Untimely Philosophy

After trying to write up something intelligent, full of meaning, and deeply enriching, I decided not to. Really, there is no point. Sometimes, you just have to let the picture speak for you. 'A picture paints a thousand words', but sometimes it needs a bit of polishing to make a statement, someone to unite the thousand words into one, coherent, text. And sometimes not. Or, maybe, just maybe, 1 AM is not the time to be trying to weave anything remotely poetic.

What do I think this picture means? What are my thoughts and feelings about it? What do I want to say?

Ask me in 8 hours.

Toronto's High Park, at the end of April. The grass hadn't yet started to grow green, and the trees were still bare. While walking in the park, I came across this stairway leading nowhere, on which someone had spray painted 'Stairway to Heaven', but not in the right direction - an observation which can be argued. It seemed...interesting... that the stairway was directly beside a fallen tree, which gave it a nice artistic quality, with odd angles and shapes making it pleasing to the eye and to the mind, but at the same time having a disturbing, almost forgotten quality to it.

As to what the photo means, I won't say just yet what my point of view is. I am interested in seeing what you have to say. The comments are open...

Scout Camp

Camp Kinkora, in St-Adolphe-d'Howard, about an hour and a half north of Montreal. Even when you're part of the Scouts, freezing in the below-zero weather, you can appreciate the beauty of your surroundings: the frozen lake, the lonely chapel, the snow-covered trees...Beautiful! And, to prove it, here are some of the pictures that I took during our recent winter camp.

The Midnight Sun

On March 19th, 2011, there was a full moon in the night sky, over Montreal. Beautiful, bright, and just waiting to be photographed. So, I took my camera and, after trying for a few minutes, finally got the perfect settings. Here is the result.

After this, I can't wait to do more night-time shots, hopefully including some really amazing things, like meteor showers, eclipses, and, eventually (hopefully!), Aurora borealis (the much-admired Northern Lights). I even have a list of a few experiments that I would like to try, some involving telescopes, others trips to the foresty areas of northern Quebec, where electrical lights are few, and where the nights sky shines bright with a beauty unequalled by anything that you can see from the city.

So, my first ever picture and blog post! Yay!

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In winter, Montreal becomes a beautiful place. Sure, there's the bone-chilling weather, yes, there's the ice and snow, the dangerous driving conditions, the paralyzing snowstorms, the.....you get the picture. But it's not only blizzards and other such assaults from Mother Nature. There is, still, a calm, quiet, frigid sort of beauty to the whole thing. 

This picture was taken on the morning of December 10th, 2011, as I made my way across the bridge linking the northern suburb of Laval to the island of Montreal. The nearly-frozen river, the bridge, and the blueish light set the tone for this 'cool' picture.

And yes, this is the background picture for the blog (right now, anyway).

© Karine Topalian