Water Wonderland

/

All natural living existence depend on water - clean water - unpolluted by harmful waste or land product run-off. Having grown up in Minnesota pristine and moved to much of the same, in the beautiful Champlain Valley of Vermont, I took clean water for granted. I wasn't personally affected by "dirty" water, until recently, when I started to look around, photograph, and ask a few questions. 

Lake Cloud Canon EOS 1DS Mark III 420mm ISO 100

Lake Champlain has become more and more polluted by excessive phosphorous runoff from water flowing across land, from the Adirondack and Green mountains, through the brooks, streams, rivers, valleys and streets to our drinking water, and our fishing, swimming and boating in Lake Champlanin. 

I have always loved to photograph water. Capturing beautiful images in the Lake Champlain Basin (a very large and wonderful watershed) has now become a passion - a passion to capture the beauty of water in it's natural environment. I  photographed Champlain beauty during the floods of 2011, the droughts of 2012 and 2016, and the dramatic clouds of 2013 and 2014. I started shooting tributaries of The Lake in 2015 and I love it - a variable water wonderland..

I am now  challenged to capture the "toxic sublime" of algae. This I do not like. I wouldn't do it,  if it wasn't for the benefits of drawing attention to the problem, for me and others, so we will get educated about EPA (Environmental Personal Accountability). It is important for me "to do my part"; take "personal responsibility" by attracting viewers and readers to OUR BASIN OF RELATIONS: Celebrating a Culture of Clean Water in the Champlain Basin, a forthcoming coffee table book, www.champlainbasinrelations.wordpress.com, which will include informative and interesting writings by many people in the know, and fifty or so of my favorite Lake Champlain Basin images. I desire to impassion your action to clean water, without needing the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) pushed down regulations. We, the users - home owners, farmers, builders, boaters, fishers, pet lovers, and others, can do this, by doing what we need to do as we learn more about what that means.

 

Burlington Bay Bloom PhaseOne IQ 180 35mm 1/4sec f18 ISO 35

Clean water means the world to me - water touches me on all levels - mind, body and soul! Water brought me out of dehydration, twice. My PT, while in-hospital rehabilitation for my Stroke, suggested drinking a glass of water an hour - wow - can't do it, but that says a lot about how important water is to our health. A cold glass of water on a hot summer day beats a cold beer, under the same conditions, anytime......well, maybe not. But, I would hate not to have that cold, clean glass of water available when I want it.

My love and passion for being around water, in nature, and capturing a moment of beauty, to have and hold in site, touches me deeply. I can't explain it, but it "completes" me! Every time I think about the native american reverence of nature I feel the rightness of that. My reverence for water and nature are growing and it is good. I am now going for a walk and listen to Thoreau.