Exercises Editing

Best Practices - Photography, Canon 60D, Canon 70-200 mm 2.8 IS L Series Lens, Canon Camera, Canon Lens, Canon Live View, Farmhouse, Journaling, Photoblog Intention, Photography & Conceptualizing Beauty, Project 365 - Photo-a-day, Winter

Homestead – Peace River, Alberta

Homestead I

Homestead II

Homestead III

Sedan – Sunrise Beach, Alberta

In learning piano, here in Canada, students will often learn and be taught how to play using music that is leveled within music books. At year-end you can challenge an examination to receive recognition of your level of skill. The daily practice along the way is what I recall. Each Toronto Royal Conservatory music book contained pieces – composed entities of music with beginning, middle and end, music with variation, music having specific direction, everything from phrasing, to control of loud and soft volume, intention for pace and emotion … all to be interpreted in presentation. Each music book also contained exercises or studies meant to develop skills for use within pieces, a matter of reading intention from the page and translating that intention accurately into sound. The exercise of returning to images and editing again and again is similar to these music studies and is something closer to the creative portion of writing music. The exercise of editing allows you to explore what the image contains and what can be brought out in an image; regular exercise builds the skill. Moving toward a pleasing outcome – what does and does not work – in editing is where much of photography’s creative act lies.

The photos presented are exercises in editing, seeing what they can become – Homesteads and Sedan.

Listening to – My Bloody Valentine’s ‘Sometimes,’ Phoenix’s ‘Too Young,’ Kevin Shields’ ‘Are You Awake’ and ‘City Girl,’ Brian Reitzell & Roger J. Manning Jr.’s ‘On the Subway,’ and The Jesus and Mary Chain’s ‘Just Like Honey.’

Quote to Inspire – “Once you learn to care, you can record images with your mind or on film. There is no difference between the two.” – Anonymous

Sun, Wind & Weather

Best Practices - Photography, Canon 60D, Canon Camera, Canon Live View, Farm, Farmhouse, Flora, Home, Homestead, Lookback Photos - One Year Ago, Photoblog Intention, Photography & Conceptualizing Beauty, Project 365 - Photo-a-day, Sigma Lens - Wide Angle 10-20mm, Still Life, Weather, Winter

Former Farm – Sangudo, Alberta 1

Former Farm – Sangudo, Alberta 2

Former Farm – Sangudo, Alberta 3

Sangudo, Alberta – on a sunny day, closing in on spring, buildings from a former farming time continue to erode with wind and weather. Sun heats snow-laden earth and clouds begin to billow and move eastward over the horizon.

Listening to – Josef Myslivecek and Concertino in E Flat for two horns.

Quote to Inspire – “A photograph is usually looked at – seldom looked into.” – Ansel Adams

The Road Home – Images

Barn, Best Practices - Photography, Canon 60D, Canon Camera, Canon Lens, Farm, Farmhouse, Gas Station, Home, Homestead, Journaling, Photoblog Intention, Project 365 - Photo-a-day, Sigma Lens - Wide Angle 10-20mm, Summer, Vehicle Restoration

1938 Ford One Ton Tow Truck

Farm – Nampa, Alberta

Manning Grain Truck 1

Manning Grain Truck 2

McLure Tow Truck 1

McLure Tow Truck 3

McLure Tow Truck 4

Saw Mill – Whitecourt 1

Train Tracks – Kamloops, British Columbia

Good travel from a photographic perspective is something allowing the photographer to look out to the world and to engage visually with the narrative of situation and locale. What is out there? What is happening or has happened? What pulls your eye towards it? What colour is there? What shadow is there? What is the visual impression? The challenge is that travel is often expeditious – you need to arrive at your destination at a certain time or to return home because you have goals on the other end of your travel. The trick is to plan for the opportunity to stop and photograph starting out early enough that you give yourself abundance of time with your camera … and the world. For the same nine hour drive we make between High Level and Edmonton, Alberta, an artist we worked with, Chris Short, observed that there is enough visual information of interest to make it necessary to break the same trip into three days to allow her to sketch, draw and paint … along the way. The photos presented here are those on the return journey home last week. Not knowing the times or vicinities well and with the press of my family and me returning to other goals, my photography was more happenstance than planned or found.

Listening to – The B-52s with the Wild Crowd performing ‘Private Idaho,’ ‘Ultraviolet,’ ‘Roam,’ and ‘Cosmic Thing’.

Quote to Inspire – “Taking an image, freezing a moment, reveals how rich reality truly is.” – Anonymous

At the Ready

Backlight, Barn, Best Practices - Photography, Canon 60D, Canon Camera, Canon Live View, Farm, Farmhouse, Gas Station, Homestead, Journaling, Light Intensity, Photoblog Intention, Photography & Conceptualizing Beauty, Project 365 - Photo-a-day, Sigma Lens - Wide Angle 10-20mm, Still Life, Vehicle, Vehicle Restoration, Winter

Ford One Ton Tow Truck – McLure BC 1

Ford One Ton Tow Truck – McLure BC 11

Ford One Ton Tow Truck – McLure BC 10

Ford One Ton Tow Truck – McLure BC 9

Ford One Ton Tow Truck – McLure BC 8

Ford One Ton Tow Truck – McLure BC 7

Ford One Ton Tow Truck – McLure BC 6

Ford One Ton Tow Truck – McLure BC 5

Ford One Ton Tow Truck – McLure BC 4

Ford One Ton Tow Truck – McLure BC 3

Ford One Ton Tow Truck – McLure BC 2

A 1938 Ford one-ton tow truck sits, seemingly at the ready, gazing out to the highway. Yet, at the ready, looks a lot like ready to sell.

Static, the Ford’s paint flakes away and metal beneath oxidizes into rust, colourfully. Curves are the thing, in the shape and detail of the cab, in each window, throughout the length and nose of the hood, in the catch-all of the fenders and in the perfect circles of the lights; straight lines add contrast to these curves with the verticals and horizontals of the running boards, bumper and grill; and then there are the diagonals associated with the structure for leverage, towing and pulling other vehicles. There’s remarkable engineering, here, both in the original build of the Ford and in the impromptu innovation of the towing structure … someone has the knack for towing vehicles. The whole vehicle is architecture, engineering, shape and detail from a former time, a time that preceded me, a time that was my father’s – all pull my interest to this Ford. And, there’s anticipation of how it would drive and how it would ride … the finding of gears, the getting it to move and remain moving … there’d be the unique bounce and shift of weight as the truck moves over terrain … there’d be the rhythm of engine combustion idling and working, pacing out each mile … and there’d be the view from within while piloting this vehicle – all intrigue me.

Automobiles that have left the road have been set back on the road surface by this Ford. Remnants of collisions – damaged vehicles, damaged people and damaged egos, their aftermath has needed transfer to homes, autobody shops and junk yards, something this Ford has provided regularly. In extreme and extraordinary winter weather this Ford has been one to venture out on uncertain roads and perhaps there would be no safer place than in an outfitted Ford one-ton tow truck with a rested driver who understands people, the road and his machine. This Ford one-ton tow truck is for sale down around McLure, British Columbia; the first person with $2000 or so dollars takes it.

Listening to – Tom Cochrane’s ‘Big League’.

Quote to Inspire – “Buy a good pair of comfortable shoes, have a camera around your neck at all times, keep your elbows in, be patient, optimistic and don’t forget to smile.” – Matt Stuart

Blessing Become

Canon 60D, Canon 70-200 mm 2.8 IS L Series Lens, Canon Camera, Canon Lens, Canon Live View, Farm, Farmhouse, Flora, Fog, Home, Homestead, Light Intensity, Lookback Photos - One Year Ago, Photography & Conceptualizing Beauty, Summer, Weather, Winter

Canola Homestead – Fort Vermilion, Alberta

Elektra Water Bomber 1

Elektra Water Bomber 2

Winter Snow 1

Winter Snow 2

At -39C steam hangs in the air almost failing to dissipate, resolving into a fog residue – vehicle exhaust, factory steam, breath from your own mouth. Cold cranking car batteries fail and must be boosted. January into February, in the North we’re rounding the cold portion of the orbital arc, pulling January’s cold with us into February. To look back, to rework and to resurrect in new ways – former photographs become blessing. Blown, compacted, heated and crusted snow is the subject of two images. Summer images include a homestead house within a field of canola as well as the Elektra water bomber from July.

Listening to – Stompin’ Tom Connors’ ‘Sudbury Saturday Night,’ Ray Wylie Hubbard’s ‘Mother Blues,’ Gurf Morlix’s ‘Gasoline’ and Buddy Miller’s ‘Does My Ring Burn Your Finger.’

Quote to Inspire – “I have to shoot three cassettes of film a day, even when not ‘photographing’, in order to keep the eye in practice.” – Josef Koudelka

Derelict Farmhouse II

Best Practices - Photography, Canon 60D, Canon 70-200 mm 2.8 IS L Series Lens, Canon Camera, Canon Lens, Canon Live View, Christmas, Farm, Farmhouse, Homestead, Journaling, Night, Photoblog Intention, Photography & Conceptualizing Beauty, Sunset, Winter

Derelict Farmhouse 2 – Lamont, Alberta 1

Derelict Farmhouse – Lamont, Alberta 2

Derelict Farmhouse – Lamont, Alberta 3

The front face or façade of a derelict farmhouse precedes a wooden grain shed and newer, state of the art grain silos. The image contrasts new, old and older. The house sits on a ridge overlooking a storage yard for people’s equipment, a collecting point or nexus for anything unused and nearly disposed of … old mobile homes, vehicles, farming implements and machinery. This house, on the other hand, has structure and form and context – it has beauty; it had purpose in a former time. What would this house have been like in its day, when people were proud of the land’s first fruits? Is this a homestead house built following World War I or World War II? Would the farmers who farmed here have come to Canada or would they have been a generation or two arrived. In terms of today, why has the building not been torn down? What memorial does this house provide and to whom? Who does this house continue to serve?

Listening to – Radiohead’s ‘Little by Little’ from the King of Limbs album (Live from the Basement).

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

Derelict House – Day’s End

Backlight, Canon 60D, Canon 70-200 mm 2.8 IS L Series Lens, Canon Camera, Canon Lens, Christmas, Farm, Farmhouse, Home, Homestead, Light Intensity, Season, Vehicle, Winter

Derelict Farmhouse 1

Derelict Farmhouse 2

Friday, following Christmas, after time away from Edmonton at Elk Island National Park photographing bison, there, we took the backway into Edmonton, leaving the park and coming into Edmonton through Fort Saskatchewan. Near Lamont we found this derelict farmhouse. I took some shots while my son read a novel in our SUV; curiously, he may have been reading Charles Dickens’ ‘Bleak House,’ a novel sorting through the estate of someone who has passed … the clarity and speed of action within Britain’s legal system at the time is slower than a snail’s pace and those to whom the estate would benefit are in some cases reduced to poverty with the waiting … that’s gone on for what seems a generation; it’s social commentary and plot. With the image, here, the sun was moving toward the horizon and gives partial corona to the roof at each leftmost edge near the eaves trough. The textures and muted tones appeal. In looking through the image, the landscape that the house is set in seems to collect the unused, as well – day’s end for a few things.

Listening to – Cold Play’s ‘Violet Hill’, ‘Yellow’ and John Farnham with ‘The Voice’.

Quote to Inspire – “Everything shifts as you move, and different things come into focus at different points of your life, and you try to articulate that.” Chris Steele

Ethereal, Restless – Dreaming

Best Practices - Photography, Canon 60D, Canon 70-200 mm 2.8 IS L Series Lens, Canon Camera, Canon Live View, Fall, Farm, Farmhouse, Flora, Home, Homestead, Journaling, Light Intensity, Lookback Photos - One Year Ago, Photoblog Intention, Photography & Conceptualizing Beauty, Project 365 - Photo-a-day, Season, Spring, Still Life, Weather

House of Dreams 1

House of Dreams 2

House of Dreams 3

House of Dreams 4

House of Dreams 5

This farmhouse image is one that I connect to moments we’ve all had – that ethereal, restless dream state when dreaming’s hallucination can draw forth what seems other-worldly connection. For me, I recall Mr. Lockwood who upon renting Thrushcross Grange ventured out on a winter walk to meet and greet his landlord, a man by the name of Heathcliff. The story, set in the late 1700s – early 1800s, sees the newly installed Mr. Lockwood walking to the property of his new landlord, a home with a name – Wuthering Heights. A snow storm brews up and makes it necessary for Mr. Lockwood to stay the night in his landlord’s home.

A place is made for him in what seems is a book cupboard or closet.

He reads a pen and ink commentary set forth in the margins of books within this sleeping closet; print books, the only source of paper available to another character, Catherine Earnshaw, are the place where Catherine journals about and considers her life – a journal that in tone and availability serves as confidante for the teen who as estate owner’s daughter is without ready access to peers her age at the Wuthering Heights farm estate. Mr. Lockwood can’t sleep – he reads and reads and reads about Catherine and Heathcliff … until in that ethereal, restless dream state he enters into dream hallucination, a state in which he encounters a young Catherine who within the snow storm outside knocks at ‘his’ window asking to be let in. The farmhouse in this image meets well many of the essential elements of what my mind imagines that Wuthering Heights could be. This house seems ready for all that Emily Bronte’s novel, Wuthering Heights, might hold. And, there’s more to that story ….

Listening to – Maria Dunn’s God Bless Us Everyone, Michael Hoppe’s Land of Serenity, Bill Douglas’ Irish Lullaby, Grant McAskill’s Bitter Season, Catherine Anne McFee’s I See Winter and Paul Brady’s Help Me Believe.

Quote to Inspire – “I want the viewers to be moved into the lives of the people that they are looking at, the visual experience is incredibly emotional.” Paul Fusco

Barbed and Anchored

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

Fence Post and Homestead

December winter scene – homestead and trees, land that once was broken, now fenced in – protected, reminding and reminiscent of lives and the work of living. Snow blankets dormant land and caps a fence post, one among many anchoring three strands of barbed wire used to hold animals to this area of land while they graze. Horizon, sky, former home, snow and wood’s texture, softer muted colours – all hold my eye and attention.

Listening to – Madeleine Peyroux’s J’ai Deux Amours, Kenny Gamble’s Me and Mrs. Jones, Toni Sola’s Night Sounds Blues, and Burt Bacharach’s (They Long to Be) Close to You, recognizable songs among others that form the From Paris With Love Soundtrack.

Quote to Inspire – “Emotion or feeling is really the only thing about pictures I find interesting. Beyond that is just a trick.” – Christopher Anderson

December’s Shift – Past Tense

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

Peace River – Homestead Starting Point

A December day – my brother forwards an e-mail from a family friend, someone from the old neighborhood in Edmonton’s Ottewell community, a friend we shared the neighborhood with as kids. At eighty years, his father, a good friend of my father’s, has passed – succumbing to cancer’s disease. The e-mail conveys global or summary view of his father, a statement written by a man in middle-age, a message made more striking because of its first shift to the past tense of Life – Life has been lived well; Life lived on … beyond the passing of his wife thirty years prior; and, anticipation of how the loss will be felt and recognized. Life’s patterns will change for his family without him.

My memory is of him, his wife, his three boys and his daughter in their Edmonton home on 94b Avenue during the seventies. An accountant, he drove a chocolate brown BMW sedan way back then. My Dad and he shared wit and story. Both were sharp, intelligent people – achievers with achievements; they and their wives had travelled – our families vacationed together. Dad and he were close and knew how to share time together well. Our families may even have met at Church – Ottewell United Church. As I think him through I think of starting points, places any of us began. For him, he’d been adopted in the thirties and loved and raised well – something carried on in each of his children.

Listening to – Roky Erickson’s You’re Gonna Miss Me, Bow Wow Wow’s I Want Candy, Elton John’s Crocodile Rock, Joan Jett and the Blackhearts’ Crimson and Clover, Katrina and the Waves Walking on Sunshine and Bruce Springsteen’s The River.

Quote to Inspire – “I photograph to find out what something will look like photographed.” – Garry Winogrand