September 2017 – In My Back Pocket

Creek near Sunshine Village – Banff, Alberta 2

Vermilion Lakes – Banff, Alberta 1

Banff Springs Hotel – Banff, Alberta

Vermilion Lakes – Banff, Alberta 2

Bow River Bridge – Banff, Alberta

Back Country Highway – Bragg Creek, Alberta

Creek near Sunshine Village – Banff, Alberta 1

Vermilion Lakes – Banff, Alberta 3

Planning for class complete, the weekly, notification to students’ parents e-mailed home – it is Sunday’s end. My wife has been planning her week, too. I have taken her out to lunch today. Yesterday, her birthday, she brought to culmination weeks of planning; she organized a friend’s 50th birthday, a spectacular evening drawing together many people. She did well in bringing the event off.

Evening, now, allows my wife and I to settle into a Netflix series. Then there’s time for my wife to read and me a look back through summer photos. Photos, here, are summer images. They are those shot after hours in Canada’s Banff National Park, during a five day conference. Tonight, I’m looking at editing possibilities for the images. I could have photographed the Banff Springs Hotel from higher elevation. Doing so would have avoided branches within the image. I could also have used a telephoto lens to bring the viewer closer (more into the photo). I’ll have a go at it again with this new intention.

I met a photographer at the Banff Farmer’s market. She had photographed first snowfalls – landscapes of trees, snow and unfrozen water; pristine mountain landscapes. Winter images may also be an intention for me. I’ll have to work on that possibility.

Listening to – Cloud Cult’s ‘You Were Born;’ there’s an ‘On Being with Krista Tippett,’ podcast interview with Cloud Cult – the song’s origin pulls at your heart.

Quote to Consider/Inspire: “Art replaces the light that is lost when the day fades, the moment passes, the evanescent extraordinary makes its quicksilver. Art tries to capture that which we know leaves us, as we move in and out of each other’s lives, as we all must eventually leave this earth. Great artists know that shadow, work always against the dying light, but always knowing that the day brings new light and that the ocean which washes away all traces on the sand leaves us a new canvas with each wave.” – Elizabeth Alexander

Foothill’s Wheat – Rimbey, Alberta 1

Foothill’s Wheat – Rimbey, Alberta 2

Foothill’s Wheat – Rimbey, Alberta 3

Foothill’s Wheat – Rimbey, Alberta 4

Manning – Canola

Nampa – Grain Truck 1

Nampa – Grain Truck 2

Spruce Grove – Canola

A few days drive from home, I stop my truck … my eyes have found something. I walk this scene, allowing my eyes to question ‘What is it that is here?’ I set camera upon tripod. I look and frame what I see – ‘click.’ Light’s point of origin directs golden light to and around the landscape it is falling upon – ‘click.’ Light’s absence, its shade and shadow and depth – at sunset, shadows are growing long – ‘click.’ My eyes are finding passage of time – ‘click.’ I’ve recognized something in the landscape and quality of light. I am recalling something – ‘click.’ I manage the machine, my camera, working aperture, shutter speed and ISO – ‘click.’ I am exposure bracketing to seven shots at one-step intervals – ‘click, click, click, click, click, click and click.’ HDR shots are possible – ‘click.’ My intent is not only to capture and hold this moment in memory – ‘click.’ It is to recast reality with the image produced – ‘click.’ Wheat fields that blanket rolling foothills are drawing my imagination to this scene – ‘click.’ Appreciation for what I see builds – ‘click.’ A long-ago memory loosens, … ‘click’ … connecting me to what I now see for the first time as an adult – ‘click.’ A sense of something familiar grows – ‘click.’ My mind resides and works equally in another place – ‘click.’ It anticipates the other side of download, edit and image production, ‘Can I bring the edited image produced close to what I now see?’ ‘Click.’ Weeks pass. I make time to edit images. I remove the SD card from my camera and download it onto an external hard drive. A Lightroom edit begins. In the edit, the surprise of the extraordinary occurs; what my eyes and camera captured weeks ago is now re-seen and more fully seen in the image that has been created. Good.

Images – Foothills Wheat Crop, Manning Canola, Nampa Grain Truck and Spruce Grove Canola.

Quote to Consider/Inspire: “Look for LEICA patterns; Look for lines, edges, intersections, contrast and angles in the shapes, light and shadows of the global and local elements of a photo to create a harmonious composition,” John Kosmopoulos.

Listening to: Molly Tuttle & John Mailander’s ‘Another Side, Tell Me,’ ‘Morning Morgantown,’ ‘Moonshiner,’ ‘I’m Over You’ and ‘Red Prairie Dawn;’ Spencer Elliot’s ‘Torque.’