Deck the Halls

Yesterday, the Manitoba Legislative Building's doors were opened wide for their annual Christmas open house. Many of the MLAs were on hand to welcome the public into their offices where we could enjoy some eggnog, punch, baking and treats. The halls rang with the carols of the various choirs set up on the grand staircase as people milled from one location to the next or sat to take in the cheery faces of those singing.

It was a real delight to see this architectural beauty again and to snap some photos as we roamed the corridors. It had been several years since I was there last with my photography class.

I waited for the end of one hall to empty but for a single senior sitting on the bench so I could take this picture. The quietness of this scene was soon broken as it filled again with curious visitors.

Christmas Ornament

Each year at Christmas each person in our family tries to select an ornament that speaks of our year, each one of us.

Some years are more difficult than others to pinpoint what those ornaments will be. One year I made up a life preserver ornament that will remind me each Christmas of the time I fell through the ice on the lake and lived to tell about it! Another Christmas I chose a store bought ornament full of cracks and lines and yet was so beautiful - this one spoke of such a difficult year but in the end it all went towards healing and beauty.

There are ornaments that are more fun with fewer heart-strings attached...such as this year's for me. This was the year I began making photo blocks and so I decided I would make a mini-block of one of my more popular images, a blue pumpkin called Carriage in Waiting. Funny how it works...popularity...this is not one of my personal favorites but it still speaks of something of my year...trying to figure out the photography market. I do not have it figured out, by the way, and have decided to just keep taking pictures the way I have been. What comes, comes. What goes, goes. What is favored, is favored.

Someone Else's Christmas

Watching a breakfast television show while working out this morning, I saw the band Quinzy perform Someone Else's Christmas (well done, by the way)...at least I'm pretty sure that was the name of the song. What was powerful for me was watching this band sing while the news ticker scrolled through on the bottom of my screen with reports of fires, murders, court battles and more. For those impacted directly by these news stories and so many others, including loneliness, it may well be someone else's Christmas.

To reach out and show love to someone, to forgive a wrong, to extend grace and mercy to those who struggle with something, with anything, with you...this is the spirit of Christmas. To humbly receive the ultimate gift of love and forgiveness, grace and mercy is not just the spirit of Christmas; it is Christmas and it needn't only be someone else's.

A Breath of Summer

A little break from the wintery shots...

Esplanade Riel, Iced

This is my favorite photo of frost out of the ones I have shot over the years. Taken a couple of years back, the frost was so thick that morning and the cool blue backdrop was perfect.

The Esplanade Riel is such an interesting piece of architecture. Coupled together with the beauty of her surroundings that day, this was indeed a breathtaking view.

Morning Solitude

Bites of Beauty

Sometimes the very beautiful is to be found in the harshness of winter. When the cold bites, this is precisely when the sun shines brightest and dances in and around the dormant branches and fallen grasses. This is one of the prettiest sights.

Had I chosen to stay warm, not risked getting cold and bitten by the frost, I would have missed out on this today.

Kind of like life, no?

Beautiful Things

Recently I've been inspired to put together a photo show. The last time I did this was for my brother-in-law's funeral a year and a half ago and prior to that it had been a long while.

I watched a video on youtube, called Beautiful Things by Gungor. It really moved me and called me to look at hope, grace and mercy afresh. As I listened to the song and watched this duo sing and play, I thought of some of the images I've taken over the past years (one of them is posted below) and wanted to marry them to hope, grace and mercy...or maybe they already were and I was just making that connection.

The journey of compiling this kind of project is long for me. The time varies but the process takes me to places and teaches me things and calls me to apply truth to deeper recesses and darker corners...the distance is long, layered and labored.

Whether or not someone sees the end result is insignificant, at least for me, today.

Creating Something New

Use what you have to create something new. I placed a carnation stem outside and waited for the snow to settle in, not too much, just a few flakes here and there would be perfect. And so it was.

Tucked almost under a leaf's edge, the flakes were bathed in a green cast. This shade created an image heavy in blue tones. In Lightroom, a little sharpening and intensifying of colours already present brought this image of snow to new life.

Much or Little