Jasper Avenue Apartment – Edmonton, Alberta 1
Jasper Avenue Apartment – Edmonton, Alberta 2
Jasper Avenue Apartment – Edmonton, Alberta 3
An Edmonton apartment overlooks the North Saskatchewan River. It is a building that has been around since the thirties or forties and is architecture of my mother’s time, a time when walking was the way through Edmonton and vehicle use was limited. The apartment is one I associate to Canadian literature as backdrop or setting to scene, a building that could feature in Mordecai Richler’s ‘The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz’ or within Robertson Davies’ ‘Fifth Business.’
The apartment draws me to recall Morley Callaghan’s ‘Such is My Beloved.’ The novel looks at a priest in the Great Depression making sense of God’s Love and the encounter of his reaching out with Christian care to two prostitutes, an encounter in which his efforts are taken advantage of and as I now recall, a situation repeated for real much more recently and narrated more accurately in Nadia Bolz-Weber’s memoir, ‘Pastrix.’ In ‘Such is My Beloved,’ the cocoon of Church, Church-Life and Church politics, all, cloud the words of the great commission being lived out and because they are not current or used readily by the congregation their exploration by Father Dowling is an innocent and naïve endeavor, one done on the sly without others knowing, a first, sustained attempt that’s taken too far with aims of turning recipients’ Lives around.
The story functions as a morality play, unfortunately tragic in structure and is more cautionary about not living out the Great Commission. In actuality, the Great Commission is likely more of ‘do-what-you-can-with-what-you’re-presented-with;’ when lives begin to turn around the Church can mobilize with many resources.
Listening to – The Blind Boys of Alabama and ‘Run On for a Long Time,’ ‘Amazing Grace,’ ‘Soldier’ and ‘Way Down the Hole.’
Quote to Inspire/Consider – “The camera is a kind of passport that annihilates moral boundaries and social inhibitions, freeing the photographer from any responsibility toward the people photographed …. You are not intervening in their lives, only visiting them.” – Susan Sontag, ‘On Photography’
In My Back Pocket - Photography 
The architecture is so attractive and functional to that space. your photographs enhance it’s beauty!
Hey there, LB:
For me, what’s happening is that Edmonton is so relatively new that much architectural history is removed too easily and too quickly; I’m glad to see this building remain … and as you say it fits the space well.
Thanks for looking in … 😉
Interesting variations on each of these.
Hey there, Brett:
Thanks for checking in and commenting. With a father and friends who have gone to Mount Allison, your Mel’s Diner and Sackville pictures are opening out a little of their experiences for me. Thank you.
I’m liking your use and discovery of colour in your Maritime photos. Good schtuff!
Nice feeling in No2, sort of welcome home look. Is the light flare added or with a filter? (Is it rude to ask?)
Hey there, Jim:
It’s important to ask – asking closes the gap between not knowing and knowing. The flare of lights is actually the way the light hits the shutter leaves. You can correct for it somewhat. And, you can actually figure out how many leaves are present by way of counting the spires issuing from one of the lights. No. 2 would be the one for me too. 🙂