Category: Photoblog Intention

Cold February Sun – Near Webberville Hall, Alberta

Tipi Poles – Dunvegan, Alberta, 2

Dunvegan Buildings – Dunvegan, Alberta

Dunvegan Church – Dunvegan, Alberta, 1

Dunvegan Church – Dunvegan, Alberta, 2

Dunvegan Church – Dunvegan, Alberta, 3

Tipi Poles – Dunvegan, Alberta, 1

Grain Bins – Rycroft, Alberta

Along Ragged Ass Road – Yellowknife, NT, Canada – 1

Along Ragged Ass Road – Yellowknife, NT, Canada – 2

Along Ragged Ass Road – Yellowknife, NT, Canada – 3

Along Ragged Ass Road – Yellowknife, NT, Canada – 4

Granville Island – Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada – 1

Granville Island – Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada – 2

Harbour – Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada – 1

Harbour – Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada – 2

Making a photograph can work in two ways.

We can plan a photograph. We can walk the scene, find the strongest way of seeing, decide best vantage point, apply craft and engage light and shadow. We compose the shot, arranges elements that will become the photo, exclude elements not serving the photo. We look, see, brood, wait and press the shutter button. Another way we photograph is in response to what is seen in the moment. We react to scene, subject or situation in a photo – what Ralph Gibson calls a ‘perceptual act.’ The experience, subjective, is a moment we sustain in ‘taking’ a photograph … we engage the subject. Taking the photograph draws out connection from us, our understanding, our appreciation. In that moment, we respond with camera and write with light. An image is produced. Then, we move beyond it. The photograph records how we see and what we have seen. With a camera, a photographer becomes a ‘stealer of moments.’

By coincidence, the medieval conceptualization of moment surfaced last summer in a twitter feed I follow. “[A moment is a medieval unit of time. Then, as now, twenty-four hours comprised the day. An hour was one of the twelve lengths/portions of the period from sunrise to sunset. An hour had four puncta, ten minuta, or, forty momenta. Averaging with twelve solar hours, one moment should equal ninety seconds (tweet, Fermat’s Library, 26 July 2018).]” While an actual time frame surrounds the conceptualization of a moment, in contrast, the moment that a photographer finds her- or himself within when creating a photograph can be more a subjective entity, a state of presence without sense of time, something timeless. Within a moment, beauty, understanding, appreciation coalesce into presence. The photographer gathers (or steals) the moment, the photograph’s viewer can return to that moment. It is almost as if the photographer halts time’s progress and encapsulates a given moment, putting boundaries around it in the making of a photograph. And, it’s worth considering that the term ‘moment’ derives from momentum, a trajectory of time moving us forward, moment by moment. A photograph becomes a means to contradict time in our return to former moments, through our backward glance, seeing where we’ve been, what we’ve moved through and to encounter again all that was there in that moment.

Gratitude – I am indebted to New Zealand photographer, Paul C. Smith, who surfaced this consideration with his comment about a photographer being ‘a stealer of moments.’ Thank you, Paul for your stunning work and photographic sensibilities. Good, good schtuff! To readers, here, check out Paul’s Youtube videos, Instagram feed and find him on Facebook – it’s worth your time.

Words to Consider / Inspire – “I just want to make a picture [so] that the subject of the picture is essentially my perceptual act. I do not want the subject to support the content. My relationship to photography is the content, not the subject. The subject is merely a pretext. If you take a horizontal frame [landscape] you’re essentially triggering an allegorical or narrative reference – cinema, television, photojournalism. Turn it [the frame] vertically and many tensions are discoverable. I am interested in how we perceive photographs (Ralph Gibson).”

Listening to: Jim Croce’s ‘Time in a Bottle’ and Billy Joel’s ‘This Is The Time.’

Lumber Mill Steam – High Level, Alberta, Canada

A colder day in High Level, Alberta – perhaps -35C; steam rises from one of the two lumber mills.

Quote to Consider / Inspire: ‘The camera is an instrument that teaches people how to see without a camera.’ – Dorothea Lange

Listening to: U2’s ‘I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For.’

Derelict Homestead – Sexsmith, Alberta, Canada – 1

Derelict Homestead – Sexsmith, Alberta, Canada – 2

Two winter homestead images from back in November. In each liking the light and colours.

Quote to Consider / Inspire: ‘My interest in photography is not to capture an image I see or even have in my mind, but to explore the potential of moments I can only begin to imagine.’ – Lois Greenfield

Listening to: U2’s ‘Who’s Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses.’

Look-back image, Harbor – Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

Looking back through images to this one – a float plane descends to its harbor runway in Vancouver, British Columbia. An Easter vacation with family in Vancouver – a memorable time.

Quote to Consider / Inspire: ‘A camera is a SAVE button for the mind’s eye.’ – Roger Kingston

Listening to: Dave Matthews’ ‘Old Dirt Hill.’

Two Shot Pano – Ragged Ass Road, Yellowknife, NT – 1

Two Shot Pano – Ragged Ass Road, Yellowknife, NT – 2

During last October’s Kelby World-wide Photowalk, I snapped two different shots of a retro-green work shed along Ragged Ass Road in Yellowknife. When looking back to my photowalk photos, I recognized that it might be possible to stitch them together in a Panorama in Adobe Lightroom Classic. It worked. It does have curious distortion. But, it worked. Good.

Quote to Consider / Inspire: ‘You might be a photographer if … your eyesight from staring at the computer has gone for F11 to F1.8.’

Listening to: Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Streets of Philadelphia’ and ‘Brilliant Disguise.’

Indian Cabins, Alberta – 1

Indian Cabins, Alberta – 2

Indian Cabins, Alberta – 3

Indian Cabins, Alberta – 4

Having a look through photos for the other images, the other possible edits from last September’s jaunt up to Indian Cabins, Alberta. Liking the light, shadow, colours, lines and textures of these burial houses and the narrative(s) that can be gleaned.

Quote to Consider / Inspire – ‘Circumstantial light considers not only all the properties and behaviors of natural light, but also how that light interacts with the objects around [you], so that [you] can transform those objects into light-shaping tools.’ – Roberto Valenzuela

Listening to: Taylor McFerrin’s ‘Degrees of Light.’

Chasing Southern Alberta Cloudwork – 1

Chasing Southern Alberta Cloudwork – 2

Chasing Southern Alberta Cloudwork – 3

Chasing Southern Alberta Cloudwork – 4

Chasing Southern Alberta Cloudwork – 5

Chasing Southern Alberta Cloudwork – 6

A sunny morning, early in January with my daughter. A breakfast, then dropping her off at her university dorm. From Lethbridge, I travelled along roads taking me from Coalhurst to Standoff, Cardston and Waterton Lakes National Park, then up to Pincher Creek and back home to Edmonton. Enjoying the play of light and shadow in the cloudwork of this day.

Quote to Consider / Inspire: ‘What I like about photographs is that they capture a moment that’s gone forever, impossible to reproduce.’ – Karl Lagerfeld

Listening to: Gord Downie’s ‘Introduce Yourself;’ a song reminding of my father coping with Alzheimer’s disease.

Near Abraham Lake – Winter Grazing – 1

Near Abraham Lake – Winter Grazing – 2

Near Abraham Lake – Winter Grazing – 3

Near Abraham Lake – Winter Grazing – 4

Bighorn sheep take advantage of a windswept, mountain meadow to graze.

Quote to consider – ‘One doesn’t stop seeing. One doesn’t stop framing. It doesn’t turn off and on. It’s on all the time.’ – Annie Liebovitz

Listening to: Joni Mitchell’s ‘This Flight Tonight;’ a surprise to find that a Nazareth song I’d listened so often to in my teens was penned, strummed and sung by Joni Mitchell.

Abraham Lake, Alberta, Canada – 1

Abraham Lake, Alberta, Canada – 2

Abraham Lake, Alberta, Canada – 3

From Abraham Lake to Banff National Park – 1

From Abraham Lake to Banff National Park – 2

Banff National Park – 1

Banff National Park – 2

Banff National Park – 3

Banff National Park – 4

-30C and lower temperatures – a day beginning at 2:00 a.m. with a drive from Edmonton south and west, a day at Abraham Lake and into Banff National Park.

Quote to consider – ‘The camera makes you forget you’re there. It’s not like you are hiding but you forget, you are just looking at so much.’ – Annie Liebovitz

Listening to: Vampire Weekend’s ‘Harmony Hall.’

Walterdale Bridge – Edmonton, Alberta

An August image of the new Walterdale Bridge in Edmonton, Alberta from Saskatchewan Drive looking through to the Alberta Legislature Building.

Quote to Consider / Inspire – ‘Photograph: a picture painted by the sun without instruction in Art.’ – Ambrose Bierce

Listening to – Rosanne Cash’s ‘The Only Thing Worth Fighting For (featuring Colin Meloy)’ and ‘The Undiscovered Country.’