The Practical – Practically

Canon Camera, Canon Lens, Canon Live View, High Dynamic Range (HDR), Homestead, Light Intensity, Photography & Conceptualizing Beauty, Project 365 - Photo-a-day, Spring, Still Life

Gull Lake Homestead – Up Close, Fort Vermilion, Alberta Canada 1

Gull Lake Homestead – Up Close, Fort Vermilion, Alberta Canada 2

Gull Lake Homestead – Up Close, Fort Vermilion, Alberta Canada 3

Dave Brosha offered a photography workshop last spring in Fort Vermilion, Alberta. One day was devoted to portrait photography; another was about landscape photography. The workshop allowed for many practical demonstrations (talked through practically) and for us to review and critique our photographs together as a group. There was also the encouragement to get together and get out as a shooting group. We had opportunities to watch Dave edit using Adobe Lightroom and one of the surprises that I’ve held onto was that the erase function (a circle area that you direct within the image to eliminate things like dust spots could be dragged instead of only clicked on much like an eraser to erase areas of the image). The images presented here are from our landscape work and in the Gull Lake homestead picture I’ve been able to remove a person from the photo with the erase function.

Gratitude – thank you, Dave. It was good to meet you and to witness your energy and approach as a photographer. It was good to take you into Buttertown to the St. Louis Catholic mission, a place that had been part of distant childhood memories for you with your Dad. Take good care of your good self.

Listening to – the Verve’s ‘Bittersweet Symphony,’ U2’s ‘In God’s Country,’ Coldplay’s ‘Life in Technicolor’ and Depeche Mode’s ‘Policy of Truth.’

Quote to Consider – “There is only you and your camera. The limitations in your photography are in yourself, for what we see is what we are.” – Ernst Haas (1921-1986)

Cloud Cord Work

Backlight, Canon Camera, Canon Lens, Canon Live View, Farm, Farmhouse, High Dynamic Range (HDR), Home, Homestead, Journaling, Light Intensity, Photography & Conceptualizing Beauty, Project 365 - Photo-a-day, Spring, Still Life, Sunset, Weather

La Glace Homestead – Sunset, La Glace, Alberta – Canada 1

La Glace Homestead – Sunset, La Glace, Alberta – Canada 3

Day’s end, dabbling with high dynamic range edits in Adobe Photoshop CS6, shots from a La Glace golden hour at day’s end from two Sundays back. Very near the Rocky Mountains, the curiosity is the cloud work splaying out, unwinding cords of cloud above rolling foothills – not quite cirrus clouds, but clouds that hold line and shape against darkening night sky as back drop.

Quote to Consider – “Photography takes an instant out of time, altering life by holding it still.” – Dorothea Lange

Listening to – Jesse Cook’ ‘Ocean Blue,’ Clannad’s ‘Harry’s Game’ and Snow Patrol’s ‘This Isn’t Everything You Are’ and ‘Those Distant Bells.’

Sunday’s Valhalla

Canon 70-200 mm 2.8 IS L Series Lens, Canon Camera, Canon Lens, Canon Live View, High Dynamic Range (HDR), Homestead, Light Intensity, Spring, Still Life, Sunset

Homestead – La Glace, Alberta – Canada 1

Homestead – La Glace, Alberta – Canada 2

Homestead – La Glace, Alberta – Canada 3

Homestead – La Glace, Alberta – Canada 4

Homestead – La Glace, Alberta – Canada 5

On a Sunday evening, two Sundays ago, we drove west from Grande Prairie. My daughter’s dance season had concluded. She journeyed homeward with friends. My wife and I remained. With time to ourselves, after our supper meal, we drove.

At the junction where highway 43 meets highway 723 we turned right and traveled northward to an as yet undiscovered location for us, the hamlet of Valhalla Centre. Halfway there, we stopped – my wife and I trading positions in our truck cab; she took the wheel and I was able to let my eyes meander over and through each new scene confronting us – scouting potential shots. While this region, the north side of highway 43, is a farming community the land use for farming was noticeably different from that immediately surrounding Grande Prairie; open, unfenced grain fields went on for kilometres; farm buildings accommodated the terrain more than a system for using the land. These farms were huge. The area drew memories of farm community scenes from Garrison Keillor’s ‘News from Lake Wobegon,’ the narrative series accompanying the live radio show, ‘A Prairie Home Companion;’ the stories are set in Minnesota and often poke fun at the Scandinavian/German-American communities. On the Canadian side of the border, CBC broadcasts a sister show, ‘The Vinyl Café’ with Stuart McLean.

Our drive continued to Valhalla Centre and where my wife could have turned left westward to uncharted territory for us, she took a right and we moved toward an area I had been through two weeks before, the area between La Glace and Sexsmith, Alberta. The images presented here are from a third homestead quite close to two others presented a few weeks back. My wife and I followed this drive with a week to ourselves for travel.

Listening to – U2’s ‘I Will Follow,’ ‘Trip through Your Wire,’ ‘I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For,’ ‘Magnificent,’ ‘Lucifer’s Hands’ and ‘Every Breaking Wave.’

Quote to Consider – “Photographing a culture in the here and now often means photographing the intersection of the present with the past.” – David DuChemin

Buttertown Snow

Canon Camera, Canon Live View, Combine (Farming), Farm, Flora, High Dynamic Range (HDR), Light Intensity, Photography & Conceptualizing Beauty, Project 365 - Photo-a-day, Spring, Still Life, Vehicle, Weather

Buttertown New Holland Combine – Fort Vermilion, Alberta – Canada

Buttertown Truck Cab – Fort Vermilion , Alberta – Canada

Buttertown snow melts, revealing different finds among Fort Vermilion’s north settlement trees on a Saturday, one of the last grey few before the intensity of spring light warms and colours the world anew. Here, blurring elements in each image to explore the result.

Quote to Consider – “Photography for me is not looking, it’s feeling. If you can’t feel what you’re looking at, then you’re never going to get others to feel anything when they look at your pictures.” – Don McCullin

Listening to – Agnes Obel’s ‘Fivefold’ and Junip’s ‘Don’t Let It Pass.’

Window Pragmatics

Best Practices - Photography, Canon Camera, Canon Live View, Farm, Farmhouse, High Dynamic Range (HDR), Home, Homestead, Journaling, Light Intensity, Photography & Conceptualizing Beauty, Project 365 - Photo-a-day, Season, Spring, Still Life, Weather

Homestead on a Hill – near Sexsmith, Alberta – Canada

Ten minutes north from Sexsmith, Alberta this homestead is one previously photographed in mid-winter, the land smoothed under a snow blanket, the homestead roof likewise blanketed, but windswept with snow blown into curvilinear shape. Here, in early spring, the homestead’s greying outline pulls my eye, then it is its placement on the rise in this field, then the weather drama of its backdrop clouding and finally it’s the immensity of the homestead windows, each – one on each side – four feet tall by one and a half feet in breadth; much can be seen from this homestead. A South African farming friend points out that being able to see in each direction – north, east, south and west – requires that the farming home be placed at best vantage point to allow observation and consideration of happenings on the farm property. Pragmatics is what has been highlighted – all should be seen from the farm home and limit the need to be on the land to check on things.

Listening to – John O’Donohue’s ‘Longing and Belonging.’

Quote to Consider – “Of course, there will always be those who look only at technique, who ask ‘how,’ while others of a more curious nature will ask ‘why.’ Personally, I have always preferred inspiration to information.” – Man Ray

La Glace – Bounty

Backlight, Canon Camera, Canon Live View, Fauna, High Dynamic Range (HDR), Homestead, Journaling, Light Intensity, Photography & Conceptualizing Beauty, Project 365 - Photo-a-day, Spring, Still Life, Sunset

La Glace Homestead II – La Glace, Alberta – Canada 1

La Glace Homestead II – La Glace, Alberta – Canada 2

La Glace Homestead II – La Glace, Alberta – Canada 3

La Glace Homestead II – La Glace, Alberta – Canada 4

Saturday’s bounty, a week ago, was found at sundown near La Glace – this homestead image; it followed six shots in which a moose and its calf trotted behind this homestead, a speedy blur of movement from left to right in my viewfinder, all amid this static landscape and sunset.

Listening to – Coldplay’s ‘Magic,’ U2’s ‘Every Breaking Wave,’ One Republic’s ‘I Lived,’ Of Monsters and Men’s ‘King and Lionheart (live),’ John Mayer’s ‘Age of Worry,’ Maroon 5’s ‘Lucky Strike,’ Snow Patrol’s ‘Crack the Shutters,’ Coldplay’s ‘Us Against the World,’ U2’s ‘Song for Someone,’ Ed Sheeran’s ‘Little Bird,’ and John Mayer’s ‘Queen of California.’

Quote to Consider – “To me, photography is an art of observations. It’s about finding something interesting in an ordinary place … I’ve found it has little to do with the things you see and everything to do with the way you see them.” – Elliott Erwitt, 1928

Walkabout Homestead

Backlight, Canon Camera, Canon Live View, Farm, Farmhouse, High Dynamic Range (HDR), Home, Homestead, Journaling, Light Intensity, Photography & Conceptualizing Beauty, Project 365 - Photo-a-day, Spring, Still Life, Weather

La Glace Homestead on a Hill 1

La Glace Homestead on a Hill 2

La Glace Homestead on a Hill 3

On my own, away from home and family, four hours into a walkabout drive with my camera on a sunny, spring Saturday, a right turn takes me west, heading toward La Glace – new ground. Nearly sunset, the miles long straight road climbs and curves around a foothill allowing this scene to find me – a homestead on the westward rise, against the big Alberta sky.

Listening to – Chris Whitley’s ‘Big Sky Country’ and ‘Dust Radio.’

Quote to Consider – “Photography can only represent the present. Once photographed, the subject becomes part of the past.” – Berenice Abbott

Rusting Relics – Narratives of Habit

Canon Camera, Canon Live View, Farm, High Dynamic Range (HDR), Photography & Conceptualizing Beauty, Project 365 - Photo-a-day, Season, Still Life, Vehicle, Vehicle Restoration, Winter

Farm Trucks – Manning, Alberta 1

Farm Trucks – Manning, Alberta 2

Farm Trucks – Manning, Alberta 3

In the past few days I’ve wondered if the attracting element to vehicle photography is the coherence of a vehicle’s design, functionality and comfort. Beyond this, is it the style and form of the vehicle that attracts the eye and the impulse to drive the vehicle? Perhaps it is our ability to imagine both how someone will look driving the vehicle or merely the anticipation of how it will handle that attracts the photographer to a vehicle.

For drivers, habit leads us in our vehicle use, our driving. We tend not to consider the system or systems of steps that allow us to drive a vehicle. Unlocking the door, opening the door, sitting in the seat, putting the key into the ignition, starting the car with or without throttle use, shifting from park to reverse and then to drive, steering, adjusting speed with throttle (gas pedal) – these steps get the car moving and rolling. A system of steps ensures safety of self and others, a system of steps allows us not only to propel the vehicle forward, but to navigate while doing so and a system of steps allows us to park and leave the vehicle. For the driver such a system of steps is more habit than an individually considered set of actions that takes driver and passengers from point of origin to destination and back again.

So, is it design, function, form, colour or comfort that attracts the photographer’s eye to a vehicle? Or is it the photographer’s ability to imagine, see and confirm the narrative of habit associated with a vehicle that pulls the eye – the future narrative of a new vehicle; or, the past narrative of a vehicle from another era? Perhaps these questions are starting points for vehicle advertisers. Still I like looking at each dent, chip and window crack in old, rusting relics; vehicle interiors convey much about driver and passengers – much narrative of habit is found in these vehicles. Here, rusting relics are set out in a farmer’s field near Manning, Alberta. In my drive past the site last weekend it was a surprise to see the old La Crete, REO Speedwagon cab and chassis gone; hopefully it’s found a good home and has had the good fortune to become a project for rehabilitation.

Quote to Inspire – “Photography is for me simply a creative passion, the ability to use light and form to capture in a single image – what I see in my own imagination….” – Tim Wallace, car photographer in interview with Topaz Labs.

Listening to – Jesse Cook’s ‘The Blue Guitar Sessions;’ one song standing out is ‘Ocean Blue.’

Treed Hallway

Canon Camera, Canon Lens, Canon Live View, High Dynamic Range (HDR), Home, Light Intensity, Night, Photography & Conceptualizing Beauty, Project 365 - Photo-a-day, Still Life, Sunrise, Winter

Walterdale House Green – Edmonton, Alberta – Canada

Southward, under Edmonton’s 105th Street bridge, just steps to its west are three sturdy houses from Edmonton’s early nineteen hundreds, houses that comprised what was then known as Walterdale. Each is a two storey structure; two are white and another that has become subject for this image is more ornate in its presentation – white or cream on teal or perhaps a turquoise green. An image from memory coaxes me along this early morning photo ramble – an autumnal scene, a photo of my father’s in which he’s framed one of the white Walterdale houses with fall yellows of birch and aspen along a treed path, an open-ended hallway opening out and arriving at that white house. That photo hangs downstairs, on a wall outside my study where it can receive morning sunlight on sunlit days. Until this photograph, I had not set foot in Walterdale for perhaps thirty years.

Colour, composition and lighting attract me to this image.

Listening to – Marco Beltrami & The Giver Cast perform ‘End Credits’ to ‘The Giver (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack);’ it’s also a piece my daughter is playing on our Heintzman piano (it’s just been tuned … good); I’ve been playing Casting Crowns’ ‘Broken Together’ on it last night – something beautiful.

Quote to Inspire – “If your pictures aren’t good enough, you’re not close enough.” – Robert Capa

From Under, Looking Up

Canon Camera, Canon Live View, Flora, High Dynamic Range (HDR), Journaling, Light Intensity, Night, Photography & Conceptualizing Beauty, Weather, Winter

High Level Bridge – HDR 1a

High Level Bridge – HDR 2a

High Level Bridge – HDR 2b

High Level Bridge – HDR 2c

Away from home, an early hour when wife and daughter sleep, I am away from our hotel, outside in Edmonton (home of my youth) and under the High Level Bridge looking up at angles of grid iron, iron work – liking this image as edited. The second image (with different versions) shifts northward in view, again from under the bridge, looking across the North Saskatchewan River to our Alberta Legislature, built on the historical site of Fort Edmonton.

Listening to – Dan Mangan and Jesse Zubot’s ‘Cumulonimbus (Newport, 63) and Parov Stelar’s ‘Room Service.’

Quote to Inspire – “I never question what to do, it tells me what to do. The photographs make themselves with my help.” – Ruth Berland