Metal Geometry

Best Practices - Photography, Canon 60D, Canon 70-200 mm 2.8 IS L Series Lens, Canon Camera, Canon Lens, Canon Live View, Flora, Journaling, Light Intensity, Lookback Photos - One Year Ago, Photography & Conceptualizing Beauty, Podcast, Project 365 - Photo-a-day, Spring, Still Life, The Candid Frame

Train Trestle – Lac St. Anne, Alberta 1

Train Trestle – Lac St. Anne, Alberta 2

Train Trestle – Lac St. Anne, Alberta 3

High above a creek running in spring’s thaw, a train trestle’s metal geometry, angles bolted and welded together, contrasts against water’s fluid state and creek bank flora … colourful, yet still to come alive.

Listening to – Ibarionex Perello interview Walter Plotnick on ‘The Candid Frame,’ a discussion of wet photography and digital process – check out episode #189 http://thecandidframe.blogspot.ca/ (you’ll find this as a podcast through iTunes).

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

Cattails & Snow Curves

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, Photoblog Intention, Photography & Conceptualizing Beauty, Project 365 - Photo-a-day, Spring

Cattails and Snow, High Level, Alberta 1

I’m liking these cattails and the lengthening curves of the snow in which they are set.

Listening to – Tim Reynolds fret a number from the Live at Radio City concert with Dave Matthews, ‘You Are My Sanity’; then it’s Dave Matthews and Tim Reynolds with a Neil Young tune, ‘Down by the River.’

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

Snow – Warmed

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

Alberta Skies – High Level, Alberta 1

Alberta Skies – High Level, Alberta 2

Alberta Skies – High Level, Alberta 3

Alberta Skies – High Level, Alberta 4

In Spring wind skims over sun-warmed snow, blowing and lifting moisture laden air sky high. A blue sky day can become cloud-ridden in hours. Alberta skies feature in images along the southward drive to Edmonton in Spring.

Listening to – Coldplay’s ‘Mylo Xyloto,’ ‘Hurts Like Heaven,’ and ‘In My Place.’

Quote to Inspire – “I’m very open to any visual conceits and any possibilities at my disposal to be better explain to people the ideas I’m exploring.” – Tim Hetherington

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

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

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

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

Don’t Explain … Show

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

Cobra 2 Seater – Edmonton, Alberta 1

Cobra 2 Seater – Edmonton, Alberta 2

A candy-apple red, two-seater Ford Shelby Cobra sits, ready, waiting and unused, eye candy within a car dealership’s maintenance department.

Listening to – Bill Mallonee & the Vigilantes of Love and ‘She Walks On Roses,’ ‘Resplendent,’ and ‘Goes Without Saying.’

Quote to Inspire – “The whole point of taking pictures is so that you don’t have to explain things in words.” – Elliott Erwitt

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