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spa_for_YT from Jackie Ferrier on Vimeo.

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downhill_for_YT from Jackie Ferrier on Vimeo.

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dog_sled_for_YT from Jackie Ferrier on Vimeo.

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Rather surprised to discover 9K plus notes on these images I shot several years ago now. I can't remember where we were going at the time, but I remember seeing the weather start to shift to this, and had to stop. Grabbed my camera and ran out in my light jacket and running shoes slipping on to the ice, not at all dressed properly for the weather and took a zillion shots.

And here it is years later with all these people enjoying it. :)

Winter Beacon & Winter Elements by Jackie Ferrier

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*the trial separation I’m referring to is between me and my phone not me and my kids, lol.

Locusts.  

If there was a year for it…

I think I came up with this idea not only because of the universal symbolism of locusts, but also because at a certain point this was how I was feeling.  All those locusts were demands upon my attention.

I work alone at home so I am used to being on my own. Being an introvert this is the best time to get work done. But once the lockdowns started to occur, there was a phase before people adjusted where they were getting a little wonky. Suddenly everyone was home, everyone was on social media and various extroverts in my life got needy and now everyone knew where I was.  At first, I too, thought i was trapped and needy, but as it turned out, it was a very minor adjustment for me more of a lack of freedom to choose, more than anything else.

I started to extend my ‘do not contact’ hours, (this is imaginary - it’s simply me going off the grid so to speak) so where they got later and later in the morning, and earlier in the evening. They are pretty much 11 am to 5 pm, but even then you might not get a hold of me because I’m working or involved with something. My relationship with my phone changed.  Once I knew where my kids were, we had a trial separation.

I think, if you let it, or maybe if you are forced into it by your various neuroses, this time can teach you about yourself. I have certainly done a whole lot of self-reflection during this period.  It hasn’t always been pleasant. But one thing for sure. I’ll have to make sure to protect my time.

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Some more of my work over the Covid-19 era.  I don’t know about you, but I’ve definitely had moments where I was overwhelmed.  There was definitely a whole lot more to think about.

When ever I dream about water, I pay attention as water is suppose to signitify emotions.  

I made this composite with a water shot by Berend de Kort’s. I made the rabbit head, of course and shot myself and the bear.

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Well, a whole lot has changed since I last posted from a creative work perspective. For now I have put my land, sky and waterscapes on hold.

I used to go for drives with a partner. We’d stop somewhere and I’d shoot. With a couple of drinks and maybe a snack or two these excursions doubled as a sort of cheap dates. He spent a lot of time I didn’t have exploring the backroads. I’d state a general kind of preference and he work out the fine details of how and where we might go.

But things change. The partner and I parted ways. It’s one think to go for a drive while enjoying the company of a friend. It’s another to do it alone. Getting out of the GTA is a commitment, and I am less inclined to go trekking off on my own miles away from anything in an untrustworthy car.

The work of my landscapes is part of my love for light. I just love light.

When I started to see that my interest in skies were echoing my late father’s, I couldn’t help but feel I was borrowing what I was doing. Is this really mine? Or am i postponing living in my own skin.

And even earlier going down the documentary path that I did, this was the realm of my late husband’s. You always have your own reasons for doing things, of course. I knew this works better.

But sometimes I think we borrow from others because someone else has already validated it. It’s safer. More comfortable, maybe.

But there may be others reasons why we become directionless. Maybe we don’t believe in our gifts. Or maybe to follow your own path is exposing. Maybe the feared critism will cut too deep, too personally. Maybe you will be revealed for the fraud you think you are.

I don’t know. But all this came out of a question. As I looked at the possibility that maybe I didn’t have as much time as I thought left, I looked back on my life and saw it as a whole, I thought, what the fuck was the point of all that?

So now that I think of it maybe I concluded the pain and hardship you encounter in your life, if youve encountered enough if it, maybe it should count for something. That maybe I should make something of mine because otherwise, it seems like such a waste.

And so sometimes you must simply begin. Without knowing where it’s leading or what you are meant to be doing. It’s unlike me to go without a plan. I have to trust that something inside me or speaks through me will lead as long as I get out of way. Easier said they done. We get in our own way.

It’s funny, I doubt my abilities less than the part of me that is doubtful about the usefulness of art. But, somehow I don’t think I chose this journey. It chose me.

So now I am trying to listen to the vibrations inside me. The ones I’ve trampled over, or otherwise ignored. Follow those preoccupations. Don’t question. Don’t try to please. Don’t try to antisipate. Listen. Just listen. Trust.

What I hoped was the desire to please would subside. It hasn’t. I’m still have the same sensitivities. The difference is the shift in focus. Instead if looking at other people’s work and wishing i had done it first, or thinking perhaps that’s the direction I should explore, I’m looking inward. Go back to that that question, that exasperation, that despair, that desperation. What was the point of that? What is the point if all of it? What am I here for?

And if you are speaking to me, whether it’s praise or critism I have to do my best to shut you out because only I can hear the thing and it speaks quietly.

It’s like looking at a murky, grainy video and trying to make it out. Or seeing something in the dark. You think you see it and then your not sure. But bit by bit it takes shape. Something out or nothing. Or was it nothing?

The work that follows is infinitely more personal and introspective.

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The last hot weekend of the year and the softest sand. The next day it was beautiful here and we stayed in the water swimming and splashing until the sun went down and it got dark.

I treated the sky and the sun and twilight as if I am used to it, as if I know it. Oh, lovely sunset. Magic silhouettes. Now it’s dark. Time to go home, time to go eat.

I think about the universe sometimes, how huge and mysterious it is, experience a brief anxiety thinking about the concept of time and what about it I don’t know, will never know, and a much longer moment of awe as I contemplate how we are just the smallest spark in the history of time and space, nothing. How small our problems should be.

The stars are living their long mysterious life out there. I think of them. But I imagine they think nothing of us.

———— Please keep the photo credit if you reblog. :)

Photo credit: https://jackieferrier.com . 

Follow on https://www.instagram.com/jackie.ferrier/

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Sunrise on the last day of Spring.

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Summer’s almost here.

Photo credit: https://jackieferrier.com . 

Follow on https://www.instagram.com/jackie.ferrier/

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Brooding Skies and Turquoise Waters

Toward the end of the day, the light took on that mystical quality when a storm might come. dark skies, but with an eerie light that seems to be directionless, making everything lighter than you think it should be. The distant mist across the water slowly crept closer and at one point I wondered how it could have got so close so quickly.

By then everyone had left and we were the only ones there. Just us and this magical moment. That in itself gave pause for thought. Like animals that ran for cover, did the vanished visitors know something we did not?

It was at this particular moment that we felt the imposing presence of nature. Beautiful. But impartial.

Photo credit: https://jackieferrier.com . 

Follow on https://www.instagram.com/jackie.ferrier/

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Headed up to Tobermory, Bruce Peninsula region for a quick photo trip to have a look at the aquamarine water.  But even with that tropical looking water, the landscape never lets you forget you are in Canada.

Photo credit: https://jackieferrier.com . 

Follow on https://www.instagram.com/jackie.ferrier/

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I’m showing this one this weekend. But I think I need one for myself.

photo credit: Jackie Ferrier

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(via Winter Elements)

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(via Winter Beacon)

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(via The Softness of Winter)

Winter is often harsh, bitter and cold in Canada. The cold and the wind snaps at our legs, scrapes our faces raw, and bites the tips of our fingers. Our eyes water, our noses run.

We celebrate our ability to tough it out. It makes us feel alive. And that experience of that special warm burn of our rosy skin as it begins to warm up. Only we who know the cold know that deliciousness. When we brave the elements, we say this is what being Canadian is about! We say it with a strange kind of almost manic exhilaration.

We have to tell ourselves that. Otherwise, how could we bear it, this unrelenting harshness? Day after day, week after week, month after month, when by March we are all snapping at one another.

But the truth is, when you’ve dressed properly, and you take the time to look, winter has a softness about it at times, maybe even a kind of sadness, as the day comes to a close, that it should be so reviled, so misunderstood. The dusting of snow caressing the curves of a field highlighting shapes we haven’t noticed before; the gentle but passionate colour of the sky embracing the earth: it’s not all icy blues and blinding whites. It never is.

Softness at times, like fighting lovers who pause, exhausted perhaps, to briefly remember the love they once shared, a small smile, a glimpse of softness, softness before it descends into darkness.

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(via Rolling Great Lake Winter Clouds)

Under the right conditions, cloud will sit over Lake Ontario in the winter.

These were the last of them for 2017, blue and brooding settling in a pink sky.

Shot at dusk Dec 31 2017.