Rainbow Re-edit

Best Practices - Photography, Canon 60D, Canon 70-200 mm 2.8 IS L Series Lens, Canon Camera, Canon Live View, Farm, Flora, High Dynamic Range (HDR), Journaling, Light Intensity, Lookback Photos - One Year Ago, Photography & Conceptualizing Beauty, Project 365 - Photo-a-day, Smoke, Summer, Weather

Wind Turbines and Rainbow – Oahu 1

Plantation Fire – Haleiwa, Oahu

Wind Turbines and Rainbow – Oahu 5

Wind Turbines and Rainbow – Oahu 4

Wind Turbines and Rainbow – Oahu 3

Two summers ago, my wife, daughter and I enjoyed two weeks on Oahu. We rented a car, a Ford Fusion, for the time and used it to take us on day trips exploring Oahu. In the second week we returned for perhaps the fourth time to Haleiwa, part of Oahu’s North Shore. Exploring, shopping and photo gathering were elements of that day. We’d each finished an ice cream cone and were buying t-shirts for my son when sirens of fire engines moved through town – one, then, five minutes later another.

To the north, a plantation, perhaps a mile away was burning and dark black smoke was billowing in the air.

When traffic had returned to its steady flow we got into the car with the intention of returning to Honolulu for the evening. Traffic had slowed, returning to an ambling pace. As we headed away from Haleiwa the idea to see the site of the fire attracted my curiosity. I took a right from the main road and followed a one-lane backroad toward the fire. I thought better of it; the backroad to the plantation was narrow and blocking traffic would be a problem.

I stopped our vehicle, got out and looked back over my right shoulder to see these wind turbines with a rainbow coming down in the midst of them – an opportunity for a photograph had presented itself. I attached my 70-200mm lens to my Canon 60D, zoomed in and captured these images. I posted the image on this blog maybe eighteen months ago, an image edited on my laptop while waiting for clothes to dry in the laundry room of the Marriott Hotel in Honolulu. The original posted is the third image above. Yesterday, I explored this sequence of images and found a few others to share. My thanks to Mark Kurtz for drawing my attention back to these images.

Listening to – Parov Stelar’s ‘Room Service,’ Nitin Sawhney’s ‘Firmament,’ the Gotan Project’s ‘Santa Maria (Del Buen Ayre)’ and Quantic & Tempo’s ‘Sabor.’

Quote to Consider – “In photography there are no shadows that cannot be illuminated.” – August Sander

Reflecting, Road Thought Work

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Homestead – La Glace, Alberta, Canada

Stop Ahead Turnoff – NW Alberta

Sunset – Warrensville, Alberta Canada 1

Sunset – Warrensville, Alberta Canada 2

Sunset – Warrensville, Alberta Canada 3

Sunset – Warrensville, Alberta Canada 4

Sunset – Warrensville, Alberta Canada 5

“We never see another person’s experience; all we see is their behaviour (R.D. Lang).”

I have had some alone time travelling in the past few weeks and been able to engage in uninterrupted thought work – some intersecting of ideas has occurred. I’ve listened to a 2007 John O’Donohue lecture on the creative force of the imagination and key ideas as starting points about our inner lives – in his words, “I always think that behind every face there is a secret life and that humanoids are the strangest creatures that you’d ever meet because so much is contained within the human body. A human face is one of the most unusual things in the world. On such a small canvas such a variety of presence can appear. And, behind every face there is a secret, hidden inner life … if friendship means anything it means in the presence of the other you begin to see who you are in how they reflect you back to you.”

Within this same time frame I took in a photography workshop offered by Joe McNally – ‘The Moment It Clicks.’ As I listened and watched Joe work to produce different portraits there was recognition that the photographer does what John O’Donohue proposes; ultimately, the photographer reflects the subject back to him- or herself. I have wondered, though, if portrait photography is really a dance of interrogation; I have wondered if shared vulnerabilities result in trust and a richer portrait. And, is it the photographer’s leading interrogation about the subject’s narrative that produces the best photograph? Or, is it something more mutual that does so? I am wondering if the good portrait photographer leads the subject in the relationship that produces the portrait? It is possible that subject and photographer would share a context of silence in portrait making.

John O’Donohue’s words highlight some of this – “No two humans inhabit the same world, internally. We all inhabit the same world physically. But, internally, each world is completely different.” On the side of the photographer and on the side of the subject, what follows is starting point. “… No one else sees the world the way you do. No one else sees it from the perspective that you do. In no one else is the same narrative building as there is within you. And even though similar things have happened to you as with other people the context that they find in your heart and mind and narrative is different from everyone else. Your inner world is completely hidden from other humans.” So, within portrait photography interrogation has the opportunity to work on both sides co-creating a reality – that of photographer and that of subject. Relationship and moment are captured and recorded as the shutter button is pressed.

As the week rounded out, I found myself among this theme, again, being explored and brought to life in Ben Stiller’s film of James Thurber’s story, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty.

Images from the Road – a derelict church in Woking, a La Glace homestead, the road at night and sunsets.

Quote to Consider – “If you’re having difficulty finding a natural or intuitive expression in a portrait session or having trouble identifying with the person you’re photographing, look into their eyes carefully and see if you can find your own reflection there. Discover yourself looking at you. Then, ask your subject to look into your camera lens and find their own reflection, and be prepared to make the portrait.” – Shelby Lee Adams, ‘Find Your Reflection’ … seems follow-up from the aphorism, “The more I know me, the more I know thee.” – Buber-esque and good, good schtuff!

Listening to – Jose Gonzalez’ ‘Stay Alive’ and Thomas Merton’s ‘The Seven Storey Mountain.’

Yellow Dazzling

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Canadian Grain Bin – Guy, Alberta, Canada 1

Canadian Grain Bin – Guy, Alberta, Canada 2

Canadian Grain Bin – Guy, Alberta i

Westeel Grain Bins – Warrensville, Alberta, Canada

The ground, seeded, transforms from dark, dirt black to green growth reaching its pinnacle of dazzling yellow before being harvested. I have driven through some of Alberta’s farmland in the past two weeks and Canola does seem the farmer grown plant of choice, this year, its yellows colouring and brightening what, in winter, had been a darker and more dreary landscape. I had hoped to catch Canola surrounding these Warrensville Westeel grain bins in the past two or three years, never returning to the site/sight until a week ago.

The Canada Flag painted on the side of a grain bin forms a landmark for travellers nearing the hamlet of Guy, Alberta. On Alberta highway 2, as you climb from the valley holding the Smoky River going north you’ll find the grain bin on your left two or three minutes along; for many the flag and shed serve as time marker for journeys northward. From this point, I can be at my doorstep in High Level, Alberta in three hours and forty minutes.

In addition to the broad reach of Canola’s yellows in these images, immensity surrounding the grain bin is also part of things; looking ahead through the miles a cumulonimbus cloud will later offer its weather, wind and rain, as something to be managed within our drive home. These images remind of photographs in which grain fields, mountains and breathtaking cloud work coalesce and immensity is the dominant feature within the image. I hadn’t considered it; but, the fact that a Canadian Flag has been painted on the side of a grain bin holds associations for the farmer – perhaps pride in being Canadian; it may also aim to have others consider the key role grain farmers play in Canada’s economy; or, perhaps the notion has something to do with being in the heart of Canada. What’s also there is perhaps something political … perhaps something like the assertion, ‘we are all Canadians first and foremost.’ The question intrigues – what was the point of origin for the idea of painting a Canadian flag on a farmer’s grain bin?

Quote to Consider – “A photograph is the story I fail to put into words.” – Destin Sparks

Listening to – Murray McLaughlin’s ‘Hard Rock Town,’ The Who’s ‘I Can See For Miles,’ Bob Dylan’s ‘Buckets of Rain,’ Steve Miller Band’s ‘Fly Like an Eagle,’ Ozark Mountain Daredevils’ ‘If You Wanna Get To Heaven,’ Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Radio Nowhere,’ Link Wray & the Wraymen’s ‘Rumble’ and Bruce Springsteen’s rendering of a Pete Seeger tune ‘We Shall Overcome.’

Reddening

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Skyline – Edmonton, Alberta – Canada

Edmonton Skyline – Edmonton, Alberta Canada 1

Edmonton Skyline – Edmonton, Alberta Canada 3

Skyline – Edmonton, Alberta – Canada 4

I dropped them off. Edmonton’s Commonwealth Stadium now held them – my wife, our daughter and our daughter’s friend – tickets, purchased last November; the event, a One Direction concert.

I began looking for possible photographs – different subjects presented themselves. I got out of our truck opposite Strathcona Composite School and had a look at a rat rod parked outside a gym on the southbound Calgary trail – very minimalistic in design and with little to draw the eye. I moved on. On Jasper Avenue the Gibson Building has always been an interesting subject to photograph – a building built to accommodate the wedge or pie piece shape of the land beneath it. But for the last eighteen months a neighboring construction zone has interfered with its presentation; I would need a fish eye lens to make something of the building without capturing the construction site. A photograph would not be viable today. Later, I had a good walk through the John Walter museum and gathered more information about the area and the history of one of the Walterdale homes I had photographed months before. There, in walking back to my truck, I ran into one of my daughter’s friends from her dance company – she was staying with grandparents and had recognized me. We said our hellos; I chatted with her and her granddad and we parted.

The evening clouded over. As the sun moved into its golden hour, I got to the Riverdale bike bridge and began gathering the shots above of the Edmonton Skyline. People walking by offered encouragement and saw the photographer’s opportunity of reddening clouds. One Direction’s music could be heard in the distance – people wondered if the music was part of the Taste of Edmonton event that was also going on, currently. In wind, spitting rain and cloud, wiping the lens with lens cloth regularly I gathered these images.

Quote to Consider – within the intention of ‘In My Back Pocket – Photography,’ has been the movement toward the seamless ‘See, Think, Do’ of image capture and image making. The following image conveys something similar and is found in Franz Kafka’s ‘The Wish to Be a Red Indian;’ “If one were only an Indian, instantly alert, and on a racing horse, leaning against the wind, kept on quivering jerkily over the quivering ground, until one shed one’s spurs, for there needed no spurs, threw away the reins, for there needed no reins, and hardly saw that the land before one was smoothly short heath when horse’s neck and head would be already gone.” Liking this … sort of what photography can become, response.

Listening to – Maeve Binchy’s ‘A Week in Winter’ for the long drive to and from Edmonton.

Footner Anchorage

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Anchored Float Plane – Footner Lake, Alberta – Canada

A smoky dusk at Footner Lake in early July, late in the evening and perhaps for the first time in twenty years I witnessed this sight, a float plane, anchored and ready for use at this dock. And, at 10:20 p.m., the air at the lake fills with the sound of different air tanker water bombers returning to the High Level airport (half a kilometre away) – propellers feather, the rubber of wheels squeak loudly meeting the tarmac followed by the winding down of engines and flaps up cutting air, slowing each plane, and then taxiing to a halt. Finally, the air quiets for the night and all becomes still.

Listening to – Joe Strummer & the Mescalaros’ ‘Coma Girl,’ Amos Milburn’s ‘Chicken Shack Boogie,’ Alan Vega’s ‘Dujang Prang’ and Jimmy Reed’s ‘Take Out Some Insurance.’ All are songs Bruce Springsteen highlights as holding promise, ones that he enjoys and will recommend in MOJO magazine.

Quote to Consider – “You’ve got to push yourself harder. You’ve got to start looking for pictures nobody else could take. You’ve got to take the tools you have and probe deeper.” – William Albert Allard

From within the Smoke

Canon Camera, Flora, Night, Photography & Conceptualizing Beauty, Project 365 - Photo-a-day, Smoke, Summer, Sunset, Weather

Wildfire – 10km South – High Level, Ab 1

Wildfire – 10km South – High Level, Ab 2

Wildfire – 10km South – High Level, Ab 3

Wildfire – 10km South – High Level, Ab 4

Outside on Saturday afternoon, I was mowing grass on day 1 of our summer break. Daylight filtered through a light smoke haze. Looking from the yard of our High Level home southward plumes of smoke were notably dark and heavy … and very close to town. In a wildfire advisory I was to read that only ten kilometres separated a wildfire from High Level. Air tankers roared through the air all afternoon and into the night soaking the blaze with water until 10:00 p.m.. Later that evening, in driving out to the point nearest the fire on the highway I witnessed a DC-3 air tanker moving through smoke arcing out of a water-dropping run – crossing the highway from right to left and climbing as it turned to its left and northward to the High Level airport … a sight that would have made an extraordinary photograph. I pulled off the road onto a temporary turnout and took these images. In one I aimed to capture the sun as a solid orange disk as seen through smoke; the image I present here is one result I am happy with though it is not what I intended.

Listening to – Willie Nelson’s cover of ‘Just Breathe’ with his son Lukas and Willie Nelson’s cover of a Coldplay tune, ‘The Scientist,’ featured in the Robert Downey Jr. film with Robert Duvall, ‘The Judge.’

Quote to Consider – “It can be a trap of the photographer to think that his or her best pictures were the ones that were the hardest to get.” – Timothy Allen, ‘On Editing Photos’

Wildfires Held

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Wildfire – Hutch Lake, Alberta, Canada – 1

Wildfire – Hutch Lake, Alberta, Canada – 2

Wildfire – Hutch Lake, Alberta, Canada – 3

Wildfire – Hutch Lake, Alberta, Canada – 4

Wildfire – Hutch Lake, Alberta, Canada – 5

Wildfire – Hutch Lake, Alberta, Canada – 6

Wildfire – Hutch Lake, Alberta, Canada – 7

Wildfire – Hutch Lake, Alberta, Canada – 8

Wildfire – Hutch Lake, Alberta, Canada – 9

Wildfire – Hutch Lake, Alberta, Canada – 10

Wildfire – Hutch Lake, Alberta, Canada – 11

Wildfire – Hutch Lake, Alberta, Canada – 12

Wildfire – Hutch Lake, Alberta, Canada – 13

Wildfire – Hutch Lake, Alberta, Canada – 14

Wildfire – Hutch Lake, Alberta, Canada – 15

Wildfire – Hutch Lake, Alberta, Canada – 16

Wildfire – Hutch Lake, Alberta, Canada – 17

The school year is complete and I am settling into summer bit by bit. For the most part we have a smoky haze surrounding us. Ten kilometres south of High Level, Alberta a wildfire burns and tonight’s most current report is that fire is being held. But, there are sixty wildfires in our region, some threatening communities; residents in the community of North Tallcree have been put on evacuation alert. We are not quite a tinderbox, but our forests are dry and we’ve had little rainfall.

Yesterday, I drove out to Hutch Lake, 20 kilometres north from High Level and saw that forest on the east side of the highway was smouldering; air tankers and helicopters slinging water were dropping water on the fire. I was able to photograph a team of the smaller Amphibious Airtankers as they dropped water on fires and skim across Hutch Lake loading water into pontoon tanks.

Listening to – Gillian Welch’s ‘Red Clay Halo,’ Billy Bragg and Wilco’s rendition of Woody Guthrie’s ‘Airline to Heaven,’ Badly Drawn Boy’s ‘A Minor Incident’ and Bob Dylan’s ‘Shelter from the Storm.’

Quote to Consider – “Nothing happens when you sit at home. I always make it a point to carry a camera with me at all times … I just shoot at what interests me at that moment.” – Elliot Erwitt