Realizing Their Dream

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

Trapper’s Cabin – Near Indian Cabins, Ab 2

Slough Reflection – Near Indian Cabins, Ab

‘Come along, let’s do this’ – these words feature in the immensity that has been 2014. That there is room to help, here, or room to contribute there – the reality has been that others have had dreams to fulfill and realize, and, it would be wrong to not help others with skills, abilities and time if doing so could be managed. Francis Chan’s book ‘Crazy Love’ is about this dynamic. So, likewise, is Rick Warren’s ‘What On Earth Am I Here For?’ Both books have been the subject of small group study. The work of such work has often been about taking something a next step and to be consistent in offering others help with a next step. And, the real thing pulling forward has been seeing the value or function of a dream realized in another’s Life – what it means for them, what it allows them to do. Marko, down in El Tizate, Guatemala, captured the idea … ‘Be a blessing to these people.’ He wasn’t only talking about the people who live as squatters in the village of El Tizate; he was talking about blessing those who are around me daily. Much of the year has held a sense of being ‘time-starved’ … meaning that balance between endeavor and rest is absent – sacrifice is part of being a blessing to others.

In September, in early autumn, during moments away from endeavor, I took the following photos on a good long drive toward the Northwest Territories – a trapper’s shack along a trap line and a slough’s reflection.

Listening to – Chopin, 24 Preludes, Op 28 – 2 in A minor played by Rafal Blechacz.

Quote to Consider – “Instead of just recording reality, photographs have become the norm for the way things appear to us, thereby changing the very idea of reality, and of realism.” – Susan Sontag, ‘On Photography’

Inside the Watchtower

Best Practices - Photography, High Dynamic Range (HDR), Light Intensity, Photoblog Intention, Photography & Conceptualizing Beauty, Project 365 - Photo-a-day, Season, Summer

Medicine Wheel – Grand Canyon Watchtower 1

Medicine Wheel – Grand Canyon Watchtower 2

A park ranger greeted us as we entered Grand Canyon National Park. He asked where we were from and knew some of our home terrain from personal experience – as a younger man he and a fellow ranger cycled through British Columbia (B.C.) on a two week break; he’d been from Prince Rupert and through Quesnel and into southern B.C.. They’d also been chased by a bear in that adventure.

Our Grand Canyon ranger advised us to stop in at the Watchtower, the first lookout we would encounter in the park. As a structure, the Watchtower was built by Mary Colter in 1932, the same year in which my father was born (eighty-two years ago). Inside, the walls are painted with Navajo art in earthy, vibrant tones. One image, here, is a high dynamic range (HDR) photograph in natural light of a Navajo Medicine Wheel. Another, also an HDR photograph shows the interior structure of the Watchtower looking up through its center. The door to the roof was locked shut, but there were windows to look through, out and over the Canyon. I met a fellow Canon Camera shooter and showed him he could use his 60D’s optical zoom to create tack-sharp images … some camaraderie, there. Good, good. 😉

Listening to – Matthew Perryman Jones’ ‘Unknown.’

Quote to Consider – “[Photographs] … still want, first of all, to show something ‘out there.’” – Susan Sontag, ‘On Photography’

Time Out (in the Brubeck sense)

Best Practices - Photography, Canon Camera, Canon Lens, Canon Live View, Fall, Farm, Flora, Fog, High Dynamic Range (HDR), Homestead, Journaling, Light Intensity, Photography & Conceptualizing Beauty, Season, Still Life, Weather

The Blue Hills – Buffalo Head Prairie, Alberta

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 been to use three F-10 images of the same scene with focus-stacking software to produce a merged, focused image utilizing the lens’ strongest point of focus with various focal points in the scene. I didn’t get that far. I didn’t purchase focus-stacking software. Instead, I used HDR Efex Pro to merge the three shots. I’m liking the result, an image that would suit a Thanksgiving theme, the harvest complete, the field prepared for spring and a move toward quieter, less hectic work. Good.

Listening to – A Mash-up of Radiohead vs Dave Brubeck – Five Step; have a listen and watch … http://www.kewego.co.uk/video/iLyROoafJd5s.html ; also, listening to Bruce Cockburn’s ‘My Beat’ and ‘Wondering Where the Lions Are.’

Quote to Consider – “It is not altogether wrong to say that there is no such thing as a bad photograph – only less interesting, less relevant, less mysterious one.” – Susan Sontag, ‘On Photography’

Road as Frontier

Backlight, Best Practices - Photography, Canon Camera, Canon Lens, Canon Live View, Flora, High Dynamic Range (HDR), Light Intensity, Photography & Conceptualizing Beauty, Project 365 - Photo-a-day, Still Life, Summer

1The Road – Arizona

2 The Road – Arches Nat’l Park

3 The Road – Arches Nat’l Park

4 The Road – Arizona

The road – some value the swift movement of traveling from point of origin to established destination; here, travel is not about what you encounter along your distance – travel is about getting ‘there.’ Robert Frost and Scott Peck, on the other hand, each refer to the road less traveled for what the road can reveal of the world and for how that road can grow us as we encounter new frontiers. Jack Kerouac, in his novel, ‘On the Road,’ refers to a life orientation of meeting, new, upcoming road – what we discover moving over it and how we grow as the road challenges us. That road and what we do along it becomes our narrative, our less traveled road.

Images from the road ….

Listening to – Chuck Berry’s ‘Route 66.’

Quote to Consider – “If photographs are messages, the message is both transparent and mysterious.”

Query – HDR Halo Removal

Backlight, Best Practices - Photography, Canon Camera, Canon Lens, Canon Live View, High Dynamic Range (HDR), Journaling, Light Intensity, Photography & Conceptualizing Beauty, Project 365 - Photo-a-day, Still Life, Summer

Grand Canyon – Arizona 1

Grand Canyon – Arizona 2

Grand Canyon – Arizona 3

Grand Canyon – Arizona 4

Grand Canyon – Arizona 5

The following images of the Grand Canyon are high dynamic range (HDR) images. In editing these HDR shots the challenge has been to try and eliminate the halo surrounding edges of highly contrasted colours within images. The method experimented with this week has been to open the Develop module in Adobe Lightroom and within the Lens Correction menu to utilize the ‘Remove Chromatic Aberration’ there instead of relying only on a similar feature in the HDR Efex plug-in, on the plug-in side of merging the three (or more images). Beyond this, NiK Software’s Viveza is used to sharpen and add contrast and adjust/decrease brightness; after that Topaz Labs’ Clarity and Adjust helps adjust sharpness and saturation. With Viveza I’m finding success in editing toward what I want. I still am learning about choosing the filter/preset in Topaz Adjust and then finding optimal saturation from there.

If you are an HDR image creator I would appreciate hearing from you and the method you use to create your non-halo HDR images; this week, a software product called HDR Expose 3 (by Unified Color) has been recommended for its de-ghosting (halo elimination) capacity … do you use this?

Listening to – 16 Horsepower from their ‘Folklore’ album, in their rendering of a Nina Simone song, ‘Sinnerman.’

Quote to Consider – “In the past, a discontent with reality expressed itself as a longing for another world. In modern society, a discontent with reality expresses itself forcefully and most hauntingly by the longing to reproduce this one.”

Ragamuffin Remembering

Canon Camera, Canon Lens, Canon Live View, Gas Station, High Dynamic Range (HDR), Journaling, Photography & Conceptualizing Beauty, Project 365 - Photo-a-day, Still Life, Summer, Vehicle, Winter

Chevrolet Truck – Arizona 2

Chevrolet Truck – Arizona 1

It’s Sunday, and it’s a colder kind of Sunday in early November. I’m downstairs with the computer, editing summer photos – our travels through Utah. I show my wife the following image of an early 30’s Chevrolet truck. It sits alongside the highway within a Navajo reservation. For my wife, the vehicle has personality, the kind you’d find personified in the Disney movie, ‘Cars.’ I’m liking its colour, shape and integrity. Paint peels from its fenders and body. Rust in its colour seems very close to the colour of the rocks within the landscape.

The age of the vehicle also holds my attention. As a marker of time, the vehicle would have been around in world war II, it would have been around when that war ended, it would have been witness to all that Jack Kerouac’s novel, ‘On the Road,’ would have been about. And, as I think about it, the truck would also have been around when Rich Mullins made his treks out to this Navajo reservation to minister to children and youth with his music. In music ministry, ‘Awesome God,’ is the song Rich Mullins is most recognized for writing, along with many songs recorded by Amy Grant.

This past fall, over a couple of days, I went through a DVD drama called ‘Ragamuffin’ which is an inspired chronicle of Rich Mullins’ life in which the viewer witnesses Rich’s transformation (struggles, consequences and transformation) from successful Christian musician to a life lived more and more honestly by the tenets of God set out in the Bible. 78 Eatonwood Green is a place where Rich and the Ragamuffin Band were staying in Ireland and 78 Eatonwood Green is title to another song worth the hearing, an instrumental with a dulcimer featuring within the song.

Listening to – Rich Mullins’ ‘78 Eatonwood Green’ from ‘A Liturgy, a Legacy and a Ragamuffin Band.’

Quote to Consider – ‘Photography, though not an art form in itself, has the peculiar capacity to turn all its subjects into works of art.’ – Susan Sontag, ‘On Photography’

Morning Flux

Backlight, Canon Camera, Canon Lens, Canon Live View, Flora, High Dynamic Range (HDR), Journaling, Light Intensity, Photography & Conceptualizing Beauty, Project 365 - Photo-a-day, Still Life, Summer, Sunrise, Weather

Sunrise – Arches Nat’l Park, Moab, Utah 1

Sunrise – Arches Nat’l Park, Moab, Utah 2

Sunrise – Arches Nat’l Park, Moab, Utah 3

Sunrise – Arches Nat’l Park, Moab, Utah 4

Sunrise – Arches Nat’l Park, Moab, Utah 5

Sunrise – Arches Nat’l Park, Moab, Utah 6

Summer Memory – early, early morning, warming, moving, cycling Edmonton bike trails, alone, witnessing with dawn the lighting of the earth and the articulation and colouration of shapes, the earth shrouded in mist, becoming seen, more and more vividly, with each pedal stroke. It’s the transition or flux from night to day happening each day regardless of weather – the time is special, perhaps sacred. The photos, here, capture the lighting of the earth, the articulation of shape and colouration of the world at dawn – Arches National Park, near Moab, Utah.

Listening to – Mary J. Blige and U2 sing ‘One,’ Luciano Pavarotti and U2 sing ‘Miss Sarajevo’ and B.B. King and U2 sing ‘When Love Comes to Town.’

Quote to Consider – “Insofar as photography does peel away the dry wrappers of habitual seeing, it creates another habit of seeing – both intense and cool, solicitous and detached; charmed by the insignificant detail, addicted to incongruity.” – Susan Sontag, ‘On Photography’

Stopping the Clock

Backlight, Canon 70-200 mm 2.8 IS L Series Lens, Canon Camera, Canon Live View, High Dynamic Range (HDR), Light Intensity, Photography & Conceptualizing Beauty, Project 365 - Photo-a-day, Still Life, Summer, Sunrise, Weather

Arches Nat’l Park – Moab, Utah 1

Arches Nat’l Park – Moab, Utah 2

Arches Nat’l Park – Moab, Utah 3

Arches Nat’l Park – Moab, Utah 4

Arches Nat’l Park – Moab, Utah 5

As a newly heard phrase, the words ‘when the clock stops’ intrigue as a conceptualization of abundant time that can be personally directed. In these words you are no longer ‘on the clock’ and answerable to someone else for your use of time (in work hours). The phrase describes the inverse of having too little quality time or personal time, of being ‘time-starved.’ The ‘on the clock’ world tends to describe our work situation in which work becomes a way of Life and survival more than it is a Life chosen through free will. What is more, among Stephen Covey’s seven habits of highly effectively people there is the habit of sharpening the saw – the regular withdrawal from endeavor that renews you allowing your return to endeavor fresh, invigorated and with greater clarity of perspective (vision). The phrase ‘off the clock’ does intrigue.

Tonight, sleep eludes me and I’m stopping the clock.

The past seven weeks have been heavy with tasks and within the last two weeks demands on my time beyond my school day have been substantial, yet the rewards for others and me have also been substantial. Editing images remains my means of stopping the clock and sharpening the saw. In the last few nights I’ve settled in editing Utah photos from July. I’ve left these images for now, when I would make time for them rather than rush through their edits. And, I’ve made time to deal with a monitor issue before editing. I have calibrated both monitors so the differential between them in hue, luminance and contrast is minimal – what I see on one monitor is what I see on the other. One monitor has tended toward warmer colours, while the other has been cooler. The calibration should go a long way toward presenting images as my eye sees them right on the monitor.

The images presented here are Arches National Park Buttes during a summer sunrise.

Quote to Consider – “Insofar as photography does peel away the dry wrappers of habitual seeing, it creates another habit of seeing: both intense and cool, solicitous and detached; charmed by the insignificant detail, addicted to incongruity.” – Susan Sontag, ‘On Photography’

Listening to – U2’s ‘Live from Paris’ album; ‘Trip through Your Wires,’ ‘I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For,’ and ‘Running to Stand Still’ are songs standing out. Also have found Jen Chapin & Rosetta Trio’s version of Bruce Springsteen’s ‘American Skin (41 Shots);’ reminds of Jackson Browne doing this song in a tribute to Bruce Springsteen – the story behind the song is worth the investigation. I’m also enjoying Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Live in Dublin’ concert – just now the banjo bringing in ‘Jesse James.’ The same album contains ‘If I Should Fall Behind,’ something for couples and married to hear. The night is being rounded out by Bruce Hornsby & the Range, ‘The Show Goes On’ from the Backdraft soundtrack.

Post Script – Luka Bloom also aims at stopping the clock with his tune, ‘Blackberry Time.’

Coloured Desaturation

Canon 70-200 mm 2.8 IS L Series Lens, Canon Camera, Canon Lens, Canon Live View, Fall, Farmhouse, High Dynamic Range (HDR), Journaling, Photography & Conceptualizing Beauty, Still Life

Autumn’s Desaturation – Rycroft, Alberta 1

Autumn’s Desaturation – Rycroft, Alberta 2

Desaturation -St. Louis Mission – Buttertown, Alberta 1

Desaturation -St. Louis Mission – Buttertown, Alberta 2

Looking through this past month’s photos the desaturation of the earth’s foliage draws my eye, Life ebbing away or perhaps about to draw into dormancy under the covers with snow’s blanket. Fields have been shorn, leaving behind uniform lines of a seed drill’s patterned press of seeds into the earth. Great expanses of field hold round bales, some already positioned for feeding cattle, deer, elk and bison. These photos present the colour of a month ago and the desaturation witnessed only a week ago. The desire to be on the land as I was as a youth is there.

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’

Listening to – Sarah Masen’s rendition of an old Supertramp song – ‘Give a Little Bit.’

Russet Rain

Backlight, Canon Camera, Canon Lens, Canon Live View, Farm, Flora, High Dynamic Range (HDR), Journaling, Photoblog Intention, Photography & Conceptualizing Beauty, Project 365 - Photo-a-day, Summer, Sunset, Weather

Russet Rain – Valleyview, Alberta 1

Russet Rain – Valleyview, Alberta 2

Labour Day weekend, that point in the year when parents of college- and university-aged children make the drive taking students to cities far away, returning them to another year of campus Life. Travel toward school held anticipation for my son. For me, there was the chance meeting of a teaching friend while refueling our vehicles in Valleyview; both of us were taking our kids to University. We chatted, exchanged e-mails and committed to staying in touch via e-mail. In Edmonton, my son and I shopped and got him squared away in terms of his belongings and his first set of groceries. We said our good-byes and I left him to connect with his friends and settle into his University term. Five hours away on my return journey, a rain shower, off in the distance near Valleyview became a focal point to explore with my camera – an immense set of clouds beginning to release rain at sunset. I’m liking the endpoint of this expressive, moody edit.

Listening to – U2’s ‘Raised by Wolves’ intrigues with different possible trajectories – the feral child (raised by wolves), trial-by-fire and being taken advantage of steering towards better, wiser paths and the duality of wolf and lamb that needs to be discerned in terms of people you encounter and deal with.

Quote to Consider – “Nothing is more acceptable today than the photographic recycling of reality, acceptable as an everyday activity and as a branch of high art.” – Susan Sontag, ‘On Photography’