Transitions, Transformations and a Little Photography
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Fawns and Flash Heros
Full disclosure here - I’m not great at surprises - as soon as Kory mentions that he has a surprise for me - I’m all over him badgering him to tell me what it is. I hate the suspense of not knowing. While I’m at it I’ll just ‘fess up to hating scary movies or movies with intense scenes - I’ve honestly never made it through the movie American Werewolf in London and it took me a whole weekend to watch Aliens. Maybe it’s a defect or it’s an internal protection against being blindsided or startled.
That’s a long prelude to letting you know - no fawns were injured - it will make sense shortly.
We’ve come to believe that we live in a mini version of The Wild Kingdom because in the year that we’ve lived here we’ve seen such a variety of wildlife from deer, coyotes, moose, black bear, skunk, jackrabbits and ring necked pheasants to name a few.
Mountain Bluebird Nestbox Monitoring
Nestbox monitoring is a made up of a network of people who volunteer their time to ensure that migratory birds who are cavity nesters (i.e., they make their nests in hollowed out structures like trees) such as mountain bluebirds and tree swallows have suitable habitat available during nesting season. The need for nestboxes became apparent when declining numbers of Mountain Bluebirds were observed in the early 1970’s - this was due to the decline in woodland areas when suburban development accelerated.
The Calgary Area Nestbox Monitors Society ( CANMS ) consists of over 100 monitors looking after over 70 trails with over 5000 nestboxes. Their website contains all sorts of interesting and useful resource material about mountain bluebirds and monitoring a nest box trail.
Re-establishing Habits
2024 was a tough year with a lot of disruption to routine due to travel, buying a house, selling a house, moving and renovations. Looking back it is hard to believe that we have done all that we have. The house is looking good and the HVAC system is working well - life is good! (update: It looks like summer 2025 is going to be another challenging time as we take on the kitchen and bathroom updates, but this time it will be with the help of a project manager and the last of the big changes - thank goodness!).
I made some conscious decisions about habits that I wanted to continue through all the turmoil and ones that I was willing to put on hold until things settled down - I knew that trying to keep up all of my good self care habits would overload my system and lead to failure. This was a good compromise and I felt that after several years of these habits that they would be easy to pick up again after the crazy year that was 2024 was over - was I in for a surprise.
Trees
I can recall my first favourite tree - it was a weeping willow tree that we planted in our backyard when I was about 6 or 7 years old. I was given the job of watering the tree and I took this role seriously - well for a few weeks at least! I can recall posing for photos in front of that tree over the years and watching in amazement as it magically seemed to grow taller - it’s arching branches seeming to envelop and protect all within its reach.
Trees have always had an important role for me - their symbols of strength and resilience - outstretching protection and unwavering shelter and shade.
We had a huge park near my home where I grew up - it must have been about 10 city blocks and filled with trees - huge maples, elms and oaks. We followed the paths leading through the (at the time to me) giants and felt that nothing could ever find us there.
When I returned to that park some 20 years later on during a visit to see my parents I was surprised with the changes
Investing in my photographic passion
Short answer - no! Despite my continuing obsession with backpacks (I still haven’t managed to sell any - see myGot Gas post) I am not one for accumulating gear or buying the latest and greatest gadgets. I much prefer to get familiar with gear until it becomes more of an extension of me rather than keep changing things up and having to relearn functions and buttons. I’m definitely more about seeing gear as tools rather than the focus of my hobby. Photography is the focus and expressing how I feel and see the world.
I tend to use the tools that I have until I find there is something that I’d like to be able to do that is blocked by lack of a feature or the way my current tool works doesn’t fit with my workflow. Once I identify a gap I will monitor how frequently this comes up and prevents me from capturing an image I’d like or the way that I’d like. This helps me to understand if bridging the gap is a need or an occasional nice to have
Backyard Visitors
We had an exciting backyard visitor a couple of weeks ago and the way we stumbled upon him really demonstrates the need for being fully present and noticing unusual behaviours.
Here’s the backstory - we were walking Roxy in our backyard as the weather has been so lovely and above 15C (mid 60’sF). We’ve spent time meandering and really following her which means slowing down for a full scale sniffari - animals are so great at really being present and using all of their senses to scan their environment for things that don’t belong.
Kory noticed that some birds were making a commotion in a group of evergreens in the back corner of our property. We headed over and I used my bird app to identify the bird sound - (Merlin eBird is a free app and a wonderful way to identify birds from photos or sounds) - red breasted nuthatches were the noisy ones we heard which made me wonder because they are not usually that vocal.
Seasonal Changes
The last week I’ve started to feel the shift in the seasons again - that slow realization like the soft tick ticking of a clock that slowly worms its way into your consciousness. That’s how spring has felt to me - watching the sunrise coming earlier each day by 1 - 2 minutes and noticing the sun sink behind the mountains a little later each day too. Those minutes are stacking up and shifting our daily routine just slightly each day.
I’ve also noticed that the quality of the light is changing as the days get longer - the duration of the sunrise and the sunset seems to extend longer to bookend each day - like it can’t wait to get started and then is loathe to let go and fall into slumber.
The warmer temperatures are melting the residual mounds of white stuff and any new snow doesn’t seem to stick quite as long on the ground.
Photographing exotic locations aka my backyard
The title of this post is a bit tongue in cheek, but I got to thinking about this as I was debating about planning a trip to some wonderful location for photography and while I think that there is nothing quite as exciting as capturing images in a new location - a trip just didn’t seem to be coming together. I either didn’t like the timing or the itinerary or something else just didn’t seem quite right.
Lately I’ve been going through my old photography catalogues and looking for images that I overlooked for one reason or another and it’s interesting to note that I have been finding all sorts of great images and a lot of them are from photoshoots close to home. This makes sense as the majority of my images are from locations close to where I live and it also makes sense that I should be seeing progress over time and this would be reflected in the locations I shoot frequently.
Revisiting old photography files
I find that when I do a photoshoot I tend to process the images within a few days - sometimes even right away, but I’ve found that recently I’ve moved away from doing this in order to gain some perspective (ok full confession - I was forced to do this recently when I forgot my card reader when travelling and so I couldn’t download images until I got home).
I’m thinking that this is a good thing to do though because if I have an exciting shoot and either capture some bird or wildlife or scene that I didn’t expect or the light or conditions were amazing - I can be too emotionally tied to the images and not able to really assess them effectively.
Curiosity
A recent visit from Kory’s mum, Anne was a great opportunity for us to connect in person and also to share new experiences as well as favourite traditions. I have to admit that growing up I never heard of the Bonanza - A Ponderosa Christmas Special (trust me this is old with Lorne Greene and Michael Langdon - search YouTube if you’re curious to know more), but it was a tradition in Kory’s family and so we listen to it each year which is fun.
This year we introduced Anne to a new tradition - Ted Lasso. I may have mentioned that I have a bit of an obsession with this series - I really appreciate the subtle leadership nuances and team building as well as gratitude and just feel good moments (ok and Roy Kent’s fruity language). I think that Anne is hooked now too as we watched several episodes most evenings.
Wordplay
I have always loved language and words - one of my earliest memories was sitting on my dad’s knee at the breakfast table picking out words in the newspaper as my mum cooked breakfast. She was always playing words games with us when we went for walks - memory games where we’d have to remember long chains of words or come up with definitions. This fed my innate love of words.
Confession time - my love of words, reading and learning new things led me to read the Encyclopedia - does anyone remember those huge volumes of information? They were the first place we went to when researching term papers for school. I used to particularly enjoy learning the meanings of new words or rather where they came from. It is still something that tickles my grey matter.
Persistence Pays Off
I was lucky enough to have a second shot at photographing snowy owls this year after doing a return road trip with Kory’s mum, Anne. She’s such a great co-pilot and the eight hour drive goes by so quickly with our entertaining chats. One of the perks of coming to see her is the ability to do snowy owl photoshoots at this time of year.
When I tried before Christmas I wasn’t very successful due to weather issues (snowy owl blog post), but I did get to see a lot of amazing wildlife and landscape scenes. It was not a disappointment at all as I’ve come to learn to manage expectations and not count on things like birds, weather or even my abilities coming through when and how I want them to. I try to enjoy the time that I spend looking for these amazing owls and if I get any images that excite me then I’m happy.
Growing Mushrooms
I have been an aspiring gardener for some time now, however the results have not always reflected the effort. I think that when you live in a location where the growing season is very short and unpredictable it can either frustrate you into giving up, or make you dig in your heels and try your hand at anything (I’ll leave you to guess which category I fall into).
For example, when I lived in Southwestern Ontario (the banana belt of Canada) it was easy to grow things - I grew trees from maple leaf tree keys, I split plants on a regular basis and exchanged varieties with other gardeners and I even inadvertently led to the expansion
Recent trip to Saskatchewan
There are two things that happened serendipitously within the month of December and I am so grateful for having these experiences. My mother in law and I did a road trip together as I traveled to pick her up with the idea that I’d also get an opportunity to photograph snowy owls as I’ve done in the past (snowy owl blog post and gallery).
I also had an opportunity to meet David DuChemin during his recent talk in Calgary. He is a dynamic speaker and really hit home with some good photographic truths accompanied by some amazing images (new book - Light, Space & Time) and he summarizes some key points in his recent newsletter.
Mood Photography
Photographers often ponder questions like what type of photographer they are, what genres do they shoot, or what is their style and while these are logical and interesting questions, they are not ones that I’ve spent a lot of time agonizing over. I have rather let my preferences lead the way and over time I have found the types of images that I enjoy making as well as the feel or emotion that an image conveys during the editing process. I find that this gives me a lot more flexibility rather than pigeonholing me into only taking certain types and styles of photos. In addition, as I’ve learned more and tools have changed - there has been an evolution to the way my images look.
Freeman Patterson Photography Retreat - 3 Months On
It’s been just over 3 months since I was in New Brunswick at St Andrews by the Sea for a photography retreat hosted by Freeman Patterson. There are times when an event or book or movie is very impactful and for me this is one of them - I find myself thinking back to that time quite frequently and recalling some very significant moments.
The other participants also had a profound impact on me and I have stayed in touch with three of the five group members (a bit surprising that I have stayed in touch with so many) - several of us have even talked about meeting up for another photography event.
Everybody’s got a story
This song has always resonated with me because I feel that we (let’sy be honest - I) often make assumptions of people based upon first impressions.
I make judgements based upon the way people look or act or talk - I know it’s cliche, however the saying don’t judge a book by its cover still rings true today.
I’ve mentioned before that I’m a strong introvertand people often interpret my demeanour as standoffish or cool, but it’s actually shyness mixed in with a preference of getting to know people slowly before diving in and interacting.
Seasonal Transitions
This transitional time is my favourite time of the year - while I love to watch the world wake up from the frosty cold of winter, I often find that changes happen too quickly in the springtime - the temperatures and precipitation can yo-yo and leave me feeling caught up in a whirlwind of changes. The summer has its warmth and lazy hazy days, however I find it almost too vibrant - too green. When the days start to shorten and the leftover heat of the day cools down, the air takes on a bit of crispness and the leaves on the trees start to take on their autumnal colours - this is my time of year - this is when I feel grateful to be able to spend time outside and soak up the lingering warmth of the season.
Photoshoots in Halifax
It’s always interesting and exciting to do a photography shoot in a new city or location as there is the unknown element of what you will find to shoot, what compositions, what the light will do etc. In the same respect there are also the downsides such as will you find anything interesting to shoot, will you find compositions, will the light be interesting and will you get to the location in time to find and take advantage of these elements.
It often takes multiple visits to a location before you have enough knowledge and understanding to really optimize these factors,
Evenings with my backyard visitors
I know that I’ve mentioned it before, however this move to the “country” has had a significant impact on the way that I’m spending my time. I hadn’t envisioned that I would be spending quite as much time as I do outside - I mean I thought I was outdoorsy before, but now a huge portion of my day is spent outside - and I keep looking for more reasons to head on out the door.
Wandering around with my weed digger doing my weekly rounds is a great way to survey the yard and see what has changed since my last check in.