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…
The images below were created in the thick of winter and then again this spring. The challenge in diptychs such as this is to create identical perspectives from one image to the next- in this case: close, but not perfect.
I have a “thing” about reflections, whether they be in glass, water, or any other smooth surface. These latest images were taken at the family cottage in Northern Ontario.
It has been a long winter in Ottawa and as is often the fashion in such conditions, Spring has been racing to its finish line – within the last few days I have witnessed the trees move from their winter dormancy to the lime green brilliance that accompanies new buds.
I like to watch the shift of seasons from the same vantage point; there is a steadfastness within a single landscape that defies the passage of time chronicling our four seasons. (FYI: in Canada there actually tend only to be two seasons: Winter and Road Construction.) So I like to photograph the same scene at different times in the year. I am particularly pleased with the image below, which is found along the Rideau Canal in Ottawa, Canada, near the Hartwell Locks.
This has to be the best of both worlds: to be paid as an artist to help raise volunteers for a wide range of not-for-profit organizations. Well, all of that is thanks to Timeraiser, a group dedicated to “bringing people to causes and causes to people”. Each year Timeraiser puts out a call to artists and, following a juried selection process, purchases a number of the submissions which it later auctions off at a evening gala. But here’s the really creative side to it all: the bidding is not in dollars; instead, the auction’s currency is volunteer hours with one or more of the registered nonprofit organizations. How cool is that?
Timeraiser is represented in various major centers across Canada. The Ottawa fête was held last evening at the National Gallery of Canada – fabulous venue for art, to say the least. These guys put on a great party, with music videos and munchies to start the evening, followed by a live performance by the band Franklin’s Fault.
Franklin's Fault performing in the name of art and civic engagement at the National Gallery of Canada...
This was my first year applying to Timeraiser and I was fortunate enough to have my image, “Tree Line”, accepted for auction. I was even more thrilled to see it achieve the maximum (i.e. 125) biddable hours during the silent bidding.
Tree Line raising time...
So my thanks to Theresa Wetzel and all of the other people at Timeraiser for including me in its wonderful mission. And a word to anyone looking for future opportunities to get involved: watch for these guys next year – I personally can’t think of a more pleasant way to look for a cause with which to connect…
September 7th marked the start of a pair of photographic exhibits at Carleton University Gallery featuring the artists Justin Wonnacott and Jocelyne Alloucherie. An intriguing combination, these two collections of work curated by Sandra Dyck and Diana Nemiroff respectively.
Wonnacott’s show consists of a set of intimate images of marine animals that have formed part of his daily diet – fish, mollusks and crustaceans alike. Drawn by their vibrant beauty, Wonnacott began photographing them, starting with a moon fish that provided the exhibit’s title image: “I remember + I forget“. But his initial perceptions were to later give way to the underlying reality that the seas, and hence these creatures, were endangered. As Wonnacott so aptly puts it: “the fish are beautiful, they are in trouble and they are food.”
Wonnacott at Carleton University Gallery...
Intimate with fish: food for thought...
Jocelyne Alloucherie‘s exhibit in many respects provides a juxtaposition to that of Wonnacott. Her massive, neutral-toned images carry the viewer across vast scenes of cloud, sand, ice and air which the artist describes as “a space between the immediacy of physical experience and the memory of one or many elsewheres.” But, like Wonnacott’s own work they remind the viewer of our earth’s precarious state of affairs as greenhouse gases threaten the age-old balance between cloud and sand, ice and air.
Alloucherie at Carleton University Gallery...
Viewing vistas: Alloucherie's eye for stark majesty
Wonnacott’s exhibit run until November 7th, while Alloucherie’s work will be displayed until October 24th; two wonderful collections in one spot – what more could one ask for?
My wife Sherry and I were cycling along the Ottawa River Parkway on the weekend and stopped to enjoy the art of John-Félice Ceprano, an artist whose rock sculptures can be found at the Remic Rapids along the Ottawa River. The work is, to my mind, mesmerizing: his stone structures precariously suspended on granite shelves appear to float over the water’s surface. The relative quiet of the the shelves provided good opportunity for photographing the sculptures’ reflections – an obsession of mine, reflections are…
I captured this image of foam on the water’s surface at Hog’s Back Rapids in Ottawa. My eldest sister, the epidemiologist, commented that it looked a little “disease-like”: a less-than-healthy thin-section, perhaps? Yes, perhaps, but I found it beautiful all the same.
