Painterly Farm Shed – Canada’s

Best Practices - Photography, Canon 60D, Canon Camera, Canon Lens, Farm, High Dynamic Range (HDR), Light Intensity, Photoblog Intention, Photography & Conceptualizing Beauty, Project 365 - Photo-a-day, Winter

Canada Flag - Shed

On the drive northward to Peace River from Edmonton, a few kilometres past the turnoff east to MacLennan and High Prairie you’ll find these grain bins and shed on the west side of the road, something unexpected, something to cause you to look into your surroundings, something that could perhaps have been a Canada day project – painting a farm shed with the Canadian flag … for all to see. The shed and grain bins serve as landmark along this road, visually positioning people who travel on it in terms of hours north towards Peace River and minutes before you’ll reach the valley of the Little Smoky River as you head south toward Valleyview.

This image is a High Dynamic Range (HDR) shot created using the camera’s Automatic Exposure Bracketing to fuse three exposures (one darker, one average and one lighter image) of the same shot together into a single image; the intent in creating the shot is to produce greater accuracy and to expose a broader range of what the eye sees naturally in terms of light and shadow. The image is toned mapped, yielding a moody, painterly feel to its rendering. Beyond this, the image seems to emphasize true geometric angles and does not really show much for backdrop but the sky … it sort of seems like you’re on top of the world … but that’s a few miles north, up where I live.

Listening to – Coming Down from Martyn Joseph’s Vegas album; there’s been U2’s Fez – Being Born and David Gray’s We’re Not Right from the White Ladder album. Then it’s been Minor Swing from the Chocolat soundtrack.

Quotes to Inspire – (1) “I can look at a fine art photograph and sometimes I can hear music.” – Ansel Adams. (2) “When people ask what equipment I use – I tell them, my eyes.” – Anonymous.

Along the Back Way Home

Canon 60D, Canon Camera, Fall, Farm, Home, Homestead, Lookback Photos - One Year Ago, Project 365 - Photo-a-day

Fairview Homestead - Along the Back Way Home

The as-the-crow flies, back way, return home from Grande Prairie to High Level, Alberta has a driver/photographer deviate from the GPS (Global Positioning Satellite) recommended route at Fairview and move north and east through the back country behind towns like Spirit River, Blue Sky, Berwyn, Grimshaw and Peace River. The route deposits you back on the GPS recommended route, north of Peace River and Dixonville at the corner upon which you’ll find the Weberville Community Hall, twenty minutes from Manning; you’ll chew-off some of the drive time and see land and animals that many will never see – my last trip had three moose standing on the side of the road as I drove by.

Beginning this deviated trek, ten kilometres north from Fairview you’ll find the homestead featured in this photograph on the east side of the road, a former home that is accorded reverence as a starting home for and reminder of the family that broke this land. Visual inspection of the homestead through my camera lens reveals that it was a home in stages. It had a basic first shape and it received alteration and addition, no doubt to welcome the blessing of a family’s increase in population. Grain grows around the home to with a metre of the building and tree perimeter – care is taken to preserve memory and to utilize the land. The home had been a starting point and reminds of starting points.

Listening through most songs on Joseph Arthur’s Redemption’s Son album – songs standing out are In the Night, Evidence and Nation of Slaves; my listen through reminds of Joseph Arthur’s tune of blessing sung by Michael Stipe and Joseph Arthur – In the Sun.

Curious Quotes to ponder – “You should never think without an image.” – Aristotle; “The soul can not think without a picture.” – Aristotle.

Looking Back – Late Winter Photos

Canon 30D, Canon Camera, Farm, Light Intensity, Lookback Photos - One Year Ago, Project 365 - Photo-a-day, Weather, Winter

One year ago, late on a Sunday afternoon in February I travelled east from High Level on range roads that service farms in this region. While graders had cleared these roads snow had begun to drift into them from the north. The sun’s light was direct and bright, intense as it was reflected back from the snow. And, the wind blew. From a distance, the shapes of the snow’s drifts were a repetitive pattern blown into the roads – evidence of the wind’s work; more irregular shapes were found as result of the particular way the wind swept through an area. On my return home I photographed Gibson’s farm, 10km east of High Level – a landmark that has served to orient me to how close I was to High Level in my trips in from Garden River, Fox Lake, Fort Vermilion and beyond. After many seasons in many years, my camera allowed me finally to see more of what the Gibson’s farm was about.

Reminded of W.O. Mitchell and his novel, Who Has Seen the Wind – a novel about growing up, a story with teachers and students …. Here’s its poem starting point.

Who Has Seen the Wind? – Christina Georgina Rosetti (1834-1894)

Who has seen the wind?

Neither I nor you.

But when the leaves hang trembling,

The wind is passing through.

Who has seen the wind?

Neither you nor I.

But when the trees bow down their heads,

The wind is passing by.

Listening to Dar Williams’ album The Beauty of the Rain, an album I was drawn to after learning the tablature for her song of the same name. The circumstances of a friend have recalled a song from the album – Fishing in the Morning.

Quote to Inspire – “To photograph truthfully and effectively is to see beneath the surfaces and record the qualities of nature and humanity which live or are latent in all things.” – Ansel Adams.

A House Does Not Make A Home

Canon 30D, Canon Camera, Farm, Home, Homestead, Lookback Photos - One Year Ago, Photoblog Intention, Project 365 - Photo-a-day, Winter

Home and homesteads are the subject of this evening’s perusal through photographs. In the U2 canon, Paul Hewson (Bono), the younger of two siblings asserts lyrically that ‘a house does not make a home,’ something he’s needed his father (Bob Hewson – Catholic) to understand about their shared life, a life without a mother who’s passed on (when Bono was 16 years of age). His lyrics point to the heart of home life – the void Bono’s encountered and what should be there. Another song from the U2 canon references yearning for his mother (Iris Elizabeth Hewson – Protestant) and her example – there’s vertiable duality in his ‘I will follow‘ lyrics – Bono surfaces his mother, here, as well as redemption through saviour and salvation. The essence that’s there, throughout these songs, is that much of what home is about revolves around the care and direction we receive from that parent who is our mother. Here, in tonight’s photographs, more than you’d expect, home is the key anchoring ingredient to Life on our frontier (yours too).

Listening to much of U2’s All That You Can’t Leave Behind album – New York (a secondary home-base for U2 and anchor), Grace (that awkward yet overcoming force/intention) and Kite (that song made gospel in Joey Ramone’s deathbed hearing).

Quote to Inspire (and to chuckle at) – “I shutter to think how many people are underexposed and lacking depth in this field.”