Gena Raps, our Music Editor, writes: “I met Elise Stanley at a music festival for both serious young musicians and serious adult amateurs in Burgos, Spain. She always had her violin slung over one shoulder and her camera over the other. By the end of the festival, Elise had performed in concerts, photographed portraits of the musicians in performance and had moved on to the native wildlife. The pictures shown here are mostly from her home in Puslinch, Ontario.”

Dropping in for lunch

Lady bluebird in the ginkgo

Garter lick

Grackle martial artist

Green frogs abed

Hemlock varnished bracket fungus

Mourning dove contentment

Two lovely black eyes

Red-spotted purple lurks in the milkweed

Stonechat snack

Buttercup sulphur

Turkey tail florets

White-throated white-out

The song of the wren

Cricket meets his kismet

Regal raven
All images are copyright © Elise Stanley 2018.
Elise Stanley, a career scientist, obtained her Doctorate in England in 1977. She moved to Johns Hopkins Medical School as a postdoctoral fellow and then Assistant Professor studying the biology and pathology of the nerve-muscle synapse. A key project was exploring the biological basis of the autoimmune disorder, myasthenia gravis. Stanley moved to the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, MD and set up a research group to study the biology transmitter release at chemical synapses. In 1999 she was recruited to head the Cellular and Molecular Biology Division and to help establish the Toronto Western Research Institute (now Krembil Research Institute). Her main research focused on fundamentals of information transfer at neural synapses and specifically on how individual calcium channels gate the discharge of neurotransmitters. Stanley recently retired and is now a Scientist Emeriti at the University of Toronto and an Affiliated Scientist at the Krembil. Her scientific awards include an NIH Directors Service Award (1997), the University of Toronto Tanenbaum Chair; a founding award from the Canada Research Chair (Tier I) program, and election to the Johns Hopkins Society of Scholars (2015). Stanley also has a number of artistic interests. She plays the violin, currently in two community orchestras; competed at the championship level in ballroom dance and, studied Chinese ink painting. Photography has been a life-long passion, beginning in childhood with a Brownie box-camera but eventually graduating to the Sony bridge camera that is her main tool today.
Stunning. Lucius. Rare. What patience it must take to capture this beauty. Thank you for letting us see what you see.
Every glimpse, another joy. Refreshing colours, bubbling with life.
You truly have a knack of catching that moment.
Wonderful!
So enjoyable. Loved your titles for each photo. A work of art.
Love them. Beautiful lighting.
What a visual feast!
Absolutely delightful photographs.