sunday stills - texture

This week's Sunday Stills challenge was texture. This little flower popped up unexpectedly on the side of my lawn. I initially noticed it for the colour...but as I took a closer look I saw a variety of texture's and surfaces on the delicate flower. It continues to amaze me...the things that you can see in this world through the lens of camera.

sunday stills - wildflowers

This week's Sunday Stills Challenge was wildflowers. These wild daisies line the stone path down to the lake at our cottage.

sunday stills - yellow

This week's Sunday Stills challenge was the colour yellow.



One of my favorite colours...I love every shade....

sunday stills - black & white

This week's Sunday Stills challenge was black & white, using two previous challenge categories. I chose pets (big surprise) and sunrise/sunsets (an odd choice for black & white). We could not use photos previously used for Sunday Stills, but we could work within our archives.

This is my submission for pets. This is one of my favorite photos of Sophie...I have an 8x10 of it framed up in my home.


And this is my submission for sunrise/sunsets...it was a crisp winter day back in January and even Sophie had to pause to appreciate the beauty of the sun coming up over the frozen lake.

sunday stills - flowers and plants

This week's Sunday Stills challenge is flowers and plants. The colours of spring, lit up in sunlight, need few words from me...they are able to speak for themselves....

...vibrant reds....

...engaging yellows...

...pristine whites.....

....and the fresh greens of the maple leaf buds.

sunday stills - barns

This week's Sunday Stills challenge was barns. This was a fun challenge...it sent Sophie and I exploring down dusty roads in the country one evening and we always enjoy a good road trip. I did get some funny looks as other drivers slowed down to see what had compelled me to pull over on the side of the road with camera in hand.



This also felt a bit like a covert operation as I attempted to capture these wonderful old barns that belonged to someone else....to another time in some cases. I had a sense that I was stealing a tiny piece of something from the owner....and from the barn.

sunday stills - religion

This week's Sunday Stills challenge was religion. Now, Sophie and I already went out and shot a beautiful church for the architecture challenge a few weeks back, so this week I wanted to do something different. I wanted to capture an image that had meaning for me and, in keeping with the theme of Finding Sirius, that enabled me to relate my post back to Sophie.



This is a beautiful wooden carving of St. Francis of Assisi -- the patron Saint of animals. Many stories that surround the life of St. Francis deal with his love of animals. His feast day is observed on October 4th and many Catholic Churches here perform the "Blessing of the Animals" service that day, where all animals and their people are invited to attend.



Legend has it that, on his deathbed St. Francis thanked his donkey for carrying him and helping him through life.....and his donkey wept.

sunday stills - the colour red

This week's Sunday Stills challenge was the colour red. There is a rural road just north of us that we drive along all the time, where a section of it has been bought up by developers and the existing homes and farm structures have been slated for destruction.



One barn in particular always caught my attention on the drive....it was painted red and right above the big doors the owners had painted a white star. At some point in it's life that big red barn had meant something to someone...had been worthy of more than a functional coat of paint, had been worthy of white star. I always looked for this barn on our drives and knew I wanted to photograph it...even though I would only be able to capture it from the side of the road. I attempted two pictures once, a few weeks back, but the setting sun cast the light against me and they came out too dark to do the barn justice.



Given this week's theme for Sunday Stills, I thought it was a perfect opportunity to hit the road early Saturday morning and capture it in proper light. I pulled my car over to the side of the worn and dusty road, got out and stared at the perfect, warm sunlight of the morning washing over a pile of wood, shingles and memories. I was too late....my star barn was no more. And even though I had never set foot in it, never knew it's history...I was sad as I know I will miss it.



So I decided to use this week's challenge to play around with my "digital lab" so to speak and experiment with how I processed some of my photos....including the one I had taken a few weeks back of my barn.


the star barn

sunday stills - animals of husbandry

This week's Sunday Stills challenge was animals of husbandry. Sophie and I spent most of yesterday flying down country back roads in search of some shots and came up empty handed. So I pulled this from my archives. These were some of the first sheep that Sophie took herding lessons with.

sunday stills - landscapes

This week's Sunday Stills challenge was landscapes. It's a pretty bleak time of year to be searching for beautiful landscapes, but then I remembered the Cheltenham Badlands and took a road trip up there yesterday to see if I could capture some red rock and early morning sunshine.



"The Cheltenham Badlands are a bizarre geographical spectacle that lie hidden in the Caledon Hills. 'Badlands' is a geological term for an area of soft rock devoid of vegetation and soil cover that has become molded over time into softly undulating hills and gullies."



"The reddish hue of the Queenston Shale is caused by iron oxide, while narrow greenish bands show where circulating ground water has transformed the rock from red to green iron oxide. This distinctive geological phenomena is extremely rare in Ontario, and the Cheltenham Badlands are one of the best examples in the province."



I plan to return this summer when there is more green (for a great contrast with the red) and maybe try shooting late in the day, rather than early. A great challenge this week!

sunday stills - lines

This week's Sunday Stills challenge is lines. I've attempted something a bit different...to capture the lines that I think Sophie sees on parts of an agility course....and to capture her thoughts about those lines. Would love to hear if you think I made it work or not.

ascent; muscles pushing against the pull of earth, charging towards the peak...


leaping over the apex; legs and body extended in flight....


pounding descent; decisive steps towards earth...


not lines of poles, but spaces between; an s-curve of left and right...


quick steps up; long groves and edges in parallel...


straight and narrow path stretching into the distance; a finish line.

sunday stills - water

This week's Sunday Stills challenge was water. I decided to take a trip through the seasons...as water can be captured in so many different ways throughout the year....



drops of spring rain...



...rushing autumn rivers...



...frozen winter waterfalls...



and a summer water dog.

sunday stills - self portraits

This week's Sunday Stills Challenge was self-portraits. I, like most of my Sunday Stills challenge friends, prefer to be on the other side of the camera....however, for Ed we seem to be willing to make an exception. These were taken with my tripod. I had to include Sophie because when I think of the word "self" the definition is not complete without her.

Dancing with my girl....

I know this last one is too blurry to be a good photo....but I am including because I wish SO much that it had turned out better as it would be my favorite picture of Sophie and I. When I look at it, I can really see us.

sunday stills - motion

This week's Sunday Stills challenge was motion. Now, I know everyone will be expecting a few Sophie photos for this category, but I've used a lot of motion shots of Sophie on this blog already, so I opted for something a little different....something from my archives that has stuck with me.



These were chickadees that we found during a hike back in January. I'm not sure if they are good photos (technically speaking)....but I ended up loving the effect of their blurred wings....



...their tiny, soft feathers stretched wide to lift them up and soar.

And one token Sophie pic for all of her fans... :)

sunday stills - architecture

This week's Sunday Stills challenge was architecture. I decided early in the week that I would try and capture this theme by shooting churches. Sophie and I don't follow one particular faith, but have an appreciation for the power and beauty of all of them....a power and beauty that is often reflected in the architecture of different places of worship.


Church of Our Lady

We headed out on a road trip early Saturday morning in search of churches in Southern Ontario. Sophie rode shotgun and the sun was shining, all the right country tunes were blasting from the radio and the coffee was made just right. We had stopped half a dozen times to shoot various sizes and styles of churches and were starting our route back when we saw her....away in the distance and I knew we had one more location to hit.


sunlight streaming through the stained glass windows


detailed arch above the front door

This is the Church of Our Lady in Guelph, Ontario...sitting atop a hill and watching over the city. She took my breath away. My camera could not do her justice. The rising peaks and detailed arches, the colourful stained glass windows, the sheer reverence of her. Sophie and I sat on her front steps after we finished shooting and my eyes wandered over the horizon and the city below. I thought about how many people must have found comfort within the walls of this church over the last hundred years and more...about how many times that front door swung open as a groom and his new bride took their first steps into their new life together or about how many times that front door closed behind a congregation gathered to say final good-byes to a loved one.


front steps and doorway

The architecture was magnificent....but I sensed that the foundation of this church was not built on bricks and mortar, but on the solace, love, and joy found here by the human spirit.

sunday stills - the moon

This week's Sunday Stills challenge was the moon. I will admit that these are not my best photos....they are not even good photos...but they are moon photos. I do believe, however, that I get an "A" for effort. I've included the story of said effort...

I have never really photographed the moon...it's never been a subject that interested me. So before taking any photos I went online to do a little research for this challenge. I was planning on buying a tripod anyway, but now I had good reason as every article I read said it was a requirement. So I bought one on Monday. I printed out the moonrise and moonset times for my region for the week and eagerly waited for the clouds to disappear.


the eerieness of this photo jumped out at me

On Tuesday evening, the clouds were moving so I set up my camera with tripod and snapped a bunch of photos. They were all crap. I realized that I needed to get out of the automatic modes on my dslr. So I read some more articles on moon photography. Then I read some articles on basic photography so that I could really understand what they were saying in the moon photography articles. Then I poured over my operations manual so that I could figure out how to work my camera (outside of the automatic settings). It was cloudy for most of the week and each day the moonrise/moonset times kept getting later and later (so I was either asleep or at work).


waning moon....

On Friday morning, I awoke at 3am, flipped over and saw the moon staring at me through my bedroom window. I immediately hopped out of bed, threw on my boots and a coat over my pj's and headed into the backyard with my camera and tripod. I had taken about 25 photos, while fumbling in the dark with my camera manual, when I heard Jones open the window and ask: "Honey? Is everything okay?". "Just taking pictures of the stupid moon," I replied. "Go back to bed." He is still giving me suspicious sideways glances today. And all of those photos were also crap.


this one is my favorite (even with the blurred tree) - i
think it's the most interesting

Saturday morning, 5:15 am, I once again set up shop. The first two dark photos posted are from that session. I took a few more later Saturday morning when there was more light and the third photo is from that round. This last photo is from the only time before this challenge that I have pointed my camera at the moon...it is from my archives, taken about two weeks ago. It was my back up for this challenge in case I couldn't get a shot this week.


my only pre-challenge moon photo

I spent the week being haunted by the moon. I know now that every assumption I have ever made about the moon is true....she is a fickle, elusive creature. Sophie and I would much rather chase sunsets. (But we loved the complexity of this week's challenge and enjoyed learning so much more about our camera and the art of photography)