Winter’s Tail-end …

Best Practices - Photography, Canon 30D, Canon 50mm, Canon 50mm Lens, Canon 60D, Canon 70-200 mm 2.8 IS L Series Lens, Canon 75-300 mm, Canon Camera, Canon Lens, Canon Live View, Farm, Farmhouse, Home, Homestead, Light Intensity, Lookback Photos - One Year Ago, Photoblog Intention, Photography & Conceptualizing Beauty, Prime Lens, Project 365 - Photo-a-day, Spring, Still Life, Sunset, Winter

1 Buttertown Home – Fort Vermilion, Alberta 2

2 Buttertown Home – Fort Vermilion, Alberta 1

3 Farm Buildings – Guy, Alberta 1

4 Farm Buildings – Guy, Alberta 3

5 Farm Buildings – Guy, Alberta 4

6 Farming Buildings – Nampa, Alberta 2

7 Farming Buildings – Nampa, Alberta 1

8 Ford & Mercury Trucks 1

9 Ford & Mercury Trucks 2

10 Icicle – Tompkins Landing 1

11 Icicle – Tompkins Landing 2

12 Icicle – Tompkins Landing 3

13 Icicle – Tompkins Landing 4

14 Icicle – Tompkins Landing 5

15 Icicle – Tompkins Landing 6

16 Black and White – Cattails, High Level, Alberta

17 Former Highway Construction Vehicles 1

18 Former Highway Construction Vehicles 2

19 Bus Lanes at Night – High Level, Alberta

A cluster of B-side photos remain – Fort Vermilion’s former times Buttertown homes, winter farming scenes (equipment and buildings, deposited in their last left locations, ‘medias res’), icicle lens edits and former MacKenzie highway construction vehicles. It’s this winter’s tail-end, a time to close winter out … and get-on with spring.

Listening to – Edie Brickell & the New Bohemians’ ‘What I am,’ U2’s ‘All Because of You,’ Cat Stevens’ ‘Morning Has Broken,’ Depeche Mode’s ‘Policy of Truth,’ T. Rex’s ‘Bang a Gong,’ Wang Chung’s ‘Dance Hall Days’ and Neil Young’s ‘Cinnamon Girl.’

Quote to Inspire – “Success is what happens when 10,000 hours of preparation meet with one moment of opportunity.” – Anonymous

Winter Psychedelic

Backlight, Canon 60D, Canon Camera, Canon Lens, Canon Live View, Farm, Homestead, Journaling, Light Intensity, Lookback Photos - One Year Ago, Photoblog Intention, Photography & Conceptualizing Beauty, Project 365 - Photo-a-day, Spring, Still Life, Winter

Winter Psychedelic 1

Winter Psychedelic 2

Winter Psychedelic 3

Winter Psychedelic 4

Colour found and pulled from winter is subject of current photos. There’s a feel of the seventies as colour is approached – strong rich colours and contrasts in the darker images. The lighter images explore oversaturation and the aura surrounding subject. An icicle is shaped by heat and gravity. Another is shaped by wind’s push and pull. Both are lens for what they are in front of. Weeds, left behind, within the bleakness of a lacklustre winter field become source from which to pull colour and attention to shape and setting in an image that could be termed … ‘psychedelic.’

Listening to – iTunes set to start genius, starting at The Eagle’s Seven Bridges Road yields an energizing playlist – Eagles’ ‘Seven Bridges’ Road,’ Aerosmith’s ‘Back in the Saddle,’ The Black Crowes’ ‘ Twice as Hard,’ The Who’s ‘Magic Bus,’ Nazareth’s ‘Love Hurts,’ Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Pink Cadillac,’ The Rolling Stones’ ‘Can’t You Hear Me Knocking,’ Neil Young’s ‘Rockin In The Free World’ and The Kingsmen’s ‘Louie Louie.’

Quote to Inspire – “I also paint, draw and I’m into film and photography as well, and the same thing applies to all of them. You’re presenting this material to the general public and hoping that they’re going to ‘get’ what you’re doing. Some don’t, some do.” – Paul Kane

Away from the City

Best Practices - Photography, Canon 30D, Canon 60D, Canon Camera, Canon Lens, Canon Live View, Farm, Homestead, Lookback Photos - One Year Ago, Photoblog Intention, Project 365 - Photo-a-day, Vehicle, Winter

1 Former Farm Buildings – Guy, Alberta 1

2 Chevrolet and GMC

3 Former Farm Buildings – Guy, Alberta 2

5 Former Vehicles of the Road

6 Former Farm Buildings – Guy, Alberta 3

7 Former Vehicles of the Highway

Away from its cities, out in Alberta’s hinterland Alberta’s land is a great, huge space, with landscapes and regions that vary substantially in terrain and vegetation from North to South and from West to East. Its strength – strength of economy, strength of resource and solid quality of Life – seem most apparent in and around its cities. As you move through Alberta’s distances, you discover those places where people have made a living with very little; they got their start, weathered the years and gathered strength, resources and capital. Often my photography celebrates these first places trying to understand intent for how the place was used and how and why it was left. The photographs memorialize former first Alberta days, reminders of the youth-filled strength and initiative to make a go of it in a sometimes unyielding land.

Listening to – Penguin Café Orchestra’s Volume 2 – ‘Air a Danser,’ ‘Yodel 1,’ ‘Telephone and Rubber Band,’ ‘Cutting Branches For a Temporary Shelter,’ ‘Pythagoras’s Trousers,’ ‘Numbers 1-4,’ ‘Yodel 2,’ ‘Salty Bean Fumble,’ ‘Paul’s Dance,’ ‘The Ecstacy of Dancing Fleas,’ ‘Walk Don’t Run,’ ‘Flux,’ ‘Simon’s Dream,’ ‘Harmonic Necklace,’ and ‘Steady State.’

Quote to Inspire – “During the work, you have to be sure that you haven’t left any holes, that you’ve captured everything, because afterwards it will be too late.” – Henri Cartier-Bresson

Not Always …

Best Practices - Photography, Canon 60D, Canon Camera, Canon Live View, Farm, Home, Homestead, Photoblog Intention, Photography & Conceptualizing Beauty, Project 365 - Photo-a-day, Sigma Lens - Wide Angle 10-20mm, Winter

Former Farm 1

Former Farm 6

Former Farm 5

Former Farm 4

Former Farm 3

Former Farm 2

Not always pretty, or organized, the shot you take. Yet something in your mind recognizes beauty’s potential – something can be drawn from this image. Some part of your mind recognizes this scene or subject ought to be recorded and kept – something’s here to understand … front of the process stuff, this first part of making a photograph. You see, you capture and you edit. You exercise photographic skill(s) finding the strongest way of seeing this image … end of process stuff, recognizing presentation choices and choosing. The image reveals itself as much as you present it.

Former farms and homesteads are subject in the images of this morning’s post.

Listening to – Bob Dylan’s ‘Last Thoughts On Woody Guthrie,’ from the Bootleg Series, Vol. 1-3 (Rare& Unreleased) 1961-1991.

Quote to Inspire – “Looking and seeing are two different things. What matters is the relationship with the subject.” – Christophe Agou

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

Barn, Best Practices - Photography, Canon 60D, Canon Camera, Canon Lens, Farm, Farmhouse, Gas Station, Home, Homestead, Journaling, Photoblog Intention, Project 365 - Photo-a-day, Sigma Lens - Wide Angle 10-20mm, Summer, Vehicle Restoration

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

Backlight, Barn, Best Practices - Photography, Canon 60D, Canon Camera, Canon Live View, Farm, Farmhouse, Gas Station, Homestead, Journaling, Light Intensity, Photoblog Intention, Photography & Conceptualizing Beauty, Project 365 - Photo-a-day, Sigma Lens - Wide Angle 10-20mm, Still Life, Vehicle, Vehicle Restoration, Winter

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

Backlight, Best Practices - Photography, Canon 60D, Canon Camera, Canon Lens, Canon Live View, Farm, Homestead, Light Intensity, Lookback Photos - One Year Ago, Photoblog Intention, Photography & Conceptualizing Beauty, Project 365 - Photo-a-day, Still Life, Winter

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

81 Years – Today

Best Practices - Photography, Canon 60D, Canon Camera, Canon Lens, Canon Live View, Farm, Flora, Home, Homestead, Lookback Photos - One Year Ago, Photography & Conceptualizing Beauty, Project 365 - Photo-a-day, Season, Smoke, Sunset, Winter

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