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
A day or two after Christmas 2012, my brother and I got our families outside snowshoeing at Chickahoo Lake. In fresh air, our group got themselves tromping around the lake; I did so with my camera finding these cattails along the eastern lakeshore.
Listening to much of Jack Johnson this morning – Banana Pancakes, Sleep Through the Static, Bubble Toes and Staple It Together.
Quote to Inspire – “A photograph has picked up a fact of life, and that fact will live forever.” Raghu Rai
2012 – we will soon close-out 2012 and all that has been our photography through this year. Many of you have made your way to wordpress along a similar path, catalyzed by the prospect of a photo-a-day improving how we approach photography and taking that daily step of opening and closing a camera shutter, editing a photo and then loading the image (most times with comment) into your wordpress blog. I am in awe of the immensity of this endeavor and grateful to be in receipt of that recursive back and forth of dialogue, something that has created synergy and momentum in each of us returning to our wordpress blog with new images each day. Very good schtuff!
Each of you has been example to me. Each of you has captured images of Life being lived – medias res. Your photos contain mood, capture moment, find humour. I am indebted to each of you for those images of yours that stay with me, that I think about through the day and week. With likes, comments and encouragement, you’ve nudged me forward, further and further with photography this year and I have pushed the envelope in big ways. For all this, I am grateful … thank you for your part in what my 2012 has been.
Take good care of your good, good selves … and enjoy the season as best you can – Merry Christmas.
Former Field Anchor – the photo presented here is another fence post found around Sangudo, Alberta. Again, the play has been in find ways to represent this image.
Listening to – Bruce Springsteen’s Santa Claus Is Coming To Town, John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s Happy Christmas (War is Over), Brenda Lee’s Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree, Chubby Checker & Bobby Rydell’s Jingle Bell Rock and Perry Como’s Home for the Holidays.
Quote to Inspire – “All the technique in the world doesn’t compensate for the inability to notice.” – Elliott Erwitt
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
Saturday, we are two Saturdays before the Christmas of 2012. The Mayan calendar that had threatened to cancel all of time’s forward movement now seems unlikely to halt the movement of the moon and planets; the clock and calendar will continue to tick on, day by day.
Tonight, it’s been television with family – The Barbie Nutcracker and now Danny Kaye and Bing Crosby in White Christmas. Today, Christmas plans have been considered; how our few Christmas days will be spent with family has been hammered through. We will see my father, we will see my brothers, our kids – the cousins will gather and shop and talk; there will be Christmas games and family times … and photos. For us, way up north, most Christmas gifts have been gathered. Some discussions still need that – discussion; but, the gifting of gifts is being sorted through and understood with good understanding. A photo of a Rocky Lane homestead house, already framed upon my wall will become present for my father, a pioneering reminder/analogy for my father and his Edmonton work at Edmonton Works – the textures and highlights and colours work well together and hold the eye and interest of the viewer.
Tonight, there’s the excited buzz of cousins chatting at a distance over the telephone about the possibilities that their Christmas will hold – a holiday is being planned, places to shop are being determined and things asked for are being disclosed. There’s been a daughter/father phone call checking in on how Christmas will be spent at another location where we will not be; there’s been goodwill there and solid encouragement to spend time with that son of ours who’s been away at University these last four months. As things wind down at work, things are winding up for the Christmas we will make for our family and friends – last evening it was a joy just to sit around a kitchen table at a friend’s home, to chat and dig a little deeper into that thing we call Life … friendship’s blessing – something I’ve been able to count upon all year.
Today’s been a slower one, a day for recovery from a weeklong cold, a day to exercise and yet a day to slow down and gather energy. I fell asleep watching the Shawshank Redemption, a film that Steve Stockman (Stocki) has often recommended. I’ve been editing photographs today, older ones from within this year … a second glance, a second edit and the second-sight of understanding visual narrative within images; it’s been a time to experiment and play … a good day.
Listening to – Holly Golightly’s Wherever You Were, Tim Armstrong’s Into Action, Hawaii Five-O by the Ventures, Nazareth’s This Flight Tonight and Joy sung by Mick Jagger with Bono.
Quote to Inspire – “With photography, I like to create fiction out of reality. I try and do this by taking society’s natural prejudice and giving this a twist.” – Martin Parr
Under grey, foreboding winter skies, grain stocks remain – last inhabitants of this farmer’s field. Missed by the threshing blade, iced with snow and blown by every breeze they remain, still standing, no longer tended to.
Listening to – Martyn Joseph’s Cardiff Bay, Strange Way and The Great American Novel.
Quote to Inspire – “Not everybody trusts paintings; but, people believe photographs.” – Ansel Adams
B-side images, ones that haven’t made the first cut reveal in their review how often I am impressed with technology’s artistry that comprises what becomes a vehicle. A veritable used car lot, these images display resurrected lives of vehicles, being breathed into new Life through the artistry of a would-be car crafter. Winter grain stocks hold interest in their various settings.
Listening to – Aqualung’s Strange and Beautiful (I’ll Put A Spell On You), the Volkswagen Beetle tune from a few years back.
Quote to Inspire (or draw one toward reality) – “Photography cannot do much. It provides some level of information, yet it has no pretensions about changing the world.”John Vink
Fallen Timber 1 – Cathedral Grove, British Columbia
Fallen Timber 2 – Cathedral Grove, British Columbia
Log Boom – Close to Courtenay, British Columbia
Evening’s Dramatic Skies – Qualicum Beach, British Columbia
Robson Valley B/W – Mount Robson, British Columbia
Mountain Stream
Creating a photograph involves the photographer in workflow. You scout your scene for potential images – as Rick Sammon says, you ‘see’ it or you ‘walk the scene’. Then, you plan your photograph thinking it through in terms of image outcome – you determine best camera angle, you arrange and/or work with light, you plan your work with plane of focus and depth; you open the camera’s shutter and create an exposure/image. Later, you edit and crop the image; what is considered to be a photograph is that final point of image rendering in which the photographer determines that no further adjustment is needed. By the time first images are rendered you understand quite a lot about the image in terms of its visual information – the visual narrative within the photograph. First images become former images. And, former images seen again, after a time, allow time to breathe revelation into each image and its rendering possibilities. The images presented, here, are former first images, seen from time to time; the fun in the past few days has been in working through second edits to find those other possibilities that are/were present within the images – that other part of the visual narrative that was formerly hidden within the photograph.
Listening to Snow Patrol’s Those Distant Bells, New York and This Isn’t Everything You Are.
Quote to Inspire – “Taking pictures is like fishing or writing. It’s getting out of the unknown that which resists and refuses to come to light.” – Jean Gaumy
Son left at home, a summer job securely held in hand. Day two on a summer’s long-distance drive from High Level, Alberta to Qualicum Beach, British Columbia, nets a few moments driving respite in the valley beneath Mount Robson, Canada’s highest peak. With camera on tripod, I move behind the visitor’s center to find a field with yellows, purples, shapes and textures – all at hand. Everyone snapping photos – people in this place, recording their moments, here.
Quote to Inspire – “If your pictures aren’t good enough, you’re not close enough.” – Robert Capa
Vintage Vehicles at Ricky’s All Day Grill – Edmonton, Alberta 3
Vintage Vehicles at Ricky’s All Day Grill – Edmonton, Alberta 2
Vintage Vehicles at Ricky’s All Day Grill – Edmonton, Alberta 1
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
In My Back Pocket - Photography 
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