmas tree? Isn’t a Christmas tree supposed to be an evergreen tree covered in tinsel and lights?

I’m glad you asked. This is a Christmas tree because, taken with its reflection in the river, it forms an X. In Koine Greek, X is the letter Chi which is the first letter of the word, Christ, and is often used as shorthand for it.

If we wait long enough, it may also end up being the name of a coronavirus variant. We’re at omicron right now. We have only seven more letters to go. Yippee!

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Landscape Photography

Container Ship

Container ship appears at sunrise viewed from the Ogden Point Breakwater, Victoria, B.C.

When I first arrived in Victoria this November and was still on Toronto time, it was easy to get up early in the morning and catch the sunrise from the Ogden Point Breakwater. Although B.C. has been tormented by atmospheric rivers and extraordinary rainfall, there were times when a little sunshine broke through to remind us of all the forest fires during the summer.

Here, massive clouds loom overhead, but a thin band of light appears on the horizon illuminating the mountains in Washington state. Meanwhile, an empty container ship chugs into the frame. The gears of commerce grind on, lending visual interest to photographs everywhere.

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Landscape Photography

Fuck Sunsets Again

People in a boat at sunset on Bob Lake, Haliburton Highlands, Ontario

I hate photos of sunsets so much, I thought it deserved a second post just so you’d know how strongly I feel about the issue. Yes, I admit there are more important issues vying for our attention at the moment. There’s a global pandemic. An epidemic of nationalistic jingoism verging on fascism. Millions of displaced people who face violence at every turn. Even so, an issue is never quite an issue until it’s my issue. And this is my issue.

Here, I remedied the boring sunset shot with rocks silhouetted in the foreground and the chance appearance of a boat edging into the frame. I particularly like how the clouds direct the eye to the boat. We can imagine that Fredo is sitting in that boat, about to get his brains blown out. Fortunately, Fredo is made up, just like my issue.

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Landscape Photography

Fuck Sunsets

Evening on Bob Lake in Ontario's Haliburton Highlands as a boat passes.

In my estimation, a sunset is the dumbest excuse for a photograph ever invented. And yet people go gaga over sunsets. I don’t know why. What do people think it means to watch the sun disappear as the Earth rotates? Is it a sign from god? Does it inspire awe at the wonder of creation? Does it serve as a reminder of our mortality?

In strict visual terms, a sunset is as boring as all fuck. If you plunk your camera level with the horizon and take shots of the sun sinking below the horizon, then what you’ve got is a photo of nothing much happening. The only way to counteract that is to plunk your camera level with the horizon when you think something else might enter your frame. Like a dinosaur. Except dinosaurs are extinct. I’ll settle for a boat.

What I like about this photo is that the guy steering the boat agrees with me. He could care less about the sunset. He wants to know why there’s a guy standing on a rock with a long lens mounted on a tripod.

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Landscape Photography

Milarrochy Bay on Loch Lomond

Tree on Milarrochy Bay, Loch Lomond, Scotland

Any photographer who has visited the eastern shore of Loch Lomond in the Trossachs has taken a shot of this tree sitting all by its lonesome. It’s an obvious shot that cries out to virtually everyone who wields a camera. The unfortunate consequence is that this scene has become a bit of a cliché. Just go to google images and do a search for “milarrochy bay tree” and you’ll see what I mean. That’s one of the hazards of the craft, I guess.

Speaking of clichés… We’ve all heard the song. I’m sure you’ve heard it. The chorus goes like this:

O ye'll tak' the high road, and I'll tak' the low road,
And I'll be in Scotland a'fore ye,
But me and my true love will never meet again,
On the bonnie, bonnie banks o' Loch Lomond.

Thanks to that song, Loch Lomond is one of the most famous lakes in the world. And yet, to stand on its banks and gaze across the water is something of a disappointment. What can I say? I come from a place that has shoreline on four of the Great Lakes, including Superior which, according to my calculations, has a surface area that is 1,156 times the surface area of the fabled Loch.

The closest we’ve got to “The Bonnie Banks o’ Loch Lomond” is Gordon Lightfoot’s “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald”. With all due respect to Mr. Lightfoot, if I want a song to lift my spirits, I’d sooner take the high road.

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Landscape Photography

Lighthouse of Portpatrick Harbour

Evening light falls on the lighthouse in Portpatrick Harbour, Scotland.

Evening light falls on the lighthouse that stands at the entrance to Portpatrick Harbour. Situated on the southwest corner of Scotland, if you look out across the water, you can see Bangor and the Belfast Lough. And if you hike further down the peninsula, it’s just a short skip across the water to the Isle of Man.

Continuing my virtual Scottish junket (as a hat tip to Cop26), I find myself dwelling upon the fate of coastal regions as sea levels rise. This Guardian article suggests that by 2050 sea levels will have risen by between 2 and 3 feet, and between 20 and 30 feet within the next century. It is conceivable that within the next century the scene I have captured here will no longer exist. A future photographer will still be able to reach my position, but they will confront a very different scene. Maybe open waters and the mostly submerged ruins of a once vibrant coastal village.

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Landscape Photography

Barnum Creek Nature Reserve, Haliburton, Ontario

Forest scene overlooking Barnum Creek in the Barnum Creek Nature Reserve, Haliburton, Ontario

This is an appropriately autumnal photo I shot at the Barnum Creek Nature Reserve just weeks after it opened to the public in 2020. Presumably, the water in this image is Barnum Creek. It is located in the Haliburton Highlands of Ontario in the prosaically named township of Dysart et al. Yes, Dysart et al. The et al appears on all the official signs.

If I were a philosopher (I’m not, but if I were) I might wonder about what it is that makes a creek a creek. When I talk about Barnum Creek, what defining feature gives it its distinctive creekiness? It can’t be the water. In a variation on a theme by Heraclitus (you can’t step in the same river twice), the water in a creek is never the same from one instant to the next. This photo captures an instant in time, but if I released the shutter again a few minutes later, most of the water in the photo would have been replaced by fresh water flowing from upstream. Some of the water in this photo might go on to Kashagawigamog Lake then into Lake Ontario, St. Lawrence River, and the Atlantic Ocean. Some of it might evaporate and quickly recirculate through the hydrologic cycle. And some of it might sink down to the water table and lurk in deep aquifers for hundreds of years. I can’t say for certain what would happen to any given water molecule, but I can say for certain that none of it would stick around to pose for another photograph.

What is true of the water is true, too, for the leaves, the soil, the trees, even the rocks. Like the water, it all flows, but on a different time scale. Whatever we call Barnum Creek and fix with pins to our map is only a provisional naming. I’m certain indigenous people living here named it something else. And people yet to come will name it something else again. And then it will vanish.