Upstream - Elora Gorge

Upstream - Elora Gorge
Originally uploaded by Alan Norsworthy

Elora, it's one of those places that can be visited over and over and still there is something new to see, experience and to photograph.
This weekend a friend and I decided it was about time we got back into our old ways of heading out early, before sunrise.
Our destination was Elora Gorge, we had decided to try to capture the dawn as it played across and down the Gorge sides.

The amazing thing is how quickly scenes change and how quickly they are gone forever.

However, they are replaced by new scenes :-)

Photographers deal in things which are continually vanishing and when they have vanished there is no contrivance on earth which can make them come back again. ~Henri Cartier-Bresson

Blossoms

Blossoms
Originally uploaded by Alan Norsworthy

Springtime came back this weekend.
Actually it is more like early summer.
Highs in the mid 20's, brilliant sunshine and barely any clouds.

I know most people yearn for this after a Canadian winter but I'm so thankful that the evening still brings cooler temperatures and If only for a little while sleep will come easy.

Soon the evenings will be as hot as the days and restlessness is the result.

The wheel turns once more ...


You can cut all the flowers but you cannot keep spring from coming. ~Pablo Neruda

Sunrise in the woods

Sunrise in the woods
Originally uploaded by Alan Norsworthy

I have always been a morning person, well when I grew out of being a teenager..

Even so, as a child my Grandfather, when he was "ashore", would wake me at about 5:30am and we would go for a walk, a long walk.

They are happy memories and that is probably why I enjoy the dawn and long walks now.

What humbugs we are, who pretend to live for Beauty, and never see the Dawn! 
~ Logan Pearsall Smith

Sundown - Algonquin Park

Sundown - Algonquin Park
Originally uploaded by Alan Norsworthy

Sundown, the low sun streams across the beaver damn lakes and strikes the other side.

The effect only lasts a few minutes but the memory lasts forever.
Anyone who has ever visited Algonquin Park knows what I am talking about.

This weekend saw our annual Spring visit to Algonquin Park.
Unfortunately one of our merry band could not make it and was sorely missed. I myself found a place to stay at the last minute and was able to go.

Next year we will have to plan earlier because the more hectic or lives become the more crucial our leisure time becomes.
We all need to recharge our batteries, I recharge mine in places like this ..

We all need empty hours in our lives or we will have no time to create or dream. ~Robert Coles

Spring Colour

Spring Colour
Originally uploaded by Alan Norsworthy

As much as I enjoy the Fall and Winter months there is something about the Spring.
An awakening, that quickens the pulse and lifts the spirit .
I wonder at how the most fragile of creatures and plants survive the achingly cold, dark months, slumbering in the frozen ground.
Then as the warmth of the strengthening sun percolates down into the soil they stir, and force their way upwards, in celebration of life.

..... rebirth!

Of course not everything that awakens is benign .... mosquitoes, blackflies they are coming too, but not yet, not yet.

This is my springtime in the woods, the time to be enjoyed before the blood thirsty hoards arrive and drive me out.

And Spring arose on the garden fair,
Like the Spirit of Love felt everywhere;
And each flower and herb on Earth's dark breast
rose from the dreams of its wintry rest.
 
~Percy Bysshe Shelley, "The Sensitive Plant"

Grasses

Grasses
Originally uploaded by Alan Norsworthy

Sometimes photography leads one into unseen, forgotten, worlds.

A complete departure from the norm.

I mean how many people, well apart from children, do you see on their hands and knee's staring almost myopically at "something".

If you did stop would you wonder what was so fascinating and join them or would you smile to yourself and walk on?

If you are a photographer and the person doing the kneeling and staring had a camera in hand you would probably stop and enquire.

You could almost say that photography opens your mind to what you saw as a child, before you became an adult, before you forgot what an incredible place this world can be.

…the transformative photographer embarks upon an intuitive, insightful path which opens into an innate understanding of how marvellously grand everything is…
whether small or big, micro- or macrocosmic, minute or immense…it is all blow-your-mind incredible, in the sense that the «all of it» is simply awesome.
~ Simhananda ~ "Towards a Transformative Photography"

To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour.
~William Blake~

This image was of an area less than 3" across

Sunlit Lane

Sunlit Lane
Originally uploaded by Alan Norsworthy

It's Spring, life is returning to our half of the world as the sun gets stronger and there are colours everywhere.
So why am I still shooting Black and White?

My friend Doug and I took a walk in the Arboretum this weekend.
We stood literally side-by-side and captured the scene before us.

He saw the vibrant green of the newly sprouted grass, the way the sunlight picked out the rock and lit the area around it

I saw the tonal range, the textures, the shadows, all in shades of gray.

Is my image better than his? Most certainly not, it's a great image.

Then why did I not see it the way my fellow photographer saw it?

Well I guess that is what makes this hobby / passion so intriguing....

Maybe I'm different, not right, nor wrong, just different....

or may be I heard the instructions differently....

I never question what to do, it tells me what to do. The photographs make themselves with my help. ~Ruth Bernhard


You can see Doug's image here