Digital, 2022.
Yellow petunias lit up by the golden sun on a sunny spring day in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
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Digital, 2022.
Magenta tulips and purple phlox flowers taken while on a walk. Every year, I look forward to when the green landscapes transform into something more colourful.
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Digital, 2021.
I’ve lived in Toronto all my life and yet I’ve never heard of the Toronto Music Gardens. I’ve seen photos taken there but I never questioned where they were taken. We decided to head down one weekend and I was amazed at how gorgeous the whole space was. When exploring the flower gardens, I loved seeing all these pretty flowers close up, especially allium!
I didn’t get more shots of the main space as we went on the weekend and it was pretty busy and I prefer not having any people in my shots. For that, it’s best to visit on a weekday, which we eventually did. Those photos will be up soon!
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Digital, 2021.
A summer day spent at Edwards Gardens. A majority of the gardens were under construction so unfortunately, I couldn’t get the photos I was looking forward to taking. Instead, I took photos of flowers that caught my eye. Hopefully the gardens will fully open up again soon!
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Digital, 2021.
First official day of summer, here we are! After what felt like forever, it has arrived! I’m not quite sure what kind of flowers these are, but they are so pretty! The tree pictured in the first two photos was a lot bigger than it looks. I felt so calm and at peace standing underneath it. It almost felt like a whole different world where sound was muted and the sunlight peeking through the leaves was warm and bright.
And like most floral related things this year, when we came back a week later, most of the flowers had sadly already dried up.
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Digital, 2021.
A pretty orange daylily in sunlight! These flowers are super common this time of the year.
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Digital, 2021.
A beautiful sunset at the beginning of June. I was really happy with the way the sky transformed on this day. This wasn’t the most intense sunset I’ve seen but it’s definitely beautiful!
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Digital, 2021.
Here are some beautiful peonies from the backyard. After getting shots of them as is, I wanted to play around with water droplets on their petals. So for that, I filled a spray bottle with water and ventured back into the backyard. I sprayed water around four or five times with a fine mist for the desired effect. Too much and the water droplets pooled together and fell right off the petal. I’m quite happy with the results!
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Digital, 2021.
Some sweet forget-me-nots taken while visiting the cemetery. I’m so glad that I had my camera on me and that I took a few photos when I did. When we visited a week later, they were all gone! I feel like that has been a common theme with my flower photography this year. I’ve been seeing more and more hydrangeas this year and haven’t photographed any yet. I should get to that before history repeats itself!
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Digital, 2021.
The last lilac blooms of the season! Aren’t they gorgeous? I’m so glad I got to photograph them in the late afternoon/early evening light. I was really happy with the way the soft warm lighting illuminated the blooms. The last photo especially is one of my all time favourites.
I’ll never forget photographing this series for a very specific reason. While I was shooting these, I kept hearing footsteps in the grass across from me. I wasn’t able to see what it was since the lilac tree was pretty tall and there was a tombstone blocking my way. I thought nothing of it and automatically assumed it was my mom, playing a joke and coming to sneak up on me. I told myself not to jump when she inevitably would shout “boo!” Except… it never came.
I finished taking my photos and walked back to where my dad and brother were standing a little ways away. I asked my dad where mom was because I kept hearing those footsteps. While asking, I turned around and there she was, behind me, a few metres away. My dad joked that maybe it was a ghost, curious, and wanting to see my photos. I laughed it off and grabbed my mom, wanting to show her the pretty lilac tree. Only… to be greeted by a coyote!
Yeah, that’s right!
He was a few feet away from us (thanks for social distancing!) and turned around to look at us before trotting off. At first we thought he was someone’s pet but there was no leash and no other human around and he did not look like a domesticated dog. We’ve seen another coyote in the area but that one was very malnourished looking with a damaged tail. This animal was big and clearly capable.
I wanted to take my phone out to record everything but I was rooted to the ground. My brain shut down, total deer in headlights mode, until my brother yelled at us to get to the car and to go now. So that’s what we did, being careful that we weren’t in eyeshot of the coyote. We’ve visited a few times since then and we haven’t seen the coyote since. It’s funny to think that while I was taking photos and thinking it was my mom playing a joke on me, it was actually a coyote very close by.
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Gina Staios Photography 