Photo of the day

Lily Pond

Return readers will probably have gathered by now that I consider gardening and landscaping to be a high art. A combination of horticulture and design, working with nature can be the most Zen of practices.

The gardens of the Han Dynasty, the famous Japanese gardens of Kyoto, European pleasure gardens, from England to Italy — all represent millennia of human obsession with “perfecting” nature. In the city, where nature has often been cleared to make way for our increasingly insulated lives, there is the strongest argument for green spaces where we can reconnect with the natural environment and, perhaps, ourselves

If there is one thing that this photo challenge is teaching me, or rather reminding me, it’s that I need regular doses of the outdoors to balance my mind and refresh my creative drive.

Today, I visited a small, human-made pond in Oaklands, here in Victoria, BC. There were plenty of ducks and geese, but it was the late afternoon light playing on the water and vegetation that attracted my eye. As soon as I saw the lily pads I knew how I wanted to record them. I fitted a polarizing filter to my lens and dialled down the reflections on the water, turning it inky black. I further enhanced the effect in post-production. Voila! Space lilies.