Field Notes – Scott Murphy ⊙ Photographer

Storm Passing

Square crop of a long-exposure night photograph showing a wet road, passing car lights and a lightning-lit storm moving into the distance.

A passing storm, distant lightning and a minute-long exposure. Sometimes the photograph depends on being ready to walk out the door.

Has a Posse

A sticker on a Kingston utility box leads me back to Shepard Fairey’s Andre the Giant Has a Posse and nearly four decades of bootlegs, remixes and visual culture.

Of Something / About Something

Deliberately out-of-focus view of Lake Ontario at Upper Gap, with a soft horizon beneath a pale blue, cloud-filled sky.

Two photographs of the same scene at Upper Gap. One describes what I saw; the other tries to express how I’ve been feeling. An experiment in the difference between making photographs of something and photographs about something.

A Sign of the Times?

Red stop sign stencilled with the word “CORRUPTION” beneath STOP.

A familiar command, altered by one anonymous word. Why here, and why now?

#chaoticgood

Deer crossing sign altered with a red reflective nose

A little roadside intervention, a reflective red nose, and a reminder that the world could use more whimsy.

I Spy Little Eyes

Black pipe with googly eyes attached, photographed against a dark wall.

Once I noticed the first pair, I started seeing them everywhere: googly eyes on fire hydrants, walls, and bits of street furniture, turning city walks into a small scavenger hunt.

Crowd Control

A 323-second long exposure of the Winged Victory of Samothrace at the Louvre, with the surrounding crowd dissolved into faint atmospheric traces.

A Field Note on photographing the Winged Victory of Samothrace at the Louvre, using long exposure to turn a crowded museum encounter into an image of time, movement, and human presence.

Patience at the Water’s Edge

Black and white photograph of an adult swan swimming among reeds with three cygnets, two riding on its back and one beside it in the water.

A quiet Field Note from Kingston, where a managed stormwater pond becomes a neighbourhood habitat for swans, cygnets, and patient observation.

Upper Gap

A quiet evening beside Lake Ontario after completing my MA Photography final project. Photographed from Upper Gap using a 24-second exposure.

Islands of Light

Foggy night in the staff parking lot at Providence Care Hospital in Kingston, Ontario, with streetlights glowing through mist and a single parked car.

A foggy night transforms an ordinary parking lot into a cinematic scene of glowing streetlights, reflections, and quiet isolation.