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. 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 also enjoy trying my hand at other subjects--humans, wildlife, urban scenes, etc. As such, I continually look forward to exploring the latest postings from my contacts and from that virtual smorgasbord of creativity that is Flickr.

I work in habitat conservation for the BC government --in a small way helping to conserve some of those beautiful landscapes and species 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.