Happy Birthday, Paul de Silva!

Simon & Paul, Bangkok, 1970

In commemoration of Paul de Silva's 61st birthday today (mine's tomorrow) I offer this gem of a photo taken 41 years ago in Bangkok, doing our best to not look like hippies! At the time we were living and working (sort of) as part of a tie-dying collective. We'd soon be heading to Penang in Malaysia as our Thai visas were about to expire.

Pink Sunset

Lens Flare at Sunset

I climbed a hill near Cootes Paradise this week to see the setting sun. When I raised my camera to compose these dried flower stalks against the sun a sudden flash of pink suffused the image. Just an artifact of the camera, I thought, a simple lens flare. When it happened again, I was entranced by the colour and decided to capture it. Glad I did: it was the best picture of the day!

Stereo Sunshine

3-D image of the Sun

In honour of the string of sunny days we are enjoying at the moment here in Southern Ontario, I thought I'd share this 3-D image of the Sun. Take by a pair of satellites that orbit the sun to study solar flares, it needs to be viewed with a pair of anaglyph (red/cyan) glasses to see the 3-D effect.

If you don't have such a pair of 3-D glasses, I'd be happy to send you a pair. Just email me your address and I'll mail them off to you.

Pink Flamingos on a Blue Lake

Phoenicopterus chilensis on Lake Argentina

I've been busy printing some favourite images on a new roll of canvas photo paper that I recently purchased with the idea of getting them up on the walls without the need for traditional glass, matte and frame. I was quite please with the way this photo turned out. It was taken almost one year ago on a trip to Southern Patagonia, Argentina. It's a beautiful land of semi-arid scrub land, soaring mountain peaks, and enormous glaciers and lakes. The waters of Lake Argentina, the country's largest, are an exquisite shade of blue due to its glacial origin which provide an excellent backdrop for the native pink flamingos, one of many fascinating bird species to be found there.

A Tree in 3-D

Lake Ontario Shoreline

I did a presentation on 3D photography to my Focus on Nature volunteer group today. It inspired me to upload a 3D photo to share more widely. This is a cross-view of a gnarly old tree that grows at water's edge in Coronation Park at the end of my street.

What is cross-view? Try it out: hold a finger up in front of the photos and look at it until you see a third photo behind it. That's the 3D image! Lower your finger and try to hold the third image until it pops into focus. Voila! You're now seeing auto-stereoscopically.

Bird on a Window

Day two of my new resolve to upload a picture a day and I faced stumbling block: someone up the street cut the phone line while hammering in a sign post! No worries. I've come down to CJ's, our local cafe with free WiFi to enjoy a beverage and upload today's image. This was the view from my studio window earlier this week during a freak snowstorm. We have a lot of birds at the backyard feeder at this time of year and this decal helps to stop them from flying into the picture window. It was a nice metaphor for what the backyard birds were having to deal with out there during the storm.

Into the Storm

Focus on Nature

I have been remiss in my attention to this blog. So to make up for this neglect I'm going to post a photo-a-day for the next little while. The photo may not have been taken on the day it posted but it will be in tune with my current work, or the weather, or simply my mood!

Dogwood in Winter

I've recently joined a group called Focus on Nature <www.focusonnature.ca/> as a volunteer. Their aim is to teach children about nature through photography.  As part of our training, our volunteer group had to explore a local park and capture the seven elements of design - line, shape, form, space, texture, tone & colour - in a series of images. This image seemed to express at least two of those elements.