Morning Flux

Backlight, Canon Camera, Canon Lens, Canon Live View, Flora, High Dynamic Range (HDR), Journaling, Light Intensity, Photography & Conceptualizing Beauty, Project 365 - Photo-a-day, Still Life, Summer, Sunrise, Weather

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’

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’

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’

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’

Opportunities, Extraordinary

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Vermillion Lakes, Banff, Alberta 1

Vermillion Lakes, Banff, Alberta 2

Vermillion Lakes, Banff, Alberta 3

Vermillion Lakes, Banff, Alberta 4

Vermillion Lakes, Banff, Alberta 5

Vermillion Lakes, Banff, Alberta 6

Vermillion Lakes, Banff, Alberta 7

Vermillion Lakes, Banff, Alberta 8

One aspect of photography that has grown into practice is the matter of recognizing the opportunity presented by the derelict car in a field along the highway, the abandoned farmhouse and former granaries, that thing that you come upon in your travels that you may not ever see again. The challenge is to make time for it, to engage fully in seeing it, to name it, to grasp what it is and what has been its narrative, to share time with it. The choice becomes that of photographing it (… or not) and there are choices in editing that honour the subject and the image, to find its best way(s) of being seen. The image, in its being shared creates opportunity; what has been witnessed and what has been created, not only allows others to see something more of the world, but serves to encourage (or perhaps compel) exploration of that thing witnessed through your camera and lens.

Some of this is about that key teaching from Robin Williams, as professor Keating, in the ‘Dead Poets Society’ in the first poetry lesson – ‘Gather ye rose buds while ye may,’ the import of which was his solemn admonition to his students – ‘seize the day’ and ‘make your lives extraordinary.’ Carpe Diem is about seizing the day as much with any of life’s opportunities as with the opportunities for images that can be created with a camera.

http://www.tcm.com/mediaroom/video/579285/Dead-Poets-Society-Movie-Clip-Seize-The-Day.html

In Banff last week, perhaps owing to summer heat or day/night air pressure differential in the mountains I found myself not always sleeping through the entire night and chose to get out with my camera for landscape photos in pre-dawn dusk. Before leaving for Banff, I had reviewed Maciek Solkulski’s Google+ page for winter sunrise shots he had taken at the Vermillion Lakes in Canada’s Banff National Park. Maciek, an Edmonton photographer, is one half of the podcasting duo of the Shutter Time with Sid and Mac podcast. From Mac’s Google+ page I was able to review maps of where the Vermillion Lakes were in relation to Banff. And, so, before dawn, two days in a row, I got out to the Vermillion Lakes for morning images; these are presented here.

Listening to – Elliott Smith’s ‘Between Bars,’ ‘No Name #3’ and ‘Angeles,’ Gerry Rafferty’s ‘Baker Street’ and The Waterboys’ ‘Fisherman’s Blues’ – all songs from Good Will Hunting.

Quotes to Inspire – (1) “The photographer both loots and preserves, denounces and consecrates;” and, “Life is not about significant details, illuminated (in) a flash, fixed forever. Photographs are.” – Susan Sontag, ‘On Photography’

Utah – Salt Flats & Sky

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Utah Skies – Knolls, Utah 1

Utah Skies – Knolls, Utah 2

For perhaps five years, each time my wife and I took our son and daughter out to enjoy a meal at High Level’s Boston Pizza with friends or on our own we would gaze upon what has become a familiar painting on the wall above the cash register and waiting area – Jack Vettriano’s Bonneville; the painting celebrates the work, the interest and the observation of what it is to break and set different land speed records in various vehicles. Beyond this, there was that movie … Anthony Hopkins, as actor, played the role of Burt Munro in a 2005 movie, ‘The World’s Fastest Indian’ (Indian, here, referring to the Indian motorcycle). Burt Munro was a mechanic/inventor/racer from New Zealand who raced motorcycles. He set a world record at Utah’s Bonneville Salt Flats. My wife encouraged me to go. She and our daughter would remain at the hotel and lounge at the pool cooling themselves in Utah’s summer heat (close to 100 F most days). They would remain cool, rest and read their newly purchased Barnes and Noble treasures. I would investigate Utah’s salt flats.

From Midvale, I steered our rented 2012 Toyota Rav 4 toward Salt Lake City and then follow directions from our Tom Tom GPS to Utah’s salt flats, then to the Bonneville speedway and to Wendover, Utah and the B-29 Bomber Base where the crew of Enola Gay were trained in World War II. By day’s end, I would have photographed the salt flats, Bonneville and Wendover; I would have had a flat tire and need to double back to Wendover to have the tire repaired; and, I would almost run out of gasoline on the return drive home. Doubling back would allow me to investigate more fully the B-29 Bomber Base and discover a goldmine of remarkably maintained American-built cars from the sixties and seventies – both at Wendover, Utah.

Here, one of the final rewards of the day was the evening cloud-work after the sun had crossed the horizon.

Shout Out – a big thank you to Maciek Sokulski (‘Shuttertime with Sid and Mac’ podcast) for articulating good best practices for working with Adobe Lightroom.

Quote to Consider/Inspire – “This freezing of time – the insolent, poignant stasis of each photograph – has produced new and more inclusive canons of beauty.” – Susan Sontag, ‘On Photography’

Listening to – Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Highway Patrolman.’

Amid Blackened Pick Up Stix

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Muskeg Flowers – Lesser Slave Lake, Alberta 1

Muskeg Flowers – Lesser Slave Lake, Alberta 2

I hadn’t driven the back road from Fort Vermilion to Slave Lake for perhaps ten or more years. While intention had been to cut hours from drive time, my curiosity pulled me toward what had become of Slave Lake after the town had been overcome by forest fire in May, 2011, losing a third to two thirds of its homes and businesses. I remember being five hours north and listening to radio reports of the fire moving rapidly, of the fire jumping highways, of the immediate need for evacuation of residents from Slave Lake to Athabasca and of those residents being given emergency shelter in school gymnasiums. Adele’s ‘Set Fire to the Rain’ was played by local radio stations to highlight the firefighters and water bomber pilots battling the fire and the evacuation of residents – some of the song’s lyrics associate well to the experience endured; the paradox of setting fire to rain was the attracting lyric.

For me, three years on, travelling to Edmonton, along highway 88 toward Slave Lake, I found other areas of forest that had been touched in the same fire. I stopped my car for the second interruption to my drive, where the silhouette of remaining blackened, yet dead trees continue to stand somewhat vertical, in the up-and-down of pick-up-stix, against a northern Alberta sunset – their silhouette catching my eye and drawing out my camera. The first growth of flowers, cotton-like intrigued me. I walked in twenty metres on muskeg – watery, peaty, muddy, gelatinous earth that overlays earth beneath that remains frozen. These flower images were gathered.

Listening to – Supertramp’s ‘Live in Paris ’79’ Concert; I’d first seen the ‘Crisis, What Crisis?’ concert in 1978; currently captivating songs include ‘Bloody Well Right,’ ‘Another Man’s Woman,’ ‘Dreamer’ and ‘Crime of the Century.’

Quote to Inspire – “Photographs cannot create a moral position, but they can reinforce one – and can help build a nascent one.”

Wabasca – Interrupting Travel

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Wabasca River Bridge – Tallcree, Alberta 5

Wabasca River Bridge – Tallcree, Alberta 2

Long hours of tired travel, southward along a back way, High Level, Fort Vermilion, Red Earth, Slave Lake and Edmonton to share time with a father in critical care dealing with his body’s weakening and the stumbles and tumbles associated with later Life. Along the way, to interrupt the hold of travel’s fatigue I stopped when I could to gather images and movement – restorative stuff. The road and bridge over the Wabasca River were the first dry area in June’s rain and served as my first stop. The Wabasca River flows through north and south Tallcree reserves and eventually feeds into the much, much bigger flow of the Peace River. Cloud work, the bridge and the lines within the image – each are elements attracting my eye to these images.

Listening to the Soundtrack to ‘It Might Get Loud’ – ‘Embryo No. 1,’ Jimmy Page, ‘Until the End of the World,’ U2, ‘Sitting on Top of the World,’ Jack White Sr & Jr, ‘Ramble On,’ Jimmy Page, ‘Blue Orchid’ and ‘Apple Blossom,’ Jack White and the ‘Battle of Evermore,’ Jimmy Page.

Quote to Inspire – “The painter constructs, the photographer discloses.” – Susan Sontag, ‘On Photography’

Iximche – Colour, Architecture and Cloudwork

Backlight, Canon Camera, Canon Lens, Light Intensity, Photography & Conceptualizing Beauty, Project 365 - Photo-a-day, Spring, Still Life, Weather

Iximche, Guatemala 1

Iximche, Guatemala 14

Iximche, Guatemala 13

Iximche, Guatemala 12

Iximche, Guatemala 11

Iximche, Guatemala 10

Iximche, Guatemala 9

Iximche, Guatemala 8

Iximche, Guatemala 7

Iximche, Guatemala 6

Iximche, Guatemala 4

Iximche, Guatemala 3

Iximche, Guatemala 2

I have been working through images associated with Guatemala in the past few days. The ruins at Iximche have caught my eye both in terms of the architecture and in terms of the cloud work.

Quote to Inspire – “To photograph is to confer importance …. No moment is more important than any other moment; no person more interesting than any other person.” Susan Sontag, ‘On Photography’

Listening to – Need to Breathe and ‘Garden,’ Maroon 5’s ‘Lucky Strike’ and Ozark Mountain Daredevils’ ‘If You Wanna Get To Heaven.’