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Yesterday I went walking the trails with my friend Patrick.
Fighting off the mosquitoes yet again and looking forward to the open spaces where they were less aggressive.
A new trail for Patrick but not for me. It is somewhat daunting introducing someone to a new trail, you never know how they will react to it.
I shouldn’t have worried, I mean who can resist old cedars, ferns, sunlight slanting through the woods and a river close by? With photographic opportunities galore and the quiet peace of the woods.

I need those times, to leave the world of man behind and re-enter the other world, the one so many have forgotten about.
Here I find myself and the work-a-day world slips into the background, cares forgotten.
I may only be away for an hour or two but it is enough to keep me going until Wednesday when I start to plan again, ‘where to next weekend’? is the eternal question...
Yes a short walk in the woods especially with friends is enough for this world weary traveler.

We all should take the time to enjoy the little things, to find pleasure in finding those little things ...

"To sit with a dog on a hillside on a glorious afternoon is to be back in Eden, where doing nothing was not boring - it was peace". ~Milan Kundera

Vacation time is over, time to g back to work.

Recently we bought a trailer and this last week we headed for the great outdoors, in deepest darkest Puslinch.

We fought many battles against the swarming hoards of mosquitoes, listened as the distant thunder drew ever closer, heralding the arrival of yet another downpour, torrential rain hammering on the roof of our little ‘home away from home’.
Several times I thought of our friends in a nearby campsite, they were in a tent...

Our week was interrupted by family matters and doctors visits but all-in-all we had a great relaxing time. I even pulled out my old sketch pad and pencils after 20 years of neglect.
We are home now and it seems like we fall back into the routine all so easily but we are different somehow, we had the time to catch up with each other, to reconnect, to do simple things like taking a walk with no destination in mind, yes sometimes in the rain.

I can’t wait to do it again.

"If you knew yourself for even one moment, if you could just glimpse your most beautiful face, maybe you wouldn't slumber so deeply in that house of clay. Why not move into your house of joy and shine into every crevice! For you are the secret Treasure-bearer, and always have been. Didn't you know?" ~Rumi

“God is in the details”
~ Mies van der Rohe

This phrase should have come from a photographer, not an architect. However Mies van der Rohe was a stickler for detail, concerned about everything. For example he designed the plaque, the wording and the font for the Toronto Dominion Centre in Toronto, talk about details!

What he meant was, whatever you choose to do it should be done thoroughly.

More common is the phrase “The Devil is in the details” meaning, ignore the details at your peril.

So how does this affect what we as photographers produce?
Well...
I am on a journey to free and open up my mind to the opportunities of an ever flowing, ever changing world.

To become a Flâneur.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flaneur

The literal translation is a person who is a "stroller", "lounger", "saunterer", or "loafer" but which later became a description for an artist-poet.

We need to relax;
Forget about how much time we have available on any given day.
Forget about work
Forget about the weather
Forget about where you are going or what you hope you will find when you arrive.

If we go about our hobby / profession worrying about the details concentrating on one thing we miss the myriad of possibilities that float by, unseen and unheeded. We have blinkered ourselves.

So try this; don’t go out with a specific destination or subject in mind go out with the intention of letting the subject come to you.

Yesterday was one such day, a threatening sky and rain soaked trails caused us to change venues at the last minute, an easy decision when you are a “Flaneur”.

Not so easy if you have set your sights on a particular place, time or subject.

We chose the Arboretum over the open fields simply because the paths were dryer and there was shelter close by in case the weather turned against us nothing to do with photography. Once there we strolled the trails, it didn’t take long for a subject to find us.
Not the wind and rain swept vista’s but the tiny world of macro or close up photography. Rain on leaves, snails, insects, dragonflies, the way plants grow and climb.
There, in the details we had our subjects ...

They found us, we were simply receptive and open minded

So what did I learn from this?

As photographers we need to journey with an open mind but be aware that the details of what you choose to photograph can make or break the image be it a panoramic vista or a tendril of a plant.

So there you have it, one minute I say “forget about the details and wander” and in the next breath “don’t forget about the details”!

Well yes, let me explain;

As you wander with your open mind receptive to a subject, do not blinker your thoughts with details, let it all flow slowly by and be aware of possibilities.
However when the moment comes and your subject appears then the details become important ....

........ see? God may be in the details but the Devil is in the timing....

Out beyond ideas of rightdoing and wrongdoing, there is a field. I will meet you there. ~Rumi

Yesterday I went in search of 'Yellow Fields' the canola is in flower...
But words from the "Tao of Photography" by Phillippe Gross and S.I Shapiro kept rattling around in my head.

Several times I hit the brakes and went back to something I had seen. No not yellow fields, they could wait, this moment was fleeting and I had to investigate or lose it for ever...

I am beginning to understand just how much I stifle myself in pursuit of my craft by trying to set a goal. By 'visualising' what I want to photograph I am blinkered, focused only on one thing and in becoming focused I lose sight of all the rest.

Yes by all means set a destination for the day but don't allow that to be the focus of your day, allow yourself to be distracted and respond to those distractions. Yes I am learning to free my mind, beginning to understand....

" Great understanding is broad and unhurried;
little understanding is cramped and busy"
　　- Chaung-tzu

" My pictures are never pre-visualised or planned. I feel strongly that pictures must come from contact with things at the time and place of taking. At such times, I rely on intuitive, perceptual responses to guide me, using reason only after the final print is made to accept or reject the results of my work".
　　
　　- Wynne Bullock

Broken Dreams-Talbot Trail
Originally uploaded by Alan Norsworthy

Old, forgotten, abandoned houses and farms, even entire towns!

Over the years I have spent a lot of time wandering around these treasures and the same thoughts creep into my conscious mind:

What happened here?

Where did the people go?

Why?

To me, abandoned places are like landlocked Marie Celeste’s.

Some fully furnished, food in the cupboard .. never open a fridge or a freezer though..

Beds still with sheets, Books and reading glasses, dishes in the kitchen, newspapers and calendars from long ago everything is there except the people.

Is it one’s imagination that runs away or are there still occupants in some of these places? Well sometimes they are there not in human form but their essence, their spirit remains. Sometimes only in a barely tangible form, sometimes more so.

If walls could talk what stories would they tell?

Standing quietly sometimes there are whispers, but the whole story is never clear.

In the end all there is left is a sadness, an emptiness.

Lost hopes and dreams lie scattered amongst the detritus of lives hard lived but we cannot hear them, these stories are gone along with the occupants.

Even more sad is the knowing that the bulldozers await. They will come to tear out the remaining soul and erase forever the memory of these places so we can replace them with yet another mall ...

They civilize what's pretty
By puttin' up a city
Where nothin' that's
Pretty can grow....
They civilize left
They civilize right
Till nothing is left
Till nothing is right
~Alan Jay Lerner, "The First Thing You Know," Paint Your Wagon, 1969

These days when I walk the trails I find myself being drawn to the words of the North American elders.

They understood this planet we call home

They revered all things

They found peace and harmony out there.

When the first explorers arrived they found “a pristine untouched wilderness”. Little did they know it had been inhabited for thousands of years by the “Indian”.and as Bill Mason reflected..

"So the first white man arrives in North America and he looks out over the land and he calls it a pristine untouched wilderness. That's got to be the greatest compliment that anyone could pay to the native peoples that had lived here for thousands of years....and it's still possible to catch a glimpse of what that wilderness used to be..... and I think that the best way to do that is in a canoe, the most beautiful and functional craft ever created.", Bill Mason - from the film "Waterwalker"

So as I walk I think of these things. All things are connected, all things have a life, a spirit and we are part of that whole.

Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves. All things are bound together. All things connect.
~ Chief Seattle'

As I sit and watch the news, flooding, tornadoes, storms that seem to be getting bigger and stronger by the day, I wonder at what we have done. Mother Nature will only tolerate so much before she protects herself ....

This morning I went on journey, I walked one thousand Kilometers in the company of hundreds, traveled back in time a thousand years all without leaving the house.

Let me explain..

On the advice of a friend I 'googled' Peter Coffman and discovered not only photographs but a place.

A place where only the pilgrims and the seekers go. Its not a place per se because it encompasses many, many places and 2 countries its the long walk, the “Camino de Santiago”

http://www.petercoffman.com/?albumid=1

I found music there interwoven with the words and photographs.

The music was written, played and recorded along the trail by Oliver Schroer. He played in small churches and cathedrals alike wherever the spirit moved him. (pardon the pun)

Hauntingly beautiful music as only a lone fiddle can make.

As Peter says …

“ The violin sings, the stones sing back. The notes and the space embrace as if they have been waiting for this meeting all their lives. The man stops playing, but the notes keep going, unwilling to give this moment up.”

http://www.oliverschroer.com/about/camino_journal.html

They are the sounds of a journey, a pilgrimage yes but not necessarily a search for god but a search for oneself

On the morning of July 3rd, 2008, after a long battle with leukemia, Oliver Schroer passed away at Princess Margaret Hospital, Toronto.

As my friend said “why is it that the good people die young” I ask myself the same question....

Having had a bit of a hiatus as my wife recovers from her surgery I stole a bit of 'me time' this weekend and went for a walk with friends.
The weatherman was threatening rain and the mosquitoes were out in force but we went anyway.

A late change of venue saw us walking the trails along the Eramosa River here in Guelph. Stopping and starting, lagging behind, moving on, as something caught our attention but lots of banter and laughter along the way.
As Patrick commented "Seeing the sight in all its reality and then your image! Incredible fun of how we all interpret things differently, see things (how) others see things". When I took the photograph my comment to Patrick was "that one is destined for black and white" ...

This exposure to the scene and seeing the final result as others see makes every outing a learning experience and begs the thought 'where was I when he did/saw that'? It makes us look or should I say 'feel' more intently.

I have been reading a great deal recently of what I would call the Zen of photography, feeling instead of seeing, opening one's mind to the possibilities and waiting for the moment to arrive before pressing the shutter.
This way of seeing was first introduced to me in a workshop put on by Doug Wilson in Killarney/LaCloche last fall. Its amazing how those seeds he planted are growing into a new way of seeing, a new way of photographing the world...

"A great photograph is a full expression of what one feels about what is being photographed in the deepest sense, and is, thereby, a true expression of what one feels about life in its entirety. "
~Ansel Adams

This last week I have rode the roller coaster of emotional turmoil, my wife Cathy underwent Open Heart surgery to repair some damage.

Having to give up everything you hold dear into the hands of strangers is one of the most frightening things I have ever done.
“Blind trust” is an easy concept to grasp but not so easy to do but thankfully everything worked out.
Hiding my fears from Cathy so as not to make her own fears worse was almost as difficult.

I would like to take a moment to say ‘Thank You’ to Dr Ash and the whole team at St.Mary’s Hospital in Kitchener for your skills, patience and dedication to helping to make this week bearable.
Dr Ash’s skill is truly amazing yet he caries the responsibilities of his trade with such a casual aire, a true gentleman.

Taking another moment to tell our family and friends who have been by our sides unobtrusively this week,sending silent wishes and healing thoughts our way.
Know that all of you helped and know that I realise that we are truly blessed, and grateful.
In hours of weariness, sensations sweet,
Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart;
And passing even into my purer mind,
With tranquil restoration:—feelings, too,
Of unremembered pleasure: such, perhaps,
As have no slight or trivial influence
On that best portion of a good man's life,
His little, nameless, unremembered acts
Of kindness and of love....
~William Wordsworth, 1798

I have had a few conversations this week concerning patience. I don’t mean ‘road rage’ kind of patience I mean the patience to produce a better photograph.

It started with a comment about my recent trip to Algonquin. On the Saturday morningPatrick asked if we could stay a while in an area I had shown him.
We were there all day..

My comment was made to fellow photographer Gregg and he asked if I had read the article “The Art of Patience” by Jil Ashton-Leigh
You can find it here:

http://clicks.robertgenn.com/disappearing-blue.php

I got me thinking about how little time we devote to understanding and getting to know an area.
In this fast paced world where instant gratification has become the norm it is all to easy to fall into the trap. I think that we have such a small amount of time available to us to pursue our hobby that we try to make the most of it by capturing everything of interest. Instead of dedicating the time we have on producing the best image we can.

To do that we have to understand our subject and that takes patience.

Slow down, sit, think and observe. Watch the shadows and light play across the landscape before you. Try to understand what you are looking at and try to figure out what attracted you to the scene in the first place.

Last Fall I took a workshop with Doug Wilson, it is only now that I am really starting to understand what he was saying and it is the same thing, have the patience to let the land speak to you.

Only then pick up the camera.

Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson