Re-tasking A Vavenby Ford, Vavenby, British Columbia
Perhaps the most interesting feature of vehicle restoration is the re-tasking of a vehicle and its parts. Fenders, engines, radiators and transmissions are swapped out as one fails and another usable one is found to be used in its place. A three-quarter ton truck with a rusted out box may have the box removed to be replaced by a new one or perhaps the truck is now made into a flat deck. Here, an old Ford no longer has its hood or box; yet there are still the active working parts that point to its future potential and that define what history it has had and its former purposes. I find solace, here, with one arm in a sling as muscle fibers fuse/grow back together following a bicep/tendon tear. Now, six weeks on, I’m impressed that this body continues to repair its fifty-one-year-old self. For a time, just like this truck, I’m having to remain stationary before I will move in more substantial ways. I can see the promise that this truck still holds.
Listening to U2’s Stay (live from Toronto).
Quote to Inspire – “A photographer is an acrobat treading the high wire of chance, trying to capture shooting stars.”– Guy Le Querrec
A truck has as its intended purpose that of providing its owner with the opportunity of carrying or moving a payload from point of origin to an intended destination. A book does something similar, transporting its reader from point of origin or initial setting through the twists and turns of plot through to a closing destination. The cargo is human in imagination’s resemblance and there is something the author proposes to be learned/understood as one participates in the book’s movement of mind to its conclusion and denouement. This Vavenby, British Columbia truck does have me consider how it was used and the peoples and cargos it has transported. I appreciate its owner having given me permission to photograph it – thank you, Marvin Ritchie. The photographic respite you allowed helped make the long westward drive more doable.
Quote to Inspire – “If a photographer cares about the people before the lens and is compassionate, much is given. It is the photographer, not the camera, that is the instrument.”– Eve Arnold
Listening to – U2’s With or Without You, Mysterious Ways and Elevation (as viewed from the Live at Boston DVD).
Son left at home, a summer job securely held in hand. Day two on a summer’s long-distance drive from High Level, Alberta to Qualicum Beach, British Columbia, nets a few moments driving respite in the valley beneath Mount Robson, Canada’s highest peak. With camera on tripod, I move behind the visitor’s center to find a field with yellows, purples, shapes and textures – all at hand. Everyone snapping photos – people in this place, recording their moments, here.
Quote to Inspire – “If your pictures aren’t good enough, you’re not close enough.” – Robert Capa
The matter of looking around for potential images often happens when I am driving. And, the real work of the photograph is that of stopping my vehicle, safely, and walking the scene to determine best point of view. You need to find what it was that you glimpsed while driving. In winter this might mean walking through varying depths of snow and shooting as snow falls. In summer as this photograph demanded it means descending the river bank to find the right point to capture the image. Having a good look around and doing so through the camera lens prior to the shot help one to find the best shot.
Quote to Inspire – “Photography is more than a medium for factual communication of ideas. It is a creative art.” – Ansel Adams
Listening to – Tim Reynolds’ fretting Betrayal, a song first heard in concert with Dave Matthews.
Early Fifties Chevrolet – Parksville, British Columbia
Summer ends – the year is 1959. Grade eleven students return to Rydell High School as seniors, sporting opinions about school, staff and each other. In this final high school year, they are top rung, the school is theirs and they’re able to assume power and status as seniors; they’re a force to be reckoned with. Girls cluster with girls. Guys ‘hang’ with guys. The senior year is about next steps – next steps in and beyond high school, next steps in terms of courtship and couple-hood, next steps …. A new girl enters the arena of school, Sandra Dombrowsky and the social equilibrium of year twelve becomes flux, teetering several relationships toward daring next steps, more permanent next steps.
So begins the musical of Greasewith its notable characters – Danny Zucko, Rizzo, Frenchy, Kenickie, Doody and others. And, our student actors have concluded twelve months work in grappling with all that’s involved in bringing this narrative to Life and doing so musically. For our student actors, the coming-on of confidence was notable and palpable within the last few rehearsals. And, it was most notable between the first and last night of performance with student actors coming-into their own and enjoying the business of acting out the Lives and potentialities of their characters. For these student actors, connection and response from the audience was found, understood, seized and used to bring off a performance worthy of any metropolitan theatre. They found their way to an excellent performance and standing ovation last Saturday night. In helping this student endeavor along my role was to capture a series of threshold moments moving the troupe from its final three rehearsals through to three live performances. The images I’ve provided the group draw mainly from their final performance in which they were most in sync with their characters, each other and enjoying it all. I also contributed a print from the first cattails series a few weeks back – I printed it out and had it framed in Peace River by Jill Plaizier of Custom Frameworks; she was able to handle a quick turn-around time and to create a beautiful framing of the print that accentuates its colours.
Tonight, while I do not have permission to display student photos on the website, I do wish to celebrate them and their accomplishment with this photo of an early fifties Chevrolet that’s undergone the kind of transformation that Kenickie’s 1940 Dodge Sedan goes through in the film version of Grease; Kenickie and pals begin this section of the musical with “… It’s Systematic … It’s Hydromatic … Why … It’s Greased Lightning.” For me, tonight, I’m at the other end of the project. I’ve edited some six hundred photographs of the two-thousand or so taken. I’ve created an Animoto and DVDs for each cast member. I’m providing them each with photos of their best night. And, I’ve got them a print to frame for hanging upon school walls.
Listening to – while there has been the Grease tunes like Greased Lightning, Grease and You’re the One that I Want, there’s also been David Lindley’s Mercury Blues and then the curiosity referred to by Jimmy Paige as one of those songs that pushed him forward in his guitar work – Rumble by Link Wray and the Wraymen.
Quote to Inspire – “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
Totally an interesting day, yesterday – to post and then to return later and have not just Gina from The Regina Chronicles nominate my photoblog for an award, but also to receive nomination from Jeremy of 365 photos by Jeremy for the Versatile blogger award. Thank you Jeremy for this nomination and for the intrigue and interest you present the In My Back Pocket – Photography photoblog. More than you know the tribute/nomination hits home well. I am grateful.
The weblink above is an animoto of images posted on In My Back Pocket – Photography; have a look. 🙂
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Seven Things About Me
An audiobook listener since 1981 – Emma by Jane Austen was first, Shakespeare’s Hamlet was second, then Thomas Hardy’s The Mayor of Castorbridge; all were audiocassettes put out by Listen for Pleasure and used on a variety of Sony Walkmans.
I’ve completed two half-marathons – the first in two hours, fifty-one minutes and the second at age forty-nine in two hours, fourteen minutes.
My middle brother introduced me to the Canon T70 SLR camera I bought somewhere around 1985-87 and I’ve two framed pictures of Peggy’s Cove, Nova Scotia on our kitchen wall, twins to the pair my father has hanging on his bedroom wall in his retirement home.
I was made a school administrator, one-hundred and forty days into teaching. My teaching has all been north of Latitude 54.
In terms of my love for vehicles, I aspire one-day to help in the beginning-to-end, front-to-back restoration of a rusting relic – just to be a part of the transformation.
In terms of vehicles and vehicles I feel safe in – we’ve owned three Nissan Pathfinders (same series 1991-1995), a Dodge Dakota, a Dodge Colt, a Dodge Spirit, a Jeep Grande Cherokee, two Toyota Camrys (1991 – 2010), an Aries K-Car, a Hyundai Santa Fe and Nissan Altima; all are good vehicles. In terms of handling muck, cold, snow and ice, I’d go with the Nissan Pathfinder (with manual transmission and good tires, SE if possible).
Our Dogs – we’ve had a wolf-Lab cross (Chrissy), a Siberian Husky (Katya) and currently have a Cocker-spaniel (Shadow).
Listening to – John Cougar Mellencamp’s Rumbleseat and You’ve Got to Stand for Something, Dire Straits’ the Bug and U2’s When Love Comes to Town.
Quote to Inspire – “I always thought good photographs were like good jokes. If you have to explain it, it isn’t that good.” – Anonymous
Images and narrative speaking to the heart of Life – this homestead served a family for a time, a family living from the land. The home building, the cabin was certainly heated through the cold of winter and night by wood in a wood stove. This morning, I’ve returned for a look at response to my photoblog to find that Regina (Gina) Arnold writer/author/photographer of The Regina Chronicles has nominated me/my blog for The Heart of Fire Award. The photographs and stories connecting to them find meaning in several lives including that of Gina. And, Gina as fellow-blogger has been one to engage in the dialogue that responds and moves thinking forward in my photography. She encourages in such dialogue and does so again with this award … and I am grateful. Thank you Gina.
The award also is meant to inform others about the recipient highlighting seven (7) things about the blogger/photographer/writer. A husband, a father, an educator, a photographer, a writer, a brother, a son – all are roles I engage in daily. Beyond these roles, other areas of Life are significant – here are seven things among many.
The Writing Life – Married within my last year of University, I was deposited at term-end up north to rejoin my wife in a bedroom community serving Fort McMurray, Alberta fifty kilometres away on the southern side of Gregoire Lake in Anzac, Alberta where my wife taught a grade 1-2 split class. I’m indebted to her fellow teacher for his down-to-earth grounding on what the teaching life is actually about and for his connecting me to Ira Progoff’s Intensive Journal Writing Method through Joe Couture. Through the years I’ve found myself reconnecting with the writing life in these weekend workshops – Convent Station – New Jersey, University of British Columbia – Vancouver, British Columbia and again at another convent in St. Paul, Minnesota.
Fingerstyle Guitar – a piano and guitar have accompanied me through most times in my Life. In University Ma Fletcher introduced me to tablature, fingerstyle guitar and playing with others. The second guitar I bought was a Daion 12 string, a choice influenced by Dave Mason’s 12 string work (have a listen to Sad and Deep As You). My interest in guitar was rekindled after reading Presbyterian Minister, Steve Stockman’s book Walk On: The Spiritual Journey of U2 and finding him broadcasting across the internet from BBC Radio Ulster a show entitled Rhythm and Soul (8:00 p.m. Ulster – 1:00 p.m. Alberta). With a pawn shop Yamaha guitar I began working through Johnny Cash, Willard Grant Conspiracy and Martyn Joseph; because you could re-listen to the show you could play along to many of the songs. From there it’s been a 1989 Takamine EF 325 src guitar and L’Arrivee L-03 and a Taylor 355CE and finally a Martin Backpacker guitar.
Story, Narrative and Novels – curiously, I learned more about the mechanics of novel writing through Bill Beard’s narrative film course at the University of Alberta. W.O. Mitchell’s Who Has Seen the Wind was perhaps the first novel holding meaning for me as a young adult, more because the Life experiences being considered were so similar to my own – growing up on the Canadian prairie. I am both a novel reader and audiobook listener. In university, when I’d have finished my day or evening’s readings/studies, I’d have audiobooks going that were stories referred to tangentially by my professors – it was a great way to fall asleep. Audiobooks were handy for walking, summer cycling and taking buses around town. I eventually adapted my love for listening into a means of study and enjoyed a full semester with marks at the top of all classes taken that term. In terms of story and stories, Emily Bronte’s discussion of soul mates in Catherine and Heathcliff still ranks high for me – Wuthering Heights. Hamlet, perhaps because of the investment of work in understanding the totality of it ranks high for me. John Le Carre’s stories about George Smiley and the circus still hold my attention as does the recent release of the seventies depiction of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. For a time, A Perfect Spy held my attention. And, I’ve understood through the years, that my like for spy stories has to do with their observations and insights about organizational behaviour. Beyond this, I like the concept of vertigo as found in Milan Kundera’s The Unbearable Lightness of Being; and I like the orientation to humility that occurs within this story – there are truths, here.
Chuck Me in the Shallow Water – My orientation to Life is somewhat primal and seeks the pragmatic. Down to earth exploration of what Life is about is perhaps a primary goal for us all. You’ll find me advocating the movie Venus with Peter O’Toole as one film exploring the wisdom associated with Life reality. You’ll also find me digging in to John O’Donohue’s work for his ideas on beauty, on Life and contributing to Life. And, for as much as I seem to understand Life, I’m aware of the ‘much’ that I’ve yet to understand … here, Edie Brickell & New Bohemians’ song ‘What I Am,’ especially the lyric ‘Chuck me in the shallow water before I get too deep,’ poignantly point out that haunting aspect that there’s more that I don’t know, there’s a bigger picture that I and perhaps none of will ever be able to completely fathom. Humility is there in the recognition that all that Life is can never totally be figured out. But, we go forward and make the best of the day that confronts us.
Next steps photography-wise – in addition to continuing on with all things photographic, I’m thinking that my next move will be macro photography; I’ve seen some excellent macro photography on these photoblogs; one photographer who’s caught my attention because she sends me macro images is Kasia Sokulska – an Edmonton-based photographer. I’m thinking that my father would have loved digital macro photography for his images of flowers in and around the house on 58th Street in Edmonton. I want a good macro lens that will provide good depth of field work. So, it will be a Canon macro lens, for my Canon EOS 60D and 30D.
Music – “There’s good music and music that’s good for something,”– so says Woody Guthrie. Music figures as an anchor in my Life. I note that in those times when Life seems stale or cold, there has usually been an absence of music in my Life – that which I’ve played, that which I’ve listened to and that which supports other activities. In creating Animoto slideshows the critical feature after inputting good photos is that of choosing music that suits the photos … it’s the emotional engagement portion of the slideshow. With music, I do have a goal of making it to the Greenbelt Music Festival in Cheltenham, UK one day; the weekend of music and lecture always seems to conflict with school start up. And, music has been something I’ve enjoyed my son’s part in as a member of the University of Alberta Mixed Choir – he’s on tour as I write. The top seven songs that I’ve played through time according to my iTunes library include The Verve’s Lucky Man (83), Radiohead’s All I Need (74), The Police’s Walking on the Moon(71), Radiohead’s High and Dry (71), U2’s Get On Your Boots (Fish Out Of Water Mix) (69), Depeche Mode’s Policy of Truth (60) and Snow Patrol’s Lifeboats(51). My son has also been listening to these tunes; so the statistics may be skewed.
Podcast Listener – I bought my first iPod as one of the next steps taken when BBC Radio Ulster cancelled Steve Stockman’s weekly Rhythm and Soul broadcast. I had no idea what an iPod could do and no idea about how to use iTunes. That was back in 2006. In terms of podcasts that I can recommend the following rank highly – Scott Smith’s Motivation to Move (listening since October 2006), A Prairie Home Companion, The Chillcast with Anje Bee (listening since 2007), The Naked Photo by Riaan de Beer, The Nikonians Podcasts, Shuttertime with Sid and Mac, CBC Radio’s Tapestry with Mary Hynes, CBC Radio’s Vinyl Café Stories and BBC Radio’s World Book Club. Garrison Keillor’s The Writer’s Almanac is good as is the Greenbelt podcast.
In terms of follow-through and to pay it forward, there are blogs I wish to recommend from a point of exploration and because they explore the arena of the ‘heart’ in different ways – thus, the Heart of Fire award extends forward to them. Their blogs are worth a regular perusal and they open-out in different ways much of what Life is about.
Paying it forward – have a go at sharing seven things about yourself and share with others blogs that capture something of heart. Please note – don’t feel bad if you don’t have the time to go through the procedure for this award. Just know that I think highly of your blogs.
Listening to – Tom Cochrane and Red Rider’s Good Times and the Ozark Mountain Daredevils’ If You Want to Get to Heaven.
Quote to Inspire – “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 the moment.” – Elliott Erwitt
Charles Dickens once wrote a novel about an Old Curiosity Shop, a shop much like that of current second-hand stores or thrift stores in which a store owner collects collectibles, curiosities that satisfy our need to discover things that fit the environment we wish to create for our lives. Tonight, day-long, spring snow flurries bring about a look-back through photos. This photograph surfaced as one provoking the curiosities that rusting relics are at that point before restoration in which appraisal and consideration of possibility occurs – questions stir about what needs done, what the vehicle can become, what it will be like to drive and who will drive it. Possibility is leveraged as much by reminiscence as by future anticipation. Something of this imaginative aspect regarding a curiosity to be purchased is what Dickens explores in his novel The Olde Curiosity Shop – the nature of how we choose what we will put into our lives. Rusting relics in this rag-tag, makeshift auto-yard have me wondering about the curiosity that these older vehicles hold and highlight the necessity of imagination in investigating the possibility of what any of these vehicles can become. For me, the teal blue 1959 or 1960 Chevrolet reminds of a car that my grandfather drove when I was three or four. I can only recall being transported in this vehicle two or three times in and around Edmonton and then back to their home on Strathearn Drive – a memory that requires some reaching back.
Listening to – Snow Patrol’s Lifeboats, Radiohead’s High and Dry, Coldplay’s Don’t Panic and Kings of Leon’s Closer; the song that’s been on my mind throughout the post has been The Tragically Hip’s As Makeshift As We Are.
Quotes to Inspire – (1) “Photography can only represent the present. Once photographed, the subject becomes part of the past.” – Bernice Abbott (2) “A photograph is a secret about a secret. The more it tells you the less you know.” – Diane Arbus
High Level Bridge and Steps to the Royal Glenora Skating Rink 1
High Level Bridge and Steps to the Royal Glenora Skating Rink 2
High Level Bridge – Framing Some of Saskatchewan Drive
I am posting in a rush. Away from computer and the ability to post photos, the next few days will see me hunting for a new vehicle (truck, SUV or car) in central Alberta. The photographs I present, here, are from the solo photowalk from a few posts back – a circuit on top and through Edmonton’s river valley – there’s the Fifth Street Bridge, two photos of the High Level bridge northeast walkway entrance and then photos of the stairway leading from the Grandin park down to the Royal Glenora skating rink – where Alberta’s Olympic hopefuls train.
A current review of John O’Donohue’s work on imagination and beauty has surfaced intriguing thoughts about our subjective world, our subtle life and the curious role imagination plays in accessing and realizing all we are and can be; perhaps these are key ideas for sorting Life through, well.
“Where do all your unlived lives dwell? Go back to [your] threshold moments and see what you didn’t choose; consider what might have happened [there]. Unchosen, unlived lives continue to live themselves out secretly in accompaniment with us …. [It is important to note that] the way that we [can be] viewed is infinitely more subtle and sophisticated and complex than the one-hit look of the human eye [that others see us with]. The only way that you can come in touch with your other [unchosen, unlived] lives is through the power of the imagination because … your imagination is always interested in what’s left out; it’s interested always in the other side of the question; it’s interested in depth and roundness. The most important question for any human [to ask] is ‘how do ‘you’ see yourself?’ Who do ‘you’ think ‘you’ are? And, what do ‘you’ think is going on in ‘you’? You cannot see that with your superficial mind.You can only sense that with your imagination.” ~ John O’Donohue, Beauty – The Divine Embrace, a Greenbelt lecture.
Listening to F. Scott Fitzgerald’s the Great Gatsby, a first listen to an unabridged recording following a first reading of the novel. Jimmy Gatz, Daisy and Tom Buchanan, Jordan Baker, Mr. Wilson and his wife – there’s much there about settling into lives as men and women, husbands and wives. It also contains an element of the modern, self-made man, the man of the times, a Dale Carnegie man able to win friends and influence people. This narrative is a historical complement to Martin Scorsese’s current Atlantic City narrative, a mini-series about Nucky Thompson, Jimmy Dohmarty, Al Capone et al in Boardwalk Empire, now in season 2.
Much of the day has been listening to Sirius Satellite Radio – the Coffee House, BBC World Service, B.B. King’s Bluesville; Ryan Adams has a new song, Chains of Love, that I’ll be checking into.
Quote to Inspire – “The more you photograph, the more you realize what can and what can’t be photographed. You just have to keep doing it.” – Eliot Porter
Trekking forward to Tompkin’s Landing – my son at the wheel 1
Trekking forward to Tompkin’s Landing – my son at the wheel 2
Ice Bridge – Tompkin’s Landing 1
Ice Bridge – Tompkin’s Landing 2
Ice Bridge – Tompkin’s Landing 3 – Moving Fuel to La Crete
Ice Bridge – Tompkin’s Landing 4 – Entering from the West
Ice Bridge – Tompkin’s Landing … Looking East to West
Ice Bridge – Tompkin’s Landing 5 – Entering from the East
Tompkin’s Landing Ferry 1
Tompkin’s Landing Ferry 2
Tompkin’s Landing Ferry 3
Two bridges have been built to cross the Peace River in northwestern Alberta, one at Dunvegan and another at Fort Vermilion. In our region, wood chips used for making strand board are transported from mills in and around La Crete, a Mennonite settlement in the region, to a strand board plant north of the town of Peace River. Rather than follow a circuitous route back through Fort Vermilion, then High Level and down to Peace River, a road has been carved through the Blue Hills forest and farming community to a place on the river called Tompkins landing. Here, a ferry runs through most of the year, night and day to keep the chip trucks moving and to provide travelers from La Crete access to the highway taking them south to Peace River, Grande Prairie or Edmonton; in size, the ferry can hold four chip trucks in one go across the river.
In late November or early December, with colder temperatures the ferry is pulled from the river and ice clusters. A few brave souls who have the knack for it create a pathway across the ice, watering it daily just as you would an ice rink in your back yard. An old red, seventies three-ton GMC grain truck holds a portable cistern – each day, morning and night someone pumps river water into the cistern and then drives the grain truck across the ice bridge spreading water on the ice surface. The mass of ice increases on top and from the bottom until with sustained colder temperature -20C to -30C, the ice bridge that is formed is four feet thick, able to hold the weight of a chip truck crossing the kilometre wide path. Ice bridge creation is a practice repeated two hundred kilometres further up the river at Fox Lake, on the edge of Wood Buffalo National Park.
The photographs here present the ice bridge somewhat compressed with a zoom lens; the actual distance across the river is more than a kilometre. Those driving across the bridge need to travel at a speed of 10 km/h. The photographs also present a look at a dry-docked ferry.
Listening to Radiohead’s There, There from the Best of Radiohead; other songs have been Unknown Caller from U2’s No Line on the Horizon and finally there’s been Over the Rhine’s Born from Drunkard’s Prayer.
Quote to Inspire – “Different levels of photography require different levels of understanding and skill. A ‘press the button, let George do the rest’ photographer needs little or no technical knowledge of photography. A zone system photographer takes more responsibility. He visualizes before he presses the button, and afterwards calibrates for predictable print values.” – Minor White – [Minor White, Richard Zakia, Peter Lorenz The New Zone System Manual, Morgan & Morgan, Inc., Dobbs Ferry, New York 1978 (Fourth printing), p. 93]
In My Back Pocket - Photography 
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