Ragamuffin Remembering

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Chevrolet Truck – Arizona 2

Chevrolet Truck – Arizona 1

It’s Sunday, and it’s a colder kind of Sunday in early November. I’m downstairs with the computer, editing summer photos – our travels through Utah. I show my wife the following image of an early 30’s Chevrolet truck. It sits alongside the highway within a Navajo reservation. For my wife, the vehicle has personality, the kind you’d find personified in the Disney movie, ‘Cars.’ I’m liking its colour, shape and integrity. Paint peels from its fenders and body. Rust in its colour seems very close to the colour of the rocks within the landscape.

The age of the vehicle also holds my attention. As a marker of time, the vehicle would have been around in world war II, it would have been around when that war ended, it would have been witness to all that Jack Kerouac’s novel, ‘On the Road,’ would have been about. And, as I think about it, the truck would also have been around when Rich Mullins made his treks out to this Navajo reservation to minister to children and youth with his music. In music ministry, ‘Awesome God,’ is the song Rich Mullins is most recognized for writing, along with many songs recorded by Amy Grant.

This past fall, over a couple of days, I went through a DVD drama called ‘Ragamuffin’ which is an inspired chronicle of Rich Mullins’ life in which the viewer witnesses Rich’s transformation (struggles, consequences and transformation) from successful Christian musician to a life lived more and more honestly by the tenets of God set out in the Bible. 78 Eatonwood Green is a place where Rich and the Ragamuffin Band were staying in Ireland and 78 Eatonwood Green is title to another song worth the hearing, an instrumental with a dulcimer featuring within the song.

Listening to – Rich Mullins’ ‘78 Eatonwood Green’ from ‘A Liturgy, a Legacy and a Ragamuffin Band.’

Quote to Consider – ‘Photography, though not an art form in itself, has the peculiar capacity to turn all its subjects into works of art.’ – Susan Sontag, ‘On Photography’

Morning Flux

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Sunrise – Arches Nat’l Park, Moab, Utah 1

Sunrise – Arches Nat’l Park, Moab, Utah 2

Sunrise – Arches Nat’l Park, Moab, Utah 3

Sunrise – Arches Nat’l Park, Moab, Utah 4

Sunrise – Arches Nat’l Park, Moab, Utah 5

Sunrise – Arches Nat’l Park, Moab, Utah 6

Summer Memory – early, early morning, warming, moving, cycling Edmonton bike trails, alone, witnessing with dawn the lighting of the earth and the articulation and colouration of shapes, the earth shrouded in mist, becoming seen, more and more vividly, with each pedal stroke. It’s the transition or flux from night to day happening each day regardless of weather – the time is special, perhaps sacred. The photos, here, capture the lighting of the earth, the articulation of shape and colouration of the world at dawn – Arches National Park, near Moab, Utah.

Listening to – Mary J. Blige and U2 sing ‘One,’ Luciano Pavarotti and U2 sing ‘Miss Sarajevo’ and B.B. King and U2 sing ‘When Love Comes to Town.’

Quote to Consider – “Insofar as photography does peel away the dry wrappers of habitual seeing, it creates another habit of seeing – both intense and cool, solicitous and detached; charmed by the insignificant detail, addicted to incongruity.” – Susan Sontag, ‘On Photography’

Route 66 – Restoration Reminiscence

Canon 60D, Canon Camera, Canon Lens, Canon Live View, Gas Station, Journaling, Photography & Conceptualizing Beauty, Project 365 - Photo-a-day, Service Station, Summer, Vehicle, Vehicle Restoration

Fairlane 500 and Thunderbird – Grand Canyon Arizona

Fairlane 500 – Grand Canyon, Arizona

Fairlane 500 – Grand Canyon, Arizona 1

1949 Chevrolet Fleetline – Grand Canyon, Arizona 3

1949 Chevrolet Fleetline – Grand Canyon, Arizona 2

1949 Chevrolet Fleetline – Grand Canyon, Arizona 1

1931 Ford Sedan and Pickup – Grand Canyon, Arizona 2

1931 Ford Sedan and Pickup – Grand Canyon, Arizona 1

1931 Ford Sedan – Grand Canyon, Arizona 2

1931 Ford Sedan – Grand Canyon, Arizona 1

1957 Chevrolet Belair – Grand Canyon 1

1957 Chevrolet Belair – Grand Canyon 2

It’s colder today, snow is on the ground and a four-day, November break provides welcome opportunity for rest from pushing hard in these first three months of the school year. A quick drive southward and back home last weekend recalled the following images needing an edit from July.

Along Route 66, nearing the Grand Canyon, restored cars are roadside attraction, the cars of former, American glory days, vehicles that you’d find reconstructed from other donor cars on reality television shows like ‘Counting Cars.’ That person, who in middle-age, is starting to find a surplus of funds in their bank account is the kind of person these cars belong to. For them and you, someone in the family owned one – Dad and Mom maybe, your grandparents, perhaps or maybe your cousin had one; and, if you were lucky that vehicle was the one you learned to drive in, was perhaps the vehicle that became yours (you bought it from another member in your family) and was the car that got you started in Life. In presentation, these Grand Canyon cars are arranged almost as they would be in a Show and Shine; the difference is that their owners are not hovering around them – the vehicles draw potential customers to the service station and to the hotel, a pit-stop and stopping point. Among the vehicles were a 1957 Mercury Thunderbird, a 1958 Ford Fairlane 500, a 1949 Chevrolet Fleetline Deluxe four-door (Police Car), what may be a 1931 Ford Sedan and a 1931 Ford Pickup truck and a 1957 Chevrolet 2-door coupe.

The 1949 Chevrolet Fleetline has me thinking back to Rimbey, Alberta and my uncle’s farm in the late sixties and early seventies. For many years, a mid-forties (1946-48) Chevrolet four-door fastback (blue/black with white roof) sat next to the farm shop. The intention had been to swap pistons from a second donor car and to add a second vehicle economically to a growing family that was becoming more and more on the move. Unfortunately, the pistons were of different sizes and the car did not move again. As kids on visits, my cousins, my brothers and I would pretend to drive to and from different places in this grounded car. A big, big steering wheel, a windshield that may have been two pieces in design, a springy and dusty bench seat and doors that creaked on ungreased hinges were setting to the play of the drive with family. In coming years, the Chevrolet fastback sedan was towed behind the farm’s barley silage silo.

A good, good reminiscence of former times, these.

Listening to – Over the Rhine’s ‘Born,’ ‘Bluer,’ ‘Spark,’ ‘Lookin’ Forward’ and ‘Who Will Guard the Door’ – November kind of music.

Quote to Consider – “Instead of just recording reality, photographs have become the norm for the way things appear to us, thereby changing the very idea of reality, and of realism.” – Susan Sontag, ‘On Photography’

Stopping the Clock

Backlight, Canon 70-200 mm 2.8 IS L Series Lens, Canon Camera, Canon Live View, High Dynamic Range (HDR), Light Intensity, Photography & Conceptualizing Beauty, Project 365 - Photo-a-day, Still Life, Summer, Sunrise, Weather

Arches Nat’l Park – Moab, Utah 1

Arches Nat’l Park – Moab, Utah 2

Arches Nat’l Park – Moab, Utah 3

Arches Nat’l Park – Moab, Utah 4

Arches Nat’l Park – Moab, Utah 5

As a newly heard phrase, the words ‘when the clock stops’ intrigue as a conceptualization of abundant time that can be personally directed. In these words you are no longer ‘on the clock’ and answerable to someone else for your use of time (in work hours). The phrase describes the inverse of having too little quality time or personal time, of being ‘time-starved.’ The ‘on the clock’ world tends to describe our work situation in which work becomes a way of Life and survival more than it is a Life chosen through free will. What is more, among Stephen Covey’s seven habits of highly effectively people there is the habit of sharpening the saw – the regular withdrawal from endeavor that renews you allowing your return to endeavor fresh, invigorated and with greater clarity of perspective (vision). The phrase ‘off the clock’ does intrigue.

Tonight, sleep eludes me and I’m stopping the clock.

The past seven weeks have been heavy with tasks and within the last two weeks demands on my time beyond my school day have been substantial, yet the rewards for others and me have also been substantial. Editing images remains my means of stopping the clock and sharpening the saw. In the last few nights I’ve settled in editing Utah photos from July. I’ve left these images for now, when I would make time for them rather than rush through their edits. And, I’ve made time to deal with a monitor issue before editing. I have calibrated both monitors so the differential between them in hue, luminance and contrast is minimal – what I see on one monitor is what I see on the other. One monitor has tended toward warmer colours, while the other has been cooler. The calibration should go a long way toward presenting images as my eye sees them right on the monitor.

The images presented here are Arches National Park Buttes during a summer sunrise.

Quote to Consider – “Insofar as photography does peel away the dry wrappers of habitual seeing, it creates another habit of seeing: both intense and cool, solicitous and detached; charmed by the insignificant detail, addicted to incongruity.” – Susan Sontag, ‘On Photography’

Listening to – U2’s ‘Live from Paris’ album; ‘Trip through Your Wires,’ ‘I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For,’ and ‘Running to Stand Still’ are songs standing out. Also have found Jen Chapin & Rosetta Trio’s version of Bruce Springsteen’s ‘American Skin (41 Shots);’ reminds of Jackson Browne doing this song in a tribute to Bruce Springsteen – the story behind the song is worth the investigation. I’m also enjoying Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Live in Dublin’ concert – just now the banjo bringing in ‘Jesse James.’ The same album contains ‘If I Should Fall Behind,’ something for couples and married to hear. The night is being rounded out by Bruce Hornsby & the Range, ‘The Show Goes On’ from the Backdraft soundtrack.

Post Script – Luka Bloom also aims at stopping the clock with his tune, ‘Blackberry Time.’

Half-light Highlights

Backlight, Canon Camera, Canon Live View, Photography & Conceptualizing Beauty, Project 365 - Photo-a-day, Summer, Sunrise

Arches National Park – Moab, Utah

5:30 a.m., Arches National Park near Moab, in Utah, before sunrise this image looks across the landscape to sand stone buttes. The edit is true to the exposure as observed; still, it seems quite dark in my first look at it and then, as my eyes adjust to the image I am able to find my way through the landscape the same way I would cycling in dusk’s half-light. What has also been extraordinary, lately, is viewing an image on the computer screen from a distance (from the hallway or across the room); the perception of the image is different – it’s either a better sense entirety or encapsulation as well as being able to see more clearly highlights in the image.

Listening to – Colbie Caillat’s ‘I Won’t’ and Ben’s Brother’s ‘Beauty Queen.’

Quote to Consider – “If photographs are messages, the message is both transparent and mysterious.” – Susan Sontag, ‘On Photography’

Swathed, Corduroy Rows

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International Combine – Whitecourt, Alberta 3

International Combine – Whitecourt, Alberta 4

On fields, rolling in their contour, somewhere between Sangudo and Whitecourt, Alberta, an International combine sits, no longer harvesting grain from broad swathed, corduroy rows; the combine is placed within a farmer’s field close to the highway to attract its sale – another farmer could use this International 914 for parts. For me, though, driving past through each season the International’s structure, angles and colour presents contrast to its surrounding landscape attracting my attention. I’ve been meaning to photograph it for some time. Last June, a solitary drive home provided opportunity; and, over the last few nights I’ve been able to edit the image.

Listening to – Peter Gabriel’s ‘San Jacinto,’ ‘In Your Eyes,’ ‘Solsbury Hill,’ ‘Shaking the Tree’ and ‘Blood of Eden.’

Quote to Consider – “… there is a difference between photography conceived as ‘true expression’ and photography conceived (as it is more commonly is) as faithful recording ….” – Susan Sontag, ‘On Photography’

Russet Rain

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Russet Rain – Valleyview, Alberta 1

Russet Rain – Valleyview, Alberta 2

Labour Day weekend, that point in the year when parents of college- and university-aged children make the drive taking students to cities far away, returning them to another year of campus Life. Travel toward school held anticipation for my son. For me, there was the chance meeting of a teaching friend while refueling our vehicles in Valleyview; both of us were taking our kids to University. We chatted, exchanged e-mails and committed to staying in touch via e-mail. In Edmonton, my son and I shopped and got him squared away in terms of his belongings and his first set of groceries. We said our good-byes and I left him to connect with his friends and settle into his University term. Five hours away on my return journey, a rain shower, off in the distance near Valleyview became a focal point to explore with my camera – an immense set of clouds beginning to release rain at sunset. I’m liking the endpoint of this expressive, moody edit.

Listening to – U2’s ‘Raised by Wolves’ intrigues with different possible trajectories – the feral child (raised by wolves), trial-by-fire and being taken advantage of steering towards better, wiser paths and the duality of wolf and lamb that needs to be discerned in terms of people you encounter and deal with.

Quote to Consider – “Nothing is more acceptable today than the photographic recycling of reality, acceptable as an everyday activity and as a branch of high art.” – Susan Sontag, ‘On Photography’

Psalm-like, Dylan

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Church – Buttertown, Ft Vermilion, Alberta 1

Church – Buttertown, Ft Vermilion, Alberta 2

I have just had a listen to Bob Dylan’s ‘Last Thoughts on Woody Guthrie (Live)’ and am struck by a quality in the monologue that is almost psalm-like, the average woman and man’s take on the business of living, almost the concerns they’d express in prayer, concerns that would consider the gap between what Life ought to hold and Life that needs to be fought for, a Life requiring help. Likely that’s the point – Woody Guthrie articulated such concerns for the average man and woman in song that is psalm, song that’s poetic, song that infuses hope by way a compassionate ear. Woody Guthrie’s words are psalms for Lives in a country emerging from the depression and war and surfacing into the fifties.

The images above are two more edits of the clapper-board church at the St. Louis Roman Catholic mission in Fort Vermilion’s north settlement – Buttertown.

Listening to – Bob Dylan’s ‘Dignity’ and John Mayer’s ‘Queen of California.’

Quote to Consider – “Some photographers set up as scientists, others as moralists. The scientists make an inventory of the world; the moralists concentrate on hard cases.” – Susan Sontag – ‘On Photography’

Highlight & Shroud

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rtown, Fort Vemilion, Alberta

Before the day’s meeting and before arriving at our meeting’s destination a colleague and I detoured to a way point with our cameras – his Nikon and my Canon. An hour later our cameras held images gathered from the St. Louis Roman Catholic mission in Fort Vermilion’s north settlement – Buttertown. During that hour, the groundwork for this high dynamic range shot was sparked by the cloud work highlights above and the darker light below enveloping the mission storehouse and surrounding foliage, shrouding texture and low-lying colour … three shots (-2, 0 and +2) a good harvest with which to begin a bigger day of work – my gratitude goes out to my fellow camera shooter and colleague, for investing an earlier hour with me, image-making. Good on you!

Photography, this week – this past seven days has been extraordinary in terms of encountering students, colleagues, friends and former students who have engaged in dialogue about photography, gear and software, each a photographer in the making. My gratitude goes out to each of you for your solid discussion and trajectory as photographers – good schtuff!

Listening to – the morning has held Casting Crown’s ‘Follow Me,’ Bruce Springsteen’s ‘One Step Up,’ and two tonally heavy tunes from Chris Whitley – ‘Big Sky Country’ and ‘Dust Radio;’ musically, U2’s ‘Vertigo Tour’ has been the concert to watch via DVD this week.

Quote to Inspire – “The photographer is always trying to colonize new experiences or find new ways to look at familiar subjects – to fight against boredom. For boredom is just the reverse side of fascination: both depend on being outside rather than inside a situation, and one leads to the other.” – Susan Sontag, ‘On Photography’

Composition – Edit Toward Mindfulness

Best Practices - Photography, Canon Camera, Canon Live View, Journaling, Photography & Conceptualizing Beauty, Project 365 - Photo-a-day, Still Life, Summer

Foundation as Canvas – Utah 1

Foundation as Canvas – Utah 2

Foundation as Canvas – Utah 3

Foundation as Canvas – Utah 4

Elements of composition were the subject of discussion a day ago. Eight different ideas about composing a photograph were considered – pattern, symmetry, depth of field, lines and leading lines, framing, perspective, balance and colour. We ended at the point of composition being about finding the best way of seeing … the subject. The discussion stayed with me as I edited images later that evening – we also find the best way of seeing the subject in editing as we try out variation in exposure, consider the blur and detail of clarity and consider the depth or wash of contrasts. With each of these considerations as the image is edited we see more and more of what the image holds – things not fully seen or recognized when the right moment to capture the image was recognized. For me, composition and editing toward best composition are about discovering the narrative of the photograph; each edit or potential edit considered increases mindfulness of what’s going on or has happened within the photograph. These images do that.

Again, we are at one of the first stops in our scouting look at southeastern Utah. The foundations of a derelict building are tattooed and tagged with graffiti, foundation walls becoming canvas to expression. What are you mindful of in looking at this canvas (or perhaps an actor’s stage to extend and cross-pollinate metaphors)? What can be extrapolated?

Listening to – some of Dave Brubeck’s ‘Time Out’ and remembering my father and early years at home, sophisticated, challenging music; yet now also with a strong, strong element of home. This morning’s tunes have also included U2’s ‘Songs of Innocence’ – the curious phrase, probably for their young adult children is ‘young, not dumb.’ The morning has also held Coldplay – ‘Always in My Head,’ ‘Midnight’ and ‘Oceans’ among others.

Quote to Consider – “Photographs are a way of imprisoning reality … or they enlarge reality that is felt to be shrunk. One can’t possess reality, one can possess images – one can’t possess the present but one can possess the past.” – Susan Sontag, ‘On Photography’