This is the season for looking forward to the year ahead, but also for reflecting on the 12 months that have just passed.
This holiday season, the Gazette's two staff photographers have been asked to write a short piece about their most memorable photo of 2011.
It's never easy at the end of a year, after taking thousands of images, to narrow them down to one favourite moment. This past year was very busy, and among all of the amazing events I covered, I was lucky to come across an unusual number of opportunities to shoot wildlife.
One of the most meaningful photos I captured is one of a Canada goose that ran on the front page on Oct. 19. I took the photo one day after coming upon a new pond in the new section in Erin Ridge North.
There were hundreds of geese in the water. Usually when you shoot geese, they walk away when you get close so I kept my distance. I walked to the top of a nearby hill and sat down. I put on my long lens (for distance photography) and started shooting, very gradually inching my way down the hill on my butt, trying to get closer to the water's edge. I spent two hours doing this.
At one point a particular goose started flapping its wings in the water. I kept shooting. Then, when I looked at my images, I thought, “Man, I've got it. That's different.”
I typically shoot geese every spring and fall during their migration periods, so I've shot hundreds of goose pictures over the years. But I've never photographed a goose that had its wings touching.
What really makes the photo meaningful to me, on a personal level, is that I had been thinking that day about former publisher Ernie Jamison and former editor Sue Gawlak, who are now both deceased. They both used to love bird shots and called me the bird lady.
That day I was thinking about them and how I hadn't shot any birds for a while. Something told me to go shoot some that day. The shot that emerged kind of reminds me of an angel.
The biggest photographic highlight for me in 2011 was an image I made of a young Canada goose gosling one evening in June. I had arrived late to one of the city's ponds and was determined to capture a unique moment of wildlife activity before the light was gone.
I began photographing this little family of geese who were milling around the water's edge. As the sun set, the babies began nestling into their mother's warm feathers, until only one little bird remained outside. This individual became the main subject of my photograph after it hopped onto its mother's back, paused for just a moment as if to take one last look around, then settled down to sleep for the night.
It was a truly magical moment for me in 2011.
