For the Summer

Canon Camera, Canon Lens, Canon Live View, Journaling, Photography & Conceptualizing Beauty, Project 365 - Photo-a-day, Spring, Still Life, Vehicle Restoration

1949 Chevrolet – Peace River

From High Level to Peace River, I made the drive, three hours, right after work. I was on my way to Edmonton to gather my son and his belongings after a year of University and to bring him home for the summer. I booked into a hotel room, brought my gear into the room and returned to my truck to search for a meal. Before I got into my truck I looked across the way to this red 1949 Chevrolet, half-tonne. As a former auto detailer (in a former life), I walked over and then spent ten minutes looking it over. The owner came out and provided the truck’s story – where it came from, how he had restored the vehicle and that he still took it out for a ride occasionally. It had a straight six engine – clean, restored, still capable. The owner, an older fellow, initially thought I wanted to buy the vehicle.

I told him that I was more bent on photographing vehicles than anything else.

He took me into his garage and showed me a 1959 Edsel Corsair – red with white trim and top; again a restored vehicle. The windshield and back window curved around in places where present-day cars have posts to support the roof. I was amazed at the size of the trunk – in area and depth it might actually have held as much as a half-tonne truck box. The car was also about Chrome – chrome bumpers, chrome trim; shine was definitely part of what made this car something. It had old paint, the kind that if it faded you could bring back with polish and glaze. And, I suppose it reminded me of the polishing gleam, the alluring results of those first cars I polished as a young driver and as a lot attendant at Waterloo Mercury.

The evening passed with more talk and the owner knew many of the people I’ve known through the years in High Level and La Crete, Alberta. I think he’d seen me take my L’Arrivee guitar into the hotel because he invited me into the house to play for him and his wife on his Taylor 615 a cherry-wood sunburst with heavier strings. I fretted Rickie Lee Jones’ ‘Starsailor,’ Dar Williams ‘The Beauty of the Rain,’ and Lifehouse’s ‘Me and You.’ I got him to play a few tunes – some country tunes that are becoming difficult with arthritic fingers. By the end of the evening, I had his permission to photograph his red 1949 Chevrolet half-tonne; not a bad evening. I clicked this picture the next morning.

Listening to – Ray LaMontagne’s ‘For the Summer.’

Quote to Inspire – “One of the central characteristics of photography is that process by which original uses are modified, eventually supplanted by subsequent uses ….”

Outsourcing a Photo Walk

Best Practices - Photography, Canon Camera, Canon Lens, Canon Live View, Farm, Farmhouse, High Dynamic Range (HDR), Home, Homestead, Photoblog Intention, Photography & Conceptualizing Beauty, Project 365 - Photo-a-day, Season, Spring, Weather

1 Farm Road – Beaverlodge, Alberta

2 Farm Road – Beaverlodge, Alberta

3 Farm Mailbox – Beaverlodge, Alberta

Those of you, who have read Timothy Harris’ book, ‘The Four Hour Work Week,’ have likely contended with the possibility that it may be possible to generate an income from only four hours per week. While that may be the premise for this guide to entrepreneurialism in the twenty-first century, the book also presents many novel concepts for earning a living. Within a project-based earning environment, another idea would be to follow a pattern of working for two months and then taking a month off – the focus would be to manage one’s resilience and project tenacity using the principle of contact and withdrawal as it is applied to work. Cool stuff! Beyond this, the book presents many resources available for the entrepreneur who needs help with part of a project – that project piece can be outsourced to others who can earn a living helping you out. What occurred to me within the last few days was to outline a project – a photo walk – to be organized and configured according to parameters that I set. Then, I would outsource my project idea and have others potential photo walk leaders (perhaps other photographers) bid on the opportunity to lead the photo walk and from there refine terms toward what would work for the project leader and me and others who might participate in the photo walk. The eLance website would be the forum in which I would farm-out and tender the project to others. Hmmh? Have you ever thought of doing something like this?

I did have all these thoughts. But, the weekend that could be used for this endeavor crept up rather quickly. I did not configure the project. I did not submit my project for tender in elance. I was not at the start or finish of a photo walk. Rather, at the end of my work week at school, having been encouraged to get away for some photography by my wife and others at school, I gathered my photo gear and bags, got into our Ford F-150 and headed south. I aimed at Edmonton and intended to see my father who’s in a retirement home, there. But, at four hours in to the journey the weather changed – winter rain began to fall and it seemed unwise to travel the remaining distance on treacherous roads. No hotels could be found in Valleyview. I changed my course and phoned ahead to Grande Prairie’s Stanford Inn – they had a room for me.

Saturday in Grande Prairie was overcast. It was not a day for outdoor photography.

Saturday became more an opportunity to explore what was new in familiar stores, to see a movie and to gather and replace clothes damaged in our recent Guatemala trip. At Long and McQuade Music I stopped in and tried out a couple of L’Arrivee guitars; I taught one of the sales persons a song – Rickie Lee Jones’ ‘Sailor Song,’ a song my mother heard me play when she was alive. It was a high point in the day to be able to jam with another guitar player.

Sunday, on the other hand, swept in with substantial spring muster. To the west from Grande Prairie clouds billowed as they crossed the final strip of the Canadian Rockies before meeting foothills and prairie. The photos presented here are ones gathered along a westward trek from Grande Prairie towards the Rockies – an interesting area in terms of landscape and it being a bright spring day. The subject is a paved farm road near Beaverlodge, Alberta – something extraordinary for me as most farm roads I have known have been gravelled ones. Here, the reflection of the sky colours the road blue.

Listening to – Rickie Lee Jones’ ‘Sailor Song.’

Quote to Inspire – “But when viewed in their new context, the museum, or gallery, photographs cease to be ‘about’ their subjects in the same direct or primary way; they become studies in the possibilities of photography.” – Susan Sontag, ‘On Photography’.

Song from My Youth

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

Fire Tower, Watt Mountain – High Level, Alberta 1

Fire Tower, Watt Mountain – High Level, Alberta 2

Fire Tower, Watt Mountain – High Level, Alberta 3

Watt Mountain 2 – High Level, Alberta 1

Watt Mountain Ice – High Level, Alberta 1

Watt Mountain Ice – High Level, Alberta 2

A quiet Saturday, one spent mostly at home comes to a close. The Ozark Mountain Daredevils play from my iTunes account through computer speakers, ‘If You Wanna Get To Heaven’ – muted strings on a guitar are percussive, a harmonica brings in melody and other instruments, the sound preceding lyrics that consider getting to heaven – song and lyrics attract my ear, a song from my youth. The evening has involved editing images from Watt Mountain.

Listening to – Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Highway Patrolman,’ ‘One Step Up,’ and ‘Last to Die.’ There’s been ‘Rumble’ by Link Wray and the Wraymen. The Who have played ‘Boris the Spider,’ ‘I Can See for Miles’ and ‘Magic Bus.’ The Kingsmen have played ‘Louie Louie.’ Green Day have played ‘East Jesus Nowhere.’ The playlist has rounded out with Bruce Springsteen singing Pete Seeger’s Civil Rights anthem, ‘We Shall Overcome.’

Quote to Consider – “Picture-taking has been interpreted in two entirely different ways: either as a lucid and precise act of knowing, of conscious intelligence or as a pre-intellectual, intuitive mode of encounter.” – Susan Sontag, ‘On Photography’

Remembering on Watt Mountain

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

Watt Mountain – High Level, Alberta 1

Watt Mountain – High Level, Alberta 2

Watt Mountain – High Level, Alberta 3

Watt Mountain – High Level, Alberta 4

Watt Mountain – High Level, Alberta 5

Watt Mountain – High Level, Alberta 6

For Bobby, a cousin and Canadian veteran, who passed away last Wednesday and whose funeral occurs today in Grande Prairie, Alberta. Thank you for the friend you’ve always been to my wife and me. Thank you for the family you’ve been a part of. Thank you for your service to Canada – wounded, but accomplishing what very few others could have. Very well done!

Listening to – ‘William’s Lullaby,’ ‘The Gairlock and Loch Duich’ and ‘Amazing Grace’ offered by the Canadian Scottish Regiment Pipes and Drums.

Quote to Consider – “‘A photograph is not an accident – it is a concept.’ To take a good photograph, runs the common claim, one must already see it. That is, the image must exist in the photographer’s mind at or just before [it is taken].” Susan Sontag (working with an Ansel Adams quote and taking it further) in ‘On Photography.’

Rattling Warmth

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

Courtyard Melt – High Level, Alberta 1

Courtyard Melt – High Level, Alberta 2

Directed to our school courtyard, these images bear witness to a curiosity of weather. In twenty-four hours our boreal winter temperatures have moved from -35C to 0C, a change most noticed by way of intense wind rattling houses. There has been melting that has occurred at night in the wind’s warmth. Remarkably, this same weather system has stretched eight-hundred kilometres from us in northern Alberta all the way to Edmonton in central Alberta, the wind, there, breaking railroad traffic arms and causing the LRT not to run. For us, at school, in our courtyard this extraordinary night melt has produced the following sculptures.

Listening to – a friend of Brian Turner (Bachman Turner Overdrive) play a self-sculpted tune in my office at school, the end of a parent meeting establishing goodwill – this parent, playing upon my Larrivee L-05 and our special needs students enjoying the show immensely … a good, good moment, the best kind.

Quote to Inspire – “… photographs alter and enlarge our notions of what is worth looking at and what we have a right to observe.” – Susan Sontag, ‘On Photography’

Jasper Avenue Apartment

Best Practices - Photography, Canon Camera, Canon Lens, Canon Live View, High Dynamic Range (HDR), Journaling, Photoblog Intention, Photography & Conceptualizing Beauty, Project 365 - Photo-a-day, Winter

Jasper Avenue Apartment – Edmonton, Alberta 1

Jasper Avenue Apartment – Edmonton, Alberta 2

Jasper Avenue Apartment – Edmonton, Alberta 3

An Edmonton apartment overlooks the North Saskatchewan River. It is a building that has been around since the thirties or forties and is architecture of my mother’s time, a time when walking was the way through Edmonton and vehicle use was limited. The apartment is one I associate to Canadian literature as backdrop or setting to scene, a building that could feature in Mordecai Richler’s ‘The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz’ or within Robertson Davies’ ‘Fifth Business.’

The apartment draws me to recall Morley Callaghan’s ‘Such is My Beloved.’ The novel looks at a priest in the Great Depression making sense of God’s Love and the encounter of his reaching out with Christian care to two prostitutes, an encounter in which his efforts are taken advantage of and as I now recall, a situation repeated for real much more recently and narrated more accurately in Nadia Bolz-Weber’s memoir, ‘Pastrix.’ In ‘Such is My Beloved,’ the cocoon of Church, Church-Life and Church politics, all, cloud the words of the great commission being lived out and because they are not current or used readily by the congregation their exploration by Father Dowling is an innocent and naïve endeavor, one done on the sly without others knowing, a first, sustained attempt that’s taken too far with aims of turning recipients’ Lives around.

The story functions as a morality play, unfortunately tragic in structure and is more cautionary about not living out the Great Commission. In actuality, the Great Commission is likely more of ‘do-what-you-can-with-what-you’re-presented-with;’ when lives begin to turn around the Church can mobilize with many resources.

Listening to – The Blind Boys of Alabama and ‘Run On for a Long Time,’ ‘Amazing Grace,’ ‘Soldier’ and ‘Way Down the Hole.’

Quote to Inspire/Consider – “The camera is a kind of passport that annihilates moral boundaries and social inhibitions, freeing the photographer from any responsibility toward the people photographed …. You are not intervening in their lives, only visiting them.” – Susan Sontag, ‘On Photography’

Edmonton Night

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

Downtown Edmonton from Cloverdale Walkway Bridge – Edmonton, Alberta 1

Downtown Edmonton from Cloverdale Walkway Bridge – Edmonton, Alberta 2

Downtown Edmonton from Saskatchewan Drive – Edmonton, Alberta 1

Downtown Edmonton from Saskatchewan Drive – Edmonton, Alberta 2

Downtown Edmonton from Saskatchewan Drive – Edmonton, Alberta 3

Christmas took us to Edmonton, this year. And, I had my camera out for some of it.

Photographically, my intentions for Edmonton are evolving. While I will always find visual interest in exploring the Edmonton landscape, the city, in its sprawling hugeness seems to be holding repetition of structure and shape – areas of the city have become indistinguishable. A growing interest for me in the past few years, is the architecture in the arcs and patterns of Edmonton’s Anthony Henday Ring Road at the junction where the Ring Road meets the Calgary Trail (Gateway Boulevard) – there’s rich artistry and engineering in these, a visual feast for the visitor to Edmonton coming into the city from the Edmonton International Airport. Beyond such architecture, Baseline road and the petrochemical plants were of interest; at -30C, in late afternoon sun, the capture of light and shadow on each side of billowing steam plumes was an extraordinary sight.

Christmas had me recalling my father; at the age I am now, he would have been accommodating me in his Edmonton home as University student. Christmases, all those years ago, would have involved so much – the use of his car, getting home according to curfew, calling ahead if I wouldn’t be home for supper, and, the introduction of my girlfriend, now wife, to our family and within Christmas. These were years I learned so much about writing at University and from my father and mother, simply by involving them in proofreading and discussion. These years, were the years when my father introduced me to audiobooks in his bringing back Jane Austen’s ‘Emma’ from the HMV shop in one of his business trips to the UK. Audiobooks became a way to interact with texts beyond what we were reading in the novel-a-week pace set for us in Literature courses.

Downtown Edmonton is presented from two vantage points – Saskatchewan Drive and from the Cloverdale walkway bridge.

Quote to Inspire – “… Photographs alter and enlarge our notions of what is worth looking at and what we have a right to observe.” – ‘On Photography,’ Susan Sontag

Listening to – hauntingly familiar songs associated with Emilio Estevez’ film, ‘The Way.’ Tyler Bates’ ‘Ventura’ is one of them; along with it, a real treat – ‘Nadal De Luintra’ by Berroguetto.

Summer Colour & Warmth

Canon 60D, Canon Camera, Canon Lens, Canon Live View, Farm, Flora, High Dynamic Range (HDR), Lookback Photos - One Year Ago, Photography & Conceptualizing Beauty, Project 365 - Photo-a-day, Summer, Weather

Field Green – Near Greencourt, Alberta

Our Boxing Day is overcast. Snow falls (four inches worth), family sleeps late – the television has had its share of use and all have been able to settle and rest. Coffee and tea warm us. Outside is winter’s cold, an entity that almost requires a northern household to have a fire place to throw off a dry, substantial heat (one day, perhaps) or in-floor heating, at least. Our day is quiet, moving me to recall summer’s colour and warmth, a time when it is easier for an object in motion to stay in motion – a very different time of year. Loreena McKennitt has an album for a day such as this, ‘Music to Drive the Cold Winter Away,’ a Christmas gift from my brother several years back.

Listening to – Ed Sheeran’s ‘The a Team;’ my daughter received sheet music to this song; I’ve had a go at fretting chords and then doing so with the actual song, finding nuance in how it’s played.

“Photography makes us feel that the world is more available than it really is.” – Susan Sontag, ‘On Photography’

Storehouse Timbers

Canon 60D, Canon Camera, Canon Lens, Canon Live View, High Dynamic Range (HDR), Journaling, Lookback Photos - One Year Ago, Photography & Conceptualizing Beauty, Project 365 - Photo-a-day, Sigma Lens - Wide Angle 10-20mm, Spring

Storehouse – St Louis Catholic Mission – Buttertown, Alberta 1

Storehouse – St Louis Catholic Mission – Buttertown, Alberta 2

Storehouse – St Louis Catholic Mission – Buttertown, Alberta 3

Storehouse – St Louis Catholic Mission – Buttertown, Alberta 4

A spring thaw in the early nineteen-hundreds saw several Fort Vermilion area farms flooded. In one instance a farm building washed out, the movement of the water weakening its foundation enough to topple the structure. Timber for that building floated downstream on the Boyer River becoming snagged at a turn in the river as it passed the St. Louis Catholic Mission in Buttertown. Those timbers were pulled from the river and after a time were used to build this storehouse for the mission. The photo was created in May, 2013. Last Saturday night, the image became editing focal point as I showed my son how Lightroom 5 and NiK Software can be used – four versions were produced, some following his eye’s lead.

Listening to – Coldplay’s ‘Yellow,’ a song I worked through after all had gone to bed last night; the piano work is more difficult than the fretwork; the resonance and dissonance found in the chords and alternate tuning are captivating.

Quote to Consider – “Photographs, which cannot themselves explain anything, are inexhaustible invitations to deduction, speculation, and fantasy.” – Susan Sontag, ‘On Photography’

Soul Searchers

Canon 60D, Canon 70-200 mm 2.8 IS L Series Lens, Canon Camera, Canon Live View, Christmas, Christmas Lights, Farmhouse, High Dynamic Range (HDR), Homestead, Light Intensity, Photography & Conceptualizing Beauty, Project 365 - Photo-a-day, Winter

Christmas Heart – High Level, Alberta

Homestead – Rycroft, Alberta

Wagon Wheels – Beaverlodge, Alberta

Crosses – Bezanson, Alberta

At Christmas, Love amplifies, powerful and lifting, scrabbling through the dark mess of tangle. Care and pardon affirm, anchoring you, there, in other Hearts – disgrace yields, grace overcomes. Love finds its way. At Christmas, the first steps within the incarnation are taken; a betrothed groom and fiancée making the best of things, travel within a colonized Israel to add their names within a census, a decision perhaps that may have to do with the practicality in it being safer to identify as a family with what will follow from the census; the fiancée is pregnant, a surprise to the groom and his betrothed. Are the two young? Is Joseph older and knowing something of how to live a Life within this colonized world? Is he prepared for this night? A makeshift moment allows the two to shelter among animals in a barn or cave. Mary moves into labour, a baby is born, a new Life that becomes central to a grand narrative we all are participating in. The name Joseph is first used with Jacob’s wife Rachel, when she conceives and bears a son after many years barren; Joseph literally means ‘he who takes my shame away.’

All this and more become the Christmas story. A few songs tell the story well; but, the one that might best fit today’s times and needs could be that provided by Dave Matthews & Tim Reynolds in ‘Christmas Song.’ I like the conceptualization of any of us as ‘soul-searchers.’ The blood of the children reference is, while scary, accurate within this song – blood covers sins; Christ’s blood was shed for all to overcome their/our sin-state and thereby becomes the blood of the children referred to within the song.

The incarnation is an inconceivable event, something that needs more acceptance than figuring. You need to involve your imagination in such reckoning as precursor to such an event in preparation to be able to recognize when and if such an event does happen, has happened or will happen. You’d have to consider how involving God here on earth might play out.

The song that brought this kind of precursor imagining about best was a Joan Osborne, grunge-rock tune, that I heard most helpfully sung by Martyn Joseph on Radio Ulster’s ‘Rhythm and Soul’; thank you to Presbyterian Pastor, Steve Stockman for bringing all of that about. Here’s Martyn’s version.

Here’s the Joan Osborne version of ‘One of Us.’

Quote to Consider – “The camera doesn’t make a bit of difference. All of them can record what you are seeing. But you have to SEE.” – Ernest Haas

Listening to – Martyn Joseph’s ‘Beyond Us, ‘Not a Good Time for God’ and Martyn’s take on Bruce Springsteen’s ‘If I Should Fall Behind’ and ‘One Step Up.’ Also, taking a listen to Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Highway Patrolman.’

There’s a lot of grace encountered in ‘Highway Patrolman;’ Springsteen goes on to tell that it deals with family, responsibility and duty when those things conflict. The lyrics are good dealing with brothers sharing good times as much as the morality involved in dealing with a brother who is straying – lyrics catching my attention follow ….

“Well if it was any other man, I’d put him straight away
But when it’s your brother sometimes you look the other way.”

“Me and Frankie laughin’ and drinkin’
Nothin’ feels better than blood on blood
Takin’ turns dancin’ with Maria
As the band played “Night of the Johnstown Flood”
I catch him when he’s strayin’, teach him how to walk that line
Man turns his back on his family he ain’t no friend of mine.”

May you find Grace this Christmas – my gratitude goes out to each of you who have been part of each step and evolution of this photoblog. Thank you – take good care of your good selves.