Still frozen, but bubbling underneath! You know what it’s like when you just can’t do what you want, for whatever reason. It feels a lot like this waterfall that has been stopped by the cold, but you know it’s bubbling underneath as you can see the stopped drama, waiting… then just as soon as it gets warm, all of the energetic vitality that flows beneath will be released in a torrent!
This baby waterfall is in Baxter’s Harbour, not far from where we live. I have photographed it before, but always in the summer. The tide is fairly high here, lapping at the base of the ice, as if trying to coax a thaw. This photo seemed a natural follow-on from my post yesterday of the frozen flowers.
Experimental Crop Fields, Hillaton, Nova Scotia – Ellie Kennard 2016
Almost every time I drive past this scene I want to photograph it. It’s so close to where I live that I pass it several times a week, so I suppose it’s a good thing I don’t give in to this impulse each time or my hard drives would be filled with images of these experimental fields. And you, dear viewers, would be tired of them… But maybe you wouldn’t be bored, but would be as drawn to them as I am. The attraction of this scene is the constantly changing designs, growing over the original hard work of the farmer. In the spring the patches look wonderful with the neatly plowed rows and squares, then come the patterns of the sprouting crops in their straight lines; in the summer the grain varieties grow at different rates, but the overall look still remains crisp and defined in the blocks so carefully arranged by the planter. There is even a little, older tractor that is used to cultivate these as they are too small for the monster vehicles normally used in modern day agriculture (and by the same farmer on different fields).
So although I am pretty sure that I have shared an image of this scene previously, I hope you will indulge my obsession and enjoy an October evening view as the fields are ready for harvest. The foreground is an expanse of soy as a foil to the crops behind. Two days after I took this, the soy was harvested and it all looked different again.
View the full gallery of landscape photography here: Landscapes
Supermoon with Clouds, Minas Basin, November – Ellie Kennard 2016
When we were out photographing the moon last night, Steven said something that resonated with me when I saw this image. He said “it’s not only about the moon, it’s about what’s around and under it”. And this photo is about the moon, but also about the clouds, the light reflected on the waters and the shining mud of low tide, as well as the tiny lights glimmering on the shore on the other side of the bay.
It’s so much more than just a beautiful big moon. It’s what it’s all about when I’m out with friends, in beautiful surroundings, in the still of a cold night as the moon rises through the clouds over the Minas Basin, in Nova Scotia.
The Crops Safely Gathered in – Grand Pre Nova Scotia – Ellie Kennard 2016
For every photograph that I take, there are far, far more that I miss. They are the pictures stored in my memory, ready for when I plan to go back and spend the time it takes to get it right. They are the ones that got away because the scene is never there again. That first time, the light was just right, the elements all came together in a pattern or shape that was perfect, or something else about it made that moment (as every moment) unique. You can never get it back. As we drove by this scene at the end of the summer, the light and dark lines in the harvested fields, cresting the curving hills really made me want to photograph it. Unfortunately each time we were passing it we were in a hurry to go somewhere and it is right on the main highway, making a sudden stop a dangerous manoeuvre. So every time I had to content myself with looking longingly at the curves of the landscape and the straight paths left by the mower, the big round bales and the smaller squared ones. I knew that soon these would be gathered in and the green growth would blur the clean look of the field, the impression of all the elements flowing like meandering streams down the hill. On this particular weekend we set out specially to catch it. We had to stop on the side of the busy highway, with cars and trucks rushing past and the wind they created making it difficult to be still enough for the photograph. I had a long walk to get to this particular vantage point (sorry on the one hand that I had not brought my tripod, but also glad as it would have been so heavy to haul along the shoulder of the highway) and the day itself was a very blustery one as you see by the sky. I could already feel the shift of the season beginning with the gathering in of the crops. continue reading
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