Laura Tucker

Photographer, Writer, Podcast Host

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Full Moon Rising

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Full moon rising over Lake Ontario in Toronto with dazzling purple hues in the sky and water

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 almost inevitable that something gets left behind.

What could have been simple became a balancing act! I took dozens of photos of me holding up my camera and a piece of paper with #igotout on it. Between the breeze and balancing the phone over sand while I held the paper in one hand and my camera in the other, there were some comedic results! I don’t know about most people, but I have a hard time looking into the lens instead of myself on the screen. It was particularly challenging because of all the extra accoutrements. Thankfully one of the images is usable.

By the time I was done, the sun had set in the east. A passing stranger spotted my camera and asked, “Are you here for the full moon?” When I turned around to face west, there was a sliver of light between the clouds low in the sky. The moon was rising over the water. Hungry and needing a pee, I almost packed it in.

The sliver was orange. It was going to be one of those dazzling autumn moonrises.

My brain switched into creative mode. Dinner and the rest of it could wait.

The hues of the sky and water shifted from blue to purple to orange as the moon ascended in the sky

Full moon rising over Lake Ontario in Toronto with dazzling orange hues in the sky and water

Full Circle Moment

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Side by side photos of Evergreen Brick Works in 2021 and 2003

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 to go indoors, it was possible to forget the pandemic for a few moments.

I relished watching people explore the site, and shared a laugh with a stranger when her puppy flopped to the ground at my feet. It wasn’t the heat. She was swooning for a share of my scone. Looking around at the reclaimed site, now full of mature flowers and gravel trails, I remembered my first visit in 2003.

My apartment was in a brick low rise building just north of the dilapidated industrial site on Bayview. It occurs to me now the building was likely made from bricks from the clay on this very site. Before I got into photography, I’d zip past the Brick Works several times a week on my way in and out of the downtown core without giving it a second thought.

My curiosity was piqued after I bought my first film camera and tripod. As part of a school assignment, I paid the site a visit. It was the end of the day. Wandering the vacant property, I was drawn to the water and grasses beyond the main buildings. The building cast a warm reflection on the cool blue mirror of the pond. I settled in and came away with one keeper for my efforts.

Before leaving for an even hotter bicycle ride home, I took a walk through what is now a beautiful garden, past the pond onto a small bridge that has been built since my first visit. The vantage point is almost the same as my original photo.

I took a few quick shots with my phone, and paused to take in this full circle moment. The Brick Works has evolved from a decrepit space to a vibrant hub. And although I find myself in exactly the same physical location, the place is not the same, and neither am I.

📷 Toronto’s Evergreen Brick Works – July 2021 (left) and October 2003 (right)

Just Bee-ing

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Photo of a honey bee polinating lavender

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 35mm cameras (arguably) caught up with their larger format predecessors, the technology has (arguably) caught up in a new range the smaller mirrorless cameras.

As if a ten year leap forward in technology wouldn’t be enough change, I also changed camera lines. It almost killed me to sell my trademark white Canon zoom lenses. I was attached to their enviable quality, and they’ve been with me everywhere for the past couple of decades. For a last time, I cradled them like babies before I releasing them to the wilderness of Facebook Marketplace.

I bought my very first camera – a Fuji FZ 3000 Zoom – in 1991 when I was in between my Psychology degree at University of Toronto and my Education degree at York University. I paid for it with tips from a lucrative summer tending bar at the first rooftop patio at Studebakers in Toronto, the iconic 60s theme bar on Pearl Street. Even though I was on track to become a teacher, photography was bubbling to the surface as a significant driver in my life even then.

Smooth at all its edges and held horizontally like a pair of binoculars, The FZ-3000 stood out from the crowd. I would be stopped everywhere I carried it by strangers wanting to know about my strange contraption. Because of its shape and the size it needed to be to accommodate an exceptional zoom lens, they were usually disappointed to find out it was “just a photo camera” and not the latest evolution of a video camera. Photo buffs, on the other hand, would salivate and gaze at the lens with misty eyes.

My present choice for a new camera was in part a nostalgic return to Fuji, now rebranded as Fujifilm. In an ironic twist, my new Fujifilm XT4 is an eye-catcher in its own right, but not for its futurist design. Externally, it’s a throwback, designed to look like the beautiful cameras of the 1960s. This was attractive to me. Its reminds me of the 1964 Minolta camera my father chased us around with as children.

A decision of this significance can’t be just about looks, so I balanced my attraction to the XT4’s aesthetics by watching and reading every review available on the internet. I’m sure I would have waited for a silver model if supply hadn’t been limited because – never mind, I’m not going us the P word today.

For the past couple of months, I have been learning how to use a radically different camera than the ones I could operate in my sleep for the past decade. Even on manual, I still trip up! The dials are in different locations and I swear the zoom turns in the opposite direction. Rewiring my brain to compose and shoot quickly is taking a while, but it’s coming along, and it’s a joyful process.

This brings me to the bee just bee-ing. Having been locked down for most of the past year and a half, a lot of my creative energy has been directed towards our garden. Last year we tore out old overgrown shrubs and replaced them with grasses and lavender, favourites from my gardens in Kelowna. This year has been more about enjoyment and using it to escape my desk in my home office.

This past weekend, I was wrote at the back yard table. Taking time in between thoughts to be still, I watched the grasses and lavender move in an almost nonexistent breeze. A honey bee moved between the swaying purple blooms. I felt a familiar nudge to get my camera.

I shot slowly and deliberately, fumbling with the dials a little less than the last time. The bee is a different subject for me. I’m more of a mountain girl, accustomed to shooting things that don’t move unpredictably. I threw the lens wide open to let as much light in as possible and held my breath.I hoped the bee would stick around and that my shutter speed was fast enough to freeze it in time and space.

The bee wasn’t going anywhere. It had exactly what it needed in each tiny bloom and although it was exerting effort, the bee wasn’t struggling in its work. It was doing what comes naturally. The bee just bee-ing reassured me. Ease with my current camera will return with practice and persistence. And maybe I don’t need to miss my lens babies after all. Fuji still makes wicked cameras and eye-popping lenses.

Click for a full-size view. 👇

Ironic Cherry Blossoms

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Close up of Cherry Blossoms

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 shade or winter presence. These trees exist for spring.

The delicate blossoms and sweet fragrance of Japanese cherry trees are reason to celebrate. The chances of a final blast of winter are almost nil once the blossoms have arrived. I can enjoy the lace-like blossoms with abandon. They arrive well before the lilacs, harbingers of allergy season.

The departure of the cherry blossoms is as glorious as their arrival. I remember lying a carpet of pink beneath the trees. On dry days, blossoms tickled my face as they fell, becoming embedded everywhere. I’d eventually be driven inside by the cool breeze to pluck the petals from my hair.

There is a large stand of cherry trees in High Park, a large park in the southwest of the Toronto. I lived close to High Park in my twenties. I would ride my bike or pop over in the car to see the blossoms, inhaling their fragrance and remembering the trees of my childhood.

In recent years, the cherry trees of High Park have become a preferred destination for online influencers. It’s easy to understand the attraction. The combination of beauty and cabin fever is potent. The cynic in me wonders if the blossom craze is the result of an increase in actual outdoor life, or the impulse to feed the content mill. And does it really matter if it gets more people outside?

For the second straight year, the High Park cherry trees in were fenced off at peak bloom to curtail crowds and virus spread. On one hand it seems excessive. Yet it’s not a stretch to envision smartphone clutching influencers crawling over each other for their best shot as they live their best pandemic life. My response to the restrictions was to head out early morning, to Queen’s Park, the epicenter of legislative chaos in Ontario.

There are three Japanese cherry trees on the east side of the pink sandstone behemoth where our provincial government sits. It’s the exact place where lockdowns are being issued and extended, for what feels like forever. The morning I took these photos, the province was in revolt. The day before, our overcompensating leader had announced random police stops for people leaving their home for reasons other than essentials and exercise.

In contrast to the protest happening mostly online, I was getting my exercise, camera in hand. I circled the trees, marveling at the silence with a handful of other safely distanced early risers, trading mischievous glances with an older man shooting with a long telephoto lens. Our ironic grins were quiet recognition that in this moment, these blossoms were ours to celebrate.

  • Cherry Blossoms in front of Queens Park Ontario Legislature
  • Cherry Blossoms at Queens Park Toronto
  • Cherry Blossoms at Queens Park Toronto
  • Cherry Blossoms at Queens Park Toronto

Tide’s Out

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Tide's Out St Martin New Brunswick Sunset Laura Tucker
Tide’s Out, St Martins, New Brunswick

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 return are subtle, until they are not.

The clouds part at the precise moment the sun lowers in the sky.

This is my happy place. I press the shutter and give thanks for the beauty unfurling before me.

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