Sketches for Summer

I shot this series during the dog days of winter. When the grey darkness here in Toronto has beaten your soul down to a pulp. Using the windows in my studio I focused on those fleeting moments of brightness and colour in the sky. This series is a yearning for those summer thrills. It was a challenge to shoot this series as it required much patience in waiting for the right sky for each shot. It felt similar to fishing, i’d set the shot, cast the lure, and had to wait for the sky to come alive. It’s actually a very rewarding way of shooting. Having things that are out of your control has a liberating effect. And if you’re willing to be patient enough, the skies never disappoint. They end up coming alive in a way that is beyond what you envisioned. My goal in this series was to bring together still-life and landscape. Bringing them together and incorporating the elements is my way of adding more depth and nuance to my studio work. I started doing this with the Westward series, so I suppose this is an extension of that approach.