I don’t think so. I’ve followed an editing protocol intended to produce a painterly feel in the image. And, while having fun with different edits, I haven’t necessarily arrived at a painterly image. You’ll have to tell me. In terms of attributes, a painterly image is more soft than crisp in terms of detail. It limits or reduces the colour palette to fewer colours that work together. The image has an ethereal, not quite worldly feel that engages the imagination in terms of ‘what-if’ and ‘what could be.’ When I have found my way through such an edit and created an image with a painterly feel, it has the quality of feeling like you could step into a fairy tale.

Listening to: Hozier’s ‘Wasteland Baby,’ ‘Claire de Lune,’ Bruce Cockburn’s ‘Call it Democracy,’ The Who’s ‘Won’t Get Fooled Again,’ Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Highway Patrolman,’ and, Mark Knopfler and Emmylou Harris’ ‘This is Us.’

Quote to Consider / Inspire – ‘Sometimes I arrive just when God’s ready to have someone click the shutter (Ansel Adams, courtesy of Light Stalking).’

A colder week, here in Northern Alberta. Our temperature has reached downwards to -44C and lower still to -55C with windchill. Staying warm, pursuing projects around the house and remaining warm under thick blankets has been what our week has been about. The water lines to our kitchen sink and to our clothes washer are frozen – they will be worked on when the temperatures warms a nudge (so they won’t refreeze after warming to flow once). For me, the cold allows time to slow down, to review images not yet edited and to edit my images following editing protocols (workflows) outlined in different tutorials.

Here, I’m liking these early morning, early autumn compositions – balance, symmetry / asymmetry, colour, directional light and depths (places to look to within this image). In taking these photos, I am trialing an m-mount Leica Summarit 35 mm lens and investigating its working with colour; a friend has highlighted the unique refraction of the light (the colour red, in particular) as being ‘buttery.’ I am curious. This edit shows the Summarit 35mm to sharp and the colour refraction renders a nostalgic feel.

Quote to Consider / Inspire – “You can look at a picture for a week and never think of it again. You can also look at a picture for a second and think of it all your life.” – Joan Miro (thanks Light Stalking).

Listening to – Caribou’s rendition of ‘Home,’ U2’s ‘Bad,’ ‘Crumbs from Your Table,’ ‘Mysterious Ways,’ and ‘One.’ Then it’s Ellie Goulding’s ‘How Long Will I Love You’ from that most excellent film ‘About Time,’ a film I hope all of you have watched.

Travel featured in this Christmas for my wife and me. We were able to be with our son and daughter. We were able to slow down with them, gather a sense of them and understand how Life is treating them; Christmas was a juncture in their medias res and ours. They’re doing alright. Good. And, Christmas with its snow and cold allowed me time to sit at my computer and edit other images from 2019. I value having this time to rest, to see and to arrive at these edits. Here are a few more from Cathedral Grove and Englishman River falls.

Quotes to Consider / Inspire (gathered by Sean Tucker and offered in his vlog ‘The Things we can’t Control’) – “When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves (Viktor Frankl).” “Make the best use of what is in your power, and take the rest as it happens (Epictetus).” I am grateful to Sean for his solid talk on Life and Photography … good, good schtuff!!

Listening to CKUA Online – Lucette’s ‘Angel,’ Lee Harvey Osmond’s ‘Colours,’ Jade Bird’s ‘Side Effects’ and Sam and Dave’s ‘Thank you.’ Also, paying attention to a vlog of Jonas Dyhr Rask’s X-Ambassador offering a lecture at Scandinavian Photo, December, 2016 – some ideas on gear, on street photography an development as a photographer.

Out and away from High Level on a Sunday afternoon, north towards the Northwest Territories border stopping for these images of Dené burial houses at a site called Indian Cabins. My drive would later take me to Alexandra Falls along the Hay River within the Twin Falls Gorge Territorial Park.

Quote to Consider / Inspire – “Native theology works in a different way. There is no heaven, there is no hell, there’s just a circle. The circle of life and death that interconnect, and that when we pass away, we leave this planet, we don’t go up or down. We stay [in] another part of the circle.” (Tomson Highway, musician, storyteller, eternal optimist, CBC Radio, June 20, 2014)

All This Time, Martyn Joseph

“Snow on cedar, silence falls
Biggest beauty, we are small
Sun filled crevice, hump backed bear
Been looking for something, already there
It’s taken all this time
It’s taken all this time
To turn around and see
The sum of all these parts are we
Stripped back layers, to touch the core
So many clues lie, on the floor
And all these things and more are true
But none alone would see me through
It’s taken all this time
Snow on cedar, silence falls
Biggest beauty, we are small
Life is complex, so we are
Searching trash cans, traveling far
It’s taken all this time
It’s taken all this time
To turn around and see
The sum of all these parts are we …”

Listening to – Martyn Joseph’s ‘All This Time’ from his Live album ‘Don’t Talk About Love.’

A few years back, the Old School House in Qualicum Beach, British Columbia served as gallery for several photographs of Cathedral Grove, including a large, canvas panoramic image photographed within the site. In memory, the canvas must have been huge … maybe three metres by one metre. I am not sure – the image could have been a one-hundred eighty degree panoramic image. However, it might also have been a three-hundred sixty degree panoramic image. The image intrigued in terms of what part of the site would allow such a panorama, then in terms of how the photographer planned and trialed this photographic panorama. There would be considerations regarding time of day, light and the possibility of encountering people during the exposure. Beyond this, the photographer would have needed to edit what, at the time, would have been an extremely large data file and then have the image printed. Finally, the canvas image that I was looking upon placed me within Cathedral Grove to see what’s there.

Our Parksville visit in April, 2019 made it possible to photograph Cathedral Grove at sunrise on three different mornings.

Quote to Consider / Inspire – “The camera is an instrument that teaches people how to see without a camera (Dorothea Lange).”

Listening to CKUA’s ‘Classic Examples’ – Ron Jones’ ‘Momentum Suite for String Orchestra,’ Sergei Prokofiev’s Piano Sonata No. 7 in B-flat, Opus 83 and Dmitry Shostakovich – ‘Waltz #2.’

April, 2019 – our daughter finishes her spring term at University. My wife and I have spring break, time away from school. We collect our daughter and her personal effects. And, we fly out to Vancouver Island, British Columbia. From Victoria we drive up to Parksville and stay at the Oceanside Inn for a week. These images are from Englishman River Falls and Cathedral Grove. Liking the idea brought out by photographer Adam Gibbs – follow/find the light first and then work to compose your image.

Listening to: Pat Green with Joe Ely’s take on U2’s ‘Trip Through Your Wires,’ Neil Young’s ‘Don’t Let It Bring You Down’ from his ‘Live At Massey Hall 1971’ album, and, ‘This Is Us’ from the ‘All the Roadrunning’ album from Mark Knopfler and Emmylou Harris.

Quote to Consider / Inspire – “As I have practiced it, photography produces pleasure by simplicity. I see something special and show it to the camera. A picture is produced. The moment is held until someone sees it. Then it is theirs (Sam Abell).”

I watched a vlog of a Nikon Canada event hosted in Edmonton at the new Walterdale bridge, a through arch bridge that captivates with its arch suspended roadway and shape that juxtaposes a curve amongst a backdrop of architectural right angles. The Nikon event had been a means to orient new Nikon camera owners to their cameras. For me, though, this Nikon vlog introduced the possibility of getting an ‘up-close’ look at the Walterdale bridge which has held my attention through the years that it was built.

Last week, in moments away from Christmas, I parked at the Kinsman fieldhouse and walked the Walterdale bridge finding these images. At two points in my walk, first, in looking back at the structure from the northwest corner and then, again, as I viewed it from the hill just under the Queen Elizabeth pool site, this bridge structure reminded of a dream catcher. Perhaps a dream catcher conceptualization is appropriate given the bridge being immediately adjacent to an indigenous burial site just to the northeast between the exiting roadway and the Rossdale power plant.

These images are handheld with ISO set to 6400 on my Olympus EM5 MkII; the camera is forgiving; the images are somewhat grainy.

Listening to: Jerry Colonna being interviewed by Krista Tippett in an ‘On Being’ interview entitled ‘Can You Really Bring Your Whole Self to Work?’

Quote to Consider / Inspire – ‘A novel ensures that we can look before and after, take action at whatever pace we choose, read again and again, skip and go back. The story in a book is humble and serviceable, available, friendly, is not switched on and off but taken up and put down, lasts a lifetime (William Golding).’ A provocative quote in light of visual narrative in photographs.