Photos’ Blog & Writing

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Fargo Grain Truck – Nampa, Alberta 1

Fargo Grain Truck – Nampa, Alberta 2

Fargo Grain Truck – Nampa, Alberta 3

Fargo Grain Truck – Nampa, Alberta 4

Fargo Grain Truck – Nampa, Alberta 5

Fargo Grain Truck – Nampa, Alberta 6

Fargo Grain Truck – Nampa, Alberta 7

Fargo Grain Truck – Nampa, Alberta 8

Turning through pages of tablature, a songwriter’s guide in Martyn Joseph’s ‘Notes on Words,’ surfaces (after years) and has had me consider what I might assert as truth in how writing about photographs ought to work within any of our photo blogs. What would I say? Would I promote one way of going about presenting and responding to photos? Some core ideas seem key.

Photo Blog Writing Guide …

1. Within each photograph, reveal the subject in ways never before seen.
2. Get a moleskin and record image ideas within this idea journal.
3. Pay attention to how you feel at moments before, during and following image capture.
4. Pay attention to how the image resonates with each new edit of a photograph … edit and edit again.
5. Add words to your photographs, sparingly – get to the core response to your photograph.
6. Be honest about this image and you; posers present others’ sentiment ….
7. Dialogue with others about your images and theirs; provide likes and comments – find what’s key.
8. Photograph with others occasionally; they and their lens will reveal the world in ways new to you.
9. Snap the photo while you’re there – stop the car, halt your walk, stop your chat; take out your camera and photograph that subtle, subtle thing that your mind and eyes have recognized and wish to amplify.
10. Return to subjects again and again, photographing subjects from how you now know them each subsequent time.
11. Pay attention to good photographers – talk with them, listen to them; pay attention to visual narrative and image work in movies, in art, in photographs and the visual narrative you encounter in daily life.
12. “… Capture those special moments when life is amplified above the norm for a few seconds (Martyn Joseph – Notes On Words, 2003).”
13. “Go to locations that inspire – places from your past, places that will challenge you, [… take you camera and moleskin with you] (Martyn Joseph – Notes On Words, 2003).”
14. “If it doesn’t excite you it probably won’t do much for anyone else (Martyn Joseph – Notes On Words, 2003).”

Perhaps the other essential thing is the matter of being grateful for each photo found and discovered, for what you learn along the way and from who and for process – all that stuff that comes together in creating each new photograph. Beyond this photo discussion thanks, here, goes out to Martyn Joseph for each of the following – ‘One of Us,’ ‘Don’t Talk about Love and all that was that Edmonton concert at the Queen Alexandra Community Hall.

The road home last weekend finally provided opportunity to photograph this grain truck near Nampa, Alberta, the sides of its grain box now sandwich board, advertising (or perhaps better said as raising awareness with regard to) a social issue the world needs to know about. For me, the photograph is more about setting or context as well as that of articulating the shape of a vehicle from a former time; it has been something to see how far I could extend edits in shaping the image in terms of mood and tone beyond the factual/literal rendering of the image.

Listening to – Son Houses’ ‘Death Letter,’ Snow Patrol’s ‘Run,’ The Who’s ‘Won’t Get Fooled Again,’ Steve Miller’s ‘Mercury Blues,’ Ross Copperman’s ‘Holding On and Letting Go,’ The Red Hot Chili Peppers’ ‘Snow [Hey Oh],’ and Joe Bonamassa’s ‘Long Distance Blues.’

Quote to Inspire – “The photograph is completely abstracted from life, yet it looks like life. That is what has always excited me about photography.” – Richard Kalvar

That Sedan & Professor Keating

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Sedan Along Path – Valleyview, Alberta 1

Sedan Along Path – Valleyview, Alberta 2

Sedan Among Trees – Valleyview, Alberta 1

Sedan Among Trees – Valleyview, Alberta 2

Away from home, tasks requiring completion fly me southward to Edmonton, Alberta, Friday, one week ago today. My Sunday is a day-long, northward return trek home with my Canon 60D.

In my first years as a teacher, an elder’s coaching presented the predicament of moving through or around brush as analogy for the challenge of dealing with Life’s obstacles. If moving through brush resulted in injury, the better judgment call was that of moving around the obstacle. The key was seeing the situation for what it was. The elder was promoting the path already carved out, the natural path; for him, the established easier route ought to be the path to take. Along the road home, east from Valleyview, Alberta a fifties’ four-door sedan sits, resting and rusting, its rear window absent. It’s placement in a farmer’s field positions it along a natural path that will take it forward through trees. No longer having power to move itself, though, this sedan sits along a path that could have been.

M. Scott Peck, Robert Frost and even the Dead Poets Society’s professor Keating would all promote the road less travelled as the path to take. Perhaps the elder talking to me all those years ago was establishing reality’s balance to such assertion – the road less travelled overcomes obstacles that no one else or, at least, few have encountered. Finding one’s own way throughout one’s Life, personal navigation, is the thing in either case – avoiding the obstacles or seeking the uncommon, unique yet obstacle-laden path. It’s interesting to be referencing the Dead Poets Society again within this photoblog while associating to photos of this vehicle.

Listening to – CKUA Online and the Friday Night Blues Party, Curtis Salgado’s ‘She Didn’t Cut Me Loose’ and Andy T and Nick Nixon Band’s ‘Drink Drank Drunk.’

Quote to Inspire – “I really don’t have any idea about photography, but I take pictures.” – Alex Majoli

Sun, Wind & Weather

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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

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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

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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

No Through Road

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No Through Road 1

No Through Road 2

No Through Road 3

No Through Road 4

No Through Road 5

In Alberta’s northwest, a backroad highway connects the town of Grimshaw with the town of Fairview; halfway between the two this road runs north one kilometre from the connector into muskeg and bush, a place where a family has made their home. At this intersection, heart-shaped wreaths are attached to two signs – this one, ‘No Through Road’ leading into this homestead; and, another is attached to the stop sign as the road rejoins traffic along the connector highway. The words ‘no through road’ within a setting in which a farmer would have a tough go in producing crops or raising livestock provoke ideas about Life’s journey needing to be carved out, step following step, day-by-day with eyes upon one’s goal – our path being something we construct each day of our Life. Life becomes journey, Life holds endeavor and endeavor is about recognizing potential, engaging in work, and celebrating/acknowledging achievement.

Thinking through this No Through Road sign first surfaced ideas about settling and moving no further, recalling mediocrity, a term derived from medias (middle) and ocrus (mountain), settling having to do with the climb of a journey up a mountain and finding oneself getting comfortable at the halfway point so much so that no further movement along the climb is undertaken. The narrative within this image is not about mediocrity, however. Life’s endeavor or Life’s challenge is more significant, that act of choosing to plant yourself where you are, looking to what you can achieve, using all that you know – skills and abilities – to embrace Life’s challenge in order to add something into the world. That’s what goes on at the end of this road. The through road that is yet to come will associate to the Life or Lives beyond the present endeavor at this road’s end.

Wreaths tied to signs caused me to stop and look around; the wreaths are inviting and suggest love and care and concern for others; the wreaths also serve to landmark one family’s location on their portion of the frontier for others to find.

Listening to – The Cinematic Orchestra and ‘Ma Fleur’.

Quote to Inspire – “A tear contains an ocean. A photographer is aware of the tiny moments in a person’s life that reveal greater truths.” – Anonymous

Thelwell Ponies

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Fairview Horses, Fairview, Alberta 1

Fairview Horses, Fairview, Alberta 2

Fairview Horses, Fairview, Alberta 3

Fairview Horses, Fairview, Alberta 4

I am able to recall my first year of school and one of those Life-changing events, that of taking my father to the Edmonton International Airport – Mom, Grandma and me. Something new for me and my brothers, this same event was rejoinder for my father – he was getting back to the globetrotting that was so much of his career prior to the arrival of my two brothers and me. Business trips took Dad often to the United Kingdom to stay current with practices/methods in plastics development/technologies. Beyond the United Kingdom, Dad moved around the globe in a chemist’s technician’s capacity dealing with the technical side of plastics use; the customer was always right – if the plastic produced didn’t work for the customer, the company Dad worked for always solved the problem and worked to create the plastic needed by each customer-manufacturer. Dad’s globetrotting in the sixties, seventies, eighties and nineties had the ceremony of preparation and departure; and, homecoming also became ceremony – gifts for the family let us know that we were thought of even when he was away from us.

Horses – the images of horses, here, were photographed just north of Fairview, Alberta. Their shapes remind of a British cartoonist who drew so many cartoons of the British countryside – Norman Thelwell often drew images of ponies … cartoons that these photographs recall. Check out Norman Thelwell at http://www.thelwell.org.uk/ . One of the gifts my father brought back for me when I was twelve was a small paperback of Thelwell’s pony cartoons – something I can remember reading in my room on a rainy day in June in Edmonton.

Listening to – Los Lobos and ‘Two Janes.’

Quote to Inspire – “Ultimately photography is about who you are. It’s the truth in relation to yourself. And seeking truth becomes a habit.” – Leonard Freed

81 Years – Today

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Fields of Home 1

Fields of Home 2

Hay Bale – Fields

The Road Home

The following blessing is something that’s opened-out and extended back recollection of my father and his shaping, steadfast hand. It’s his birthday, today … and these words – John O’Donohue’s words, ‘For a Father’ – recall him to me.

“The longer we live,
The more of your presence
We find, laid down,
Weave upon weave
Within our lives.

The quiet constancy of your gentleness
Drew no attention to itself,
Yet filled our home
With a climate of kindness
Where each mind felt free
To seek its own direction.

As the fields of distance
Opened inside childhood,
Your presence was a sheltering tree
Where our fledgling hearts could rest.

The earth seemed to trust your hands
As they tilled the soil, put in the seed,
Gathered together the lonely stones.

Something in you loved to inquire
In the neighborhood of air,
Searching its transparent rooms
For the fallen glances of God.

The warmth and wonder of your prayer
Opened our eyes to glimpse
The subtle ones who
Are eternally there.

Whenever, silently, in off moments,
The beauty of the whole thing overcame you,
You would gaze quietly out upon us,
The look from your eyes
Like a kiss alighting on skin.

There are many things
We could have said,
But words never wanted
To name them;
And perhaps a world
That is quietly sensed
Across the air
In another’s heart
Becomes the inner companion
To one’s own unknown.” (‘For a Father’ in ‘Homecomings,’ To Bless the Space Between Us, John O’Donohue)

Listening to – U2’s ‘Kite’.

Quote to Inspire – “The camera is an excuse to be someplace you otherwise don’t belong. It gives me both a point of connection and a point of separation.” Susan Meiselas

Blessing Become

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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

Grain Elevators – St. Albert, Alberta

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New Year’s Day – in Edmonton and its surrounding region the daylight hours of 2013 are sun-filled against a backdrop of blue sky. I’m out, looking around at the world with my camera, making my way from Edmonton’s west end, through its University area and Whyte Avenue. My wife, daughter and son are at my brother’s home reading … and there’s some baking going on.

I have some of the day with my camera.

The Edmonton Clinic at the University of Alberta reveals itself to be something eye-catching when complete – a longish curve of glass that will stretch for a city block in length and upwards about eight stories; the building will be about reflection as much as the glass permits a looking in on all that’s going on. But, the photo is not for today; the construction is still in progress and from the best angle impedes what is likely the best shot.

The day does hold its share of shots as I move to the Molson Brewery site that’s being dismantled. Then, it’s out to St. Albert to Edmonton’s northwest. My wife has recalled our seeing grain elevators as we drove into St. Albert last summer for a huge farmer’s market and she recommends searching for them. I have a look and discover that the grain elevators are part of a heritage museum in St. Albert. The elevators are behind chain-link fence, yet I can still photograph them.

I move from St. Albert west towards Spruce Grove. I use an elasticized, nylon tow rope to pull out someone in a silver, Dodge Dakota whose slid into a country ditch with the snow. On this road are many old farms and farm structures to photograph. But, at this time of day with an upcoming get family together this part of the day is about scouting visually for possible shots … for next time.

Listening to – Paul Gross and the Due South soundtrack.

Quote to Inspire – “My life is shaped by the urgent need to wander and observe, and my camera is my passport.” – Steve McCurry