Homestead Amongst Canola 4 – Fort Vermilion, Alberta
Canola & Stacking Clouds 3 – High Level, Alberta
Homestead Amongst Canola 3 – Fort Vermilion, Alberta
Canola & Stacking Clouds 2 – High Level, Alberta
Homestead Amongst Canola 1 – Fort Vermilion, Alberta
Canola & Stacking Clouds 1 – High Level, Alberta
Homestead Amongst Canola 2 – Fort Vermilion, Alberta
One use for photography is as a means to revisit the past, to investigate the reality of former times and to hold up to scrutiny the mind’s eye view of significant events held in memory against the reality that photography reveals. Former times often become focal point for memory; we attach meaning and narrative to what has happened to us in significant events and memorable moments. Reaching back to former times with a camera allows for the investigation of visual information within scenes and settings surrounding Life events. Distances, depth, architecture, shape, colour – the visual information within a photograph allows for extrapolation, to see more of the story that was at play. Such camera investigation with editing of images has a settling aspect to it; it establishes more of the facts surrounding events and moves past glory day’s nostalgia to clearer recognition of what comprised scene and action. In doing so, photography locks in the visual information within a scene. While I tend to think of Edmonton, the home I grew up in, and, the events and happenings of years ago, the process is the same when I consider our northern seasons. The dark of winter will bring longing for warmth and breeze of summer’s blue-sky days with clouds stacking and fields in greens, yellows and gold; intensities are there, too – heat, lightning, convection, weather. The photographs here are of such summer days and for those winter days.
Listening to – Alison Krauss/Union Station’s When You Say Nothing At All.
Quotes to Inspire – (1) “Taking pictures is savoring life intensely, every hundredth of a second.” – Marc Riboud (2) “When words become unclear, I shall focus with photographs. When images become inadequate, I shall be content with silence.” – Ansel Adams. (3) “A good snapshot keeps a moment from running away.” – Eudora Welty
Water Slinging 1 – Wilson Prairie Fire, La Crete, Alberta
Water Slinging 2 – Wilson Prairie Fire, La Crete, Alberta
Water Slinging 3 – Wilson Prairie Fire, La Crete, Alberta
Water Slinging 4 – Wilson Prairie Fire, La Crete, Alberta
Water Slinging 5 – Wilson Prairie Fire, La Crete, Alberta
Water Slinging 6 – Wilson Prairie Fire, La Crete, Alberta
Water Slinging 7 – Wilson Prairie Fire, La Crete, Alberta
Water Slinging 8 – Wilson Prairie Fire, La Crete, Alberta
Water Slinging 9 – Wilson Prairie Fire, La Crete, Alberta
Water Slinging 10 – Wilson Prairie Fire, La Crete, Alberta
Water Slinging 11 – Wilson Prairie Fire, La Crete, Alberta
Water Slinging 12 – Wilson Prairie Fire, La Crete, Alberta
Water Slinging 13 – Wilson Prairie Fire, La Crete, Alberta
Water Slinging 14 – Wilson Prairie Fire, La Crete, Alberta
Water Slinging 15 – Wilson Prairie Fire, La Crete, Alberta
Water Slinging 16 – Wilson Prairie Fire, La Crete, Alberta
Wilson Prairie Fire – Onlookers, La Crete, Alberta
Water Slinging 17 – Wilson Prairie Fire, La Crete, Alberta
Water Slinging 18 – Wilson Prairie Fire, La Crete, Alberta
Water Slinging 19 – Wilson Prairie Fire, La Crete, Alberta
Water Slinging 20 – Wilson Prairie Fire, La Crete, Alberta
Water Slinging 21 – Wilson Prairie Fire, La Crete, Alberta
Water Slinging 22 – Wilson Prairie Fire, La Crete, Alberta
Water Slinging 23 – Wilson Prairie Fire, La Crete, Alberta
Water Slinging 24 – Wilson Prairie Fire, La Crete, Alberta
Water Slinging 25 – Wilson Prairie Fire, La Crete, Alberta
Water Slinging 26 – Wilson Prairie Fire, La Crete, Alberta
Air Tanker Support 1 – Wilson Prairie Fire, La Crete, Alberta
Air Tanker Support 2 – Wilson Prairie Fire, La Crete, Alberta
Air Tanker Support 3 – Wilson Prairie Fire, La Crete, Alberta
Air Tanker Support 4 – Wilson Prairie Fire, La Crete, Alberta
Air Tanker Support 5 – Wilson Prairie Fire, La Crete, Alberta
Air Tanker Support 6 – Wilson Prairie Fire, La Crete, Alberta
Tanker Lead Plane 1 – Wilson Prairie Fire, La Crete, Alberta
Tanker Lead Plane 2 – Wilson Prairie Fire, La Crete, Alberta
Tanker Lead Plane 3 – Wilson Prairie Fire, La Crete, Alberta
Tanker Lead Plane 4 – Wilson Prairie Fire, La Crete, Alberta
Tanker Lead Plane 5 – Wilson Prairie Fire, La Crete, Alberta
Tanker Lead Plane 6 – Wilson Prairie Fire, La Crete, Alberta
Air Tanker Support 7 – Wilson Prairie Fire, La Crete, Alberta
Tanker Lead Plane 7 – Wilson Prairie Fire, La Crete, Alberta
Air Tanker Support 8 – Wilson Prairie Fire, La Crete, Alberta
Air Tanker Support 9 – Wilson Prairie Fire, La Crete, Alberta
Tanker Lead Plane 8 – Wilson Prairie Fire, La Crete, Alberta
Air Tanker Water Bombing 1 – Wilson Prairie Fire, La Crete, Alberta
Air Tanker Water Bombing 2 – Wilson Prairie Fire, La Crete, Alberta
Air Tanker Water Bombing 3 – Wilson Prairie Fire, La Crete, Alberta
Air Tanker Water Bombing 4 – Wilson Prairie Fire, La Crete, Alberta
Air Tanker Water Bombing 5 – Wilson Prairie Fire, La Crete, Alberta
Air Tanker Water Bombing 6 – Wilson Prairie Fire, La Crete, Alberta
Air Tanker Water Bombing 7 – Wilson Prairie Fire, La Crete, Alberta
Air Tanker Water Bombing 8 – Wilson Prairie Fire, La Crete, Alberta
Air Tanker Water Bombing 9 – Wilson Prairie Fire, La Crete, Alberta
Air Tanker Water Bombing 10 – Wilson Prairie Fire, La Crete, Alberta
Air Tanker Water Bombing 11 – Wilson Prairie Fire, La Crete, Alberta
Air Tanker Water Bombing 12 – Wilson Prairie Fire, La Crete, Alberta
Air Tanker Water Bombing 13 – Wilson Prairie Fire, La Crete, Alberta
Air Tanker Water Bombing 14 – Wilson Prairie Fire, La Crete, Alberta
Air Tanker Water Bombing 15 – Wilson Prairie Fire, La Crete, Alberta
Air Tanker Water Bombing 16 – Wilson Prairie Fire, La Crete, Alberta
Air Tanker Water Bombing 17 – Wilson Prairie Fire, La Crete, Alberta
Air Tanker Water Bombing 18 – Wilson Prairie Fire, La Crete, Alberta
Air Tanker Water Bombing 19 – Wilson Prairie Fire, La Crete, Alberta
Air Tanker Water Bombing 20 – Wilson Prairie Fire, La Crete, Alberta
Good day, all:
Currently, our forest region has 27 fires burning – fourteen are out of control, four are being held and nine are under control. Our temperatures have been hot this week reaching +30C and higher in our corner of Northwestern Alberta. At least two smaller communities have been evacuated, threatened by fire and smoke. One fire has a 15000 hectare involvement. The photos presented are of recent water bombing and water slinging operations in the La Crete area – the state of emergency, there, has been lifted at noon today.
Listening to – Shawn Colvin’s All Fall Down and Walter Trout’s Turn Off Your TV.
Quote to Inspire – “When I shoot a scene I often shoot a hundred frames sometimes over a few hours or days, before I begin to get a real handle on what I want in the frame and how I want it there.” – David duChemin
1 Water Bomber – Wilson Prairie Fire, La Crete, Alberta
2 Water Bomber – Wilson Prairie Fire, La Crete, Alberta
3 Water Bomber – Wilson Prairie Fire, La Crete, Alberta
4 Water Bomber – Wilson Prairie Fire, La Crete, Alberta
5 Water Bomber – Wilson Prairie Fire, La Crete, Alberta
6 Water Bomber – Wilson Prairie Fire, La Crete, Alberta
7 Water Bomber – Wilson Prairie Fire, La Crete, Alberta
8 Water Bomber – Wilson Prairie Fire, La Crete, Alberta
Savage Prairie Road Granaries – La Crete, Alberta
Wilson Prairie Homestead – La Crete, Alberta
Wilson Prairie Wildfire – La Crete, Alberta
2 Wilson Prairie Homestead – La Crete, Alberta
3 Wilson Prairie Homestead – La Crete, Alberta
Helicopter Arrival – Slinging Water – La Crete, Alberta
2 Helicopter Arrival – Slinging Water – La Crete, Alberta
Water Slinging from Dug-outs – La Crete, Alberta
2 Water Slinging from Dug-outs – La Crete, Alberta
3 Water Slinging from Dug-outs – La Crete, Alberta
4 Water Slinging from Dug-outs – La Crete, Alberta
5 Water Slinging from Dug-outs – La Crete, Alberta
6 Water Slinging from Dug-outs – La Crete, Alberta
Field Opposite Wilson Prairie Wildfire – La Crete, Alberta
Looking On – Wilson Prairie Wildfire – La Crete, Alberta
7 Water Slinging from Dug-outs – La Crete, Alberta
8 Water Slinging from Dug-outs – La Crete, Alberta
9 Water Slinging from Dug-outs – La Crete, Alberta
10 Water Slinging from Dug-outs – La Crete, Alberta
11 Water Slinging from Dug-outs – La Crete, Alberta
12 Water Slinging from Dug-outs – La Crete, Alberta
13 Water Slinging from Dug-outs – La Crete, Alberta
14 Water Slinging from Dug-outs – La Crete, Alberta
15 Water Slinging from Dug-outs – La Crete, Alberta
Keeping Dust Down – Wilson Prairie Road – La Crete, Alberta
2 Keeping Dust Down – Wilson Prairie Road – La Crete, Alberta
16 Water Slinging from Dug-outs – La Crete, Alberta
17 Water Slinging from Dug-outs – La Crete, Alberta
1 Wilson Prairie Fire (from the South) – La Crete, Alberta
2 Wilson Prairie Fire (from the South) – La Crete, Alberta
3 Wilson Prairie Fire (from the South) – La Crete, Alberta
4 Wilson Prairie Fire (from the South) – La Crete, Alberta
5 Wilson Prairie Fire (from the South) – La Crete, Alberta
Day 3 of the Wilson Prairie Wildfire – Friday, July 6th, 2012. In contrast to Thursday evening in which residents were able to move freely into the fire area, Friday saw Alberta’s Ministry of Sustainable Resource Development (SRD) controlling road access so that firefighting equipment could be moved around with greater ease on Wilson Prairie Road. I arrived in the early afternoon to find access to Wilson Prairie Road being controlled. I couldn’t use my vehicle on Wilson Prairie Road. But, I could walk in, staying to the ditches when equipment was being moved through. Two-and-a-half hours walking in and out allowed me to see more of what was going on and how the blaze was being controlled. Dozers were creating breaks/cut-lines and pushing piles of brush together so they’d burn more easily/quickly. Areas of intended burn and back-burn were being created. One home was in harm’s way and helicopters were being used to sling water (from local dug-outs) to saturate the area in the case that the fire’s path changed with the winds. Air tankers had been tasked to other fires within the region; but, lead planes and Martin Mars water bombers (or the like) were being used to keep a consistent supply of water on the fire. On dust-ridden, gravel roads water trucks moved slowly dribbling water to keep dust down for vehicles moving in close proximity to one another. Later, I was able to drive around behind the fire to two other points to catch the more dramatic perspective of hot, billowing smoke moving upward into the atmosphere and the water bombers flying into fire area to release water on flames below.
Listening to – Adele’s Set Fire to the Rain, a tune played throughout last year’s forest fire that consumed Slave Lake, Alberta (spring 2011).
Quote to Inspire – “I enjoy traveling and recording far-away places and people with my camera. But I also find it wonderfully rewarding to see what I can discover outside my own window. You only need to study the scene with the eyes of a photographer.” – Alfred Eisenstadt
Thursday night – I’m checking the La Crete Online webpage lacreteonline.com/ for the next stock car race out on Wolf Lake Road (closer to Blumenort); there, I read and see pictures of a forest fire out on Wilson Prairie Road – south and east from La Crete, Alberta; windrows and forested land are ablaze. No one has been evacuated and only one home seems to be in the fire’s track. The Wilson Prairie area contains back roads of a Mennonite farming community, roads I used to drive when shuffling Home Education curriculum around to students – their names and faces and the faces of their parents come to mind. My hope for them is that the fire can be contained quickly and that they will not be affected. When I think through my students I’m reminded that the first home education student I met and worked with was one I had to get to by driving on Wilson Prairie Road and then finding another road – Savage Prairie Road. On Thursday evening, I drove out to the fire site staying a few hours, snapping photos and chatting with concerned residents driving by, amazed by the sight. It’s the second wildfire in the La Crete area this summer. On Thursday night, traffic tapered off around 1:00 a.m. with an occasional farmer still coming out to watch, to look and to assess.
Listening to – Matthew Perryman Jones’ Stones from the Riverbed. Other songs of the day are Sarah Masen’s Hope, Over the Rhine’s Spark, and Rumble by Link Wray and the Wraymen.
Quote to Inspire – “The only real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.” – Marcel Proust.
This morning’s wee hours saw the completion of two day’s detailing our 2006 Nissan Altima, a task completed without anchored schedule and with all that time off. The task first involved trekking around the Altima with Autoglym Super Resin Polish with orbital buffer and polishing bonnet or buffer and buffing bonnet. The task next involved applying by hand Autoglym HD Wax, a paste wax, in sections and letting those sections cure for fifteen minutes at a stretch. In applying the HD paste wax I caught myself up on several podcasts.
Storing digital images was the subject of one podcast of Shuttertime with Sid and Mac; I’m in need of a new external hard drive and need to investigate back-up solutions. The podcast introduced me to Drobo and to Carbon Copy Cloning and much more. In another Shuttertime with Sid and Mac podcast the ‘why’ of the photographer – her or his motivation for shooting – was considered. A truth that surfaced is that good photography is something that serves the photographer first before her or his audience. It was noted that photographer burnout (meaning their interest or desire in photography is extinguished) occurs when the images created tend to be ‘for’ others. Ideally a photographer needs to manage the balance of work for others with work for themselves.
Two days detailing allowed for breaks when they were needed. Tuesday evening presented the opportunity of summer’s quietude along our street. Near midnight I was able to sit outdoors in the sun’s dusk, in the absence of activity and mosquitos to enjoy an evening breeze – a time to be, a time to sit still and enjoy. Within these two days I’ve been able to watch at various times most of the 2010 film of Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre with Mia Wasikowska and Michael Fassbender, an allegory of spiritual development and of finding soul mates. Wax on, wax off – words from the Karate Kid, words akin to meditation, an activity slowing you down, a means to gather thoughts and loose-ends; the activity involves sight and seeing and perspective; section by section the activity moves toward the whole of an outcome completed. Perseverance is required – you and the car are better for it.
The photograph presented here is the first rendering of an image using the Snapseed app with my iPad – a truck that’s been used for mud-bogging.
Listening to – Over the Rhine’s Spark, Dar Williams’ Mercy of the Fallen and Radiohead’s High and Dry; the other song that’s been in my thoughts and hearing is Robbie Robertson’s Sweet Fire of Love.
Quotes to Inspire – (1) “I really believe there are things nobody would see if I didn’t photograph them.” – Diane Arbus; and, (2) “To photograph truthfully and effectively is to see beneath the surfaces and record the qualities of nature and humanity which live or are latent in all things.” – Ansel Adams
Fence Posts – Alexandra Falls, Northwest Territories
Flower 2 – Northwestern Alberta
Daisy – Alexandra Falls, Northwest Territories
Daisies – Alexandra Falls, Northwest Territories
Flower – Alexandra Falls, Northwest Territories
Fence Post 3 – Alexandra Falls, Northwest Territories
Fence Posts 2 – Alexandra Falls, Northwest Territories
Cattail 3 – Northwestern Alberta
Cattail 2 – Northwestern Alberta
Cattail 1 – Northwestern Alberta
Pond – Northwestern Alberta
Fire Aftermath 2 – Northwestern Alberta
Fire Aftermath – Northwestern Alberta
Buffalo Airways DC 3 #2 – Alexandra Falls, Northwest Territories
Buffalo Airways DC 3 – Alexandra Falls, Northwest Territories
Our school year is complete. Mandated and extracurricular tasks and obligations have been seen through to good conclusion. I continue to be amazed at all the work all teachers engage in in moving students onward in their academic learning as these same students move into, through and from of the hormone jungle. Our final days at school have been about pushing through, getting what needs done, done and sharing in celebration and play with students.
Our year-end school riot, outdoors, held so much fun – a supremely significant high point to the year – water pistols, pies in the face (for staff and students), izzy-dizzy, wet/slippery tug-of-war, shin cracker, fire engine pull, music and more music and most fun was the make-shift water slide (a rubber 100’ x 50’ tarp with fire truck pumper and two fire hoses soaking students and staff in summer sun); staff and students shared laughter and smiles abundantly … what an extraordinary day! Stats on the Animoto of the event are sitting at 180+ viewings within one week – our year-end riot was a hit and definitely memorable.
Beyond the riot, the final days were about pushing through, getting year-end tasks done; then, there was a sacred congregational task to be completed last Sunday at Hutch Lake, Alberta. Frank McCourt, author of Angela’s Ashes and ‘Tis also wrote a book about his teaching life in New York City. In his book, Teacher Man, he references the acronym ATTO, meant to mean ‘all that time off’ that non-teachers look at as the perk to teaching and as something perhaps as an ill-gotten-gain. The reality is that there really is all that time off. But, for me and any other teacher the time is something used to catch one’s breath mentally and physically. It’s a time to move the teacher’s self from back burner interest and to step out and seize hold of Life and to breathe Life into interests, intentions, goals and endeavors.
The house that needs fixing, the taxes that need submission, the mail that needs opening … all those things that have been put off so that a rich school year may be had by students – these are the things that now must get done. Yesterday, summer’s reward was there. On his Soul Surmise website, Steve Stockman (Stocki) provided the world with his top ten album picks for the first half of 2012. The reward specific – Stocki pointed me to Matthew Perryman Jones and his Land of the Living album, intelligent, well-crafted lyrics with a voice richly reminiscent of David Gray; truly manna.
The photographs presented here are ones taken on a drive northward from High Level, Alberta towards the Alexandra Falls just on the other side of the Northwest Territories border. I had freed myself for an afternoon and got into the car with my Canon 60D. Most shots are macro shots of colour amongst greenery. Two shots are photos of the aftermath of a forest fire that had raged on North of us a few weeks before.
Listening to – Matthew Perryman Jones’ Land of the Living album – The Angels Were Singing, Cancion de la Noche and I Won’t Let You Down Again; the melody from Stones From the Riverbed catches my interest.
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
18 June 2012 – 11:30 p.m.. The land of the midnight sun still lights the world in half-light in the moments before it crosses the horizon to create dusk. West – a tumultuous sky billows its clouds in heavy, obscure shapes poised to wet the earth with only a nudge. East – there’s greater interplay and drama between dark, heavy shapes and bright, bread-white clouds catching sun’s light. It’s day’s end as I gather these photographs remnants of a beautiful day. There’s a checkmark shape of lamp posts caught in parking lot puddle mirrors – too many hours being a teacher today.
Listening to – Black Rebel Motorcycle Club’s In Like a Rose, The Black Keys When the Lights Go Out, Radiohead’s Go to Sleep, Ryan Adams’ Starting to Hurtand Pete Yorn’s Pass Me By.
Quote to Inspire – “Which of my photographs is my favourite? The one I’m going to take tomorrow.” – Imogen Cunningham
Projects – As a teacher with a bent for photography I am asked often to add the photographic component to the school’s curricular and extracurricular projects. I’m able to justify doing so because the problem-solving along the way usually adds to my understanding of what is possible in creating images and because my understanding of what’s to be achieved within the project from an insider’s stance allows me to transform the familiar of school Life into that which enlightens people beyond our school. And, there’s always that element of daring to photograph what needs to be photographed. There’s a humbling element of being cannon fodder (perhaps Canon fodder) in pushing yourself to move close enough to photograph something that in terms of social boundaries you might not normally move yourself into. Over time students and staff become familiar with the idea that you’re the guy who’s going to visually record a moment, event or celebration. Within this year I’ve produced a photobook for the school (a mock traffic accident … that all students watched in front of the school featuring student actors), I’ve created twenty or so Animoto slideshows and I’ve added thousands of images to our school stockpile of yearbook photos. My images have helped celebrate student achievement in the local paper. I’ve pushed my envelope with photography this year and can see differences in my photography as I do a one year look-back.
Parksville, British Columbia Photographer and Mentor Alan Cornall tells me the key is to just stay in the habit of shooting … keep on clicking. My photography evolves.
My gratitude goes out to Colleen of Colleen E Gunderson PHOTOGRAPHYhttp://artistisk.com/ for nominating me for the Kreativ Blogger Award – thank you, Colleen for connecting with what my blog and posts are about; thank you, also for your blog which inspires … good schtuff!
Seven Random Things About Me
Where Are You Going? – I like redemption’s landscape as found within the lyrics and melody of this Dave Matthews’ song.
I miss the reach, insight and understanding that Steve Stockman surfaced in all kinds of music in his BBC Radio Ulster broadcast of Rhythm and Soul, the forum/threshold that generated the fodder that would become Steve’s book, Walk On: The Spiritual Journey of U2.
Chocolate Chip Zucchini Cake baked and iced by my daughter and/or wife – it is ‘to die for.’
Gabriola Island, British Columbia is a threshold place, one that separates me from what was, to what is and to what will be; it slows me down and restores me. I should go there more often.
Grace counts – in what I receive and have received (I am grateful); in what I can share with intention and with good understanding. We each need grace and our brokenness or being broken clarifies such understanding. I appreciate Steve Stockman’s wording through of Grace within his poem, ‘Up On Scarlett Street’ – “Some may call it blasphemy; but, I believe it’s true. God lies there beside you in the gutter and grace, like a mother holds you.”
I miss the intimate, intelligent, informed and poignantly humourous draw into Canadian politics brought forward by veteran newsman, Peter Gzowski, on CBC Radio’s broadcast of Morningside.
I enjoy my son’s choral presence and resonance as he sings as a member of the University of Alberta Mixed Chorus.
Rules of Acceptance – Kreativ Blogger Award:
Add the award to your blog.
Thank the blogger who gave it to you, and link back to them in your post.
Mention 7 random things about yourself.
List the rules.
Pass on the award to 10 bloggers.
Inform the newly nominated by commenting on their blogs.
Bloggers Whom I Nominate as Kreativ Bloggers (in no particular order)
Ana Silva for her discovery of the world in prose and image within her blog 1001 Scribbles ~ Random and Abstract Lines – http://1001scribbles.wordpress.com/ .
Angeline Munoz for responding in thought and images to what comprises every day within Angelinem’s Blog – http://1001scribbles.wordpress.com/ .
Claude Schilling for all the different images produced, but especially for his take on rusting relics – vehicles of a former day oxidizing between bits of paint – double plus good! Claude’s blog is Claude Schilling Photography, subtitled ‘Photographing the past for the future’ – it’s found at http://claudeschillingphotography.wordpress.com/ .
Fergiemoto’s Creativity Aroused soothes and calms with a mixture of poetry, photographs and response to what each day presents; it’s found at http://creativityaroused.wordpress.com/ .
David R. Wetzel Photography is photography that’s allowing me to see the world David sees – it’s extending my sight to places he calls home. It’s perspective and thinking that come through – http://davidrwetzelphotography.wordpress.com/ .
Letizia Argiolu’s blog DutchGoesItalian is what a blog should be about if it’s to discover and investigate the world around you; what one does with a photoblog she does reporting back on the Italy that’s off-the-beaten path in terms of its food, its wine, different stores – totally interesting … and what may draw me to Italy … Good! Letizia’s blog is found at http://dutchgoesitalian.com/ .
Homer Humble’s Humbled Pie is blog that by way of narrative and photography gives eyes to ‘Southern Living.’ http://humbledpie.wordpress.com/
Jessi Hagood – commercial & event photographer; images from a photographer who can look through a camera’s lens and find the extraordinary within the familiar; images explore the world and/or what’s happening within it. http://jessihagood.wordpress.com/
Tompkins’ Landing Ferry – Tompkins’ Landing, Alberta
Aboard the Tompkins’ Landing Ferry 2 – Tompkins’ Landing, Alberta
Aboard the Tompkins’ Landing Ferry – Tompkins’ Landing, Alberta
Sunset at Midpoint of the Peace River – Tompkins’ Landing, Alberta
Footner Lake 1, Alberta
Footner Lake 2, Alberta
Footner Lake 3, Alberta
Footner Lake 4, Alberta
Cattails 5 – Footner Lake, Alberta
Footner Lake 5, Alberta
Footner Lake 6, Alberta
Cattail 1 – Footner Lake, Alberta
Cattail 2 – Footner Lake, Alberta
Cattail 3 – Footner Lake, Alberta
Cattail 4 – Footner Lake, Alberta
Dandelions – Footner Lake, Alberta
Dandelions 2 – Footner Lake, Alberta
Dandelions 3 – Footner Lake, Alberta
Dandelions 4 – Footner Lake, Alberta
Dandelion – Footner Lake, Alberta
Grass & Flora – Footner Lake, Alberta
Flora – Footner Lake, Alberta
Flora 2 – Footner Lake, Alberta
Elektra Air Tankers – High Level Airport, High Level, Alberta
Flower – High Level, Alberta
Forest grows dangerously dry with summer heat. The matter of our region being a tinderbox is an expression used to describe this state in which forest can become prey to lightning strike and neglect by people working with fire. In this setting, rain becomes a welcome visitor calming and cooling our world. Photographically rain serves to reflect the world in unusual ways – doubling what is seen and placing the doubled image in unusual contexts. At night, it is the rain’s reflection of light on surfaces that draws interest.
Life is busy just now. Students in their final year of education anticipate graduation and ceremony and future departure from friends, family and that place that’s been home for them through so many years. Angst is there. Worry is there. Disillusionment about what the world holds is about to occur in more broad and more true strokes than these students have ever encountered before. And, time pushes them and us forward and through different thresholds. It’s totally interesting that the term threshold comes from the act of threshing; the threshold was the place where the act of separating husk from seed occurred. Threshold is that place where former and newer state are in close proximity – what was and what now is. Action is that other important ingredient – the lifting, colliding and splitting, all are percussive, energetic acts that in time yield the seed from the husk that’s held it. Winnowing is the other term, here – the separating and sorting of husk (the now dead, former shell) and seed (the new life holding element). The seed is ready for further use. How will it be used?
The photographs presented here are culled from the last week. There’s the green of Buffalo Head Prairie; there’s the woods between La Crete and Blue Hills. There’s the Peace River and the Tompkins’ Landing Ferry. There’s rain slicked streets of High Level and there’s images from Footner Lake. There’s even an image of a flower from a flower bed on our front lawn.
Listening to – U2’s Mysterious Ways, Coldplay’s God Put a Smile Upon Your Face, David Gray’s Babylon and Radiohead’s High and Dry.
Quote to Inspire – “I didn’t want to tell the tree or weed what it was. I wanted it to tell me something and through me express its meaning in nature.” – Wynn Bullock
In My Back Pocket - Photography 
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