Labour Day 2020

     It's the morning of September 6th as I start to write this post. It is something of a tradition of mine to write something at the end of summer. Sometimes it's a blog post and sometimes it's simply an entry in my private journal. Often It is nothing more than a (grown-up?) version of that dreaded first assignment in English class, "What I did on my summer vacation."

     It has been a strange summer.  Hell, since the declaration of a worldwide pandemic in early March,  it's been a strange year! Yeah, I know,  I have a tremendous grasp of the obvious.  

     I had dinner in a restaurant last night.  It was the first time that I had done that in months. (With the exception of a patio lunch a week or two ago on a day trip with my son.)   Of  course a mask and hand sanitizing was required to enter the establishment. But once seated, with proper regard to social distancing we enjoyed a very good meal. A large beef stir fry served on bed of rice. My friend is looking for a new home  and I accompanied her on a short tour of the countryside near Lake Erie in an effort to find a few addresses.  We ended up in Port Burwell where I managed to capture a decent shot of the pier jutting out into Lake Erie between bouts of passing rain showers.

     I have to admit that I have been in a bit of a funk lately. The pandemic has kept me close to home. I don't own a vehicle so the simple act of just getting out of town for awhile was a hassle. Earlier in the season, when the country was just coming out of the shutdown,  I wasn't sure if I could even rent a car much less find restaurants or accommodations for a road trip.  It kind of put a damper on the  traditional road trip my son and I take every summer. We usually just rent a car with only a vague idea of a destination or activities. There have been times when we've found ourselves at the crossroads of a secondary highway and simply looked to see which way was more interesting. "Left or right?"                                                                           

Downtown Goderich, Ont.

     

     I compromised a couple of weeks ago by renting a car for a few days and doing a few day trips. It was nice to get out of town but it lacked the sense of freedom that comes with spending several days on the road and not motoring back to home base each night. For the most part, I didn't  take many pictures. I think that I was trying too hard to find the spirit of summer in the brief time I allowed myself.  As usual, the Labour Day weekend brings with it the slightly melancholy feeling that I missed out on a lot of what the warm weather and long days had to offer. 

     But Autumn is coming. It's my favourite time of the year. I love the cooler days and the beauty of the colours.  I know that I still have a lot of holiday time to use up. I think a fall colour tour could be (and should be)  arranged. Despite the requirements of face masks, hand sanitizer and social distancing, things are starting to open up.  The  efforts of a population trying to tame a contagious virus should not go unrewarded. The countryside and   lakes and rivers are still beautiful. Better days ahead. 

     Last night I had dinner in a restaurant with a good friend. 

              ...more later 

     

Contrasts

     I've had an interesting couple of days off. Yesterday, I took a day trip to Toronto.I guess that I was feeling the old springtime restlessness. Don't get me wrong, I love the little town where I live, but, its biggest fault is that it is just that, a little town. I can only walk overly familiar streets and paths for so long. I enjoyed my day immensely. With some quick last minute planning, I arranged to catch the Paris shuttle to the Via Rail station in nearby Brantford and, after a quick sandwich at the Station Cafe found myself on a train to Hogtown.  

     Toronto is a city that always seems to be under construction. I mean most cities have a few projects going on here or there but for Toronto, it seems to be its primary indusrtry! As I wandered up Yonge St., I found it difficult to make a photograph without construction equipment, scaffolding or construction barriers in it! 

Old bank building on Yonge St. Note construction crane at top.

Same picture with crane removed. Ahh, the wonders of Photoshop! If you look to the lower right of the picture you'll still see some construction gear and I was barely able to crop out a construction site porta potty!

     Anyway I ended up going to Downtown Camera on Queen St.(my new favourite camera shop) where I purchased a few accessories for my new pseudo Leica and continued to roam about the downtown area taking pictures, poking about and just generally enjoying the day.

Look! A Toronto picture without construction equipment in it! Don't ever say I don't work hard for you folks!

If you are doing street photography with a Leica, you have to do some black and whites. It's a Cartier-Bresson bylaw or something!

On the train about to head home. Note that Union Station is under a state of PERPETUAL construction!

     This morning I awoke at my usual hour of too stupid for a day off, and, after the requisite two cups of coffee, took a stroll up to the dam near my home to see if there were any pictures that needed taking. I wanted to try out a polarizing filter that I purchased yesterday in the big city. For the photographically uninitiated, a polarizing filter is a piece of glass that fits over the front of the lens and reduces reflected light. It is useful for reducing the washed out look of a blue sky caused by reflected haze.

Without Polariser

With Polariser

                                                                                                                                                                I know that nowadays you can reproduce the effect digitally in post processing, but I'm kind of old school. I like to get it right in camera. I cut my teeth shooting Kodachrome in a fully manual mechanical camera.

     As I strolled further up the riverbank, I saw a beaver swimming about in the mill pond behind the dam. ( I know, the irony of seeing a beaver swimming near a man made dam is not lost on me either!) The Leica, for its many attributes, does not have a lens long enough for wildlife photography. I raced home (Or, more accurately, moseyed at a purposeful pace.) and got my Canon fitted with my longest zoom lens. By the time I got back there old Mr. Beaver had swum closer to the shore and I managed to get a few nice shots

.

     On the way home, I decided to do a little more wildlife photography. I snapped some pictures of the birds I encountered on the trail.

         What struck me as I meandered home with my little clutch of digital treasures, was the contrast I had experienced within the space of twenty-four hours. Yesterday in Toronto I felt the frenetic pace of the city and, for the time that I was there, I enjoyed it. I guess that the old saying is true, that a change is as good as a rest. Today I enjoyed the absolute calm of a morning spent by the river within a five minute walk from my home. When I finish this post I will go downtown to pick up a few sundries of life.I will probably share a chat and a smile with people who know me by name or at least know who I am. And hopefully I will remind myself for the ten thousandth time how truly lucky I am. Be it ever so humble.... well, you know the rest.

                                                 ...more later

Labour Day

     It's a grey cloudy September 1st as I write this post. Traditionally, I hand write an entry in my journal some time on the Labour Day weekend. This year I decided to share my thoughts  on the blog.

   

      Labour Day is, for me, a bittersweet time. It marks the end of the summer season. An end to the long languid days  and a return to the business of preparing for the shorter days and colder nights that lie ahead. Perhaps Summer exists as a kind of sweet dream in our consciousness and Labour Day marks an awakening to the reality that is. If the spirit of Summer is carefree, then the spirit of Autumn could possibly best be described as industrious. Tomorrow we return to the daily grind of school and work and give up days of seemingly limitless length and warmth.

     For children and students, it is the beginning of another school year. Tomorrow they will return to class wearing new clothes that are almost as stiff and crisp as the paper in their newly acquired note books. There will be the excitement of starting fresh while simultaneously renewing the acquaintance of their classmates For the adults in the working world, the dream of a long Summer holiday, if not already enjoyed, has been snatched from us for another year.

    
 If Labour Day signals an awakening from the sweet Summer dream, we should not mourn its passing. For a dream,  once dreamt, always exists, forever archived at the edge of our consciousness.
   
     So ends the Summer of 2014. 

                                        ...more later

      

    

The Lily

     So I went out to photograph a flower this morning. It was a tiger lily. Tiger lilies are not uncommon at this time of year in Southern Ontario. You can often see scads of them by the roadsides as you travel about. But this one was different simply because it was by itself. It stood alone amidst the tangle of underbrush along the riverbank, it's brilliant blossom a flame of bright orange against the sea of dark green that surrounded it.

     Last night I heard the news of the death of Robin Williams. It is considered to be a suicide.  His publicist said that he had been battling a deep depression and his struggles with addiction and substance abuse where common knowledge. Even still, the  news of his passing caught me, like the rest of the planet, off guard. Like the rest of my generation, I grew up watching his characters on television and film and experiencing his rapid fire  stand up comedy on late night shows.While on my way to photograph the lily, it occurred to me that, like the flower, there was a certain quality that made Williams stand out. If I had to distill it down to one thing, it would be his artistic integrity.

     His role as Mork from Ork outlandish though it was, was based on a simple concept. What if an alien came to earth and reacted to, and reflected back to us the absurdities of our modern existence? Only an entertainer with the comedic genius of Robin Williams could have pulled off that role. Even a role as zany and unbelievable as Mrs. Doubtfire was made almost plausible by yet another simple concept, the love and devotion a father has for his children. A concept with which Williams was very familiar.

     He brought the same integrity to his dramatic roles, eventually winning an Oscar for his role as Sean Maguire in Good Will Hunting. There was one thing you could always count on when you saw Williams in a movie, comedic or dramatic, it was going to be powerful! 

     Maybe it was that power which led to his demise. Maybe he felt things too deeply. Perhaps his true gift to us as an artist was that he portrayed the highs and lows of existence so we wouldn't have to experience them ourselves. 

      I went out this morning to photograph a lily. But the lily wasn't there.

      R.I.P. Mr. Williams.


                                                ...more later

          

Canada Day

     It's Canada Day. I'm enjoying my second cup of coffee as I write this post. I'm in the backyard of the little tumbledown duplex that I call home. I want to write about what it means to be a Canadian without this piece devolving into jingoism. The great attributes of this country have been written about at great length by scribes far more erudite and eloquent than I. 


     I guess that what I'm trying to get at is the essence of this nation. It is a beautiful place made all the more beautiful by the people who inhabit it. In this past year, I've had the pleasure of heading north on several camping trips to places like Manitoulin Island, Killarney and  Algonquin Park. I had the experience of hiking some trails that, while challenging to a 54 year old, out of shape curmudgeon,  led me to vistas that were
 breathtaking (both literally and figuratively) in their beauty.

                                                           Sunrise On Manitoulin



                                            View from Booth's Rock, Algonquin Park, Ont.



Sunset On George Lake, Killarney Provincial Park, Ont.



Georgian Bay, from George Island Trail, near Killarney, Ont.

 

     Ok, So much for the physical beauty of this place that we call our home and native land. It's almost too easy to post some pretty landscape pictures and call it a day. I think what really makes this place rock is the people. 
                                                                                                                                                                    In the past few weeks, I made some interesting observations regarding the political landscape of the nation. In Ontario, Kathleen Wynne won the election to become the first female and first openly gay Premier of the province. At no time during the election was her gender or sexual orientation an issue. She won despite the fact that the government she inherited from her predecessor was scandal plagued to the tune of billions of dollars. Her opponent, Tim Hudak, ran on a platform of reducing the government payroll by 100,000 jobs and shelling out more tax relief to big corporations in the vain hope that one million new jobs in the private sector will be created. That Mr. Hudak was soundly defeated speaks volumes about the nature of the people of Ontario and, I believe, the people of Canada as a whole.

     It's not all about the money. It's about being a kind, compassionate, open minded people. It's about caring for this land we all share. As Canadians, we don't sell out some of our fellow citizens in the slight hope that there will be more on the table for a few of us.
  
     Perhaps the true essence of this country is the spirit of inclusion and cooperation as opposed to the politics of divisiveness and greed. 

     I guess that what I really want to say is, while we have a beautiful country it's the people that make it great.
    

          Happy Canada Day everyone.


                                             ...more later

The Fox Den

     If you are a regular reader of this blog and read my last post. ( Hmm... last post. Sounds so final. How about previous post?  After all, my tag line at the end of these little blurbs is always ...more later.) you will know of my passion for outdoor photography. Of late I have been trying to photograph foxes at a den near my home. 

     In my previous post, ( Previous post... much better) I outlined how I had seen a fox at this den some time ago. ( May 6 to be exact. I just checked.) Since that time, despite several visits to the den site. I had seen nothing in the way of live foxes. I was beginning to think that the den had been abandoned.

     Last night, I went out for an evening walk and decided to check out the den site. I wasn't expecting to see anything in the way of a pointy snout and red bushy fur. Imagine my surprise when I found this fellow lounging at the entrance to the den.

     I managed to get a few shots before he retreated into the den. I decided to sit down and wait. After all, with all my visits to the den site, this time, I at least knew he was there. I didn't have to wait long for his reappearance.

     And, I was even more delighted when a second one appeared!

          They seemed to accept my presence quite calmly. By the end of my time with them, I felt less like I was shooting wildlife and more like a portrait photographer.



Family Portrait

      I was going to end this post with a sage homily like "Persistence pays off."  Or perhaps a discourse on the virtue of patience. But the reality is that I just want to share some pictures that I was lucky enough to take and an experience I enjoyed. I think that my friends, both human and vulpine understand.


                                            ...more later

    

Stop And Smell The Lilacs

     Spring has truly sprung here in Paris. ( Cue Ella Fitzgerald singing  " I Love Paris In The Springtime" ) As I write this post, I'm sitting at my ageing picnic table In my my woefully small backyard enjoying the birds singing and the morning sunshine. Thank the Is (a concept and expression I freely admit to stealing from my dear friend Otherkin) for the wonders of WiFi and the portability of a laptop.



My office this morning.



     I was up early this morning and, after the requisite two cups of coffee, went off on a little expedition in an effort to photograph foxes. There is a den dug into  a small gravel ridge a short hike from my home. About two weeks ago I managed to photograph a fox pup sitting at the entrance to the den. I was, at that time, on a jaunt to the local grocery store to acquire the necessities of life and the only camera that I had with me was my compact Canon G12 which has a zoom range woefully inadequate for wildlife photography. The resulting image, taken on a small sensor camera, has been heavily cropped in post, resulting in a shot where the sharpness and resolution is far from ideal.

      I've gone back to the den a few times since with a better camera fitted with a longer zoom lens. But, As luck would have it, I came home empty handed in the fox photo department. 

                                                                                                                                                            However that isn't to say that this morning wasn't enjoyable. Along the trail to the den site the lilacs are in full bloom. For about a one hundred yard stretch of the trail, the scent is almost intoxicating and the colours in the morning light were beautiful. I occurs to me that, as we bustle about in our daily lives, we should take a bit more time to enjoy the gifts that each season has to offer. In this case, a lilac scented morning.

                                                      

And, for the record, I did manage to get a picture of a fox!

                                                                                                                  

 ...more later