Icicle Lens

Best Practices - Photography, Canon 60D, Canon Camera, Canon Lens, Canon Live View, Journaling, Light Intensity, Photography & Conceptualizing Beauty, Project 365 - Photo-a-day, Spring, Winter

Icicle Lens – Tompkins Landing, Alberta 1

Icicle Lens – Tompkins Landing, Alberta 2

At Tompkins Landing on the Peace River snow on cable anchors that hold the Queen of Edmonton Ferry in place high upon the river bank has with sun’s springtime intensity begun to melt and produce icicles. With macro lens it was possible to capture colour within each icicle lens as well as elements of structure within the icicle.

Listening to – Jack Johnson and ‘Banana Pancakes.’

“Still images can be moving and moving images can be still. Both meet within soundscapes.” – Chien-Chi Chang

Animate Slap

Best Practices - Photography, Canon 30D, Canon Camera, Canon Lens, Fauna, Flora, Journaling, Light Intensity, Lookback Photos - One Year Ago, Photography & Conceptualizing Beauty, Project 365 - Photo-a-day, Summer, Sunset

Beaver and Sunset – Dixonville, Alberta

At sunset, on a lake north from Dixonville, Alberta, on the west side of a highway’s curve, a beaver has swum towards me to determine whether or not I’m animate, part of the setting or active within its setting. When my movement becomes large and noticeable, the beaver slaps its tail on the water and dives, swimming from what had been its present location to another where line of sight on me, the potential predator, can be had.

Listening to – much of Dave Matthews and Tim Reynolds’ Live at Radio City Music Hall; the songs standing out this morning have been ‘Bartender’ (as possible prayer), ‘Save Me’ (for its allusion), ‘Crash into Me’ (intimate lovers’ dialogue), ‘Sister’ (I have a sister-in-law) and ‘Lie in Our Graves’ (for its shared fun).

Quote to Inspire – “A photographer is an acrobat treading the high wire of chance, trying to capture shooting stars.” – Guy Le Querrec

Dusk Rescued

Best Practices - Photography, Canon 60D, Canon 70-200 mm 2.8 IS L Series Lens, Canon Camera, Canon Lens, Canon Live View, Journaling, Light Intensity, Lookback Photos - One Year Ago, Night, Photography & Conceptualizing Beauty, Project 365 - Photo-a-day, Rail Yard, Still Life, Sunset, Winter

Sunset – Dusk – Peace River, Alberta

For a second time, a Peace River, Alberta sunset arrests my attention. This photo is an image exposed incorrectly, but one that has been shot as a RAW file; editing is able to rescue the image returning it to Life and intention – a sunset shot. Earlier this fall on a day when we (my family and me) had been to Peace River for a day’s outing, the day’s return journey began at sunset; we in our vehicle making the long five kilometre climb westward out of the Peace valley and enjoying an array, scatter and stir of cloud work – hues deepening, then diminishing. A sight to have caught as a photo, this sunset … but just as easily enjoyed by each of us for what it was; there will be other sunsets (we do live in Alberta). As an entity, the immediate follow-up to sunset is dusk, light that softens as it leaves, light that colours as it diminishes – in photographic terms it de-saturates (withdraws colour). As an entity, dusk is intermediary between the stark, factual reality of daylight and that part of Life that occurs in the unseen. As an entity, dusk seems to be a visual reminder of transience – at sunrise dusk is a part of how we enter the day; at sunset dusk moves us from our day into night. The day’s movement is a part of our forward Life movement reminding us of our impermanence.

Listening to – Snow Patrol’s ‘Please Just Take These Photos,’ The Eagles’ ‘Seven Bridges Road,’ Don Henley’s ‘Sunset Grill,’ The Cars’ ‘Good Times Roll,’ Cheap Trick’s ‘Speak Now or Forever Hold Your Peace,’ The Verve’s ‘Bittersweet Symphony,’ and U2’s ‘Crumbs From Your Table.’

Quote to Inspire – “It’s not how a photographer looks at the world that is important. It’s their intimate relationship with it.” – Antoine D’Agata

Exercises Editing

Best Practices - Photography, Canon 60D, Canon 70-200 mm 2.8 IS L Series Lens, Canon Camera, Canon Lens, Canon Live View, Farmhouse, Journaling, Photoblog Intention, Photography & Conceptualizing Beauty, Project 365 - Photo-a-day, Winter

Homestead – Peace River, Alberta

Homestead I

Homestead II

Homestead III

Sedan – Sunrise Beach, Alberta

In learning piano, here in Canada, students will often learn and be taught how to play using music that is leveled within music books. At year-end you can challenge an examination to receive recognition of your level of skill. The daily practice along the way is what I recall. Each Toronto Royal Conservatory music book contained pieces – composed entities of music with beginning, middle and end, music with variation, music having specific direction, everything from phrasing, to control of loud and soft volume, intention for pace and emotion … all to be interpreted in presentation. Each music book also contained exercises or studies meant to develop skills for use within pieces, a matter of reading intention from the page and translating that intention accurately into sound. The exercise of returning to images and editing again and again is similar to these music studies and is something closer to the creative portion of writing music. The exercise of editing allows you to explore what the image contains and what can be brought out in an image; regular exercise builds the skill. Moving toward a pleasing outcome – what does and does not work – in editing is where much of photography’s creative act lies.

The photos presented are exercises in editing, seeing what they can become – Homesteads and Sedan.

Listening to – My Bloody Valentine’s ‘Sometimes,’ Phoenix’s ‘Too Young,’ Kevin Shields’ ‘Are You Awake’ and ‘City Girl,’ Brian Reitzell & Roger J. Manning Jr.’s ‘On the Subway,’ and The Jesus and Mary Chain’s ‘Just Like Honey.’

Quote to Inspire – “Once you learn to care, you can record images with your mind or on film. There is no difference between the two.” – Anonymous

Spring – Colour & Possibility

Best Practices - Photography, Canon 60D, Canon Camera, Canon Lens, Flora, Journaling, Lookback Photos - One Year Ago, Photoblog Intention, Photography & Conceptualizing Beauty, Prime Lens, Project 365 - Photo-a-day, Spring

Daisy … or Daisy-Look-a-like

A daisy with its greens, whites and yellows reminds of spring’s colour and possibility … days away. Gratitude – thank you to all who have looked-in on ‘In My Back Pocket – Photography,’ today. Engaging in dialogue about each visual narrative and accentuating the narrative found within images has been a real treat.

Listening to – my daughter points me toward Ed Sheeran’s ‘The a Team,’ Jack Johnson’s ‘Sitting, Waiting, Wishing,’ and Lenka’s ‘Everything At Once.’

Quote to Inspire – “Everything shifts as you move, and different things come into focus at different points of your life, and you try to articulate that.” Chris Steele – Perkins

Photos’ Blog & Writing

Best Practices - Photography, Canon 60D, Canon 70-200 mm 2.8 IS L Series Lens, Canon Camera, Canon Lens, Canon Live View, Farm, Journaling, Lookback Photos - One Year Ago, Photoblog Intention, Photography & Conceptualizing Beauty, Project 365 - Photo-a-day, Sigma Lens - Wide Angle 10-20mm, Still Life, Sunset, Vehicle, Winter

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

Edmonton – Freshly Green in June

Best Practices - Photography, Canon 30D, Canon Camera, Canon Lens, Journaling, Lookback Photos - One Year Ago, Photoblog Intention, Photography & Conceptualizing Beauty, Project 365 - Photo-a-day, Season, Spring, Still Life, Weather

Skyline – Edmonton, Alberta

Of all reasons to take up photography, the most significant and most poignant is to draw together memory of home. Edmonton’s Skyline from the southeast, from Strathearn Drive is the strongest memory I have of Edmonton. My grandparents’ last Edmonton home was on Strathearn Drive and my grandfather always had my brother’s and I out for a hike before a Sunday dinner with family, through this river valley, walking within this valley being a primary form of transportation for him and his (my mother’s) family, something more economical and much healthier than riding a bus or taking the family car down town. Perhaps one of my grandfather’s influences in my Life is one of appreciating the value of exercise and the achievement of exercise. Never a day would go by without my granddad getting out for a minimum of an hour’s walk wherever he was in the world. For me, Edmonton’s skyline recalls all the cycling I had done in Edmonton’s river valley through each summer listening to audiobooks and to music on a Sony Walkman.

This Edmonton skyline image recalls family history – our return to Edmonton via CN Rail and the CN Tower from Montreal in 1964, our first returned days at the Hotel MacDonald, the adventures with Scouts hiking through this valley and excursions to the top of the AGT Tower (now Telus Tower), Canada Place on the right is where we got our passports and on the left I had an Edmonton Journal paper route on 111 Avenue running from the Westbury Apartment to the Grandin Apartments. This image of Edmonton recalls the cool, fresh, wet weather of June. The photo is taken at the western most end of Strathearn drive that overlooks that part of Connor’s hill where the Edmonton Folk Festival is staged each August.

Listening to – Schubert’s Rondo in A for Violin and String, D. 438.

Quote to Inspire – “Quit trying to find beautiful objects to photograph. Find the ordinary objects so you can transform it by photographing it.” – Morley Baer

Step In

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

Ford F-100 – High Level, Ab 1

Ford F-100 – High Level, Ab 2

Ford F-100 – High Level, Ab 3

Ford F-100 – High Level, Ab 4

Ford F-100 – High Level, Ab 5

I’m not sure. But, this image’s perspective looking towards this 1953 Ford F-100 is that which likely is the perspective previous owners would have walking to it, something seen regularly through the Ford’s years of service. The image orients the eye to the driver’s door becoming the glimpse the owner/driver would take as he or she thinks through next actions and destination walking to this F-100. You could almost step into the image, open the driver’s door, start the engine and drive away.

Listening to – Leonard Cohen’s ‘Hallelujah,’ played on our Heintzman Grand Piano in vertical form by my daughter.

Quote to Inspire – “The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible.” – Oscar Wilde

From My Ford-Focused Canon 60D

Best Practices - Photography, Canon 30D, Canon 60D, Canon Camera, Canon Lens, Canon Live View, Home, Journaling, Light Intensity, Lookback Photos - One Year Ago, Photoblog Intention, Photography & Conceptualizing Beauty, Project 365 - Photo-a-day, Sigma Lens - Wide Angle 10-20mm, Still Life, Summer, Vehicle, Vehicle Restoration, Winter

Nose – 1938 Ford One Ton Tow Truck

Ford Grain Truck – Wabamun, Alberta

67 Ford Econoline Van

64 Mercury Monterey 2

64 Mercury Monterey 1

Looking up from my Ford-focused Canon 60D the highway held a semi hauling a flat-deck trailer with a Diversified Bus on it, its roof crushed – a sight as curious as it is disturbing. Diversified runs buses in northeastern Alberta. A passenger bus like this, the kind Greyhound uses, is never something anyone wishes to see in this state – the image implies rollover and injury. Hopefully, the accident was less serious than can be imagined. But, on those long, northern Alberta drives Greyhound buses do slide sideways on ice, occasionally – accidents involving such buses do occur from time to time.

Each image presented, here, has been an editing exercise exploring editing sequences other photographers have utilized to arrive at final image renderings. Ford Motor Company (FOMOCO) provides subject for these images – the nose of the 1938 Ford One Ton Tow Truck, a late sixties Ford One Ton grain truck, a 64 Mercury Monterey and a 67 Ford Econoline van.

Listening to – Gwyneth Paltrow singing ‘Country Song’ and ‘Travis.’

Quote to Inspire – “Your first 10,000 photographs are your worst.” – Henri Cartier-Bresson

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