From within the Smoke

Canon Camera, Flora, Night, Photography & Conceptualizing Beauty, Project 365 - Photo-a-day, Smoke, Summer, Sunset, Weather

Wildfire – 10km South – High Level, Ab 1

Wildfire – 10km South – High Level, Ab 2

Wildfire – 10km South – High Level, Ab 3

Wildfire – 10km South – High Level, Ab 4

Outside on Saturday afternoon, I was mowing grass on day 1 of our summer break. Daylight filtered through a light smoke haze. Looking from the yard of our High Level home southward plumes of smoke were notably dark and heavy … and very close to town. In a wildfire advisory I was to read that only ten kilometres separated a wildfire from High Level. Air tankers roared through the air all afternoon and into the night soaking the blaze with water until 10:00 p.m.. Later that evening, in driving out to the point nearest the fire on the highway I witnessed a DC-3 air tanker moving through smoke arcing out of a water-dropping run – crossing the highway from right to left and climbing as it turned to its left and northward to the High Level airport … a sight that would have made an extraordinary photograph. I pulled off the road onto a temporary turnout and took these images. In one I aimed to capture the sun as a solid orange disk as seen through smoke; the image I present here is one result I am happy with though it is not what I intended.

Listening to – Willie Nelson’s cover of ‘Just Breathe’ with his son Lukas and Willie Nelson’s cover of a Coldplay tune, ‘The Scientist,’ featured in the Robert Downey Jr. film with Robert Duvall, ‘The Judge.’

Quote to Consider – “It can be a trap of the photographer to think that his or her best pictures were the ones that were the hardest to get.” – Timothy Allen, ‘On Editing Photos’

Mountain Rendering

Canon Camera, Canon Lens, Canon Live View, High Dynamic Range (HDR), Light Intensity, Photography & Conceptualizing Beauty, Project 365 - Photo-a-day, Spring, Still Life

Mountains – Jasper, Alberta – Canada 2

Mountains – Jasper, Alberta – Canada 3

Mountains – Jasper, Alberta – Canada 4

The weekend has held exploration of how best to edit and present mountain images; two methods for high dynamic range (HDR) rendering have been worked through. Then, it’s been about colour, light and shadow using Topaz software, Nik Software and adjusting clarity, exposure, vibrance and saturation in Adobe Lightroom. My LaCie 3TB external hard drive has informed me it is low on space during a 30GB edit of graduation photos – different solutions and possibilities are there; I’m in favour of not losing edits. So, it’s a matter of attaching a fourth external hard drive tonight.

Listening to – Sarah McLachlin’s ‘Blue’ with lyrics that begin with … “Songs are like tattoos …;” a cool idea, spurred on by Cezanne Jardin in her blog (quite something on a Sunday having been to church and hymns often express heart belief); then it’s on to a favourite tune, ‘Drawn to the Rhythm.’

Quote to Consider – “You don’t take a photograph, you make it.” – Ansel Adams

Winter Light Work

Backlight, Best Practices - Photography, Canon Camera, Canon Lens, Canon Live View, High Dynamic Range (HDR), Home, Homestead, Journaling, Light Intensity, Photography & Conceptualizing Beauty, Project 365 - Photo-a-day, Winter

Walterdale House White 2 HDR-Edit-Edit-Edit-3

An early-hours image from February in Edmonton, one of three surviving homestead structures in Edmonton’s Walterdale community from 1900 or so. The light work in the trees, upon the snow and that reflected to the white walls of the house attracts my attention. The homestead glows in a way you might anticipate when encountering a home within a ghost story, the narrative placing a character too many hours into night and the happenings that occur.

Quote to Consider – “In photography there is a reality so subtle that it becomes more real than reality.” – Alfred Stieglitz

Listening to – Casting Crowns’ ‘City on a Hill.’

Downtime Edits

Canon Camera, Canon Lens, Flora, Fog, High Dynamic Range (HDR), Light Intensity, Photography & Conceptualizing Beauty, Project 365 - Photo-a-day, Season, Smoke, Spring

Controlled Burn – Jasper, Alberta – Canada 1

Controlled Burn – Jasper, Alberta – Canada 2

Infrared – Jasper National Park, Canada

Jasper Park Lodge – Jasper, Alberta – Canada

Pyramid Lake HDR – Jasper, Alberta – Canada

The week’s end and our weekend have each held several endeavors, ones that have engaged me fully and used my mind and imagination fully. And, I’ve found that a mild cold has morphed into a productive cough and that I now have a prescription for antibiotics to see through to move me clear and past sickness. When I’ve been able to I’ve sat down with time for editing images, for looking through former results and for reviewing other’s image work. Our time in Jasper National Park in April, 2015 has been source for many of these edits. Have a look.

Listening to – Edie Brickell & the New Bohemians’ ‘What I Am,’ Concrete Blonde’s ‘Joey,’ Alanis Morisette’s ‘You Learn,’ The Dream Academy’s ‘Life in a Northern Town’ and U2’s ‘In God’s Country.’

Quote to Consider – “To me, photography is the art of observation. It’s about finding something interesting in an ordinary place … I’ve found it has little to do with the things you see and everything to do with the way you see them.” – Elliott Erwitt

The Practical – Practically

Canon Camera, Canon Lens, Canon Live View, High Dynamic Range (HDR), Homestead, Light Intensity, Photography & Conceptualizing Beauty, Project 365 - Photo-a-day, Spring, Still Life

Gull Lake Homestead – Up Close, Fort Vermilion, Alberta Canada 1

Gull Lake Homestead – Up Close, Fort Vermilion, Alberta Canada 2

Gull Lake Homestead – Up Close, Fort Vermilion, Alberta Canada 3

Dave Brosha offered a photography workshop last spring in Fort Vermilion, Alberta. One day was devoted to portrait photography; another was about landscape photography. The workshop allowed for many practical demonstrations (talked through practically) and for us to review and critique our photographs together as a group. There was also the encouragement to get together and get out as a shooting group. We had opportunities to watch Dave edit using Adobe Lightroom and one of the surprises that I’ve held onto was that the erase function (a circle area that you direct within the image to eliminate things like dust spots could be dragged instead of only clicked on much like an eraser to erase areas of the image). The images presented here are from our landscape work and in the Gull Lake homestead picture I’ve been able to remove a person from the photo with the erase function.

Gratitude – thank you, Dave. It was good to meet you and to witness your energy and approach as a photographer. It was good to take you into Buttertown to the St. Louis Catholic mission, a place that had been part of distant childhood memories for you with your Dad. Take good care of your good self.

Listening to – the Verve’s ‘Bittersweet Symphony,’ U2’s ‘In God’s Country,’ Coldplay’s ‘Life in Technicolor’ and Depeche Mode’s ‘Policy of Truth.’

Quote to Consider – “There is only you and your camera. The limitations in your photography are in yourself, for what we see is what we are.” – Ernst Haas (1921-1986)

Cloud Cord Work

Backlight, Canon Camera, Canon Lens, Canon Live View, Farm, Farmhouse, High Dynamic Range (HDR), Home, Homestead, Journaling, Light Intensity, Photography & Conceptualizing Beauty, Project 365 - Photo-a-day, Spring, Still Life, Sunset, Weather

La Glace Homestead – Sunset, La Glace, Alberta – Canada 1

La Glace Homestead – Sunset, La Glace, Alberta – Canada 3

Day’s end, dabbling with high dynamic range edits in Adobe Photoshop CS6, shots from a La Glace golden hour at day’s end from two Sundays back. Very near the Rocky Mountains, the curiosity is the cloud work splaying out, unwinding cords of cloud above rolling foothills – not quite cirrus clouds, but clouds that hold line and shape against darkening night sky as back drop.

Quote to Consider – “Photography takes an instant out of time, altering life by holding it still.” – Dorothea Lange

Listening to – Jesse Cook’ ‘Ocean Blue,’ Clannad’s ‘Harry’s Game’ and Snow Patrol’s ‘This Isn’t Everything You Are’ and ‘Those Distant Bells.’

Windshield Meditation

Canon Camera, Farm, Farmhouse, Flora, High Dynamic Range (HDR), Journaling, Light Intensity, Photography & Conceptualizing Beauty, Project 365 - Photo-a-day, Season, Spring, Weather

Barn – Rycroft, Ab – Canada

Barn and Quonset – Fairview, Ab – Canada 1

Barn and Quonset – Fairview, Ab – Canada 2

Spring’s Rolling Hills – Near Rycroft, Alberta – Canada 1

Spring’s Rolling Hills – Near Rycroft, Alberta – Canada 2

A prairie thaw, sky filling through the afternoon with cloud – a long drive southward into more and more of spring and sunlight provides ample opportunity for the meditation that becomes photography and each photograph – a photo walk with wheels so to speak, travel traversing a third of our province in a five-hour trek. Quiet, without news, story or music, the drive becomes a photographer’s dream – unending windshield time. That afternoon’s thought remnants are found in these images.

Listening to – Radiohead’s ‘Pyramid Song,’ Sigur Ros’ ‘Glosoli,’ Snow Patrol’s ‘Garden Rules,’ Bryan Ferry’s ‘Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues,’ U2’s ‘California’ and Tom Waits’ ‘Christmas Card from a Hooker in Minneapolis.

Quote to Consider – “The eye should learn to listen before it looks.” – Robert Frank

Buttertown Snow

Canon Camera, Canon Live View, Combine (Farming), Farm, Flora, High Dynamic Range (HDR), Light Intensity, Photography & Conceptualizing Beauty, Project 365 - Photo-a-day, Spring, Still Life, Vehicle, Weather

Buttertown New Holland Combine – Fort Vermilion, Alberta – Canada

Buttertown Truck Cab – Fort Vermilion , Alberta – Canada

Buttertown snow melts, revealing different finds among Fort Vermilion’s north settlement trees on a Saturday, one of the last grey few before the intensity of spring light warms and colours the world anew. Here, blurring elements in each image to explore the result.

Quote to Consider – “Photography for me is not looking, it’s feeling. If you can’t feel what you’re looking at, then you’re never going to get others to feel anything when they look at your pictures.” – Don McCullin

Listening to – Agnes Obel’s ‘Fivefold’ and Junip’s ‘Don’t Let It Pass.’

Window Pragmatics

Best Practices - Photography, Canon Camera, Canon Live View, Farm, Farmhouse, High Dynamic Range (HDR), Home, Homestead, Journaling, Light Intensity, Photography & Conceptualizing Beauty, Project 365 - Photo-a-day, Season, Spring, Still Life, Weather

Homestead on a Hill – near Sexsmith, Alberta – Canada

Ten minutes north from Sexsmith, Alberta this homestead is one previously photographed in mid-winter, the land smoothed under a snow blanket, the homestead roof likewise blanketed, but windswept with snow blown into curvilinear shape. Here, in early spring, the homestead’s greying outline pulls my eye, then it is its placement on the rise in this field, then the weather drama of its backdrop clouding and finally it’s the immensity of the homestead windows, each – one on each side – four feet tall by one and a half feet in breadth; much can be seen from this homestead. A South African farming friend points out that being able to see in each direction – north, east, south and west – requires that the farming home be placed at best vantage point to allow observation and consideration of happenings on the farm property. Pragmatics is what has been highlighted – all should be seen from the farm home and limit the need to be on the land to check on things.

Listening to – John O’Donohue’s ‘Longing and Belonging.’

Quote to Consider – “Of course, there will always be those who look only at technique, who ask ‘how,’ while others of a more curious nature will ask ‘why.’ Personally, I have always preferred inspiration to information.” – Man Ray

La Glace – Bounty

Backlight, Canon Camera, Canon Live View, Fauna, High Dynamic Range (HDR), Homestead, Journaling, Light Intensity, Photography & Conceptualizing Beauty, Project 365 - Photo-a-day, Spring, Still Life, Sunset

La Glace Homestead II – La Glace, Alberta – Canada 1

La Glace Homestead II – La Glace, Alberta – Canada 2

La Glace Homestead II – La Glace, Alberta – Canada 3

La Glace Homestead II – La Glace, Alberta – Canada 4

Saturday’s bounty, a week ago, was found at sundown near La Glace – this homestead image; it followed six shots in which a moose and its calf trotted behind this homestead, a speedy blur of movement from left to right in my viewfinder, all amid this static landscape and sunset.

Listening to – Coldplay’s ‘Magic,’ U2’s ‘Every Breaking Wave,’ One Republic’s ‘I Lived,’ Of Monsters and Men’s ‘King and Lionheart (live),’ John Mayer’s ‘Age of Worry,’ Maroon 5’s ‘Lucky Strike,’ Snow Patrol’s ‘Crack the Shutters,’ Coldplay’s ‘Us Against the World,’ U2’s ‘Song for Someone,’ Ed Sheeran’s ‘Little Bird,’ and John Mayer’s ‘Queen of California.’

Quote to Consider – “To me, photography is an art of observations. It’s about finding something interesting in an ordinary place … I’ve found it has little to do with the things you see and everything to do with the way you see them.” – Elliott Erwitt, 1928