No Through Road 1
No Through Road 2
No Through Road 3
No Through Road 4
No Through Road 5
In Alberta’s northwest, a backroad highway connects the town of Grimshaw with the town of Fairview; halfway between the two this road runs north one kilometre from the connector into muskeg and bush, a place where a family has made their home. At this intersection, heart-shaped wreaths are attached to two signs – this one, ‘No Through Road’ leading into this homestead; and, another is attached to the stop sign as the road rejoins traffic along the connector highway. The words ‘no through road’ within a setting in which a farmer would have a tough go in producing crops or raising livestock provoke ideas about Life’s journey needing to be carved out, step following step, day-by-day with eyes upon one’s goal – our path being something we construct each day of our Life. Life becomes journey, Life holds endeavor and endeavor is about recognizing potential, engaging in work, and celebrating/acknowledging achievement.
Thinking through this No Through Road sign first surfaced ideas about settling and moving no further, recalling mediocrity, a term derived from medias (middle) and ocrus (mountain), settling having to do with the climb of a journey up a mountain and finding oneself getting comfortable at the halfway point so much so that no further movement along the climb is undertaken. The narrative within this image is not about mediocrity, however. Life’s endeavor or Life’s challenge is more significant, that act of choosing to plant yourself where you are, looking to what you can achieve, using all that you know – skills and abilities – to embrace Life’s challenge in order to add something into the world. That’s what goes on at the end of this road. The through road that is yet to come will associate to the Life or Lives beyond the present endeavor at this road’s end.
Wreaths tied to signs caused me to stop and look around; the wreaths are inviting and suggest love and care and concern for others; the wreaths also serve to landmark one family’s location on their portion of the frontier for others to find.
Listening to – The Cinematic Orchestra and ‘Ma Fleur’.
Quote to Inspire – “A tear contains an ocean. A photographer is aware of the tiny moments in a person’s life that reveal greater truths.” – Anonymous
In My Back Pocket - Photography 
very nice, like the blue but love the image.
Jim
I’m liking the blue image, too. The image that is truest to the day that was … was the fourth image … a blue sky day, a day away from home for about eight or nine hours. A good day … 🙂
True words.
Hey there, Kiwiskan:
I’ve had a go through my first thoughts and have added second thoughts to the No Through Road content; more what I see and appreciate here is the farm-life that is almost off the grid in terms of its dependency on the world. Some homestead operations are able to operate on a self-sustaining basis with little income generated or needed to make things go. As I’ve thought this post through, the living example of the homesteader is what I’m coming away with … something I’m in awe of.
Take care … 🙂
You also…
your comment about landmarking one’s location / homestead reminds me of the historical tendency to decorate barns with painted quilt squares. Finding loved ones in the middle of the frontier, country, backwoods. Nice series of pictures!
Hey there, LB:
Totally cool to read about barn decorating and with them being painted with quilt squares – there’ll be barns one will recognize finding one’s way around the frontier.
Good schtuff! 🙂
I really like this image a lot – I think my favorite is the top one b/w – but it is interesting to me how a photographer can completely change the mood of an image with the processing. “Our path being something we construct each day of our Life. Life becomes journey ….” is a great reminder for me of taking it a day at a time – and that this is truly a journey we are on.
Thank you too for taking the time to stop by my blog Move the Chair – I appreciate it –
Hey there …
I am liking the images you’ve posted on ‘Move the Chair.’ There, it is evident that you, too, are exploring what can happen with an image through processing … that’s one of the main reasons I post different renderings of an image; none is favourite so much as there is what each rendering holds … in mood, in visual information – something more. It’s not quite the four wildly different perspectives one would find in Faulkner’s ‘The Sound and the Fury,’ but Faulkner’s influence, here, or for any photographer is that each different perspective holds a portion of the truth – in photography each rendering would add more and more to what the viewer understands of the visual narrative.
Atmosphere and mood are significant entities in your work – beautiful schtuff! Thank you for stopping here, likewise and pointing me more directly to ‘Move the Chair.’ 😉