Former Edmonton Sights

Canon 60D, Canon Camera, Home, Night, Sigma Lens - Wide Angle 10-20mm, Vehicle, Winter

Edmonton’s Low Level Bridge 1

Edmonton’s Low Level Bridge 2

Edmonton’s Low Level Bridge 3

Former Volkswagen Shop – Edmonton 1

Former Volkswagen Shop – Edmonton 2

Former Volkswagen Shop – Edmonton 3

As a child growing up in Edmonton’s Ottewell community in the sixties and seventies walking and cycling were my chief means of getting around our community. Travel in Dad’s Beaumont or Pontiac Parisienne would take us to the Bonnie Doon Mall each week for groceries, a place we could explore while our parents shopped. Longer excursions would perhaps take us downtown to shop at The Bay or Eatons or Woodwards. And, there were times when a cold or flu bug would direct us towards a visit with the family pediatrician, Dr. Selby, at the Allin Clinic. Needles, minor surgeries, vaccinations and prescriptions were given to my brothers and me by Dr. Selby.

Travel was a longer affair.

There would be traffic lights we’d encounter on 75th Street as we travelled west on 90th Avenue. We’d move past Bonnie Doon High School to the traffic circle taking the second exit towards Connor’s Hill and downtown. Descending Connor’s Hill we’d drive under a ski jump that would hurl out skiers onto the Connor’s Hill ski area; the hill is where the Edmonton Folk Festival now sets up each August. On our right, roughly where the Muttart Conservatory is now situated we’d move past the City of Edmonton incinerator with its tall, tall brick chimney and garbage trucks moving about. We’d cross the North Saskatchewan River on the Low Level Bridge and then climb Grierson Hill under the Chateau Lacombe and the Hotel MacDonald. We’d travel west on Jasper Avenue and make a right on 120th Street finding a parking space on the street or within the clinic parking lot.

Travel was a family affair; much was discussed within the car … questions could be asked and digested and concerns diluted.

The images presented here are current view of Edmonton’s former Volkswagen shop near the James MacDonald Bridge and of the Low Level Bridge from its northwest corner – both were sights to be taken in during our longer family excursions across Edmonton.

Listening to – Led Zeppelin’s ‘When the Levee Breaks, U2’s ‘Where the Streets Have No Name’ and ‘Sunday Bloody Sunday,’ The White Stripes’ ‘Icky Thump’ and the Raconteurs’ ‘Steady As She Goes” – all are part of the DVD, ‘It Might Get Loud.’

Quote to Inspire – “I think good dreaming is what leads to good photographs.” – Wayne Miller

Summerland – Sleepless Slumber

Backlight, Canon 60D, Canon Camera, Christmas, Light Intensity, Night, Winter

Summerland Boat Launch 1

Summerland Boat Launch 2

Summerland Day Use Area 1

Summerland Day Use Area 2

Sleepless after our second daylong endeavor of sorting through the personal effects and estate of my wife’s father, Ivan, prompts the opportunity for night photography in Summerland along Lake Okanagon. Quietly stealing away, I leave my wife to her slumber. With camera, tripod, cold-weather gear and Ivan’s Hyundai Tucson I tour through Summerland for image opportunities.

My drive toward Summerland’s centre begins in finding two RCMP cruisers outside the Summerland Daycare; they are responding to something. Later, I find Christmas decorations are still all aglow on many Summerland homes – houses worthy of becoming part of any city’s Candy Cane Lane; a week beyond New Years’ day people are not wanting to let go of season – Christmas stretches on into 2013. Beyond the Summerland roundabout a church designed by Italian architects reflects style in the currency of the 1920’s in its use of timber and stone – a photograph, here, will be something better in daylight … an image to postpone. Several homes interest me in terms of structure and in how they are perched on vistas that take advantage of mountain heights and view high above Lake Okanagon.

Later, I come back down to the shoreline of Lake Okanagon – there’s an S-curve of a road surrounding one side of a day-use area; the lake itself surrounding the grounds on the other side. Lighting within the park colours snow in gold and reflects across the unfrozen Okanagon Lake. A boat launch reaches out into the lake to that unseen point of embarkation – eerily, with my father-in-law’s passing the image recalls Dylan Thomas verse ‘Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night,’ … “Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”

Listening to Peter Gabriel – ‘Come Talk to Me’, ‘Steam’, ‘Across the River’, ‘Blood of Eden’ and ‘Sledgehammer’; tonight, v-tuner’s tuned to Electronica – Radio One and “Blueless Invidia”.

Quote to Inspire – “A photo is a small voice, at best, but sometimes – just sometimes – one photograph or a group of them can lure our senses into awareness. Much depends upon the viewer; in some, photographs can summon enough emotion to be a catalyst to thought.” – W. Eugene Smith

Recollecting – Molson’s Brewery

Canon 60D, Canon 70-200 mm 2.8 IS L Series Lens, Canon Camera, Christmas, Photography & Conceptualizing Beauty, Winter

Molson’s Edmonton Site 1

Molson’s Edmonton Site 2

Molson’s Edmonton Site 3

Molson’s Edmonton Site 4

Molson’s Edmonton Site 5

Few Edmonton buildings call to mind New York’s projects, rugged and raw, half-formed, partially dismantled buildings of a not too distant era left behind and left derelict – home to those few or many down-on-their luck. The site of Edmonton’s former Molson Brewery in its semi-dismantled, unfinished and unconcluded state reminds me of the sights and sounds, the cadences and dialects of the English being spoken as I travelled by Greyhound from Toronto to Buffalo to New York City and then to Convent Station New Jersey in August of 1989 – a trip far away it seems in time, yet surprisingly near within imagination’s recollection. The priest who’d had his tonsils taken out at the kitchen table, the orthodox Jew in black taking daughters from Buffalo to New York, the Nun who led us in chant and harmony, the writing, writing and writing, Grand Central Station, Broadway, twenty-foot sidewalks populated with policemen, train travel and a Greyhound Strike – all were part of that five day trip.

Listening to and fretting Rickie Lee Jones’ Sailor Song, finding the sound and the rhythmic rhythm of a boat’s rolling on waves.

Quote to Inspire – “The whole point of taking pictures is so that you don’t have to explain things in words.” – Elliott Erwitt

Spherical Pile

Canon 60D, Canon Camera, Canon Live View, Light Intensity, Still Life, Winter

Spherical Pile – Edmonton, Alberta

Metallic spheres are jumbled into a pile in an architectural or sculptural masterpiece on the east side of the southern end of Edmonton’s Quesnel bridge, a marvel … the kind you would expect to find near or under Seattle’s Space Needle.

What surprised me in my work photographing the structure is that each sphere reflects you back from whatever standpoint you are at. You cannot be out of the picture unless you leave your camera atop your tripod and move 100 feet from the scene. “No matter where you go there you are.”

Listening to and fretting David Gray’s Sail Away and Dar Williams’ The Beauty of the Rain.

Quote to Inspire – “I am forever chasing light. Light turns the ordinary into the magical.” – Trent Parke

Cattails – Eastern lakeshore

Canon 60D, Canon Camera, Canon Lens, Canon Live View, Christmas, Flora, Photography & Conceptualizing Beauty, Still Life, Winter

Eastern Lakeshore – Cattails

A day or two after Christmas 2012, my brother and I got our families outside snowshoeing at Chickahoo Lake. In fresh air, our group got themselves tromping around the lake; I did so with my camera finding these cattails along the eastern lakeshore.

Listening to much of Jack Johnson this morning – Banana Pancakes, Sleep Through the Static, Bubble Toes and Staple It Together.

Quote to Inspire – “A photograph has picked up a fact of life, and that fact will live forever.” Raghu Rai

A Good Squeeze Out of Life & Entering Death

Canon 60D, Canon Camera, Cemetery, Home, Still Life, Winter

Final Resting Place

Skaha Lake – Beach Rentals – Penticton BC 1

Skaha Lake – Beach Rentals – Penticton BC 2

Skaha Lake – Penticton BC – 1

Skaha Lake – Penticton BC – 2

A Blessing – Entering Death

For Ivan, who took an enormous, enjoyable squeeze out of Life … a blessing from many to accompany your passing. Ivan passed away in Penticton, BC last week at the age of 74 leaving behind many good friends and family. The words are that of John O’Donohue but the sentiment and blessing contained within them are shared and offered by many.

I pray that you will have the blessing
Of being consoled and sure about your death.

May you know in your soul
There is no need to be afraid.

When your time comes, may you have
Every blessing and strength you need.

May there be a beautiful welcome for you
In the home you are going to.

You are not going somewhere strange,
Merely back to the home you have never left.

May you live with compassion
And transfigure everything
Negative within and about you.

When you come to die,
May it be after a long life.

May you be tranquil
Among those who care for you.

May your going be sheltered
And your welcome assured.

May your soul smile
In the embrace
Of your Anam Cara (that radiant source of wisdom, that link between the human and the divine).

~ Entering Death, To Bless the Space Between Us (A Book of Blessings), John O’Donohue