Working on a card appropriate for the season to be entered in a contest at a local gallery, I decided to do something a bit unusual and provocative, not going with the expected light-hearted, wintery landscape or a scene evoking good cheer for the sake of being jolly. My intuition went to a recent scene that caught my attention while driving around Waterloo County (nearby Wallenstein and St. Clements) some of my favourite places to capture inspiring landscapes. I decided to make it monochrome to give it extra punch. In my mind this captures the spirit of the season, as we transition from fall to winter and for many around the world, whether religious or not, we seek sign posts that instill in our hearts hope and perseverance to embolden our spirits against stories and realities of doom, brokenness and despair. The words of Martin Luther King Jr came to me as I created this image: "Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can."