Photography is the source of my first and most enduring love affair with artistic expression. I was barely into teen-hood when my grandmother handed me her beat-up, old box Brownie camera. To this day whenever my brain gets scrambled by creative overload, I turn to photography, because it never fails to sweep away the muddle. The focus it requires brings clarity much as meditation does for others.

Unlike many photographers who chase the light, I am passionate about capturing the absence of it. I live on the shores of a spring-fed lake surrounded by hundreds of acres woodlands. One of my favourite things about being first awake in our house besides the quiet, is a steaming cup of coffee and time alone at sunrise to marvel at the shadow play amongst the trees as the heat of the rising sun stirs the air.

I’m also fascinated by the layers of story awaiting discovery when the visual clutter of colour is stripped away. In this image my grandson makes me lunch in his first Toronto apartment, which the landlord decorated beautifully with vivid colour choices. Although he is the focus of this shot, by stripping away all colour and focussing on the shadow play, so much more is revealed.  The expression on his face shows he is focussed, confident, comfortable, and pleased by the job at hand, not intimidated in the least by my presence. (My gawd his eyelashes are long!) The appealing pattern repeated in the tea towel draped over his shoulder and the bowl held in his hand isn’t obvious in the colour photo.