Cattails within Reflection
Water – within the past week I’ve slipped and nearly tumbled on water that’s oozed and frozen into globs of ice on High Level sidewalks during my morning walks. Water has met with gravitational pull and been transported as precipitation from clouds through a distance of kilometres to earth, sprinkling erratically. Water that’s changed state from snow or ice has in its melting been responsible for transport of dust and dirt from sidewalks to drains and through sewage systems. Water has been the key ingredient in transforming dirt into mud and curiously the removal of soil from our bodies is best accomplished with … water. And, within this photo water that is not in motion becomes mirror, an enigma catching my attention as I’m able to focus through its surface to the detail in my subject, the cattails. The water mirror allows cattails to become foreground to the backdrop of clouds of pink sunset, a feat that would not have been possible without this water mirror.
Listening to – Ray Lamontagne’s I Still Care For You, Ryan Adams’ Come Pick Me Up and David Gray’s Fugitive. The David Gray tune from yesterday that’s stuck in my head is We’re Not Right; the other is Shawn Colvin’s take on We All Fall Down. Today, David Gray’s My Oh My plays out to the end of this post.
Quote to Inspire – “In photography there is a reality so subtle that it becomes more real than reality.” – Alfred Stieglitz
In My Back Pocket - Photography 
Very nice.
Hey there, Sam … thank you for your kind words and for looking in. Take care,
beautiful!
I loved the picture but I think I liked the prose even more:
“….slipped and nearly tumbled on water that’s oozed and frozen into globs of ice on High Level sidewalks … met with gravitational pull and been transported as precipitation from clouds through a distance of kilometres to earth, sprinkling erratically … responsible for transport of dust and dirt from sidewalks to drains and through sewage systems … transforming dirt into mud … water that is not in motion becomes mirror … The water mirror allows cattails to become foreground to the backdrop of clouds of pink sunset.
Elegant!
Our/my relationship to precipitation, up here, just south of the sixtieth parallel is multi-faceted – snow, rain, ice, mist; it’s beautiful, it’s tricky and it’s something to be respected. One November, while teaching in a fly-in community the region was fogged in for two weeks and happened to fall on a payday. Cheques that would have been flown in so that teachers et al could fly out needed to be picked up via a different route. One of our education directors and I took a skiff down the Peace River half a day to retrieve cheques for school personnell. The fog was thick enough that I need to navigate from the front of the boat while the education director steered via the outboard motor – interesting days. 🙂
Your series on cattails reminds me of my childhood … simpler times, peaceful times. Thank you!
Mona … that cattails remind me of childhood, too. My mother would have been pointing them out to me and my brothers on drives in and around Edmonton and to a from my cousin’s farm in Rimbey. Back when Edmonton was not so big, I could get out onto the prairie walking only a block and then there was the expanse of land with trees, fields and sloughs (with cattails). 🙂
I grew up in small-town Southern Indiana and we frequently fished in ponds or small lakes (with cane poles). For a while we lived on a small farm & had our very own pond. All of these ponds and lakes were (are) edged with these wonderful plants.