Triptych #1 - Resist. Embrace. Release. (view print)
In 2023, as the world continued pace through multiplying calamities, moving towards what looks like greater chaos and uncertainty, I found solace in exploring familiar places and creating stories from smaller scenes.
Many of these places had been heavily damaged by Fiona in 2022. Bearing witness to these changes and creating images from them feels like an important and ongoing project. I shared some of my initial thoughts and pictures in a piece I wrote last fall which you can read over here.
Over the summer I was incredibly lucky to be able to spend many hours over a number of occasions exploring local beaches and woodlands with my son. He was wonderful company rain or shine and indeed in some weather that would best be described as completely miserable.
One of my favourite places to visit was the beach at McNeills Brook. I had visited it a number of times over the years but I only really noticed its beautiful sandstone on a visit with my son in September where we spent a couple hours exploring and photographing the beach around sunset. Since then I've returned a number of times, sometimes with him and sometimes by myself to photograph the beach's many treasures.
Here are some of the images I created from those visits:
"The Look" (view print)
"Cub in the wild" (view print)
"Sands and time" (view print)
From my reading, the sandstone on the island was created *hundreds of millions of years ago* around the time the island lay *near the centre of Pangaea*. Pangaea is the name given to the super-continent that was once comprised of what we now know as the Americas, Africa and Europe.
These stones are so fragile so their presence seems somewhat miraculous. Each stone is a an ancient recording of nature and weather. A recording which is both incomprehensible (to me at least) and yet still utterly fascinating.
The manufactured landscapes that surround us make it all to easy to forget about the preciousness of each moment but I found walking on this unassuming beach, surrounded by these humble but striking ancient artifacts, to be a restorative elixir.
Other highlights of the year for me came at Greenwich where I spent two blustery and rushed late-fall afternoons trying to capture the beautiful site. In 2022 I visited with my family and we spent a very pleasant afternoon leisurely exploring the park in early September. In 2023, my visits could not have been more different. They were both last minute visits made alone and squeezed into the end of rapidly dimming days in October and November.
You can reach about my first visit over here. Here are two photos from my most recent visit in November:
"Turbulence" (view print)
"Windswept Sands" (view print)
In November 2023, I was happy to receive my first photography award -- an Honorable Mention in the Nature: Seascapes / Waterscapes category of the ND Awards 2023 for my photo "Peace Time" which features the MacKenzie's Brook Sea Arch.
"Peace Time" (view print)
You can read about my visit to the now fallen arch here.
On December 28th, as 2023 came to a close, I went back to McNeills Brook with my son for one last visit. It was windy and freezing but worth the trip. As I looked on the photos I took later that day, a triptych to summarize the year peered back: Resist, Embrace, Release.
"Resist"
"Embrace"
"Release"