“I have gone into the fields to take what this sweet hour yields…”
Percy Bysshe Shelley
Mother had this quote painted on a lovely blue wood sign with fields of daisies around the words, and hung it over the front door of our log house on Salt Spring Island in 1965. Barn swallows perched on it! The sign remained there until 2012, when I sold Bold Bluff and moved with the sign to Grace Point.
It speaks of the gentleness of my Mother, and her love of Nature.
The words also speak to the heart of what I do with my photography: I venture out into Nature to see what I can see, and am frequently surprised by the gifts Nature provides if only we are there, patiently watching and curious. The fields are not always fields of daisies: they are fields of ocean waves, fields of eelgrass on a muddy shore, or fields of clouds in a night sky.
My camera sees things I could not possibly see with my naked eyes, and I am blessed with the gifts that flash across the shutter and appear on my computer screen. For instance, I had no idea seals have five fingers like ours, and they are as mobile as our own fingers, able to curve around a large octopus tentacle. I thought their flippers were flat like a whale’s.
My passion is being submersed in Nature’s bounty on our island home, and in sharing it with others.
