Author Archives: Rachael

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About Rachael

Professional fine art photographer.

Life itself

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“Water, thou hast no taste, no color, no odor; canst not be defined, art relished while ever mysterious. Not necessary to life, but rather life itself, thou fillest us with a gratification that exceeds the delight of the senses.”
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Wind, Sand, and Stars (1939)

“If there is magic on this planet, it is contained in water.”
Loran Eisley, The Immense Journey (1957)

“All the water that will ever be is, right now.”
National Geographic, October 1993

“I believe that water is the only drink for a wise man.”
Henry David Thoreau

“I never drink water. I’m afraid it will become habit-forming.”
W.C. Fields

A recycled habitat

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Fragile

A recycled forest in the heart of Montreal’s Eaton Centre.

Last summer, while in Montreal on holiday, we visited the Eaton Centre and came across an art installation made from recycled waste materials from the shopping centre.  Called Fragile, it was the work of Roadsworth and Brian Armstrong.  Given access to the Centre’s recycling bins over eight months, the artists transformed the retail centre into an ecosystem.

Cardboard trees with soda can leaves.

Bubble wrap salmon leap up a plastic bottle stream.

Cardboard lily pad with plastic bottle and coat hanger frog.

Coat hanger dragonflies with cellophane wings.

Strolling through the recycled garden.

“When you present something playfully, or even satirically, you create a space where people can drop their defences. When you manage to do this, you can reach them at a level at which they’ll be receptive to what you have to say.”
— Peter Gibson (a.k.a. Roadsworth)

FRAGILE

 

For so work the honey bees

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For so work the honey bees,
Creatures that by a rule in nature teach
The act of order to a peopled kingdom.
They have a king, and officers of sorts,
Where some like magistrates correct at home;
Others like merchants venture trade abroad;
Others like soldiers, armed in their stings,
Make boot upon the summer’s velvet buds,
Which pillage they with merry march bring home
To the tent-royal of their emperor;
Who, busied in his majesty, surveys
The singing masons building roofs of gold,
The civil citizens kneading up the honey,
The poor mechanic porters crowding in
Their heavy burdens at his narrow gate,
The sad-ey’d justice, with his surly hum,
Delivering o’er to executors pale
The lazy yawning drone.

William Shakespeare, Henry V, I.ii

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Slow and steady

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With perseverance the snail reached the ark.

Charles Haddon Spurgeon

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The year’s at the spring
And day’s at the morn;
Morning’s at seven;
The hillside’s dew-pearled;
The lark’s on the wing;
The snail’s on the thorn;
God’s in his heaven –
All’s right with the world!

Robert Browning

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One image three ways

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I like this slightly arty shot of a cricket in my garden.  I like the way the cricket barely emerges from its environment. But which version of the image do you like best?  The cool-colour version above. Or the warmer version below.

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Or the minimal black and white?

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Raynox newbie

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I have a new toy, a Raynox DCR-250 super macro conversion lens.  It is a cheap alternative to a macro lens but I am actually using it to get even closer than my macro lens.  It clips onto my 100mm macro to let me get super close.

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Depth of field at these sorts of magnifications is ridiculously thin and to get the most out of it you need a tripod and flash.  So I doubt it will be an oft-used piece of kit for my favourite genre, natural light bug macros outdoors.

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Still, it did give me a lot of fun yesterday afternoon putting it through its paces trying to capture something of the very smallest critters in my garden.  The red-eyed fly below is smaller than an aphid.

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Volucella Zonaria

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One of the many interesting insects I snapped for the first time last year was this hoverfly. It’s a whopper and if you don’t know your hoverflies from your hornets, rather scary. This critter is designed to mimic the European Hornet, and it does a good job! Apparently this one is a male. Yes, I can now sex hoverflies – is there no end to the fairly useless and geeky things I am learning through photography?

Remembrance

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What is Death?
Death is nothing at all.
I have only slipped away into the next room.
I am I and you are you.
Whatever we were to each other,
that we still are.

Call me by my old familiar name.
Speak to me in the easy way
which you always used.
Put no difference in your tone.
Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow.

Laugh as we always laughed
at the little jokes we enjoyed together.
Play, smile, think of me, pray for me.
Let my name be ever the household word
that it always was.
Let it be spoken without affect,
without the trace of a shadow on it.

Life means all that it ever meant.
It is the same that it ever was.
There is absolutely unbroken continuity.
Why should I be out of mind
because I am out of sight?

I am waiting for you,
for an interval,
somewhere very near,
just around the corner.

All is well.
~ Henry Scott Holland

Please note, I have not recently suffered a bereavement. I admire this poem and wanted to take an image to fit it.