Those who have followed my work know that I have a penchant for images involving concrete. There is something aesthetically beautiful about the textures and subtle tonal gradations that characterize many concrete structures. From bridges to underpasses, they all hold appeal to me.
One spot particularly dear to my heart is the Queensway’s Rideau Canal overpass. This spot combines the beauty of concrete and my obsession with reflections – what more could one ask for?
Below are four images from this spot covering several seasons.
Enjoy…
Walking the dog...
Entrance...
Exit...
Concrete and Ice...
To view more of my images on Instagram, search for blackdogzencat or visit my personal site on 500 px.
They say “more is less” and I’d have to agree – at least in photography. Actually, I’d have to say it works rather well in sculpture, painting and architecture as well.
Some of my favourite images from my own collection seek to share the same stark minimalism of other fields of minimalism. In such cases it’s as much about what is left out of the images as with what is included. Below are a few samples, taken from my my personal site on 500 px.
I travelled out to Almonte the other week and was captivated by the scenery. What really caught my eye was just how wonderfully gnarly it all was. Driving along March Road, one passes various bogs and areas of scruff. Scruff, to my mind, has character.
The following three images formed the series “Gnarly” on my Instagram stream (Instagrammers: look for blackdogzencat‘s stream) and were also uploaded to my personal site on 500 px.
I like concrete. By that I mean I like the look of concrete. I like its textures and its tonal variations. And I like the markings that betray attempts to wipe away past graffiti.
The images that follow form a set I placed recently on Instagram (Instagrammers: look for blackdogzencat‘s stream) and uploaded to my personal site on 500 px. The series of three photographs were titled “The Outs and Ins of Underpasses”…
The Outs and Ins of Underpasses: Out
The Outs and Ins of Underpasses: In
The Outs and Ins of Underpasses: Final Exit...
To view more of my images on Instagram, search for blackdogzencat or visit my personal site on 500 px.
There are, of course, many different ways of seeing. The following two selections from my Instagram Chronicles formed a diptych entitled “Inversions” that is reminiscent of the solarizing technique of the photographic film days, lending a different perspective on the subjects.
For more of my images on 500px, visit davidtaylorphotostudio.500px.com. Meanwhile, you can view these and more of my work from “Instagram Chronicles” – hot off the press – by following “black_dog_in_ottawa” on Instagram.
I love a mist – it’s like a warm blanket for the soul to me. We had one such morning fog a few weeks ago and so I set out with camera in hand. The images that follow are the result.
For more of my images on 500px, visit davidtaylorphotostudio.500px.com. Meanwhile, you can view these and more of my work from “Instagram Chronicles” – hot off the press – by following “black_dog_in_ottawa” on Instagram.
What do you do when you create a photography book as an act of love? Give it away…
So that’s what I’m doing. Here’s the description of the book from its foreword:
In March of 2009 I embarked on a personal project to produce and share at least one photograph each day. I committed myself to a one-year time frame and decided that I would share my daily images with my family and a few friends through email. I rather glibly attached the subject title “Today’s View” to these messages, unaware at the time just how much of my day and world view Today’s View would come to occupy.
Over time my mailing list grew as friends of friends learned about the project. These formed “Today’s Viewers” – a rather long list of email addresses that included some people whom I have yet to have the pleasure to meet in person. Nonetheless all of Today’s Viewers became companions in the project and their messages in reply to one image or another were a continual source of pleasure and encouragement – to them I say “thank you.”
Today’s View required that I have my camera with me much of my day and to photograph just about anything that caught my eye. In the process it taught me the myriad pleasures associated with street photography’s spontaneity and the quiet contemplation that accompanies making a landscape image. I think it fair to say that the project has done more to inform my photography than any other I have undertaken.
As the title indicates, the photographs within this book are a selection from images spanning approximately two years time. (Yes, I know, it was supposed to be a one-year project, but I just couldn’t let go.) Page limitations and theme have restricted my choice and some of my favourite photos unfortunately do not appear here, so I would encourage the curious at heart to journey to my website (davidtaylorhotostudio.com) where I provide a link to the larger collection. I am also always only an email address away (david@davidtaylorphotostudio.com), should any of you have questions or comments.
A drained Dow's Lake shoreline in early November (Fuji X100)
It is late autumn in Ottawa and the powers that be (in this case, Parks Canada) have commanded that the Rideau Canal be drained. This is an annual event that has lasted for nearly one hundred years, required to preserve the concrete walls of the Canal from ice damage. Skating enthusiasts are likely smiling with the diminutive water levels, as this serves as a portent to the transformation of canal to giant skating rink. It takes close to two weeks of cold ( -15oC to -20oC) temperatures to form the 25 cm thick ice surface required to support skaters.
The Canal bed, south of Hartwell's Locks (Fuji X100)
The draining undoubtedly initiates fearful scrambling amongst the aquatic life in the Canal as they are swept out towards the Ottawa River. Massive carp that habit the Canal in the spring and summer months must relocate or suffer the consequences. No doubt some will find refuge in the pockets of water that remain in Dow’s Lake and portions of the Canal.
But with the water all but vanquished from much of the waterway, new sights appear – flotsam and jetsam from some season past that have settled to the bottom of the Canal, only to have their shallow graves now exposed to passers-by.
Once ridden, now hidden - until the water drains... (Nikon D3)
This morning there were thin sheets of ice on the pools of water remaining in the Canal – harbingers to another season (skaters rejoice).
It’s now Autumn and the geese are on the move, but little else here suggests the season: twenty-six degrees in Ottawa on Thanksgiving weekend, flowers still in bloom, and little in the way of Fall colours overhead…
Julian Barbour is a physicist living in north Oxfordshire, England, who makes his living as a part-time translator. Why? So that he can spend his various states of being deep in thought…
Lots of space but no time on the Rideau Canal...
One of Dr Barbour’s ideas that has sparked attention relates to time. In fact, he argues that time is nothing more than a construct and that its conceptual hold on us has led to various problems in our understanding of the physical world – problems that vanish with the nullification of time itself.
As Dr Barbour says, “Change merely creates an illusion of time, with each individual moment existing in its own right, complete and whole”.
In the video “Killing Time”, Barbour describes some of the ramifications of his theory. We exist as a set of individual states – these states Dr Barbour refers to as “Nows”. Each “Now” is complete and self-contained – instantaneous in one sense and, in its independence, simultaneously infinite. Our measurement of “time”, he argues, represents the weighted average of the difference between two such “Nows”. The measurement of this weighted average of two states becomes “the amount of time between them”. The implications though subtle are, as Barbour explains, fundamental: for example, Newtonian mechanics presupposes the existence of time before anything else; Barbour argues that changes in state create the notion of time, which is ultimately an elaborate illusion. This is much more than a matter of semantics: for Barbour, the quantum universe is static and with Barbour’s idea of time, the “end of all things” in fact is the beginning (the Big Bang).
The image to the right is my attempt to capture the notion of multiple states – space without time. If you are interested in hearing Barbour speak about his theories, have a watch below…
