Focus on Nature Workshop

Sadie & Skye

Workshop participants

Focus on Nature, a group I'm volunteering with, held their first nature photography workshop at Guelph's Arboretum today. The young participants learned the basic principles of photography and composition, as well as developing an appreciation of nature. They produced some marvelous images that were shared in a slide show at the end of the day. A short history lesson on 3-D photography was part of the program, with my old stereoscope being a popular item to look through and experience images from another era.

The Cracker

Hamadryas sp.

In April last year I was fortunate enough to visit Iguazu Falls on the border of Argentina and Brazil. Butterflies were everywhere and often landed on me to taste the salt on my skin. This one is called a Cracker because of the clicking sound it makes as it flies about.

Frank Valeriote, M.P.

Opposition Lobby, Parliament Hill, December 2010

I went canvasing door-to-door in Guelph today on behalf of our Liberal candidate Frank Valeriote,  a good friend and a great guy. He serves his community well and deserves to be re-elected. In this photo Frank is seated on the left with lobbyists from the Canadian Diabetes Association. Here in the Opposition Lobby, Members of Parliament can meet visitors, have lunch, make phone calls or just take a break from their seats in the House. Over Frank's shoulder is Marc Garneau, Canada's first astronaut, who is now an MP from Quebec. We had a brief chat about 3-D cameras on the Space Shuttle.

Alligator Anaglyph

Baby Gators, December 2010

There's no way to tell how big these 'gators are. Even in a 3-D image, which this is, you can't really tell. Well these young ones are about two feet long, living in an open display at a mini-golf park in Clearwater, Florida. Let me know if you need a pair of anaglyph 3-D glasses to see this properly and I'll mail you a pair.

Window frost

Prius window, Jan 10, 2011

Just found a series of images, forgotten in my image library, that I'd  taken one frosty morning last January. The crystals rose up off the surface of the car's windows. They grow in 3 dimensions!

Alma, New Brunswick

The Parkland Village Inn

My sister Karen called me today from Alma New Brunswick to say she's back from her winter stay in Florida. She and her family own a hotel in Alma called The Parkland Village Inn (pictured above) that sits right beside the harbour overlooking Fundy Bay. The hotel and restaurant are open from Mother's Day until Thanksgiving and make a great stop-over if you're traveling the Fundy Trail. If you plan to stay over, book early! It's a very popular spot.

Enamel on Silver

An image of the lovely enamel designs on the side of an Indian prince's silver-plated carriage, surreptitiously taken at the Maharaja exhibit at the AGO earlier this month.

Happy Birthday Gail !!

GK, Queenston Heights, 2011

Today I'm celebrating the 60th birthday of my lady Gail. It's a perfect day for lovers here in Niagara-on-the-Lake.

The Birds are Back

House finches

Brown creepers, dark-eyed junkos, common redpolls, the birds are coming back! I'm an avid birder and do my best to capture images of them when I can. I've set a bird feeder close to my studio window in hopes of getting a good shot or two. Perhaps I'll share a few of my favourite images over the coming days in celebration of their return.

Rice Paper Butterfly

A visit to the Cambridge Butterfly Conservatory is wonderful experience at any time of the year. It's a great escape from the cold weather we been having lately.

The Lawn Ornaments

 Local Flockers

There have been a lot of wild ducks and geese passing through Coronation Park on Lake Ontario recently: bufflehead, oldsquaw, goldeneye, to name a few. But these guys, the Canada geese, live here by the lake year round. In winter they wander up into our neighbourhood and onto our lawn looking for nourishment. Gail has nicknamed them 'The Lawn Ornaments'!

Ice Dance

ice on window

Can't believe it snowed last night! By morning it was gone.

Blackwood at the AGO

detail of copper plate

On a visit to the Art Gallery of Ontario yesterday, I was impressed by the work of Newfoundland artist David Blackwood. This image captures the fine detail of his etchings on a copper plate used to make his famous print Fire Down on the Labrador. Visit the AGO soon (exhibit runs to June 12th) or go to the exhibit web site to see the final print and more of Blackwood's work.

Zinzi

Zinzi de Silva, 2004

I made a print today of this image and framed it as a birthday gift for my friend Paul de Silva. It is a portrait of his daughter Zinzi taken a few years ago. He had admired the image when he saw it on my laptop some time ago and I made a note to print it for him one day. Glad I finally did! The portrait captures the confident serenity of a young woman with a great future ahead of her.

April Fool

South China Sea, 1970

After Thailand and Malaysia, Paul and I got real jobs working as technical crew on an oil exploration vessel in the South China Sea. It was a six-week gig that earned us enough money to get home in time for second year at York University. While I look like I'm deep in thought, I'm probably just trying to ignore my sea-sickness! Photo by Paul de Silva.