Venice 2016

And Polo said: 'Every time I describe a city I am saying 

something about Venice.” 

from Invisible Cites 

By Italio Calvino

Dorothy Badlands

"out there, inaccessible
to grammar's language the 
stones curve vastnesses,
cold or candescent
in the perceived 
processional of space."

Stone's Secret
Margaret Avison

Ant and flower, Dorothy

Love: as though the stars
rushed in upon a void, and in extinction
left a flower.

Disintegration in a Dream of Love
D.G. Jones

Dorothy Alberta

"unconscious of the hand of time

that makes all things vanish, all fade,

all suffer change.

And they live today as if they were forever,

when they are here only for a day. 

And I observe, and I am like them

only for a day "

from Early Morning

by Louis Dudek

https://www.ghosttowns.com/canada/alberta/dorothy.htm

Dorothy Alberta

"INTO my heart on air that kills 

From yon far country blows: 

What are those blue remembered hills, 

What spires, what farms are those? 

That is the land of lost content, 

I see it shining plain, 

The happy highways where I went 

And cannot come again."

from A Shropshire Lad

by A. E. Housman 

Warblers

"One brilliantly cold Alberta day
the teacher wrote on the blackboard
'1928' -- for the first time. Everything was changing "

from A Seed of History
by Margaret Avison

One advantage of having an overgrown weedy tip as a yard is the number of birds in this case warblers that stop by during migration. 





In one hour, I photographed one or more of the following Yellow-Rumped Warbler, American Redstart, Wilsons Warbler, Hairy Woodpecker, and possibly a Yellow Crowned Warbler. One problem with the current software programmers love for updating software that was actually working fine, means most of the photos from that session are now lost. I am not taking credit, it is all on them. Just saying.



"Do not think for one minute it is the Poem that matters.
It is not the Poem that matters.
You can shove the Poem.
What matters is what is out there in the large dark
and in the long light,
Breathing."

from Let Me Make This Perfectly Clear
by Gwendolyn MacEwen

Funnel-web Spiders

We arrived home last week. On the way we stayed overnight in a hotel in Kindersley. In the morning we walked the dogs down a dirt lane behind the hotel. The spider webs were obvious in the early light, but it was Helen who noticed each web had central pit. When I went back to take photos I found 5 or 6 webs within a small area. While I saw some movement I did not try to tease any of the spiders out. Once we were home I learned these were a type of Funnel-web spider often called hobo or grass spiders but I do not know the actual species, I have always been interested insects and want to do more micro-photography. I will make it a priority  next year at the cabin. Just before we left the cabin I noticed a number of different spiders dropping from the bark we collected for the fires which really intrigued me so I would like to try to indentify them next year. 

https://www.livescience.com/41515-funnel-web-spiders.html

As I edited the photos I began to see the beauty in the compositions themselves, This in turn has led me to manipulate the images a bit more. The central eye with its network of webs and the bright colours of the mini forests seen from above, reminded me of other natural images science exposes us to. Images of the brain, aerial shots of hurricanes, the clouds of cosmic dust that swirl out among the galaxies. 

My favourite photographer Eliot Porter created a book of photos based on natural patterns, Nature's Chaos, Eliot Porter - James Gleick, and this is something I would love to emulate in future photos.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/157979.Nature_s_Chaos

"The Spider as an Artist
Has never been employed --
Though his surpassing Merit
Is freely certified

By every Broom and Bridget
Throughout a Christian Land --
Neglected Son of Genius
I take thee by the Hand --"

Emily Dickinson