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Pilgrimage Church

Roman Catholic Church – Buttertown, Alberta

Woking Church – Woking, Alberta

Church, a place and time of whole-hearted, meaning-crammed communion, is something each of us encounters in different venues that captivate us – the camaraderie found in others’ company, the transcendence found in the out-of-doors, the intersection of our Life with lyrics and melody in song. That place to encounter (perhaps share or confess) truth safely, in safety, that place to come to terms with tough times and the good, Church is both a social and familial entity, a place in which you can grow and mature. Not movement forward, independent of others, not alone in thought, not only within our own priority, Church is that sacred entity of relationship carried forward by two or more people in Life’s pilgrimage connecting each to something bigger than self (selves), that thing that drives ethics in action and purpose in Life, that thing realized when we realize we are here for more than ourselves, having something to contribute to the Lives of others.

Church as pilgrimage has been on my mind as I’ve watched a film by Emilio Estevez – ‘The Way.’ Martin Sheen, as father makes pilgrimage from France to the Church of Santiago de Compostela in Galicia, Spain, a trek following ‘The Way of St. James.’ Tom (Sheen) takes up this eight-hundred kilometre trek, a trek his son had begun and makes it on behalf of his son who, recently deceased, is ever-present throughout the trek task. The pilgrimage becomes Church as three ‘peregrinnos,’ pilgrims, cluster with and around Tom; each carrying forward a Life task that’s brought them to a cross-road in their Lives. It’s not so much that disclosure of Life’s challenge needs to occur among the peregrinnos, but that each comes to understand that their shared company and good understanding of what’s at play in each other’s lives makes the road easier – something that Church is about, an entity of relationship carried forward that associates to Life’s pilgrimage, direction and purposes.

Images – The Roman Catholic Church of St. Louis in Buttertown (across the Peace River from Fort Vermilion, Alberta) and the Woking Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Woking, Alberta).

Listening to – much of the soundtrack to ‘The Way,’ containing two songs that intrigue, David Gray’s ‘My Oh My’ (from Rhythm and Soul broadcasts) and Alanis Morissettes’ ‘Thank U’. James Taylor’s ‘Country Road’ also features in the film.

Quote to Inspire – “Imagine a world without photography, one could only imagine.” – Berenice Abbott

What Else?

Valleyview Bench Seats 1

Valleyview Bench Seats 2

Valleyview Bench Seats 3

More than a passing glance, photography has you stop and see the subject, consider context and best perspective and then expose the image. Editing takes you one further step with the image; you encounter more of what comprises the image and more of what is possible for the image in its rendering. Here, are the Valleyview bench seats again, exposed in the full morning sun of a sunny, Sunday morning. Two weeks on from the exposure, I’m seeing more of the light and shadow-play in the image. I’m coming back to it to see what else it can become. The image reveals someone’s attempt to make the bench seats something more permanent with the anchoring of the base on the right. The image has me consider the weathering of the seats through yet another winter season. And, at the time of exposure I had no idea that I would be tinting the image toward red or blue, or, that I would be working the image through in black and white.

Listening to – Johnny Cash’s rendering of “God’s Going to Cut You Down.”

Quote to Inspire – “You don’t take a photograph, you make it.” – Ansel Adams

Winter’s Tail-end …

1 Buttertown Home – Fort Vermilion, Alberta 2

2 Buttertown Home – Fort Vermilion, Alberta 1

3 Farm Buildings – Guy, Alberta 1

4 Farm Buildings – Guy, Alberta 3

5 Farm Buildings – Guy, Alberta 4

6 Farming Buildings – Nampa, Alberta 2

7 Farming Buildings – Nampa, Alberta 1

8 Ford & Mercury Trucks 1

9 Ford & Mercury Trucks 2

10 Icicle – Tompkins Landing 1

11 Icicle – Tompkins Landing 2

12 Icicle – Tompkins Landing 3

13 Icicle – Tompkins Landing 4

14 Icicle – Tompkins Landing 5

15 Icicle – Tompkins Landing 6

16 Black and White – Cattails, High Level, Alberta

17 Former Highway Construction Vehicles 1

18 Former Highway Construction Vehicles 2

19 Bus Lanes at Night – High Level, Alberta

A cluster of B-side photos remain – Fort Vermilion’s former times Buttertown homes, winter farming scenes (equipment and buildings, deposited in their last left locations, ‘medias res’), icicle lens edits and former MacKenzie highway construction vehicles. It’s this winter’s tail-end, a time to close winter out … and get-on with spring.

Listening to – Edie Brickell & the New Bohemians’ ‘What I am,’ U2’s ‘All Because of You,’ Cat Stevens’ ‘Morning Has Broken,’ Depeche Mode’s ‘Policy of Truth,’ T. Rex’s ‘Bang a Gong,’ Wang Chung’s ‘Dance Hall Days’ and Neil Young’s ‘Cinnamon Girl.’

Quote to Inspire – “Success is what happens when 10,000 hours of preparation meet with one moment of opportunity.” – Anonymous

Winter’s Wraith-like Wisps

Woodsmoke Wisps – Fort Vermilion Alberta

Late on a November Saturday afternoon, wraith-like, wisps of wood smoke drift over winter’s fallow field near Fort Vermilion. A homestead’s woodstove produces an intense dry heat, welcome warmth in the midst of a cold, Alberta winter. The day, a first opportunity to work with a new prime lens, a Canon 50mm – f/1.4 lens; my wife has encouraged me to begin my work with it. The image is one of the first images with the lens.

Listening to – Coldplay’s Mylo Xyloto, In My Place, Major Minus and Yellow.

Quote to Inspire – “The photograph is completely abstracted from life, yet it looks like life. That is what has always excited me about photography.” – Richard Kalvar

Vase-lens

: Brown Vase 1

: Brown Vase 2

: Brown Vase 3

: Brown Vase 4

: Brown Vase 5

: Glass Lens – Serving Dish Lid 1

: Glass Lens – Serving Dish Lid 2

: Glass Lens – Serving Dish Lid 3

: Glass Lens – Serving Dish Lid 4

: Glass Lens – Serving Dish Lid 5

: Glass Lens – Serving Dish Lid 6

: Glass Lens – Serving Dish Lid 7

A vase and a serving dish, both glass, both transparent yet holding colour, both with shape and form and both reflecting light are subjects in the images presented here. Both glass structures are lenses, the vase, a lens revealing entire beauty of the flower held, the serving dish, a lens to the manna that soon will be eaten. The polished surface’s shape and form reflects light. So too does the interior of the glass. There’s that place where the glass in being shaped curves or twists receiving form. From that point within there’s reflection, a glint of light from within shining back. Analogy extends forward … what structures hold us that allow us to be seen? Would this be a home? Would this be a marriage? A vase holds the still-life flower, a living thing of beauty while beautiful. Moving past prime, dying, it is discarded. For us, we each have a rich, subtle life, one that few others really know well. Is friendship the vase-lens structure allowing for revelation of one’s subtle life? Something in this analogy is truth my mother understood. Her memory via her paintings prods me forward toward unraveling it.

Listening to Bruce Springsteen from the Tunnel of Love album – One Step Up; Bryan Ferry sings Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues from Dylanesque. Amiina from the album Kurr provides a tonal, music box sound in Rugla. Rugla reminds of another ambient mix by Sigur Ros from the Takk album – Glosoli. Later, I’m listening to Last Thoughts on Woody Guthrie, thoughts Bob Dylan offers – The Bootleg Series, Vols. 1-3 (Rare and Unreleased) 1961-1991.

Quote to Inspire – “Photography is only intuition, a perpetual interrogation – everything except a stage set.” - Henri Cartier-Bresson – Photography Year 1975 – Life Library of Photography, page: 216

What Happened Here ….

Early Fifties Two-door Sedan - Blue Hills

Car photography especially of early fifties vehicles, for me, derives from my learning to steer a car and then to drive one sitting next to a favourite, older cousin in his copper brown and white 1951 Mercury four-door. Strong-arm steering meant that effort was needed to guide the Mercury down dusty gravel roads. These drives usually followed Sunday get-togethers of my family from Edmonton with his in Rimbey, Alberta. The event, recalled to memory is that of a late spring or early summer drive, following an evening meal and Walt Disney. I might have been nine or ten years old when I first took the wheel for some good, adventure-filled times before saying our goodbyes, parting company and returning home in an hour-long drive to Edmonton. Always, my aunt, uncle and three cousins would wave to us from their porch as we left. Our families might see each other again in a month or two. Those were good times.

My starting point for this photograph is curious. I am unable to determine the make of this early fifties two-door sedan. Given that this Blue Hills’ farm and its woods have seemingly been left as if in the middle of things, its abandonment indicates something unfinished in not just one life but in the lives of a few. Here, what is sacred is often about the conception of ‘what-has-happened-here.’ It associates to memory that will not fade and cannot be left. With this image, just as in no-trace camping the art is to pass through an area without disturbing it, this photograph presents the necessity of capturing something seemingly sacred without disturbance – reverence and respect are needed.

Listening to the Dave Matthews Band from the album Stand Up and the childhood/teen reminiscences of Old Dirt Hill, a song that recalls my go-cart, our garage and back alley … and friends at Easter break in Edmonton in grade 5 – 1972 … what a week (and to be grounded part-way through).

Quote to Inspire – “A photograph is a secret about a secret. The more it tells you the less you know.” —Diane Arbus

Alone – A Life Resigned, Complete

Vale Island - Boat in Woods, Hay River, NWT

The photograph presented, here, is one of the five boats on Vale Island at Hay River, NWT. While several wordpress blogger photographs this week explore the theme of ‘simple’ in a weekly photo challenge, this photograph more accurately conveys the sentiment of ‘being at rest or at peace.’ This photograph is quirky, though, a boat dragged among the trees, a boat left to rot away … and still the lighting, the subject and boat’s shape suggest simplicity, perhaps a simplicity in resignation. As a concept, simple can be construed to mean the basics involved in the minimum equation for living; it can refer to what one finds easy to do and tangentially it can refer to limited cognitive capacity, perhaps a capacity less than what is required in order to live. Again, the photograph really presents the simplicity of resignation – a life resigned, something complete, something simple.

Listening to The Good in Me is Dead sung by Martyn Joseph in his album Don’t Talk About Love, Volume 1

Quote to Inspire – “There is no such thing as ‘correct’ composition, just bad composition, good composition and inspired composition.” ~ Andrew S. Gibson, Beyond Thirds – A Photographer’s Introduction to Creative Composition

Vale Island – At the Corner of 100th St. and 102nd Ave. NW

Vale Island Boats - Hay River, NWT

On Vale Island, part of the old Hay River town site, at the wooded corner of 100^th Street and 102^nd Avenue, if you look into the trees of the northwest corner the sight you’ll see is that of four or five derelict wooden boats of various sizes, some small enough to have navigated the east channel alone, others with size enough to have been considered, in their day, seaworthy on the Great Slave Lake. Three of these boats are the subject of my second high dynamic range (HDR) photograph, boats well-past their prime, dragged to higher ground to rot away among the aspen willows. They will no longer be a nuisance there and they’ll need little upkeep. In actual fact, what I’ve come across is the cemetery plot for these old boats. While life has gone out from them, these vessels, without doubt, saw service in my life time; but, would they have been built in my life time?

The picture and this present consideration of boat-life reminds of a reader colleague and friend who pointed me toward Alice Munroe’s 2001 novel about the different ‘ships’ we sail within throughout our lives; it’s entitled Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage, and has now been republished with the title ‘Away From Her.’ Within each state we act and move with different intents and purposes. But, a ship graveyard such as this found on Vale Island reminds that our journey within these collective or collected states has beginning, duration and an end, as well. The book was a tough go reading-wise, more something exposing malaise and truth than … hope?

The boats of Vale Island while having had lives that preceded this photograph, have certainly ferried human lives living within the various ‘ships’ that Alice Munroe has proposed in and around Hay River, NWT. These boats still hold their line and shape. Now, beyond their service, they are in demise. And, the winds blow from the Great Slave Lake through Vale Island, among these boats and into Hay River.

Listening to Ride Forever, sung by Paul Gross as part of the Due South soundtrack, a single song referencing the Great Slave Lake, living in Alberta … and matters of growing old.

Quote to Inspire – “Where I come from the challenges are quite different. There are no drug dealers or pimps, few thieves to bother with. There was only the environment and surviving in the face of it is the challenge of the Inuit. A mother gives birth somewhere out on a glacier field, hundreds of miles from the nearest outpost and she knows that the odds are stacked against her son even living to see the spring with disease, lack of food or the elements. And, even if they should survive and if he should grow to be a boy, she knows very well that all he has to do is lose his footing on the smooth surface of a glacier and that’ll be that. In other words, she should know that if her son cannot live … why should she try? Well I know this woman. I helped deliver her son. She was weak and undernourished. The next morning she stood up and she picked her child up into her arms and she set out again into the blinding snow. And, I think that was one of the most courageous acts that I’ve ever seen.” ~ Paul Gross, Fraser/Inuit Soliloquy – Due South

Thank you, kindly.

High Dynamic Range (HDR) Photograph – Alexandra Falls

Alexandra Falls HDR 2

At the Alexandra Falls I used the AEB (Automatic Exposure Bracketing) in anticipation of working with HDR software soon. The Automatic Exposure Bracketing on a Canon camera takes three (3) shots of the same subject in sequence – a darker image, the average exposed image and a lighter image. I downloaded the Photomatix Pro HDR software (thank you for the recommendation Maciek Sukolski – MiKS Media) with Lightroom plug-in and have been experimenting, tonight. The HDR software combines the images to create better (or perhaps more accurate) definition of the subject and an exposure that more accurately sees all that the eye sees – we see a broader range of dark and light than our cameras; HDR overcomes this limitation. Taking these photographs also requires a tripod so that the camera accurately records the same image three times … without movement. In looking at the image of the falls have a look for the level of detail produced throughout the image. I find myself wishing I would have taken more time at the Hay River shipyard taking photographs in Automatic Exposure Bracketing. Alas, it was cold and I needed to return home 300 km south.

Listening to Cardiff Bay by Martyn Joseph from his Evolved album (first heard on Stocki’s Rhythms of Redemption and seen more than few times in Edmonton with friends).

Quote to Inspire – “Photography is like making cheese. It takes a hell of a lot of milk to make a small amount of cheese just like it takes a hell of a lot of photos to get a good one.” – Robert Gillis

The Art that Food ‘Is’ …

: Muffin Pyramid 1

: Muffin Pyramid 2

: Muffin Pyramid 3

: Muffin Pyramid 4

: Muffin Pyramid 5

: Spirits & Muffins 1

: Spirits & Muffins 2

: Spirits & Muffins 3

: Spirits & Muffins 4

: Teas 1

: Teas 2

: Teas 3

: Tea et al

My daughter misses her brother who’s away at University. As the baker in our family and as someone who’s grown up with stories of and experiences with a grandmother who’s practiced and creative flare showed through her tasty dishes upon her dining room table, my daughter understands that care is expressed for others through the art of food. My son, who’s seven years older than my daughter, values and respects his sister’s abilities, creations and talent. Tonight, my daughter has baked muffins for her brother to send his way in a ‘care package.’

For my part, stories surrounding manna in the ancient wisdom text have me wondering about the longevity (or shelf-life) of this food parcel being sent 800km south; manna was to be collected once a day, a portion (an omer) for each member of the family; collecting more than was needed would see the uneaten portion rot, becoming filled with worms and maggots – all this to teach a people absolute reliance upon the creator. Still, for us, we are at that cold, polar, northern part of our year that sees temperatures drop to -40 where Celsius and Fahrenheit scales intersect. The cold will, no doubt, easily prolong the shelf-life of my daughter’s care package muffins, certainly long enough for my son and his dorm-mate to enjoy.

The muffins my daughter has baked are subject for tonight’s photographs. Later, with her, we added photographs of various teas from our cupboard and placed two ounce-bottles of the grandparent’s favourite spirits on the table to work with glass and shape. We experimented with depth of field and focusing with the Canon 60D’s live view display. Our photography session came about partially because my daughter was intrigued this morning when I showed her a PhotoPlus article on Food photography; it’s part of a monthly feature in which a pro photographer mentors an interested and willing amateur. Now that I’ve had a go at it, the article deserves a re-read.

Quote to Inspire – “Inspiration is always a surprising visitor.” ― John O’Donohue, Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom

Listening to Mozart’s Andantino con variazioni from Flute and Harp Concerto K. 299

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