Gull Lake Homestead – Fort Vermilion, Alberta 1
Gull Lake Homestead – Fort Vermilion, Alberta 2
Gull Lake Homestead – Fort Vermilion, Alberta 3
A first photo from the field (with permission) of this one-hundred year old homestead home that I have photographed from the road through various seasons.
Listening to – Tenth Avenue North’s ‘You Are More.’
Quote to Inspire – “Photography is normally an omnipotent viewing from a distance.”
In My Back Pocket - Photography 
Love the clouds in these pics!
Hey there, Brett:
As we move from May into June such clouds are part of that transition from spring into summer.
Thanks for your kind words. Take care. 🙂
Gorgeous pics!
Hello, hello …
Thank you for your kinds words and stopping by to have a look at ‘In My Back Pocket – Photography’ and the homestead images.
I’m liking what you’ve posted in ‘frugoal’ … good schtuff! 😉
The cloudscape is spectacular and the composition really emphasize the isolation of that landscape-wonderful work!
Thank you for your kind words and encouraging/discerning eye. This image is one shot during a photo-workshop with Dave Brosha out in Fort Vermilion.
With composition, I’m thinking being a nudge further out (on the left) and grabbing more of the full cloud form(s) might have given more completion to the image. Placement of the house to the bottom right and it being small among the ‘big’ of the land and sky do work to emphasize isolation within the landscape. I like the cloudscape too and have been paying attention to the direction of light hitting our northern Alberta clouds. From the right angle extraordinary highlights and contrast to background can be found.
June is our month for clouds in Northern Alberta.
Take care … 😉
Very much like the new look of your blog, and of course the images are beautiful. The clouds are great but the homestead just glows
Hey there, Laurie:
Thanks for looking in. I’m liking the new format of the blog and am trying things out. I do like that it is easier to look around within its present configuration. The image you’re talking about is that homestead I keep returning to – over a hundred years old, well built as a homestead house and its duration probably says something about the family who built it, solid and resilient through the years.
I’m going to have to check in on you and Life on a bike. And, I’m wondering how you made out with a new camera – Canon, Nikon, Fuji, Pentax?
Life is busy, just now, with end of school year schtuff and editing graduation photos, some 2094 of them.
Take care … 😉
Thanks for remembering my quest for a camera. I bought the Canon 60d which came with an 18-135 lens. I’ve been quite happy … when I get lucky. I have so much to learn to get better with this camera, but haven’t found the time to learn it well. I need to take a vacation just to learn the camera!
Hey there, Laurie:
I have a 60D as well. I’m liking the manual focus with live view (with flip screen) and the camera sitting on top of a tripod. I hope you’re having a look at the PhotoPlus magazine – it provides good information about basics and things to try and deals solely with Canon cameras. It is a good camera to learn on.
Let me know if you have questions. 😉
I like the yellow staying in the house. I understand your dilemma about the positioning of elements. I like using lightbox for this, sliding the image about to find what I like. The flow like a story from left to right, leading you to the open spaces surrounding the homestead. Imagine the silence of the space, the smells drifting, I can feel the possibility of rain. Nice 🙂
Jim
Hello, hello … Jim:
Your words remind of first days walking/hiking within a fly-in community in northern Alberta. At the start of my teaching career I was much more open to the sensory information than I would be as I close in on the end of the school year some twenty-plus years on. Here, there is the field, its soil, a colder wind; there are textures – cut grains stems, the talc feel of dusty dirt, the wizened and weathered wood of this 100 year-old homestead. There was some new life smell of spring – you could smell dirt. Ansel Adams asserts that you produce a better image when you’ve been active within the context you photograph, likely because you have physical and sensory knowledge of it – experiential knowing guides image making. The composition problem – as I look back to the image, I would have liked to have had more room and more sky in the image; if I’d been shooting with a wider angle (e.g. a 10 mm lens) I could have had a broader expanse and worked toward a panoramic crop. Some of the reward of this shot, though, is that I now have the farmer’s name to contact for return to this setting. And, right now the field surrounding the homestead is all bright yellow with Canola. Have you read W.O. Mitchell’s ‘Who Has Seen The Wind,’ a Canadian prairie’s story about growing up? You might like it for many reasons, including the sensory description. You also have me considering that awareness of silence does mean not having so much to listen to and think through within one’s mind.
Take care ….