I was in Iceland a year ago. The time was opportunity to move within and over unexplored terrain, alone. I would respond to it all, feasting my eyes through my camera lens, always working to understand the visual narrative of the land, its weather and people. The windward-leeward interaction of mountain weather is a visible…
Category: Fog
Morning Marvels
Popcorn size chunks of hoar frost line the length of a light standard’s striations, more of January’s morning crystalline marvels. Quote to Consider – “If your photos aren’t good enough, then you’re not close enough.” – Robert Capa Listening to – Adele’s ‘Hello,’ ‘Send My Love (To Your New Lover)’ and ‘I Miss You.’
Morning’s Way
Six kilometres distance is my morning walk around High Level. I am plugged in, listening to a podcast that opens out a little further my understanding of the world. Words from a podcast interview catch my ear – “The greatest mysteries are the simplest ones. Those are the ones that we confront every day. I…
Reflecting, Road Thought Work
“We never see another person’s experience; all we see is their behaviour (R.D. Lang).” I have had some alone time travelling in the past few weeks and been able to engage in uninterrupted thought work – some intersecting of ideas has occurred. I’ve listened to a 2007 John O’Donohue lecture on the creative force of…
Downtime Edits
The week’s end and our weekend have each held several endeavors, ones that have engaged me fully and used my mind and imagination fully. And, I’ve found that a mild cold has morphed into a productive cough and that I now have a prescription for antibiotics to see through to move me clear and past…
Time Out (in the Brubeck sense)
Taking time-out in the Brubeck sense, there being too much to do, having completed one huge step along a bigger task, clearing my head with photography before tackling the next huge step. This image is taken on a stretch of road behind the highway connecting Blue Hills to Buffalo Head Prairie, Alberta. The intention had…
Sun Streams, Mist & Pure Seeing
Sun streams down over a mountain through morning’s mist – condensation and wood smoke – into the community of El Tizate. It is morning, perhaps the last day of our time in El Tizate – we wait for our tour bus; I look out at the world through my camera and lens – rewarded with…
Half-light & Snow
Returning to High Level from La Crete I chose to investigate briefly the photographic opportunities available at Buttertown, a community just across the river from Fort Vermilion, Alberta. I followed the track through Buttertown finally stopping near this homestead home that may be a century old; it resides only a stone’s throw away from the…
Cold Sunrise – Spring
Edmonton – a cold sunrise, winter lingering on into spring, colours buildings and fog haze in muted and rich tones reminding of Russian narratives. Bartholomew Scott Blair misses a trade show for book publishers. Boozy Barley Blair, life on a tangent, haphazardly and unwittingly finds himself in possession of serious, sobering prose; the film of…
Stowed Away
Stowed away among the brush, the husks of two boats dragged from the water, now uncared for, left to the elements. Listening to – Paul Simon’s ‘Graceland’ and ‘Diamonds on the Souls of Her Shoes’ (only now realizing that these were recorded in South Africa at a time when Artists Against Apartheid were sanctioning the…
Blessing Become
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…
Winter’s Wraith-like Wisps
Late on a November Saturday afternoon, wraith-like, wisps of wood smoke drift over winter’s fallow field near Fort Vermilion. A homestead’s woodstove produces an intense dry heat, welcome warmth in the midst of a cold, Alberta winter. The day, a first opportunity to work with a new prime lens, a Canon 50mm – f/1.4 lens;…
