Widow's Endorphins: An Invitation...

Widow's Endorphins: An Invitation...: It's that time of year, when beautifully embossed cards arrive in the mail with the words, "An Invitation to"...a we...

An Invitation...

It's that time of year, when beautifully embossed cards arrive in the mail with the words, "An Invitation to"...a wedding, a bridal shower, a graduation ceremony, or a family celebration.  With Mothers' Day in May, followed by proms, and June wedding month, this is the time of year when many of you are searching for gifts for mothers, daughters and brides.

With this in mind, please accept my invitation to visit the newly opened Widow's Endorphins Photographic Images shop on Etsy (the international on-line source for all things handmade and vintage).

etsy.com/ca/shop/widowsendorphins

It's a small shop in a great big world.  My "itsy bitsy Etsy shop" has a dozen photographic images from which to chose.  In the coming days, stationery will be added to the portfolio of mat framed photographs, so that you too, may send out invitations to your loved ones!

Photo credits:  Ruth Adams, Widow's Endorphins Photographic Images Incorporated

Happy Earth Day!

Earth Day is, depending on where you live, or where you grew up, 25 years old, or 45 years old today! In Canada, Earth Day is officially celebrating a quarter of a century of creating awareness of the fragility of our planet, and love of nature. The first Earth Day took place across the U.S. on April 22, 1970.  Those of you who grew up in the suburbs of Vancouver, Canada, where Greenpeace was born, will remember Earth Day activities in school in the early 70's.  

I was a young teenager, when our school held its first Earth Day event.  The whole school participated.  I saw my very first multi-media sound and light show in the darkened gymnasium, and it made a massive impression - not just the message, the medium too!  This was the time before video, so film and slides and spinning lights were projected onto a giant screen (or was it a couple of bedsheets stitched together?)  I saw images of pollution that I had never seen before.  Warnings about the frightening future of our planet, were offset by information on what each of us could do to clean up the environment.

For many of us, gardening is part of that movement towards creating a healthier world.  Planting a tree, restoring an old rose garden, growing your own vegetables, are all ways to make a difference not only in your own life, in the lives of those around you, too.

My cousin Ruth, and her husband have created a solar powered organic farm, which provides them with an abundance of food throughout the year!  My Aunt Lise grows vegetables, and market flowers, and in her younger days, kept hives of bees which produced amazing honey.  While I have had great success with flowers, I have not inherited the gene for producing great produce.  My puny, mealy balcony tomatoes are laughed at by squirrels and birds, and my blueberry plant produced only a tablespoon of berries (just enough for one bowl of morning cereal).

A garden can create a place of peace and harmony, even in the midst of one of the busiest cities in the world.  So it is with this tiny piece of paradise, just steps from a major intersection in Toronto, Canada.  Every time I look at this photograph, "Bumble Bee in Bee Balm", I can almost smell the sweet fragrance of a Summer day in the country, and hear the sound of the bee humming through the morning's work.

I took the picture while on a short walk through the park next door, at a time when I was caring for both my late husband who was diagnosed with liver cancer, and had just been placed on the liver transplant list, and also for my elderly mother who was paralyzed and bedridden.  I know many caregivers around the world.  What we all share, is love for those in our care, and a need for a quiet, serene place to go (even if it is only in our heads).  It is restorative.  Rejuvenating.  Creative.

Almost all of the photographs I have taken over the years, have been taken in the park next door.  It is a place for volunteer gardeners; young mothers teaching their children about butterflies and the fragrance of flowers; elderly couples resting on benches under the rose trellises;  office workers on their lunchbreaks;  even brides and their entourage getting their wedding photographs taken.  Gardens enrich our lives.

In honour of Earth Day, begin planting a garden...or, if it is still too cold, begin planning one!    

For more information on Earth Day, www.earthday.org

For the curious:  The Bumble Bee may not be a Honeybee, however, it too pollinates plants.  The brilliantly coloured Bee Balm is a member of the Mint family, and was used in Native medicine as an astringent.

Photo Credit:  Ruth Adams, Widow's Endorphins Photographic Images Incorporated

Happy Easter!

Photo Credits:  Ruth Adams, Widow's Endorphins Photographic Images Inc.

Daffodil Bouquets

A few of my favourites from yesterday's daffodil photo shoot.  Which would you choose for stationery, and mat framed photographs?

Photo Credits:  Ruth Adams, Widow's Endorphins Photographic Images Incorporated

Widow's Endorphins: Daffodils

Widow's Endorphins: Daffodils: As I have so often said, "my idea of the great outdoors is an outdoor cafe".  I will never be the photographer who crawls thro...

Daffodils

As I have so often said, "my idea of the great outdoors is an outdoor cafe".  I will never be the photographer who crawls through a snake infested swamp to capture an image of a rare orchid, or who hires a Sherpa guide to lead her to a single wildflower clinging to a precipice.  I prefer the garden variety of flowers - roses, peonies, irises, and lilacs in the Gardens of Giverny, Versailles, Grasse, or for the time being, the park next door - the wilderness tamed out of them.        

Some things cannot be tamed.  As a "budding" floral photographer, the daffodil is my own floral version of Shakespeare's Shrew, which I cannot tame.  It is for me, the most challenging flower to photograph in its natural environment.  In Canada, daffodils bloom during the windy months of early Spring.  They dance with even the slightest breeze - their heads nodding like Mike Myers and Dana Carvey in their Wayne's World performance of Bohemian Rhapsody.

If there's a personal style to my photography, it is to get up close to a flower.  I work with natural light.  I don't use a tripod.  I just relax, and breath deeply, hold the camera steady, frame the shot, focus, and...the wind blows the daffodils out of the frame.  Again, deep breath, frame the shot, and click...another blurry shot of a daffodil moving across the frame.  Deep breath, and...the Prima Donna daffodil is photo bombed by a chorus line of daffodils.  The gloves are off - really off - because I can't click the camera while wearing my thick Winter gloves.  So, I'm freezing while waiting for the wind to die down.  Time stands still, daffodils don't.

As I write this, there's not a bloomin' daffodil to be found East of the Rocky Mountains.  Not in the great outdoors.  You have to buy them, and photograph them indoors.  Luckily, April is Daffodil Month for the Canadian Cancer Society, and they bring them in by the truckload.

The latest figures show that in 2013, the Canadian Cancer society's Daffodil Campaign raised more than 19-million dollars to help cancer patients living with cancer, and to fund further research into prevention, and treatment.

The Canadian Cancer Society says, "to some, the daffodil is just a flower.  For us, it is a symbol of strength and courage.  It says we will not give up.  It says we will fight against cancer and we will win."  The dance-in-a-thunderstorm daffodil is the symbol of an unbreakable spirit.  The daffodil may just tame cancer!

In loving memory of my husband, Brande Gentray, who died of liver cancer in October 2014.  He had great strength and courage.  He had an unbreakable spirit.

The Canadian Cancer Society www.cancer.ca

Photo credits:  Ruth Adams, Widow's Endorphins Photographic Images Incorporated