Magnolias

I took this picture while I was living in Nagoya, Japan; the magnolias were blooming in early March when there was still snow on the ground in Canada. There are a lot of things I like about this shot: the way the backlit flowers seem to glow, which contrasts with the silhouetted branches. The difference in scale between the foreground and background flowers. The cloudless sky (which, at the time of this writing, I rather miss since it has been a rainy spring). And I guess I also like it because it’s not dramatic or impressive at first glance, but has a kind of elegance that comes though if you look at it for a while.

Ontario Zen

I grew up just a few minutes’ walk from the shores of Lake Ontario, and this is at a small park near my home. The shore there consists of flat limestone slabs, with several boulders like this one sitting on them.  They are completely out of place and were presumably dropped there by melting glaciers thousands of years ago.

These boulders always remind me somewhat of a Zen garden. On a clear day, the strong shadows and reflections from the lake make for a striking image. This photograph, cropped differently, also provides the banner for this blog.

Nest

I was able to take this photograph one summer when an American Robin decided to build a nest in the corner of a windowsill on my house.  The image is a little blurred due to being taken through the window screen; I wanted to disturb the mother bird as little as possible. Of the four eggs here, three hatched and one chick survived to leave the nest.

Inverted Swan

It probably says something about the way I think that I find this image of a swan more interesting than the usual depictions. I took this photograph while on holiday, at a lakeside where people were throwing bread to the waterfowl. The swan went underwater after something, and I managed to catch this image.