La Glace Homestead – Sunset, La Glace, Alberta – Canada 1La 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.’
Barn – Rycroft, Ab – CanadaBarn and Quonset – Fairview, Ab – Canada 1Barn and Quonset – Fairview, Ab – Canada 2Spring’s Rolling Hills – Near Rycroft, Alberta – Canada 1Spring’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 New Holland Combine – Fort Vermilion, Alberta – CanadaButtertown 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.’
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 Homestead II – La Glace, Alberta – Canada 1La Glace Homestead II – La Glace, Alberta – Canada 2La Glace Homestead II – La Glace, Alberta – Canada 3La 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
La Glace Homestead on a Hill 1La Glace Homestead on a Hill 2La Glace Homestead on a Hill 3
On my own, away from home and family, four hours into a walkabout drive with my camera on a sunny, spring Saturday, a right turn takes me west, heading toward La Glace – new ground. Nearly sunset, the miles long straight road climbs and curves around a foothill allowing this scene to find me – a homestead on the westward rise, against the big Alberta sky.
Listening to – Chris Whitley’s ‘Big Sky Country’ and ‘Dust Radio.’
Quote to Consider – “Photography can only represent the present. Once photographed, the subject becomes part of the past.” – Berenice Abbott
Farm Trucks – Manning, Alberta 1Farm Trucks – Manning, Alberta 2Farm Trucks – Manning, Alberta 3
In the past few days I’ve wondered if the attracting element to vehicle photography is the coherence of a vehicle’s design, functionality and comfort. Beyond this, is it the style and form of the vehicle that attracts the eye and the impulse to drive the vehicle? Perhaps it is our ability to imagine both how someone will look driving the vehicle or merely the anticipation of how it will handle that attracts the photographer to a vehicle.
For drivers, habit leads us in our vehicle use, our driving. We tend not to consider the system or systems of steps that allow us to drive a vehicle. Unlocking the door, opening the door, sitting in the seat, putting the key into the ignition, starting the car with or without throttle use, shifting from park to reverse and then to drive, steering, adjusting speed with throttle (gas pedal) – these steps get the car moving and rolling. A system of steps ensures safety of self and others, a system of steps allows us not only to propel the vehicle forward, but to navigate while doing so and a system of steps allows us to park and leave the vehicle. For the driver such a system of steps is more habit than an individually considered set of actions that takes driver and passengers from point of origin to destination and back again.
So, is it design, function, form, colour or comfort that attracts the photographer’s eye to a vehicle? Or is it the photographer’s ability to imagine, see and confirm the narrative of habit associated with a vehicle that pulls the eye – the future narrative of a new vehicle; or, the past narrative of a vehicle from another era? Perhaps these questions are starting points for vehicle advertisers. Still I like looking at each dent, chip and window crack in old, rusting relics; vehicle interiors convey much about driver and passengers – much narrative of habit is found in these vehicles. Here, rusting relics are set out in a farmer’s field near Manning, Alberta. In my drive past the site last weekend it was a surprise to see the old La Crete, REO Speedwagon cab and chassis gone; hopefully it’s found a good home and has had the good fortune to become a project for rehabilitation.
Quote to Inspire – “Photography is for me simply a creative passion, the ability to use light and form to capture in a single image – what I see in my own imagination….” – Tim Wallace, car photographer in interview with Topaz Labs.
Listening to – Jesse Cook’s ‘The Blue Guitar Sessions;’ one song standing out is ‘Ocean Blue.’
Walterdale House Green – Edmonton, Alberta – Canada
Southward, under Edmonton’s 105th Street bridge, just steps to its west are three sturdy houses from Edmonton’s early nineteen hundreds, houses that comprised what was then known as Walterdale. Each is a two storey structure; two are white and another that has become subject for this image is more ornate in its presentation – white or cream on teal or perhaps a turquoise green. An image from memory coaxes me along this early morning photo ramble – an autumnal scene, a photo of my father’s in which he’s framed one of the white Walterdale houses with fall yellows of birch and aspen along a treed path, an open-ended hallway opening out and arriving at that white house. That photo hangs downstairs, on a wall outside my study where it can receive morning sunlight on sunlit days. Until this photograph, I had not set foot in Walterdale for perhaps thirty years.
Colour, composition and lighting attract me to this image.
Listening to – Marco Beltrami & The Giver Cast perform ‘End Credits’ to ‘The Giver (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack);’ it’s also a piece my daughter is playing on our Heintzman piano (it’s just been tuned … good); I’ve been playing Casting Crowns’ ‘Broken Together’ on it last night – something beautiful.
Quote to Inspire – “If your pictures aren’t good enough, you’re not close enough.” – Robert Capa
The week has presented opportunity to work with Adobe Photoshop CS6 with High Dynamic Range (HDR) images – side-lit clouds in sunset’s golden hour present colour, light and shadow in interesting ways; I’m re-editing two sets of bracketed images for High Dynamic Range work. ‘The Pave’ is a term used by La Crete Mennonites to refer to a seven mile stretch of narrow-shouldered highway that becomes the last portion of road in my October drive from High Level to La Crete. In this image clouds billow in a rhythm, catching colour above ‘the pave’ moments before the sun descends below the horizon. The work in this photo was that of tearing myself away from the impending meeting to capture this colourful image … I would be late. The second image was part of a return drive from Grande Prairie from this past fall, undulating clouds reflected within slough water. In both, I’ve been working with Adobe Bridge and then with the automated function in Adobe Photoshop CS6 to merge bracketed photos into a single HDR image.
I have also been exploring the messages of authors, Courtney Martin (her book, ‘Do It Anyway’) and Parker J. Palmer (his book, ‘The Courage To Teach’), this week. Courtney’s book looks at core elements of resilience and advocacy … sort of ‘The Freedom Writers’ meets the real world in extraordinary and exemplary ways. Parker’s book considers teaching from many facets, one being the inner teacher within the student that the teacher needs to connect with in order to bring about learning. The book is crammed with teaching truth. I am about half-way through and will be moving through it a second time.
Listening to – Dan Mangan & Jesse Zubot’s ‘Cumulonimbus (Newport, ’63),’ Nick Laird-Clowes’ ‘Golborne Road’ and Arvo Part’s ‘Speigel im Spiegel.’
Quote to Inspire – ‘Beauty can be seen in all things, seeing and composing the beauty is what separates the snapshot from the photograph.’ – Matt Hardy
I have been listening to an interview with Parker Palmer and Courtney Martin, this morning. The interview is presented as a podcast by Krista Tippett in her ‘On Being’ podcast/broadcast and is entitled ‘The Inner Life of Rebellion.’ The extrapolation as it relates to photography is to consider how photography is an act of rebellion … likely such a question has been fodder for Susan Sontag in her book, ‘On Photography.’ Susan Sontag’s book and this ‘On Being’ podcast are both worth attention.
Images – A Sunday afternoon’s photos in January, toward Watt Mountain.
Listening to: Hang Massive’s ‘Once Again;’ the week has also brought some time travel in terms of music – ‘At the River’ by Groove Armada, ‘Friday I’m in Love’ by The Cure and ‘Push the Button’ by the Sugababes. I’ve also had a go at Zoe Keating’s ‘Into the Trees’ album – ‘Seven League Boots’ often adds transition in ‘On Being’ podcasts.
Quote to Consider – “Skill in photography is acquired by practice and not by purchase.” – Percy W. Harris; “I am not interested in rules or conventions. Photography is not a sport.” – Bill Brandt
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