In My Back Pocket

Projects – As a teacher with a bent for photography I am asked often to add the photographic component to the school’s curricular and extracurricular projects. I’m able to justify doing so because the problem-solving along the way usually adds to my understanding of what is possible in creating images and because my understanding of what’s to be achieved within the project from an insider’s stance allows me to transform the familiar of school Life into that which enlightens people beyond our school. And, there’s always that element of daring to photograph what needs to be photographed.  There’s a humbling element of being cannon fodder (perhaps Canon fodder) in pushing yourself to move close enough to photograph something that in terms of social boundaries you might not normally move yourself into. Over time students and staff become familiar with the idea that you’re the guy who’s going to visually record a moment, event or celebration. Within this year I’ve produced a photobook for the school (a mock traffic accident … that all students watched in front of the school featuring student actors), I’ve created twenty or so Animoto slideshows and I’ve added thousands of images to our school stockpile of yearbook photos. My images have helped celebrate student achievement in the local paper. I’ve pushed my envelope with photography this year and can see differences in my photography as I do a one year look-back.

Parksville, British Columbia Photographer and Mentor Alan Cornall tells me the key is to just stay in the habit of shooting … keep on clicking. My photography evolves.

My gratitude goes out to Colleen of Colleen E Gunderson PHOTOGRAPHY http://artistisk.com/ for nominating me for the Kreativ Blogger Award – thank you, Colleen for connecting with what my blog and posts are about;  thank you, also for your blog which inspires … good schtuff!

Seven Random Things About Me

1. Where Are You Going? – I like redemption’s landscape as found within the lyrics and melody of this Dave Matthews’ song.
2. I miss the reach, insight and understanding that Steve Stockman surfaced in all kinds of music in his BBC Radio Ulster broadcast of Rhythm and Soul, the forum/threshold that generated the fodder that would become Steve’s book, Walk On: The Spiritual Journey of U2.
3. Chocolate Chip Zucchini Cake baked and iced by my daughter and/or wife – it is ‘to die for.’
4. Gabriola Island, British Columbia is a threshold place, one that separates me from what was, to what is and to what will be; it slows me down and restores me. I should go there more often.
5. Grace counts – in what I receive and have received (I am grateful); in what I can share with intention and with good understanding. We each need grace and our brokenness or being broken clarifies such understanding. I appreciate Steve Stockman’s wording through of Grace within his poem, ‘Up On Scarlett Street’ – “Some may call it blasphemy; but, I believe it’s true.  God lies there beside you in the gutter and grace, like a mother holds you.”
6. I miss the intimate, intelligent, informed and poignantly humourous draw into Canadian politics brought forward by veteran newsman, Peter Gzowski, on CBC Radio’s broadcast of Morningside.
7. I enjoy my son’s choral presence and resonance as he sings as a member of the University of Alberta Mixed Chorus.

Rules of Acceptance – Kreativ Blogger Award:

1. Add the award to your blog.
2. Thank the blogger who gave it to you, and link back to them in your post.
3. Mention 7 random things about yourself.
4. List the rules.
5. Pass on the award to 10 bloggers.
6. Inform the newly nominated by commenting on their blogs.

Bloggers Whom I Nominate as Kreativ Bloggers (in no particular order)

1. Ana Silva for her discovery of the world in prose and image within her blog 1001 Scribbles ~ Random and Abstract Lines – http://1001scribbles.wordpress.com/ .
2. Angeline Munoz for responding in thought and images to what comprises every day within Angelinem’s Blog – http://1001scribbles.wordpress.com/ .
3. Anna Laviola Milo for images she produces and her tack on Art in her self-titled blog at http://annamilo.wordpress.com/
4. Claude Schilling for all the different images produced, but especially for his take on rusting relics – vehicles of a former day oxidizing between bits of paint – double plus good!  Claude’s blog is Claude Schilling Photography, subtitled ‘Photographing the past for the future’ – it’s found at http://claudeschillingphotography.wordpress.com/ .
5. Fergiemoto’s Creativity Aroused soothes and calms with a mixture of poetry, photographs and response to what each day presents; it’s found at http://creativityaroused.wordpress.com/ .
6. David R. Wetzel Photography is photography that’s allowing me to see the world David sees – it’s extending my sight to places he calls home.  It’s perspective and thinking that come through – http://davidrwetzelphotography.wordpress.com/ .
7. Letizia Argiolu’s blog DutchGoesItalian is what a blog should be about if it’s to discover and investigate the world around you; what one does with a photoblog she does reporting back on the Italy that’s off-the-beaten path in terms of its food, its wine, different stores – totally interesting … and what may draw me to Italy … Good!  Letizia’s blog is found at http://dutchgoesitalian.com/ .
8. Homer Humble’s Humbled Pie is blog that by way of narrative and photography gives eyes to ‘Southern Living.’  http://humbledpie.wordpress.com/
9. Jessi Hagood – commercial & event photographer; images from a photographer who can look through a camera’s lens and find the extraordinary within the familiar; images explore the world and/or what’s happening within it. http://jessihagood.wordpress.com/