We are well into the month of April and still no end in sight.

This doesn’t sound very good, mostly because it isn’t – for most of us anyway, though it is worth mentioning the few, yet strikingly positive merits of this most odd situation. I am now thankfully working from home, which gives me a plethora of time and freedom to pursue, well, things I would have otherwise, before, thought I would have no time for – but about this in a bit. For now, let me tell you how I went out onto the backyard this morning, to reassure myself that it is indeed still very cold out, as it has been for the past few days, and so to calm my hopes of going for a walk after today. As I opened the door, a gust of fresh air hit me and made me feel that no matter how cold it may be, I absolutely need to get out there and get more of this fresh scent. The air really does smell nice out …and that was certainly not the norm in the neighbourhood I live in, being not too far from a few factories, and right under the landing path of the nearby airport.

Alright so this intro was long, but my point is that we stopped …driving so much, producing so much, perhaps even wasting so much. I can’t help but think how not only nature as a whole, but even our very own life experience would be so much better off without the over-achieverish ambition of constantly outdoing the profit margins that our society has been characterized by ever since the industrial revolution. These are merely musings of a man who does not fancy himself too political, but who knows, perhaps the world may, once the life threatening aspects of this situation are over with, take this opportunity, to make some changes, such as ones it thought it would not be able to handle while maintaining production standards, now that global production has come to a considerable slow-down, that may improve things for all of us in ways we may not even think possible …like smelling fresh country air in the middle of an industrial city, or hearing bird chatter on the streets of New York (which I hear is a thing now), and perhaps even, if I may be so bold and optimistic, to save our environment and escape the previously thought certain doom.

All questions that time will answer, whether want it to or not, but for now I’ll go back to my own experience.

So I’ve gotten around to doing a lot of things I thought I had no time for. Did I really not have the time before, who knows, and who cares; after all all that matters is that luckily now I find myself doing them and that, is good. So what things am I doing? Well for one, I’ve gotten around to editing a bunch of images from way long ago, for which editing was long overdue, and I even learned a thing or two about efficiently making screencasts (now watch it fail…). So I have a first screencast here, more to follow, and you can feel free to request topics for tutorials if you like (through the About page). Otherwise enjoy some more photographs I produced while taking walks on the now-mostly-empty trails of Kitchener and Waterloo.

Editing images I took in New York back in 2017 using ,a href=”https://rawtherapee.com/”>RawTherapee, CustomChrome presets , and eventually stitching a few of the images into a panorama using Hugin panorama editor.

Still uploading the images…

At ZEHRS markets, the entire tissue aisle was …well empty.

While having coffee in the backyard, I did a study on the intricacies of the patterns in the wooden deck using my phone. No, not really, it just caught my eye and I decided to keep it.

Found a rather curious bird uptown Waterloo and decided to take it home …but since the whole social distancing, I thought it would be safer to only take a picture.

Practiced some still life photography. Oh right, there’s a screencast on its way about this…

Went down to the Grand River for a walk one day, and found myself mostly alone, barely anybody there. But that makes for better photographs.

Found another bird, this one less curious, but a nice find as is.

So, is this the way to the witch’s house? Cuase it sure looks like it… just sayin…

Speaking of birds …a few more from my backyard.

I love cardinals …but they are not easy to spot, and even when I do, good luck getting a good image. Got lucky here.

What?

Another day I went for a walk on the Laurel Creek trail from Uptown Waterloo toward Conestoga Mall. These murals? is that what they are? you can find near the old Button Factory.

Here she is, the old button factory!

Oh and I told a friend that I bought an expired roll of old Soviet film and went out photographing with it taking these …he believed me and I felt bad that I didn’t actually. Oh well.

Focus check …fail.

Black bird…

No play time these days. All playgrounds are taped shut.

Moses Springer park <3.

Sorry about the colours …the film was expired…

Poor tree.

And that was the end of a lovely walk.

Then I went to St. Jacobs to walk the Health Valley Trail. This one didn’t have many people either …but many dogs though! <3

…and chopped down trees

…and dead leaves

Anybody know what this is?

or this…

…and these lovely flowers, whatever they are

Also this was growing on that boulder.

Next day I hit up the neighbourhood trails around the Wilson Street Community Centre

The streets were as empty as expected.

Not even the birds would look at me that day.

Yet hope was in the air.

Another day I went back to the Grand River, this time by the Fairway road bridge

And to finish off, a few images of one of my favourite places to photograph, the Dom Cardillo trail, off of Old Chicopee drive and River road, Kitchener.

That’s it for tonight, hope you stay healthy, all of you!
Stefan