Summer is here and with it come summer weekends, wildlife and summer storms over the prairie. All packaged in a wrapping of quietness and laziness. Well, for most of us. If you want to photograph that laziness, you’d better get moving before the summer is over.

The weekend usually starts on…

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When I was young, I listened to a piece of music called “Fishing junks at sunset”, performed by Jean-Michel Jarre. It is a very old Chinese song known as the "Fisherman's Chant at Dusk". At the time I thought my then favourite composer had written it. Recently, I came across “Fishing yawls at sunrise”. No song this time, not even music.

Just the serenity of Lake Winnipeg at 4am. I had the chance to go out with a friend and some local fishermen on their boats called yawls.

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It’s this time of the year again, the time when the skies in Manitoba change by the minute. Going from pale blue to outright menacing.

Sky and weather have always been one of my “more serious” interests, trying to find out why a certain weather type occurs. Storms are the obvious choice for this kind of research, but other skies are equally interesting. With the added benefit that I don’t have to have the dents removed from my car once I’m done shooting hail storms…

Read more: Skies of Manitoba (9)

When speaking of wildlife, it is understood that we talk about birds, deer, moose and so on. A lesser known fact is that Manitoba also has native plants. One of those plant families is the Orchids. Manitoba has 37 different wild orchids.

Now if they had said 273 orchids, I would have said, “Fine, I’ll see what I can get” but 37 is a doable goal to get them all. Or at least get close. So last week I went hunting for orchids.

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Of all the animals on earth, insects are by far the most prevalent. Insects also look the most scary, if you look at them up close. If you can get close enough, the details are simply astonishing. A few years ago, my first and only shot of a willing dragonfly was this one.

After that, it was a hit and miss adventure to get them. Mostly the “miss” part…

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We have all heard about them. We all know where they come from. But I can attest that I have seen one. This one was limping a bit so he was not fast enough to escape my camera. A few weeks ago, the Northern Lights were out in force. Nothing was forecast, no warning emails in my inbox, nothing. Yet, some indicators showed that it might be one heck of a show.

So I called a friend of mine and told him what could be for the night. As usual, he was game for this and we set out to the north. The north-north was packed with one big band of heavy clouds. As usual, was my thought. However, to the east, the clouds seemed to be going from less to nonexistent.

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A few weeks ago, the inevitable happened. I found myself in a place where most people don’t want to be. A place where atrocities and unwanted intimacies were committed without much extra punishment. The local jail. My particular crime to end up in there? Curiosity, nothing more, nothing less. Innocent as a baby, just like everyone else in there.

Open Doors Winnipeg has made the Vaughan Street Jail a star attraction. A place I have always wanted to see, but somehow always missed. This year, however, it was jail time for me.

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