Pictures + Words are a first person chronicle of stories, lessons of life, creativity, sometimes humour, and always a picture.
Get Pictures + Words delivered to your inbox!
Thanks for subscribing! Please check your email for further instructions.
I took note of last night’s full moon earlier this week, and then it slipped my mind. I headed down to the beach to take a selfie for an upcoming post with igotout.org. My attempts were marginally successful because I forgot the tripod attachment for my phone at home. With so many itty bitty pieces, […]
It’s been 18 years since I made my first photo at Evergreen Brick Works, the destination of a sweaty bike ride on the weekend. Despite the heat and humidity, the reward for my journey was a hot tea and scone from the cafe and a browse through the recently reopened shop. Except for masking up […]
There’s been a few changes since the last Pictures + Words. The most notable in the context of this story is my decision to upgrade my ten year old digital SLR camera to a mirrorless camera. For non photography buffs, the significance of this change is my equipment is lighter and smaller. Just like when […]
Four Japanese cherry trees grew in the back yard of my childhood home. In the summer, the trees provided much needed shade. Come winter, they became obstacles, standing within the rink my father carefully flooded outside our back door. They figured into skating lessons and hockey games. But these trees are not about their summer […]
Making my way down the stony beach, I drop to my knees behind my tripod every few meters. The rocks are glistening wet. Moments ago they were the ocean floor. Now they are my playground. I keep one eye and ear on the ocean for the change of the tide. The cues of the ocean’s […]
Sitting herewanting words to flow. Today I am the rockinertsteadybut determined. Why continue?Tomorrow’s possibilityto be the water.
How do you tell the difference between a life detour and an adjustment? I apologize (like a good Canadian) if this sounds like a knock knock joke. I’ve been trying to write updates for my About pages all day. If you’ve ever had to do that – or gather the information for someone else – […]
Part one of this story is here: Drive to Crater Lake. I thought I was seeing it all that day, as I drove through the afternoon. Mountains, rivers and hills. I left the Columbia River behind at The Dalles, and carried on south. I still had a ways to go before reaching Klamath Falls. I […]
Fuck and all the other swear words were prohibited in the Tucker household. There were, of course, certain exceptions. My father’s mostly under his breath muttering didn’t count when he was fixing stubborn things or trying to find what he needed under piles of hockey equipment in the furnace room. For me and my three […]
All things worth practicing seem complicated at first. Once the skill is internalized through repetition, we move with increasing ease. Then there’s the other complicated. The complicated of too many choices and too many steps and too many voices telling others what to think and how to live. That’s the complicated I’ve lost the bandwidth […]
This out-and-back trail is easy and fun on the way in. But it earns its name on the way back – Sliding Sands. Working against gravity, the bottom falls away with every step. Envision hands and feet flailing for a grip, and the grit of sand that’s made its way everywhere, including between your teeth. […]
Today’s pearl of wisdom from The Alchemist comes early in the book. (p 7) Santiago visits a fortune teller for guidance. He wants to know if he should travel to Egypt to pursue a treasure he sees in a recurring dream. The fortune teller tells him what he already knows. He should go to Egypt […]
Alchemy and alchemist are old words in the English language. They predate and were precursors for the science of chemistry and the chemist. Alchemists believed they could turn lead into gold. They appear as mystics in legends. In time, alchemy took on a figurative meaning – to transform things for the better. I’ve been reading […]
It’s taken less than a month of near daily writing to get the memoir coming out of me again. It’s taken a while, to prime the pump, as they say, but it feels good. While writing Friday’s daily installment, I selected a photo of Crater Lake which prompted me to write this corresponding story. To […]
I do my best thinking when I’m flying or traveling. To represent that in today’s Daily, I went looking for a photo of a big view. This vista is from a three day drive from Kelowna, BC to Lake Tahoe, Nevada in 2009. I’ll hold and develop the story of how I managed to be […]
My first pandemic plant acquisition was a tiny aloe vera. It was early April. I was looking for something, anything that would bring relief from the physical and psychic agony of my raging eye infection. At the time, doctors were denying me the one thing that would eventually bring relief – antibiotics. In an effort […]
Writing didn’t go as anticipated today. It happened, but I dove into something and couldn’t bring it home in one sitting. I almost gave myself a pass. I wrote extensively, after all. Isn’t that enough? It’s too late to send it out. Won’t my subscribers be bothered? Then I got a nudge. A reminder there […]
This morning my thoughts bent toward the relationship between people, places, things, and how story enhances our connection. Last week I wrote Perspective Shift, a daily letter from last week about waiting for the inevitable return of snow to Toronto. I selected a photo of winter scene at Kew Beach. The way the snow clung […]
