The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2013 annual report for this blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
The concert hall at the Sydney Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 17,000 times in 2013. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 6 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.
Field Green – Near Greencourt, Alberta
Our Boxing Day is overcast. Snow falls (four inches worth), family sleeps late – the television has had its share of use and all have been able to settle and rest. Coffee and tea warm us. Outside is winter’s cold, an entity that almost requires a northern household to have a fire place to throw off a dry, substantial heat (one day, perhaps) or in-floor heating, at least. Our day is quiet, moving me to recall summer’s colour and warmth, a time when it is easier for an object in motion to stay in motion – a very different time of year. Loreena McKennitt has an album for a day such as this, ‘Music to Drive the Cold Winter Away,’ a Christmas gift from my brother several years back.
Listening to – Ed Sheeran’s ‘The a Team;’ my daughter received sheet music to this song; I’ve had a go at fretting chords and then doing so with the actual song, finding nuance in how it’s played.
“Photography makes us feel that the world is more available than it really is.” – Susan Sontag, ‘On Photography’
Storehouse – St Louis Catholic Mission – Buttertown, Alberta 1
Storehouse – St Louis Catholic Mission – Buttertown, Alberta 2
Storehouse – St Louis Catholic Mission – Buttertown, Alberta 3
Storehouse – St Louis Catholic Mission – Buttertown, Alberta 4
A spring thaw in the early nineteen-hundreds saw several Fort Vermilion area farms flooded. In one instance a farm building washed out, the movement of the water weakening its foundation enough to topple the structure. Timber for that building floated downstream on the Boyer River becoming snagged at a turn in the river as it passed the St. Louis Catholic Mission in Buttertown. Those timbers were pulled from the river and after a time were used to build this storehouse for the mission. The photo was created in May, 2013. Last Saturday night, the image became editing focal point as I showed my son how Lightroom 5 and NiK Software can be used – four versions were produced, some following his eye’s lead.
Listening to – Coldplay’s ‘Yellow,’ a song I worked through after all had gone to bed last night; the piano work is more difficult than the fretwork; the resonance and dissonance found in the chords and alternate tuning are captivating.
Quote to Consider – “Photographs, which cannot themselves explain anything, are inexhaustible invitations to deduction, speculation, and fantasy.” – Susan Sontag, ‘On Photography’
Christmas Heart – High Level, Alberta
Homestead – Rycroft, Alberta
Wagon Wheels – Beaverlodge, Alberta
Crosses – Bezanson, Alberta
At Christmas, Love amplifies, powerful and lifting, scrabbling through the dark mess of tangle. Care and pardon affirm, anchoring you, there, in other Hearts – disgrace yields, grace overcomes. Love finds its way. At Christmas, the first steps within the incarnation are taken; a betrothed groom and fiancée making the best of things, travel within a colonized Israel to add their names within a census, a decision perhaps that may have to do with the practicality in it being safer to identify as a family with what will follow from the census; the fiancée is pregnant, a surprise to the groom and his betrothed. Are the two young? Is Joseph older and knowing something of how to live a Life within this colonized world? Is he prepared for this night? A makeshift moment allows the two to shelter among animals in a barn or cave. Mary moves into labour, a baby is born, a new Life that becomes central to a grand narrative we all are participating in. The name Joseph is first used with Jacob’s wife Rachel, when she conceives and bears a son after many years barren; Joseph literally means ‘he who takes my shame away.’
All this and more become the Christmas story. A few songs tell the story well; but, the one that might best fit today’s times and needs could be that provided by Dave Matthews & Tim Reynolds in ‘Christmas Song.’ I like the conceptualization of any of us as ‘soul-searchers.’ The blood of the children reference is, while scary, accurate within this song – blood covers sins; Christ’s blood was shed for all to overcome their/our sin-state and thereby becomes the blood of the children referred to within the song.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=fbdylEE-0e4
The incarnation is an inconceivable event, something that needs more acceptance than figuring. You need to involve your imagination in such reckoning as precursor to such an event in preparation to be able to recognize when and if such an event does happen, has happened or will happen. You’d have to consider how involving God here on earth might play out.
The song that brought this kind of precursor imagining about best was a Joan Osborne, grunge-rock tune, that I heard most helpfully sung by Martyn Joseph on Radio Ulster’s ‘Rhythm and Soul’; thank you to Presbyterian Pastor, Steve Stockman for bringing all of that about. Here’s Martyn’s version.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=tV2I2KykhrQ
Here’s the Joan Osborne version of ‘One of Us.’
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=7K1hckf1C3I
Quote to Consider – “The camera doesn’t make a bit of difference. All of them can record what you are seeing. But you have to SEE.” – Ernest Haas
Listening to – Martyn Joseph’s ‘Beyond Us, ‘Not a Good Time for God’ and Martyn’s take on Bruce Springsteen’s ‘If I Should Fall Behind’ and ‘One Step Up.’ Also, taking a listen to Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Highway Patrolman.’
There’s a lot of grace encountered in ‘Highway Patrolman;’ Springsteen goes on to tell that it deals with family, responsibility and duty when those things conflict. The lyrics are good dealing with brothers sharing good times as much as the morality involved in dealing with a brother who is straying – lyrics catching my attention follow ….
“Well if it was any other man, I’d put him straight away
But when it’s your brother sometimes you look the other way.”
“Me and Frankie laughin’ and drinkin’
Nothin’ feels better than blood on blood
Takin’ turns dancin’ with Maria
As the band played “Night of the Johnstown Flood”
I catch him when he’s strayin’, teach him how to walk that line
Man turns his back on his family he ain’t no friend of mine.”
May you find Grace this Christmas – my gratitude goes out to each of you who have been part of each step and evolution of this photoblog. Thank you – take good care of your good selves.
Sunny, Sunday Afternoon – High Level, Alberta
The Mill at Sunset – High Level, Alberta
Winter Road – Blumenort, Alberta 1
Winter Road – Blumenort, Alberta 2
Grain Drying Operation – High Level, Alberta
It’s cold this morning – -33C with a wind chill of -39C. Some school bus routes have been cancelled. Steam from chimneys and exhaust fumes from vehicles mingle and hang in the air. Warmth will be needed to be outside today; what is worn will count as will the food used to keep the body’s furnace going and primed. It will be good to be moving rather than to stand still. And, in a day or two we’ll round that corner of the earth’s orbit marked by Winter solstice (that darkest, longest night of the year) and then we’ll begin our return trek back to days with more and longer hours of light.
Images – winter scenes around High Level, Alberta.
Quote to Consider – “Photographs really are experience captured, and the camera is the ideal arm of consciousness in its acquisitive mood. To photograph is to appropriate the thing photographed. It means putting oneself into a certain relation to the world that feels like knowledge — and, therefore, like power.” – Susan Sontag, On Photography
Listening to – Loreena McKennitt, a celtic exploration of music – songs in my hearing include ‘Mummers’ Dance, Huron ‘Beltane’ Fire Dance and Annachie Gordon; I was surprised to find Canadian, Loreena McKennitt’s version of Annachie Gordon showing up on Irish radio playlists last night.
Autumn Gold 2 – Donnely, Alberta 1
Autumn Gold 2 – Donnely, Alberta 2
Autumn Gold 2 – Donnely, Alberta 3
Autumn Gold 2 – Donnely, Alberta 4
Autumn Gold 2 – Donnely, Alberta 5
It’s cold this morning. At -26C, the conundrum is how to deal with my camera (battery-life) and tripod (breakable at colder temperatures). Warmly cloaked, as I trek round my morning’s 6km circuit, I’m resigned to using the walk to scout out pictures. Throughout, I’m listening to conversations – interviews, podcasted on my iPod. But, cold-weather photo-making is not as easy an endeavor as capturing an image within that moment when I find its promise. I turn my initiative to what I can do indoors – editing of previous photos, investigating shots that I haven’t yet worked with and finding new results. This morning is follow-up to other images in the series following the Autumn Gold image from a few days back. Versions of the photo are non-HDR, HDR Black and White and HDR Colour – some fun. The realization is that the HDR images provide better gradation of light and shadow creating better sense of shape as contrasted with non-HDR images. Have a look.
Listening to – Krista Tippett’s interview with Jean Vanier, founder of L’Arche; interesting concepts include the necessity of becoming vulnerable in order to be able to love another and the vulnerability of God in Loving us. Another captivating idea is the path from soul to reality … the curious extrapolation is how this path is distorted, twisted or perhaps even strangled; the last thought has be prodded from a friend’s newly found cynicism – a lot can stand in our way, obscuring our vision and awareness of others.
Quote to Consider – “Nobody ever discovered ugliness through photographs. But many, through photographs, have discovered beauty. Except for those situations in which the camera is used to document, or to mark social rites, what moves people to take photographs is finding something beautiful.” – Susan Sontag, On Photography
Autumn Gold – Donnelly, Alberta
An autumn memory, a gift to view as we move into snow and extreme sub-zero temperature – nature’s architecture providing visual articulation of golds on black at harvest.
Quote to Inspire – “Photographs are a way of imprisoning reality …. One can’t possess reality, one can possess images – one can’t possess the present but one can possess the past.” – Susan Sontag, ‘On Photography’
Listening to – U2’s ‘In a Little While,’ Linkin Park’s ‘Roads Untraveled,’ Jessica Sanchez’ ‘Lead Me Home’ and Bob Dylan’s ‘Shelter from the Storm.’
In My Back Pocket - Photography 
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