KJ Wipond's photostream  

Thanks so much for dropping by my photostream! Since joining Flickr in 2009, a world of beauty and inspiration has opened up for me through this amazingly talented and generous community. It is such a gift to be able to share my photos as well as to be so continually inspired by the visions and works of others.

I received my first camera (35 mm Pentax SLR) as a gift in 1984 and, on and off since then, taking photos has become a significant part of the way I see and experience the world. For a number of years, I had temporary darkrooms which I would put up and taken down for each use--and despite the inconvenience, I loved the magic of black and white printing and felt happiest in the warm, soft red light of those poorly ventilated rooms. I also played for a bit with old medium format cameras which I was attracted to for their larger negatives but which were very heavy to pack around when hiking.

After an illness in 2004, however, I made a number of changes to my lifestyle and felt I needed a change with my photography as well. A slow and reluctant convert to digital photography, a photographer friend finally convinced me that I could find happiness again with a high quality digital camera and his old Epson R2400 printer, with which he himself produced the most beautiful B/W prints. And he was right. I bought my Nikon D200 and his printer shortly after and another new world opened up for me. And while I still miss that soft red glow now and then, I am glad for the fresher air and the different sort of magic that Photoshop and my finicky but fine printer provide.

Natural landscapes have always been my main love. Mountains, coastlines, rocks, trees, deserts, big skies and prairie grasslands have all been alternating muses whether hiking, kayaking or just exploring my surroundings. I still yearn to try my hand at other subjects, human and otherwise, so continually look forward to exploring the latest postings from my contacts and from that virtual smorgasbord of creativity that is Flickr.

I work for in the fish and wildlife habitat program in the
BC government --in a small way helping to conserve some of those beautiful landscapes that I love.

I wish you all the best in your photo adventures!

Karen
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A man's work is nothing but this slow trek to rediscover, through the detours of art, those two or three great and simple images in whose presence his heart first opened. ~Albert Camus

and one of my favourite excerpts from an English translation of the Duino Elegies by Rainer Maria Rilke:

Why, if it’s possible
to spend our little
span of existence

as laurel
slightly darker
than all the other greens
with tiny waves
on each leaf’s rim
(like a wind’s smile)

-why then
still insist
on being human
and shrinking from fate
long for it too?...

Oh not because happiness
- that part of approaching ruin
that rushes ahead of it –
is real.

Not out of curiosity
not to exercise the heart
that would have been fine

in the laurel…
But just because to be here
means so much

and because
everything here
all this that’s disappearing

seems to need us
to concern us
in some strange way

we, who disappear
even faster!
It’s one time

for each thing
and only once
Once and no more.

And the same for us:
once.
Then never again.

But this once having been
even though only once
having been on earth
seems as though
it can’t be undone

And so we push ourselves
wanting to master it
wanting to hold it all

in our own two hands
in the overloaded gaze
and the dumbstruck heart.