Tanked at the aquarium

May 18, 2015 by Created by RCW

I recently signed up for a 3-week photography workshop at Ripley’s Aquarium of Canada in Toronto, which basically means running around gob-smacked at coral reefs, sharks, jelly fish and kilometer after kilometer of living colour.

Here are some picks from Week 2.

Mostly birds at the beach

May 4, 2015 by Created by RCW

After a few hours of radiation sickness (aka sunshine) wandering the boardwalk and nearby woods along Lake Ontario, I managed to get a really good shot of the evasive red-winged blackbird.

I say evasive simply because this particular species would much rather spend its time strafing my head than sit still for me to take its picture.

Enjoy.

Fight to stay positive

May 1, 2015 by Created by RCW

I try to stay positive;

I try to stay upbeat,

As I watch cities aflame

And walls crumble earthward,

Whether through acts of Man

Or through acts of Nature;

Man destroying man,

Betraying them,

Slaying them,

Playing them,

For personal advance

Or simply fear of change.

I try to stay positive;

I try to stay upbeat,

As I hear voices raised,

Weapons of metal, wood, stone,

Wielded in white-knuckled fury;

The bastions of knowledge,

A cultural cudgel used to

Oppress them,

Compress them,

Divest them

Of their worldly goods,

Lives covetously shattered.

I try to stay positive;

I try to stay upbeat

As I watch Nature be raped,

Shorelines and shorebirds

Tarred for their feathers;

Ivory affectations shorn

From faces yet breathing;

Air given cancerous substance,

Stilling them,

Killing them,

Willing them

To the precipice of extinction,

Silent hillsides the new norm.

I try to stay positive;

I try to stay upbeat,

Hope my only option

In a world angry and mad.

We must heed the cries,

Must all feel the pain,

Must all see the anguish,

Lest the sweet sleep of death

Numb our senses forever.

And we must stay positive,

We must all stay upbeat.

Lake Ontario

April 15, 2015 by Created by RCW

While waiting for Windows to update my computer (ugh), I was left without my laptop and so decided to take advantage of the springtime weather (finally!!!) and nearby beach to do a bit of photography in east Toronto.

: The birds hung close to the trees today

: The light breeze made for amazing visual effects

: When colour fails you, go to b/w

: The light and water waves danced on the stones

: A terrible photo but my first fish for Lake Ontario

: Had to get the canonical v-winged gull image

: Couldn’t pass up on it…got a Rolex and a Timex

: It was like the lake bottom was alive

: These little guys were out in profusion today

K(no)w your limitations…

March 4, 2015 by Created by RCW

(Image of Tofino, BC)

Autumn colours

October 27, 2014 by Created by RCW

Another wander along the boardwalk brings colour and a bit of a sprinkle.

The Beasts of the Nature

September 18, 2014 by Created by RCW

Nature doesn’t like me. I don’t know why. It just doesn’t.

I try to be respectful. I not only recycle, but I also reduce…or, at least, I’ve never thrown food away.

I barely leave my apartment, so my literal footprint is pretty small—9-1/2 wide, for those of you keeping track. And other than my laptop and coffee maker, I barely use any electricity. Nor do I use the heat, so if you come over for a visit, bring a sweater.

And I believe that all life is sacred…which is why my apartment is filled with four types of spiders, two varieties of sow bugs, and one rather large species of house centipede. As an aside, if any of you ladies are entomologists or just like to get your arachnid freak on, call me.

Hard to tell how the spider is fairing in this fight, but I’m not holding out hope

Hell, I barely wear any clothes at home, preferring to wander au naturel…again, call first before visiting.

And yet, for all this benign behaviour, Nature wants me dead.

Every Spring, 10,000 species of plants gather around my apartment in a massive botanic circle jerk, spraying me and my immune system with a dazzling array of ejaculates green, gold and white. And they do this knowing full well that in another life, my white cells worked for Al Qaeda. For me, the months immediately following March are Anaphylaxis and Can’t.

You know when you make pancakes and first pour the batter into the scorching pan? Within moments, the batter bubbles up and bursts? That was me as a kid on a cloudy day. On a sunny day, I could watch Enola Gay footage and jealously think, “At least they had a breeze.”

And the water’s no better. Pond, stream, lake, ocean, they all think of me as chum, and not in the friendly sense. I’ve yet to find a boat I cannot fall out of. A canoe? An outdoor bathtub. A kayak? A restraining device designed to pin me underwater. A rowboat? Topless submersible.

Currents. Waves. Tides. All mechanisms to keep me from remembering where I left the air. I once went body surfing in Oahu and got so disoriented by the swirling currents that I flew home from San Francisco. You worry about an undertow? I’ve never experienced anything smaller than an underfoot.

And regardless of my home BioDome project, all of that goodwill is forgotten the moment I emerge from my apartment and become a blood bank for what must otherwise be the most anemic bugs on the planet. Even the vegan insects view my flesh as hyper-ripe banana paste.

And despite the most astringent soap and strongest deodorant, I apparently offer flies the personal banquet of a 6-week-old corpse vacationing in the Louisiana Bayou. I am the no-pest strip of the bed bug world.

Red-winged black birds strafe me. Squirrels can’t tell walnut meat from finger meat. And wasps see themselves as my personal EpiPen.

I tell you all this because I am travelling to Los Angeles in a couple of weeks, and so I would like to pre-emptively apologize for the events that will finally bring beachfront charm to the Vegas strip.

NOTE: This piece is written as my contribution to a wonderful creative assembly called “Tell Me A Story” organized by my friend Will Ennis, a lovely actor in the city of Toronto. You can see his acting reel below.