If I knew where the good songs came from, I’d go there more often.
It’s a mysterious condition. Leonard Cohen

Photography, by coupling documentation with intuition and poetic experience, allows each of us to preserve precious moments. Moments which excite wonder and defy words. Over many years, I traveled great distances, climbed many mountains (in Japan, Israel, China, and India) searching for endangered species growing in their natural habitats. People in China and India were a bonus. Photographing April in Paris and Joséphine’s roses at La Roseraie du Val-de-Marne (outside of Paris) provided other precious moments. All of this was accomplished with Kodachrome 25 film.
In recent years, my travels have been local. I continue to photograph flowers; some that I grow, others in my neighborhood; clouds off my west-facing deck; flames in my fireplace. Snow in my backyard, colored light through my beveled glass window. People are Rowan Gillespie’s five statues (Arrival) at Ireland Park, Éireann Quay, Toronto. The statue images highlight the importance of perspective and time of year.
John Constable, in the 1820s, went out on Hampstead Heath at 11 o’clock to paint clouds in the natural light—to be experienced, not remembered. A century later, Alfred Stieglitz began photographing clouds; he saw them as equivalents of his most profound life experiences. A century later, I recognise clouds as a vehicle of my own thoughts and feelings.
I continue to search for those extraordinary moments that stay with us for the rest of our lives. If I knew where precious moments came from, I’d live there.