Urban Walk and Country Drive

Greetings and welcome back!

I’ve been doing a lot of walking in preparation for my upcoming trip to England and hike of Hadrian’s Wall, walking at any and all times of day. They say the “best light” is had mornings and evenings, but mid-day light has its own interesting qualities. These five shots were captured one bright and stifling hot afternoon as I walked a long loop around my neighbourhood. At least I wasn’t the only one crazy enough to be out in the heat of the day:

A couple kilometres later I came to Bruce Park. The shade of tall elms provided a sweet respite, and I was taken in by the high contrast shadow-play of the trees:

Returning later along the train tracks, I’m not sure I can say what drew me to take this next shot: there’s no clear subject, barely an identifying feature. It could be Anywhere, North America. But something about it feels timeless:

I could say more about the next one:

…maybe something about how easy we find it to dribble our over-processed byproducts any and everywhere?

(On a compositional note, that fork is so well aligned with the railroad tie that it looks staged, but all is as I found it.)

But despite the detritus of our lives, or even because of it, a kind of grunge beauty can be found:

The rural half of this blog is a little more disjointed. I’ve made several trips up to the Shoal Lakes this summer, each providing a different experience with light. On a bright day with intermittent small storms, I had to skid to a stop when I saw this scene taking shape over a farm:

It’s too bad the seagulls following the tractor pretty much disappear in the shot, they were definitely a key part of the scene.

Later, down a dusty country road, I pulled over to let the dust settle from the pickup ahead of me. The dust, along with the storm ahead, gave the road a “light at the end of the tunnel” feel:

Once I arrived the sun pretty much disappeared, and I got rained on for about 20 minutes. The storm made a fun subject as it slowly moved eastward, while I ran hither and yon among the thistles to try and frame it up in an interesting way. But there’s only so much you can do with a flat horizon:

Same place, different day, I had a bit of luck with animals. First, an American Coot feeds its young. This little one was clearly the last-hatched: its siblings were bigger and had lost the orange tufts and beak. The mother spent a lot more time with this one, making sure it got its fill of water weeds:

This next isn’t special at all, I just like the curly weed framing the bird (which is probably a Fox Sparrow):

Later, while I sat patiently tracking some nearby ducks, I heard unusual heavy splashing in the marsh, spun around, and was treated to a raccoon:

The little fur ball didn’t see me for a while, but unfortunately most of the shots were partly hidden by a line of stones (bottom border of the above shot).

By evening the wind had settled, creating wonderful reflections in the water, with the occasional breeze causing ripples…or maybe it was me tossing a stone for effect 😉