I wonder about globe-trotting photographers who take mesmerizing shots of things we’ve never seen before. All very nice, but I think: what about right here, right now? What about images of things we pass every day, overlooked wonders in our own backyards?

Here’s a picture I took of a bee on a dandelion. Could anything be more humble, more commonplace? Many people hate dandelions, treat them as weeds, and quite a few others aren’t crazy about bees either. People like food but hate insects. Most of our food comes from flowering plants pollinated by insects. Insects flick the switch that operates the food factory of our planet.

Pictures can do many things. If I called my photo Dandelion and Bee, it wouldn’t trigger much curiosity. Instead, I call it Messenger of Love after the Kahlil Gibran poem: “To the bee, a flower is a fountain of life. To the flower, a bee is a messenger of love.” So it’s a picture of symbiosis, microcosm, ecosystem. Easy for anyone to understand. And yet, there’s a question in it. The first question is, is there anything unusual happening here? You have to look closely to see. There may be several good answers, but what I have in mind is the pollen storm that greets the arrival of this dedicated bee. What a dusting he endures in exchange for a free meal! A recent documentary (My Garden of a Thousand Bees), shows newly-hatched bees landing on flowers. At first, the inexperienced bees dive into the heart of the flower and get splattered from head to toe. With more practice, they become better pilots and neater collectors. In my photo of the bee, I’ve captured this special moment of youthful enthusiasm and ineptitude. Is it ineptitude or is it joy?

This spring, I entered the forest at our Centre by the Sea and looked up at the emerging canopy. It couldn’t have been more than a day or two after the first leaves appeared. I was struck by how the leaves fill in every inch of space, how the green umbrellas interlock. But these are no ordinary umbrellas! They eat the sun, alter the chemistry of air, rain upwards into the clouds. When I get back in my studio and review the shots I’ve just taken, this one gives me pause. I ask myself, where on the property did I take this photo? Without a horizon, there are no landmarks to ground myself. It is impossible to place, disorienting. We’re not used to looking up, not used to being dwarfed. How many human giants do you know? Not many. Every tree is a giant, linking earth and sky, possessing powers that elude us. 

To see everyday scenes with fresh eyes, may require some disorientation, or a touch of imagination. Attention to detail. Seeing foreground and background at the same time.

I was surprised to discover this nest so close to the tracks. A sign perhaps that the railway has been abandoned. As industry sputters, birds recolonize their ancestral territory. Neither birds nor people are visible in this image, but we’re aware of both by these familiar signs. The image contrasts nature’s engineering with human engineering. The nest is fragile, built with storm-tossed twigs and grass; the track is made of more enduring materials, but is also prone to forces of change and abandonment.

I showed this image to a friend, a United Church minister, whose spiritual outlook on life surfaces in different contexts. His first impression was: we leave the nest and begin our journey, travelling far from our point of origin. Birth, life and death: the bittersweet cycle of transient beings.  

So often I take pictures of nature and go out of my way to avoid signs of human presence, but I’m trying to retrain my eye to allow human disruptions to sit side by side with picturesque elements. When I do, the results are often surprising and reflect a core belief of mine that, whether we like it or not, we cannot understand nature except through the lens of culture. Conversely, I think of ecology as a human research project in which people attempt to escape the traps of human-centric thinking.

My wife Kathleen emptied a bucket at our wellness centre on a cold autumn day. To her surprise, the accidental contents of the bucket had frozen, maintaining the shape of the container. The evidence quickly disappeared after one afternoon sitting in the warm sun. In my photo, what evidence do you see? Evidence of oak trees. Evidence of precipitation. Evidence of human presence, human neglect, human delight, chance. Evidence of change of weather, freezing temperatures and thaw. Evidence of a bucket without the bucket.

I once entered this photo in a landscape photography contest. The image came in seventh place, sadly no medals or honorable mentions. I wondered at the time, as I’m sure the judges did as well, does this qualify as a landscape photo? I suspect arguments could be made for and against, which opens a second, more serious question: 

What is a landscape? How might an artist, a philosopher, a carpenter or a biologist answer? An artist might declare that a landscape is nothing without water, without a play of light and clouds, seasonal rhythms. A philosopher might define related concepts, and start by saying that a view is all you can see from one spot; a landscape is many views put together in your mind by memory, habit, anticipation and repetition. A carpenter might point out that the sturdy deck gives a toehold on the landscape. If the carpenter brought his children along with him and these children liked to explore, run, climb and swim, he’d probably point out that these too are aspects of a landscape. A biologist might say, a landscape is an invisible food web. Or a landscape is home to a thousand leaves that disappear from one season to another as if by magic. 

This is why I take pictures: to collect evidence of my journeys, to share with friends a few simple observations and questions. To find joy in change of seasons and to experience wonder, surprise and delight in the world around me. I hope others feel the same.

It’s easy to name artists who depict nature: Van Gogh, Monet, Hokusai, O’Keefe. What about nature photographers? Much harder. In part because it’s so common. Who hasn’t taken a picture of a flower, a reflection in water, a sunset. If everyone does it, how to stand out? A few photographers do, though they may not be household names. Anselm Adams, Ami Vitale, Edward Burtynsky, David Yarrow. Adams, of course, is closely associated with Yosemite National Park and with campaigns to preserve wilderness in the early decades of the 20th century. Adam’s images depict nature untouched: snowy mountains and pristine forests, Eden-like, uncorrupted by human presence. He captures weather, like many painters do, and depicts sweeping vistas that have a sense of drama and epic scale. Unlike painters, Adams relishes the machine-sharpness of his images and every detail is captured with utmost clarity and focus. You might say, he was a Romantic modernist, aware of traditions, but also breaking from them, declaring photography as an art form in its own right, not just an imitation of painting.

At the moment, nature writing is in vogue, as best-selling authors call into question cultural values, changing perspectives. Words and images can do this. For example, I’m working with curators Melanie Zurba and Pamela Edmonds on a photo exhibition called “Worried Earth.” The curators asked children to take pictures with their phones capturing their feelings around climate change. Every image leads to a personal diary essay. This is often how we receive photos, not in isolation, not in a pristine gallery, but accompanied by text, on social media, surrounded by other media, the gateway to a broader story. The photographer is not just an image taker, but also a writer, a journalist, a social commentator, social influencer. This is how I see myself. Not so much as an influencer, but as someone engulfed by media. I’m a child of Instagram aspiring to be a wildlife photographer, conflicted at every level, trying to break free of the metaverse to engage with a wider wilder world. 

Nature writers tend to reveal as much about themselves as they do about the natural world. Exploring nature is an avenue for self-discovery. I think of Diane Ackerman’s fearlessness and sense of wonder as she travels to a remote corner of the globe and swims with a whale and her newborn calf. Kathleen Jamie describes the people who study nature, the difficulties they face in solving problems, the uncertainties of science. Michael McCarthy describes a vanishing world, nature’s riches, not disappearing, but dwindling, reduced in number and quality. Suzanne Simard is altogether more inspiring as she describes the intelligence of trees and their ability to connect with each other and with other parts of the forest. Trees display ultra-sentient, cooperative, holistic ways of being that people might aspire toward us as we try to cope with rapid change and loss of familiar spaces. 

To summarize, nature photography owes a debt to art traditions. We are aware of such movements as Romanticism, with its sense of grandeur and the sublime; Impressionism, with its moody play of light and mist; and Modernism, with its focus on abstraction and design. Land Art uses on-site arrangements of natural materials, creating art that could not be recreated in a gallery setting. Nature photography can bring awareness of a valued resource to a wider audience. It can demonstrate harmful practices and advocate for change. Nature photography can also tell a story of adventure, of challenge, of living with conflicted values, flaws and fears. It can be personal, psychological, and lead to self-discovery and growth of character. Photography can also engage with science and lead to a better understanding of ecosystems and survival strategies. And finally, a nature photographer is someone who is walking woods and shoreline, learning, exploring, sharing with friends, and these communal outdoor actions can help us heal and reconnect with the world.

If I weren’t an artist, I would be a biologist. In my recent paintings, I surround human figures with images of nature taken from science textbooks and popular media. Patterns attract me. When I look at patterns, I try to explore how the human world collides with a more natural realm—is it possible to separate the two?

Often there’s a theme: night and day, animal locomotion, markings, electricity, flying seeds, flying birds, the origins of life. The surrounding animals act as emblems and enigmas. Each picture is a kind of puzzle: what is the relationship of foreground and background? While most viewers will come up with their own answers, many will agree: We are part of nature, indivisible from nature, dependent on nature. But what is nature and how do we connect to it? Not so easy to answer. 

I’m an art historian and retired teacher; didacticism is part of my approach, but I try to play with it. I’ve been influenced by Hokusai’s manga, the way he fills pages with seemingly random sets of people, animals, objects and occupations. Hokusai has three over-riding concerns: human skills, common ground (or related sets of images), and engagement with nature. Hokusai treats his image collages like a game, full of surprises, humour, and great sympathy for the world in both its humble as well as epic manifestations. I’m also impressed by Rene Magritte’s surrealist paradoxes. There are a great many elements from the natural world in Magritte’s work, but treated with a cool approach, so we engage with the paradox and not the object. Hokusai, of course, worked in mass media, ukiyo-e prints, that use flat areas of colour.

I find the flatter my painting style and the cooler my approach, the more effective the image becomes. I hope viewers agree.

I grew up surrounded by self-help books. My father’s library was heavily weighted with manuals on how to exercise, how to pray, how to run a business, how to get rich, how to be a philanthropist. I thought the whole advice thing was a bit overblown and desperate, (even as I started adding titles to my own library like Joseph Campbell’s Hero with a Thousand Faces and Michael Pollen’s Food Rules), but then self-help is a booming billion dollar business so—how to explain? Why are so many people hooked on self-help? 

On the one hand, the books are full of extravagant promises; on the other hand, they’re clichéd and use examples that seem miles away from anyone’s life. The titles are incredible: Life and Death in One Breath, The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up, Atomic Habits, Make Your Bed, The 4-Hour Workweek, 12 Rules for Life, The Five Love Languages, and The Happiness Project. Self-help is often related to such things as the Human Potential Movement and the Law of Attraction (defined by Marshall Sinclair as “the belief that positive or negative thoughts bring positive or negative experiences.”) Guaranteed best-sellers pour out from television gurus Tony Robbins (Awaken the Giant Within) and Oprah Winfrey (What I Know For Sure and The Path Made Clear). Who wouldn’t want their path made clear? Who doesn’t want to be a giant? No, maybe not a giiant–you’d have to buy new furniture. There’s even an anti-self-help self-help genre. Life seemed simpler when Samuel Smiles wrote in the 19^th century: “Heaven helps those who help themselves.” 

Harvard English professor Beth Blum summarizes the usual explanations: “Economists stress how late-19th-century class mobility created new anxieties over self-presentation among the aspirational middle classes. Sociologists and scholars of religion outline the way the anomie of industrial modernity—urbanization, secularization, the division of labor—created a vacuum that self-help strove to fill. Historians discuss these and others factors as part of “the turmoil of the turn of the century,” which led to the rise of the “therapeutic ethos.” (The Self-Help Compulsion, 2020) In a nutshell, we need therapy for our empty, aspirational anxieties …

In a 2019 lecture Mark Jackson, professor of the history of medicine, University of Exeter, links self-help ambitions to benchmark moments in history, such as the First World War and the Great Depression. Here’s a war-time example: Matilda Parsons, a teacher and widow of an army officer, declared in a newspaper interview in 1917: “It is a paradox of life that we do not begin to live until we begin to die. Death begins at 30, that is, deterioration of the muscle cells sets in. Most old age is premature, and attention to diet and exercise would enable men and women to live a great deal longer than they do today. The best part of a woman’s life begins at 40.” 

A social reformer, Parsons was dismayed by middle-aged women who had “let themselves go.” She argued that women needed to be strong and fit, and should educate themselves in order to contribute fully to the shaping of the nation. The immediate concern was to take over jobs and the management of factories while men were away at war. In her interview, Parsons unwittingly created a meme and like many memes, it began to take on a life of its own. Though her phrase “the best part of a women’s life begins at 40” was abbreviated to the catchier, more universal  “life begins at 40.” 

During the Great Depression, American journalist Walter Pitkin published a self-help book called Life Begins at 40 in 1932—the Will Rogers film version appeared in 1935. The author’s goal was to combine self-renewal with recovery from a collapsed economy.  Pitkin advised older workers to retire early to create job openings for younger men. He also advised retirees to spend their money freely “pursuing self-fulfillment through material improvement, leisure and the art of living.” During a period of doom and gloom, Pitkin sensed that populations as a whole might recover, if people just spent a little money to make themselves feel better about themselves. 

It’s no coincidence that the American Dream was conceived at about this time. In The Epic of America, 1931, James Tuslow Adams lays out the American promise of social order, democratic values, and prosperity for all. This dream is severely tested by the Second World War. Thereafter it becomes “a dream of material plenty, motor cars and high wages.” According to Edmund Burgler, author of The Revolt of the Middle-aged Man, 1958, the top priority of the post-war generation is the pursuit of “happiness in a hurry.”

Burgler describes the mindset of the middle-aged person who has not lived up to expectations: “I want happiness, love, approval, admiration, sex, youth. All this is denied me in this stale marriage to an elderly, sickly, complaining, nagging wife. Let’s get rid of her, start life all over again with another woman. Sure, I’ll provide for my first wife and my children; sure, I’m sorry that the first marriage didn’t work out. But self-defense comes first, I just have to save myself.” 

Seduced by a dream of collective improvement that was no longer achievable, the post-war generation resort to a reflex of selfishness and greed. This new direction is aided and abetted by mass media, advertising and consumer culture. 

In the above cartoon by Patrick Chappatte, a man sits at a kitchen table with a bleak look on his face, his body language conveys a sense of solitude and spiritual terror as he asks, “What is the meaning of my life?” In the next room, comfortably surrounded by magazines, TV and picture window, his wife or daughter answers, “Ask Google.” 

Technology is almost certainly not the answer. People seek direction, solace and hope. Meaningful action. According to Beth Blum, one source that historically addressed this need was literature–or the stories that underpin our culture, our collective consciousness. In the past, literature drew heavily upon myths and moral tales with their moments of enlightenment. These stories often provided clear examples of good and bad behavior and no one questioned the notion of reading for improvement. However in recent years, serious authors feel that advice to the reader has no place in a story concerned primarily with realism and artistic autonomy. 

Where literature fears to tread, self-help books rush in (with approximately 150 new self-help titles published every week). As Professor Blum puts it: “At a time when the value of literature is often called into question, self-help offers … promises of transformation, agency, culture, and wisdom that draw readers to books.” So it might be that there’s not too much self-help in our culture, it’s just not active in the places where one might reasonably expect to find it–in the stories of our generation that we need to tell ourselves.