Edmonton's River Valley - Looking Back to Saskatchewan Drive

If you know the Adizes curve you’ll recognize what’s referred to as a learning curve being the initial part of a bell shaped curve moving you from initiation of a new practice to a point of prime where you crest the top of the curve and master practice – new practice has been worked, handled and made best practice. Optimal use of the Adizes curve has you taking on new learning curves as you crest and master prior practice. Doing so, allows you to hang on to current good practice while embracing newer needed practice.

The photograph presented, here, is one taken midway through a five-hour, solo photowalk around Edmonton’s river valley. I’m dealing with new practice.  I’m moving through a metropolitan area and recreational park area and making decisions about photographs I want, committing action to each shot and moving on – it’s a pattern I’m developing. As I start I’m shooting too quickly, not letting my eye look around the frame to see if I’m gathering all that is subject and background. Some of what I’m doing is managing state – balancing my awareness of environment (the hustle and bustle of what’s going on around me as I shoot) with good awareness of what I am seeing in the lens. I settle into the rhythm of practice – walk and find subject, move to find best angle/perspective, set the exposure (f-stop against shutter speed), focus and take the shot; then, when I’ve exhausted my seeing and possibility with a subject I move on. I’m also testing out gear at -20C.  I’m keeping one battery warm, close to my chest underneath fleece and winter jacket; every twenty-minutes or so, I’m swapping out the camera battery (the cold for the warm). I’m carrying a knapsack style camera bag and a tripod bag slung over my body, over the camera bag.  Beyond this, I’m managing comfort in terms of staying warm with fleece underneath jacket and ski pants.

At the mid-point of my walk, having come down into the river valley, I encounter this shot – a silhouette, near the 5^th Street Bridge looking back up toward Saskatchewan Drive, a neat leading line of posts preventing vehicles moving where they ought not to go.  I move on. As I take pictures I’m unaware of the need to clean my lens and that snow crystals will shape what I expose. It is days later when I’ve returned home and edit the images that I see them – the result isn’t anything bad, just something that needs cleaning up with software. In this photowalk I began at the High Level Diner, moved east along Saskatchewan Drive, entered the Edmonton City Park (the River Valley), crossed the 5^th street bridge, walked through the Alberta Legislature grounds and returned to the University side of the North Saskatchewan River – it has been a first view of the area with my camera, something to repeat and revise. At a pub, formerly Plato’s Pizza, I treat myself to two pints of Boddington’s Pub Ale while I wait for a ride home and I review images.

Listening to … or fretting many Stan Rogers’ tunes tonight; among them have been The Wreck of the Athens Queen, Fisherman’s Wharf and Maid on the Shore; it’s been DADGAD tuning tonight and I’ve also shifted into 9/8 time, in a manner to support a fiddler’s reel or jig – a rhythm Skew Lines‘, Kerri Brown (fiddle, guitar, percussion) helped me find and play in Parksville, British Columbia.

Quote to Inspire – “I like photographs which leave something to the imagination.” – Fay Godwin