Rain – Opportunities

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Ford & Challenger – High Level, Alberta 1

Ford & Challenger – High Level, Alberta 2

Ford & Challenger – High Level, Alberta 3

Ford & Challenger – High Level, Alberta 4

Ford & Challenger – High Level, Alberta 5

A 1948 Ford F-100 and my neighbor’s mid-seventies Dodge Challenger sit side-by-each in the Northstar Chrysler car lot – room has been made for them. I’m interested in this Ford. With previous image edits of this truck, I have grown familiar with shape and colour – I know this vehicle visually, a modified Ford, artfully and skilfully crafted by someone who understands possibilities for shape, line and colour, someone who has been able to bring about what he envisioned accurately to a pleasing end state. This Ford is one that could easily find a home among California cars. For me, the Show and Shine has presented the opportunity to meet the owner again, even if briefly, an interaction in which I am able to direct him to older images of his truck on this blog.

Rain is the challenge for photography at this show in shine – my point of learning; rain falls and as the shutter opens and closes however briefly the result is that I’m capturing droplets of rain as they fall – the image looks excessively grainy. I’ll be thinking through how to work with rain in photography. Perhaps precision and detail are not to be aimed at in rain. Or, perhaps the learning is to recognize that rain will present white bits of contrast against darker colours in such images. Wind also featured with the rain, water droplets blowing onto the lens filter creating points of blur within images.

Listening to – U2’s ‘With or Without You’ and ‘Point of Surrender.’

Quote to Inspire – “Success is what happens when 10,000 hours of preparation meet with one moment of opportunity.” – Anonymous

Predecessor Pontiac

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1928 Pontiac – High Level, Alberta

Saturday, a day for Northstar Dodge Chrysler to host High Level and region’s local show and shine, a day overcast with rain drizzling over each car, beading upon protected finishes of silicon and carnauba. With such weather it fits that this Northstar Dodge Chrysler dealership is situated on Rainbow Boulevard.

At 11:00 a.m., vintage car owners/collectors gather, cars being organized according to timeline – oldest to newest. These car buffs have had time to wake, wash and chamois their prized vehicles. The day becomes one of chatter, car-owner to car-owner, driver to driver, enthusiast to enthusiast. Within all the coffee, talk and bluster, an engine’s patter catches my ear, the sound sharp like a newly built V8, but the sound has a lighter, tubular aspect that is higher pitched – a 1928 Pontiac sedan arrives, its owner guiding it carefully into the spot allocated for the oldest vehicle at this show and shine.

I’m impressed by its colour, shape and current integrity. The radiator cap is the head of an Indian (Pontiac) and the top curve of the radiator has something that looks like two pennies, something I’ll have to research. I walk over to listen and watch as the owner demonstrates what he refers to as the vehicle’s air conditioning – he moves a crank high above the steering wheel, to the driver’s right; the crank moves the windscreen up and down to let air rush into the car, a mechanical innovation that makes sense … something that begins this day’s education about cars. I get a kick out of what this car represents – this Pontiac sedan precedes my father’s birth by four years, it precedes the second world war by eleven.

This 1928 Pontiac sedan is one of three Pontiacs at the show and shine – there’s a brown 1970 Firebird and an orange 1970 Lemans with decals (something that would have had a specialized appellation, ‘The Judge’). These latter vehicles are a year newer than the two door, green, Canadian-made, 1969 Pontiac Parisienne, the family car that my brothers and I grew up in and the car we shared in high school; the lines on each are recognizably Pontiac.

Listening to – The Verve’s ‘Lucky Man,’ Coldplay’s ‘Up in Flames,’ Snow Patrol’s ‘This Isn’t Everything You Are,’ and John Mayer’s ‘The Queen of California.’

Quote to Inspire – “The camera is an excuse to be someplace you otherwise don’t belong. It gives me both a point of connection and a point of separation.” Susan Meiselas

Entity Realized

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Bull Dozer and GMC Cab and Chassis

Cab and Chassis and Panel Van 1

Cab and Chassis and Panel Van 2

Cab and Chassis and Panel Van 3

Cab and Chassis and Panel Van 4

Fargo and Other – Sangudo, Alberta

Fargo Dump Truck 1

Fargo Dump Truck 2

Fargo Dump Truck 3

Fargo Dump Truck 4

“It will grow on you,” describes the growing appreciation for something that comes about through regular interaction with that entity over time. Books and music ‘grow on us.’ Styles come and go, and, they grow upon us – we acclimate to them. Friendships, perhaps even relationships subtly grow on us without our knowing it – we realize their entity at a certain point, perhaps in their first absence. Gathering museum machinery images associated with the Alaska Highway construction has had several images grow on me, me seeing and appreciating more of what they are about over time. This equipment has been kept up, maintained in working order over two or perhaps three generations. Function, style, colour and form have each been preserved. That’s something that someone has had a hand in doing, perhaps many hands have shared in doing.

Listening to – Nick Drake’s ‘Pink Moon’ and Tyler Bates’ rendering of ‘Ventura.’

Quote to Inspire – “I think good dreaming is what leads to good photographs.” – Wayne Miller

Pilgrimage Church

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Roman Catholic Church – Buttertown, Alberta

Woking Church – Woking, Alberta

Church, a place and time of whole-hearted, meaning-crammed communion, is something each of us encounters in different venues that captivate us – the camaraderie found in others’ company, the transcendence found in the out-of-doors, the intersection of our Life with lyrics and melody in song. That place to encounter (perhaps share or confess) truth safely, in safety, that place to come to terms with tough times and the good, Church is both a social and familial entity, a place in which you can grow and mature. Not movement forward, independent of others, not alone in thought, not only within our own priority, Church is that sacred entity of relationship carried forward by two or more people in Life’s pilgrimage connecting each to something bigger than self (selves), that thing that drives ethics in action and purpose in Life, that thing realized when we realize we are here for more than ourselves, having something to contribute to the Lives of others.

Church as pilgrimage has been on my mind as I’ve watched a film by Emilio Estevez – ‘The Way.’ Martin Sheen, as father makes pilgrimage from France to the Church of Santiago de Compostela in Galicia, Spain, a trek following ‘The Way of St. James.’ Tom (Sheen) takes up this eight-hundred kilometre trek, a trek his son had begun and makes it on behalf of his son who, recently deceased, is ever-present throughout the trek task. The pilgrimage becomes Church as three ‘peregrinnos,’ pilgrims, cluster with and around Tom; each carrying forward a Life task that’s brought them to a cross-road in their Lives. It’s not so much that disclosure of Life’s challenge needs to occur among the peregrinnos, but that each comes to understand that their shared company and good understanding of what’s at play in each other’s lives makes the road easier – something that Church is about, an entity of relationship carried forward that associates to Life’s pilgrimage, direction and purposes.

Images – The Roman Catholic Church of St. Louis in Buttertown (across the Peace River from Fort Vermilion, Alberta) and the Woking Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Woking, Alberta).

Listening to – much of the soundtrack to ‘The Way,’ containing two songs that intrigue, David Gray’s ‘My Oh My’ (from Rhythm and Soul broadcasts) and Alanis Morissettes’ ‘Thank U’. James Taylor’s ‘Country Road’ also features in the film.

Quote to Inspire – “Imagine a world without photography, one could only imagine.” – Berenice Abbott

What Else?

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Valleyview Bench Seats 1

Valleyview Bench Seats 2

Valleyview Bench Seats 3

More than a passing glance, photography has you stop and see the subject, consider context and best perspective and then expose the image. Editing takes you one further step with the image; you encounter more of what comprises the image and more of what is possible for the image in its rendering. Here, are the Valleyview bench seats again, exposed in the full morning sun of a sunny, Sunday morning. Two weeks on from the exposure, I’m seeing more of the light and shadow-play in the image. I’m coming back to it to see what else it can become. The image reveals someone’s attempt to make the bench seats something more permanent with the anchoring of the base on the right. The image has me consider the weathering of the seats through yet another winter season. And, at the time of exposure I had no idea that I would be tinting the image toward red or blue, or, that I would be working the image through in black and white.

Listening to – Johnny Cash’s rendering of “God’s Going to Cut You Down.”

Quote to Inspire – “You don’t take a photograph, you make it.” – Ansel Adams

Roadscape West

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Westward Haul – Valleyview, Alberta 1

A horse trailer being hauled westward crests a hill on a quiet and sunny, Sunday morning, descending into a huge valley between Valleyview and Grande Prairie, Alberta. Notable among this landscape’s relief and early spring colour is the full absence of snow.

Listening to – Stan Tracey’s ‘Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered,’ mellow jazz to begin this Wednesday morning; then, it’s on to John Hicks’ and ‘Fatha’s Bedtime Story.’

Quote to Inspire – “A good photograph is knowing where to stand.” – Ansel Adams

Sitting, Waiting, Wishing …

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Seats – Valleyview, Alberta 1

Seats – Valleyview, Alberta 2

Around Alberta, perhaps especially in the north with its longer distances travelled to school, along the highway you’ll discover structures parents have created for their children in which to wait for the school bus. The structure might be a five by five, closed-in shack with windows on the sides to watch for buses; the shack allows students respite from wind and weather while waiting. Here, two bench seats have been pulled from a car or truck to create a place to sit and wait for the school bus; the seats may be also departure point for people waiting for a ride … perhaps when thumbing a ride. I found the pair of seats on the road between Valleyview and Grande Prairie, on my drive home with my son’s effects. He’ll be home from University today, after touring British Columbia with the University of Alberta Mixed Chorus. The colour-work of tinting images reminds of Dan Kameka and his work with farm machinery and farm structures – the Sexsmith grain elevator comes to mind, an eight foot image in Grande Prairie’s Trumpeter Hotel … the first place I encountered Dan’s work.

Listening to – Chris Whitley … ‘Dust Radio’ still captivates my hearing lyrically and in terms of its sound structure; I’ve heard two versions, one unplugged and one from the ‘Living with the Law’ album – liking both … unplugged is what drew my attention.

Quote to Inspire – “Quit trying to find beautiful objects to photograph. Find the ordinary objects so you can transform it by photographing it.” – Morley Baer

Edge & Sphere

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Edge & Sphere – Sexsmith, Alberta 1

Edge & Sphere – Sexsmith, Alberta 2

Edge & Sphere – Sexsmith, Alberta 3

Edge & Sphere – Sexsmith, Alberta 4

Edge & Sphere – Sexsmith, Alberta 5

Early morning image editing tackles water droplets on top of a creosote covered railroad tie. A stone, one among thousands stabilizing railroad rails, surprises in its jade green colour and its irregular edge provides contrast to droplet spheres. Colour, depth, line and shape result.

Listening to – (and watching the video of) Snow Patrol’s ‘This Isn’t Everything You Are,’ U2’s ‘Vertigo’ and The Killers’ ‘When You Were Young.’

Quote to Inspire – “Photography does not create eternity, as art does; it embalms time, rescuing it simply from its proper corruption.” – Andre Bazin (1918-1958), French Film critic.

Impermeable Equation

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Water & Railroad Tie – Sexsmith, Alberta 1

Water & Railroad Tie – Sexsmith, Alberta 2

Water & Railroad Tie – Sexsmith, Alberta 3

Kasia Sokulska, part of the husband and wife duo that comprises MIKSMedia Photography, presents inspired macro images on her Google + profile page, outstanding and beautiful work to view. Her work inspired me to take advantage of railroad ties, made impermeable to water yesterday in Sexsmith, Alberta. With my EOS 60D, a quarter of an inch from the railroad tie, hung upside down from my Manfrotto tripod (also a never-done) I explored water droplets.

On the weekend, Dave Brosha e-mailed to highlight upcoming workshops likely in Calgary and Grande Prairie, Alberta; these would be accessed through his facebook page.

Listening to – Shawn Colvin’s ‘Change Is On The Way.’

Quote to Inspire – “Beauty can be seen in all things, seeing and composing the beauty is what separates the snapshot from the photograph.” – Matt Hardy

North Country Cloud-work

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Country Road Sunset – Mayerthorpe, Alberta

Farm Silo Silhouette – Mayerthorpe, Alberta

Wednesday’s travel took me from my Calgary, Camera Store stop northward on my return drive to High Level. Around dinner-time, between Mayerthorpe and Whitecourt the cloud-work and evolving sunset on the southwest of the highway were a spectacular sight among a huge and open northern Alberta sky, land less frequently frequented, something quite different from the frenetic congestion of people and land encountered between Edmonton and Calgary, an area still held in grey bleakness of winter. It was good to be traveling home in familiar North Country.

Listening to – Collective Soul and ‘Shine’, and, Sigur Ros and ‘E-bow.’

Quote to Inspire – “While there is perhaps a province in which the photograph can tell us nothing more than what we see with our own eyes, there is another in which it proves to us how little our eyes permit us to see .” – Dorothea Lange