Canon 60D

December, Puck & Mr. Keating

Best Practices - Photography, Canon 60D, Canon 70-200 mm 2.8 IS L Series Lens, Canon Camera, Canon Live View, Farm, Homestead, Journaling, Lookback Photos - One Year Ago, Photoblog Intention, Photography & Conceptualizing Beauty, Project 365 - Photo-a-day, Vehicle, Vehicle Restoration, Weather, Winter
Car Between Fox Creek and

Car Between Fox Creek and

December – colder temperatures, cooling the core of you; shortened days, days of the long nights; snow blankets the landscape and falling veils the atmosphere looked through diluting colour into the distance until only the grander forms can be made out. Arriving home for supper, I stumble into Mr. Keating and his students within the latter acts of Dead Poets Society – it’s winter, there, too. At the point where I pick up the story, a student challenges parents’ wishes and takes on the role of Puck within a production of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Neil, as Puck, opens and closes this first performance famously, an outcome that’s would surely catalyze future interest and movement within and toward drama as solid and chosen Life endeavor. His parent’s plan, though, is what it is. There is no room for deviation. Life, moving forward, is their way or not at all. To live-out the parent’s plan, dreams must die.  And, dead dreams are no more than that – dead. Neil recognizes that he has known the rapture of bringing the journey of a drama from a good beginning to successful conclusion. Neil takes his Life. Much of what the movie deals with is shaping judgment and pursuing truth – uncovering the core reality of Life. And, the movie shows costs associated with such noble pursuit – ‘O’ Captain, My Captain’. A friend and colleague pointed out that Mona Lisa Smile is the inverse to this film, Dead Poets Society.

While not a December photo, the vehicle within the image is one that was certainly around during the time in which Dead Poets Society was set. In the last third of the distance from Fox Creek and Valleyview, Alberta, this vehicle resides on the north side of the highway, in a farmer’s field. The sanding and the front right quarter panel that needs to be reattached reveal the car to be a project vehicle, a vehicle that someone has had an interest in restoring … and then didn’t. Set within view of the highway, it is certain to draw the attention of another would-be car crafter. For me, I enjoy the shape and look found in this vehicle from a former time. While editing this photo today, I realized that in total I may only have ridden in a handful of these fifties vehicles, maybe only one or two … despite having photographed them so often.

Listening to – Sigur Ros’ Glosoli.

Quote to Inspire  in Dead Poets Society terms – “Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.” Philippians 4:8 – University of Alberta’s motto

Quote to Inspire – “I fell in love with the process of taking pictures, with wandering around finding things. To me it feels like a kind of performance. The picture is a document of that performance.” – Alec Soth

Fencing and Furrows

Best Practices - Photography, Canon 60D, Canon 70-200 mm 2.8 IS L Series Lens, Canon Camera, Canon Lens, Canon Live View, Farm, Home, Homestead, Lookback Photos - One Year Ago, Photoblog Intention, Photography & Conceptualizing Beauty, Project 365 - Photo-a-day, Season, Still Life, Weather, Winter
Rolling Hills - Onoway Alberta

Rolling Hills – Onoway Alberta

A February photo, one of the first few shots with a Canon 70-200 mm – f/2.8 IS lens, looks northwest toward Onoway, Alberta … perhaps twenty minutes away. Rolling hills of a farmer’s field add relief to landscape reminding of larger furrows found in an unmade blanketed bed. A well-tended fence running four strands of barbed wire limits livestock straying onto this range road.

Listening to – Coldplay’s Clocks, Fix You and Every Teardrop is a Waterfall.

Quote to Inspire – “I don’t believe a person has a style. What people have is a way of photographing what is inside them. What is there comes out.” – Sebastiao Salgado

Winter’s Wraith-like Wisps

Best Practices - Photography, Canon 50mm, Canon 50mm Lens, Canon 60D, Canon Camera, Canon Lens, Farm, Fog, Home, Homestead, Journaling, Light Intensity, Lookback Photos - One Year Ago, Photoblog Intention, Photography & Conceptualizing Beauty, Prime Lens, Project 365 - Photo-a-day, Season, Smoke, Sunset, Weather, Winter
Woodsmoke Wisps - Fort Vermilion Alberta

Woodsmoke Wisps – Fort Vermilion Alberta

Late on a November Saturday afternoon, wraith-like, wisps of wood smoke drift over winter’s fallow field near Fort Vermilion. A homestead’s woodstove produces an intense dry heat, welcome warmth in the midst of a cold, Alberta winter. The day, a first opportunity to work with a new prime lens, a Canon 50mm – f/1.4 lens; my wife has encouraged me to begin my work with it. The image is one of the first images with the lens.

Listening to – Coldplay’s Mylo Xyloto, In My Place, Major Minus and Yellow.

Quote to Inspire – “The photograph is completely abstracted from life, yet it looks like life. That is what has always excited me about photography.” – Richard Kalvar

Between Tide’s Push and Pull

Best Practices - Photography, Canon 60D, Canon Camera, Canon Live View, Light Intensity, Lookback Photos - One Year Ago, Night, Photoblog Intention, Photography & Conceptualizing Beauty, Project 365 - Photo-a-day, Season, Summer, Sunset

Sundown - Parksville, Brisith Columbia

Away from Dad’s home – a July summer’s evening looking out over the water from a favourite Parksville, BC beach, a beach both our kids shared with their grandparents. Always a family destination, this beach was the place in which my son and daughter and I perfected our sand castle engineering in the hours between the tide’s push and pull of the ocean. In early morning, while everyone slept the beach was a calm, quiet destination for fretting through intricate tangles of melody and rhythms on different guitars, Celtic rhythms in 9:8 time in DADGAD tuning or the bass and rhythm riff of a Dave Matthews tune. Where are You Going and Crash in to Me are songs I first fretted at this beach.

Quote to Inspire – “Photography is one big scrapbook of your Life.” – Lisa Jones

Listening to: Big Jet Plane by Angus and Julia Stone

Moose, Moleskin & Bison

Best Practices - Photography, Canon 60D, Canon 70-200 mm 2.8 IS L Series Lens, Canon Camera, Canon Lens, Canon Live View, Fauna, Flora, Light Intensity, Photography & Conceptualizing Beauty, Podcast, Project 365 - Photo-a-day, Season, Shuttertime with Sid and Mac, Summer, Sunset

Are you someone who does this? Do you keep an idea file for photographs you’d like to try?  I’ve found myself doing this at times when travel cannot afford the time to stop and snap a few photos.  At other times, I will realize that the subject of a shot works but that the conditions may not work ideally.  And, if I’m lucky I’ll be able to ask my daughter to write down a note in a moleskin notebook while we drive about location and subject and particulars;  the moleskin stays in the vehicle and I can refer back to it. Wildlife photographer, Moose Peterson in an interview on Shutter Time with Sid and Mac (Sidney Blake and Maciek Sokulski) spoke of being encouraged to keep an idea file for photographs and to revisit the file and plan for opportunities to make the shot or shots happen. The bison at Elk Island National Park (east of Edmonton, Alberta) are subject for one set of photographs found here.   The bison have been a part of my idea file since I’ve been listening to Sid and Mac’s exploits in repeated and regular photo sessions at the park.  For me, in terms of the camera work the learning is about shutter speed.  Within the golden hour of sunlight and with the continual movement of the bison in their grazing there is a need for a faster shutter speed in terms of capturing crisp images.

The issue I am grappling with when traveling is that I will often be days or weeks from my photos before I can edit and see images.  I am still considering the value of a laptop from the perspective of allowing greater immediacy of editing while traveling.  There is learning to be derived from the editing process and it may be that working with a laptop with different subjects will foster good results in second or third visits/photo sessions.

The remaining pictures are catch-all – images that have been kicking around, interesting to look at;  the vintage late 30’s sedan, the T-bird and the late sixties Dodge Dart were parked outside Ricky’s All Day Grill and are the work of one person.  Imagine being able to say to two of your best buddies, “Hey let’s take a few of my cars for a spin,” and then take them out to breakfast.  Cool!  Beyond these, there are other renderings of the fifties one-ton truck, a rusting relic.

Listening to – John Mayer’s Queen of California, a song reminding of the Doobie Brothers back in the seventies.

Quote to Inspire – “All photographs are memento mori.  To take a photograph is to participate in another person’s (or thing’s) mortality, vulnerability, mutability.  Precisely be slicing out this moment and freezing it, all photographs testify to time relentless melt.” – Susan Sontag

Reflection – Rain-soaked and Waxless

Canon 60D, Canon 70-200 mm 2.8 IS L Series Lens, Canon Camera, Flora, Lookback Photos - One Year Ago, Night, Photoblog Intention, Photography & Conceptualizing Beauty, Project 365 - Photo-a-day, Season, Summer, Vehicle, Vehicle Restoration
One Ton Truck - Edmonton, Alberta

One Ton Truck – Edmonton, Alberta

Of the renderings considered, this image of the one ton grain truck (or perhaps utility truck) from the fifties intrigues by way of its waxless reflection brought out by its being rain soaked.  The image’s colours are late summer’s end-of-day colours.  Night isn’t too far off, the shot taken within evening’s Golden Hour in Edmonton.  John Grisham wrote A Painted House, a growing up novel written about a boy’s witnessing America’s move from the farm (a cotton plantation) to its cities in America’s fifties; this is the kind of truck that might have been found within Grisham’s narrative.  I hadn’t thought his narrative (as autobiographical as it is) might be considered sibling narrative to Jack Kerouac’s On the Road until now.

Listening to – what is seemingly a rural truck reminds of Lucinda Williams’ Car Wheels on a Gravel Road.

Quote to Inspire – “The goal is not to change your subjects, but for the subject to change the photographer.” – Anonymous

Carpe Diem, Conundrum & Mosquitos

Best Practices - Photography, Canon 60D, Canon 70-200 mm 2.8 IS L Series Lens, Canon Camera, Flora, Light Intensity, Photoblog Intention, Photography & Conceptualizing Beauty, Project 365 - Photo-a-day, Summer, Vehicle, Weather

Conundrum – how to manage a photo-a-day blog when away from home, computer, software and the Internet. Is it a matter of taking a computer with you? Or is it about caching photos taken during vacation for presentation later on, in look-back fashion? I’m only now sitting down at my computer to review photos, some three weeks later to discover this present gem of an image, a one-ton, late fifties truck that pops noticeably because of the wet reflective surface provided courtesy of the rain. Reflection is a neat thing for adding light to a subject and in so doing, highlighting the subject’s lines and shape. Here, an extraordinary combination of clouds, sun and rain at day’s end allows the opportunity to explore textures, shape, reflection and background. In taking this photo, there was the scramble to the scene (a reasonable distance) in order to make use of the setting, light and background.  And, in this same scene while there has been that aspect of Carpe Diem, there too were the mosquitos within the wet, warm weather to contend with. But, a gem is a gem and I like each of the four renderings of this photo.

In truth, though, it has been hard to sit still at day’s end, the household asleep and to find that I’m awake without the tools for editing photos, writing a post and blogging. The issue is about workflow and what I really value doing with my/our time on vacation.  Photography is intended to assist vacation recall … not what the vacation should be about. Next year, perhaps a laptop … perhaps not.  Perhaps focus will remain on enjoying and capturing our vacation with my camera.

I haven’t withdrawn from my blog so much as I’ve been presented with the separation of vacation from the routines of daily life – sort of a forced withdrawal that’s likely to bring benefits with regard to energy and perspective.

Listening to – Shawn Colvin’s All Fall Down.

Quote to Inspire – “A photograph is a moral decision taken in one eighth of a second.” – Salman Rushdie, The Ground Beneath Her Feet

Tunes – Lunch Break

Backlight, Canon 60D, Canon Camera, Canon Lens, Flora, Light Intensity, Night, Photoblog Intention, Prime Lens, Project 365 - Photo-a-day, Summer, Sunset
Sunset & Plant - Fort Vermilion Turnoff, Fort Vermilion, Alberta

Sunset & Plant – Fort Vermilion Turnoff, Fort Vermilion, Alberta

On lunch break between summer tasks, I play tunes my daughter has had us download in iTunes – Smash Mouth songs, Megan & Liz songs and songs from the Glee Cast. She’s had me track down the original of The Zombies – She’s Not There, a song sung on Glee. Another song from the Glee repertoire is Tears for Fears’ Mad World; we find the Michael Andrews and Gary Jules version of the song that encapsulates the theme within the Donnie Darko movie; it contains a straightforward set of lyrics about Life’s absurdity in being there but not there, almost a ghost within a world where you can be seen but not known, recognized but not affirmed, speak but not be understood. Our listen through with iTunes two nights back brought out several songs by The Who which we download – Won’t Get Fooled Again, I Can See For Miles, Behind Blue Eyes, My Generation, Pinball Wizard and Baba O’Riley. My daughter recognizes Pinball Wizard, a song she’s heard, and I wonder where she would have heard it – questions to ask.  For now she’s happy to have our downloads and to have the songs loaded on her iPod.

One lingering photo is this, taken at sunset, a plant with maroon and gold stem and shoots; it sways in the breeze as I try a macro shot. I’m liking the colours despite its movement.

Quote to Inspire – “No, the camera can’t steal the soul.  But it can occasionally hold it hostage.” – author unknown

Listening to – The Who andMy Generation.  Also listening to Smash Mouth’s Walkin’ on the Sun and All Star.

Keeping Moments From Running Away

Canon 60D, Canon 70-200 mm 2.8 IS L Series Lens, Canon Camera, Canon Live View, Farm, Farmhouse, Flora, Homestead, Light Intensity, Photoblog Intention, Photography & Conceptualizing Beauty, Project 365 - Photo-a-day, Summer, Weather

One use for photography is as a means to revisit the past, to investigate the reality of former times and to hold up to scrutiny the mind’s eye view of significant events held in memory against the reality that photography reveals. Former times often become focal point for memory; we attach meaning and narrative to what has happened to us in significant events and memorable moments. Reaching back to former times with a camera allows for the investigation of visual information within scenes and settings surrounding Life events. Distances, depth, architecture, shape, colour – the visual information within a photograph allows for extrapolation, to see more of the story that was at play. Such camera investigation with editing of images has a settling aspect to it; it establishes more of the facts surrounding events and moves past glory day’s nostalgia to clearer recognition of what comprised scene and action. In doing so, photography locks in the visual information within a scene. While I tend to think of Edmonton, the home I grew up in, and, the events and happenings of years ago, the process is the same when I consider our northern seasons. The dark of winter will bring longing for warmth and breeze of summer’s blue-sky days with clouds stacking and fields in greens, yellows and gold; intensities are there, too – heat, lightning, convection, weather. The photographs here are of such summer days and for those winter days.

Listening to – Alison Krauss/Union Station’s When You Say Nothing At All.

Quotes to Inspire – (1) “Taking pictures is savoring life intensely, every hundredth of a second.” – Marc Riboud (2) “When words become unclear, I shall focus with photographs.  When images become inadequate, I shall be content with silence.” – Ansel Adams. (3) “A good snapshot keeps a moment from running away.” – Eudora Welty

Water Bombing & Slinging

Canon 60D, Canon 70-200 mm 2.8 IS L Series Lens, Canon Camera, Canon Lens, Flora, Light Intensity, Photoblog Intention, Photography & Conceptualizing Beauty, Project 365 - Photo-a-day, Smoke, Summer, Weather

Good day, all:

Currently, our forest region has 27 fires burning – fourteen are out of control, four are being held and nine are under control. Our temperatures have been hot this week reaching +30C and higher in our corner of Northwestern Alberta. At least two smaller communities have been evacuated, threatened by fire and smoke. One fire has a 15000 hectare involvement. The photos presented are of recent water bombing and water slinging operations in the La Crete area – the state of emergency, there, has been lifted at noon today.

Listening to – Shawn Colvin’s All Fall Down and Walter Trout’s Turn Off Your TV.

Quote to Inspire – “When I shoot a scene I often shoot a hundred frames sometimes over a few hours or days, before I begin to get a real handle on what I want in the frame and how I want it there.” – David duChemin