On the drive northward to Peace River from Edmonton, a few kilometres past the turnoff east to MacLennan and High Prairie you’ll find these grain bins and shed on the west side of the road, something unexpected, something to cause you to look into your surroundings, something that could perhaps have been a Canada day project – painting a farm shed with the Canadian flag … for all to see. The shed and grain bins serve as landmark along this road, visually positioning people who travel on it in terms of hours north towards Peace River and minutes before you’ll reach the valley of the Little Smoky River as you head south toward Valleyview.
This image is a High Dynamic Range (HDR) shot created using the camera’s Automatic Exposure Bracketing to fuse three exposures (one darker, one average and one lighter image) of the same shot together into a single image; the intent in creating the shot is to produce greater accuracy and to expose a broader range of what the eye sees naturally in terms of light and shadow. The image is toned mapped, yielding a moody, painterly feel to its rendering. Beyond this, the image seems to emphasize true geometric angles and does not really show much for backdrop but the sky … it sort of seems like you’re on top of the world … but that’s a few miles north, up where I live.
Listening to – Coming Down from Martyn Joseph’s Vegas album; there’s been U2’s Fez – Being Born and David Gray’s We’re Not Right from the White Ladder album. Then it’s been Minor Swingfrom the Chocolat soundtrack.
Quotes to Inspire – (1) “I can look at a fine art photograph and sometimes I can hear music.” – Ansel Adams. (2) “When people ask what equipment I use – I tell them, my eyes.” – Anonymous.
The Donnelly homestead is subject for these photographs, tonight. It’s the second photograph of the homestead I’ve posted in this blog. The first photograph seemed to polarize reaction from bloggers. Those viewing the photograph favourably were perhaps familiar with the homestead as landmark within a region they’ve frequented or travelled through; or, perhaps they could relate to winter’s brooding darkness. For others, the black and white image of the building and its textures were very dark and brought forth rejection of the image as something lacking the light and colour associated with Life and Living.
In taking the photograph, again, I’m on a return drive from Edmonton, my time more my own than time with immediate responsibilities and it allowed looking more at what could happen with this photograph. Where January’s photograph is taken near dusk, at day’s end, this photograph has more of spring’s growing light and is shot earlier in the day … about 3:00 p.m.; the light allows for more colour and more possibility with the well-lit subject. Taking the photograph is also about learning a new lens, a Canon 70-200 mm IS Mk II L series lens and using it with live view to sharpen focus (1/3 into the frame … nodal point) and to play with what could be accomplished with depth of field. Shooting close to the ground with this zoom lens compressed distance between the homestead and the trees behind it, a kilometre away. A day later, the fun has been working with different renderings of the photograph. Each rendering of the photograph evokes different response – seeing what’s possible has been some of the fun. Each photograph presented is something I’d be happy to print; yet, there are two that are favourites.
What about you? Which rendering of this Donnelly homestead appeals to you or attracts you to it? How would you talk about what is attracting you within the image?
Quotes to Inspire – (1) “In my photography, color and composition are inseparable. I see in color.” – William Albert Allard; (2) “When you photograph people in color, you photograph their clothes. But when you photograph people in Black and white, you photograph their souls!” ― Ted Grant
Listening to – U2’s Get on Your Boots (Justice Remix) from Artificial Horizon, Coldplay’s Cemeteries of London from Viva La Vida, Kings of Leon’s Crawl (first recommended by Nicole Kidman in an iTunes playlist … something she listened to on her daily drive out to the movie set of Australia); then it’s been All I Need from Radiohead’s In Rainbows album.
A vase and a serving dish, both glass, both transparent yet holding colour, both with shape and form and both reflecting light are subjects in the images presented here. Both glass structures are lenses, the vase, a lens revealing entire beauty of the flower held, the serving dish, a lens to the manna that soon will be eaten. The polished surface’s shape and form reflects light. So too does the interior of the glass. There’s that place where the glass in being shaped curves or twists receiving form. From that point within there’s reflection, a glint of light from within shining back. Analogy extends forward … what structures hold us that allow us to be seen? Would this be a home? Would this be a marriage? A vase holds the still-life flower, a living thing of beauty while beautiful. Moving past prime, dying, it is discarded. For us, we each have a rich, subtle life, one that few others really know well. Is friendship the vase-lens structure allowing for revelation of one’s subtle life? Something in this analogy is truth my mother understood. Her memory via her paintings prods me forward toward unraveling it.
Listening to Bruce Springsteen from the Tunnel of Love album – One Step Up; Bryan Ferry sings Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues from Dylanesque. Amiina from the album Kurr provides a tonal, music box sound in Rugla. Rugla reminds of another ambient mix by Sigur Ros from the Takk album – Glosoli. Later, I’m listening to Last Thoughts on Woody Guthrie, thoughts Bob Dylan offers – The Bootleg Series, Vols. 1-3 (Rare and Unreleased) 1961-1991.
Quote to Inspire – “Photography is only intuition, a perpetual interrogation – everything except a stage set.” – Henri Cartier-Bresson – Photography Year 1975 – Life Library of Photography, page: 216
On a Saturday afternoon, in late November or December, 1968, my father took me to Edmonton’s Varscona theater on the corner of 109th Street and Whyte Avenue to watch a newly created film version of a Dickens’ novel he knew well; my father took me to watch Oliver! In the film, I encountered a boy a little older than me, Oliver Twist, as he moved forward into the world without parents, moving from workhouse to funeral home and on into more (or less) corrupt hands (depending on your point of view), navigating by strength of character and goodwill through mishaps, misdeeds, abuse and neglect. Innocence and seeing the world with first eyes are key aspects in this narrative’s presentation, a child acclimating to what the world is about – good and bad.
Safety and what is right are elements of Life that Oliver perceives purely on the basis of tone. Highlighted in the novel is affectation of tone, tone used to achieve an end. Here, Oliver responds to the warmth and apparent sincerity in the charm and charisma proffered by Fagin (sly, cunning con artist) and Master Charlie Bates a.k.a. the Artful Dodger (Fagin protégé, pickpocket and derisively referred to as Master Bates). Their tone and apparent sincerity lead only so far before innocent and perhaps earnest discussion of what’s at play (picking pockets) draws both accountability and deflection of impropriety into/from the situation.
Key among things recalled from watching Oliver! at age seven is how light is used to convey tone and mood. Street scenes in the film occur when light is mistrusted as its intensity diminishes and as color and tone deepen and broaden, enhancing mood. Evening light, the cusp of sunlight declining into sunset, drawing day into night, is much of what the street scenes in Oliver are about. Perhaps director, Carol Reed, draws out broad visual metaphor, here, light’s transition into dark – wholesome Life moving to an arena of growing corruption, of that which is underhanded and unable to be truly ‘seen’. What stays with me after these forty-three odd years is the role that light’s intensity plays in establishing mood; the movie Oliver has had me attending to the tone, colour and atmosphere of winter street scenes as shadows lengthen, sunlight diminishes and we move through that range of colour taking us from day into night. Most often I’ll recognize this same tone driving west on Edmonton’s Whyte Avenue, close to Christmas as the sun draws toward the horizon … the mood is the same. The colours, light, tone and mood found in this December photograph of Edmonton’s High Level bridge are those you’ll find in Oliver!
Listening to Adele’s Set Fire to the Rain from her 21 album; other songs of the day include U2’s Bad from The Unforgettable Fire and Coldplay’s God Put a Smile Upon Your Face from their album A Rush of Blood to the Head. In the past few days Jack White and The White Stripes have featured in my listening – 300 M.P.H Torrential Outpour Blues (Live) from Under Great White Northern Lights (Live Canadian Tour). The Verve’s Lucky Man from the Urban Hymns album and U2’s Love and Peace or Else from How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb have also been there.
Quote to Inspire – “People think that all cameramen do is point the camera at things, but it’s a heck of a lot more complicated than that!” – Larry in Groundhog Day
Edmonton's River Valley – Looking Back to Saskatchewan Drive
If you know the Adizes curve you’ll recognize what’s referred to as a learning curve being the initial part of a bell shaped curve moving you from initiation of a new practice to a point of prime where you crest the top of the curve and master practice – new practice has been worked, handled and made best practice. Optimal use of the Adizes curve has you taking on new learning curves as you crest and master prior practice. Doing so, allows you to hang on to current good practice while embracing newer needed practice.
The photograph presented, here, is one taken midway through a five-hour, solo photowalk around Edmonton’s river valley. I’m dealing with new practice. I’m moving through a metropolitan area and recreational park area and making decisions about photographs I want, committing action to each shot and moving on – it’s a pattern I’m developing. As I start I’m shooting too quickly, not letting my eye look around the frame to see if I’m gathering all that is subject and background. Some of what I’m doing is managing state – balancing my awareness of environment (the hustle and bustle of what’s going on around me as I shoot) with good awareness of what I am seeing in the lens. I settle into the rhythm of practice – walk and find subject, move to find best angle/perspective, set the exposure (f-stop against shutter speed), focus and take the shot; then, when I’ve exhausted my seeing and possibility with a subject I move on. I’m also testing out gear at -20C. I’m keeping one battery warm, close to my chest underneath fleece and winter jacket; every twenty-minutes or so, I’m swapping out the camera battery (the cold for the warm). I’m carrying a knapsack style camera bag and a tripod bag slung over my body, over the camera bag. Beyond this, I’m managing comfort in terms of staying warm with fleece underneath jacket and ski pants.
At the mid-point of my walk, having come down into the river valley, I encounter this shot – a silhouette, near the 5th Street Bridge looking back up toward Saskatchewan Drive, a neat leading line of posts preventing vehicles moving where they ought not to go. I move on. As I take pictures I’m unaware of the need to clean my lens and that snow crystals will shape what I expose. It is days later when I’ve returned home and edit the images that I see them – the result isn’t anything bad, just something that needs cleaning up with software. In this photowalk I began at the High Level Diner, moved east along Saskatchewan Drive, entered the Edmonton City Park (the River Valley), crossed the 5th street bridge, walked through the Alberta Legislature grounds and returned to the University side of the North Saskatchewan River – it has been a first view of the area with my camera, something to repeat and revise. At a pub, formerly Plato’s Pizza, I treat myself to two pints of Boddington’s Pub Ale while I wait for a ride home and I review images.
Listening to … or fretting many Stan Rogers’ tunes tonight; among them have been The Wreck of the Athens Queen, Fisherman’s Wharf and Maid on the Shore; it’s been DADGAD tuning tonight and I’ve also shifted into 9/8 time, in a manner to support a fiddler’s reel or jig – a rhythm Skew Lines‘, Kerri Brown (fiddle, guitar, percussion) helped me find and play in Parksville, British Columbia.
Quote to Inspire – “I like photographs which leave something to the imagination.” – Fay Godwin
Someone’s project, this mauve and mint green 1953 Ford F-100 resides in the industrial area lot across from the Viterra grain elevator, a vehicle waiting for its next drive, more utility upon pavement. The mood of this photograph attracts. Its subject waits upon an earthly creator with abundant resources to transform ‘what was’ into ‘what will be,’ a creator who will set new purpose for this vehicle – breathing life into it, again. What this vehicle will become depends upon the creative imagination of those who will bring restoration.
Listening to U2 sing about INXS lead singer Michael Hutchence in Gone, from Best of 1990-2000 [B-Sides]; then it’s Gillian Welch singing Revelator from her Time – The Revelator album; finally it is Dar Williams singing Mercy of the Fallen from her album The Beauty of the Rain.
Quote to Inspire – “Photography can only represent the present. Once photographed, the subject becomes part of the past.” – Bernice Abbott
At most points in the geography of Alberta the Peace River is at least one kilometre across. At various points it will broaden out allowing for islands and sand dunes. The first time I saw what the Peace River was about what I noticed was something this photograph conveys, the river has cut a fissure into the land through time and while the river is most times one kilometre across, the distance from level land on top of the river valley to level land on the top of the other side of the river valley is greater, spanning as much as four and five kilometres. The other thing noticed is that it takes about two kilometres of gradual descent in a vehicle to reach the river from the valley’s crest. This photograph is taken at the start of the descent toward Dunvegan and the Dunvegan suspension bridge looking north. It’s late on a September Sunday and shadows creep from the west extending eastwards.
Listening to Bill Mallonee & the Vigilantes of Love sing Resplendent from their Audible Sigh album, a message about the nature of resilience borrowing from the narrative of the dustbowl.
Quote to Inspire – “I hate cameras. They are so much more sure than I am about everything.” – John Steinbeck
One year ago, late on a Sunday afternoon in February I travelled east from High Level on range roads that service farms in this region. While graders had cleared these roads snow had begun to drift into them from the north. The sun’s light was direct and bright, intense as it was reflected back from the snow. And, the wind blew. From a distance, the shapes of the snow’s drifts were a repetitive pattern blown into the roads – evidence of the wind’s work; more irregular shapes were found as result of the particular way the wind swept through an area. On my return home I photographed Gibson’s farm, 10km east of High Level – a landmark that has served to orient me to how close I was to High Level in my trips in from Garden River, Fox Lake, Fort Vermilion and beyond. After many seasons in many years, my camera allowed me finally to see more of what the Gibson’s farm was about.
Reminded of W.O. Mitchell and his novel, Who Has Seen the Wind – a novel about growing up, a story with teachers and students …. Here’s its poem starting point.
Who Has Seen the Wind? – Christina Georgina Rosetti (1834-1894)
Who has seen the wind?
Neither I nor you.
But when the leaves hang trembling,
The wind is passing through.
Who has seen the wind?
Neither you nor I.
But when the trees bow down their heads,
The wind is passing by.
Listening to Dar Williams’ album The Beauty of the Rain, an album I was drawn to after learning the tablature for her song of the same name. The circumstances of a friend have recalled a song from the album – Fishing in the Morning.
Quote to Inspire – “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.
Thursday was a photographer’s morning. A warm change in weather brought colourful, early morning, sustained, sky drama of first light reflected earthward among clouds. Entering school, I set-up my camera, deposited my camera bag and moved out our east doors to click and capture the following images.
Today, being considered is a newer used vehicle. With one household vehicle being all-wheel drive, a fuel-efficient car might be smart (perhaps a VW Golf or Passat). Another consideration would involve spending a minimum of money on a vehicle that is 4×4 and wouldn’t be too much of a loss if it were to break down; here, I’ve owned three early 90s Nissan Pathfinders and they worked for me along the corduroy roads in and out of Wood Buffalo National Park through six years. And, in the back of my mind is the surety I encountered driving a Chevrolet, 2500 series, manual transmission with 4×4 in a snow storm travelling down Alberta Highway 63 from Fort McMurray to Edmonton early-on in the 90s. The overall sensible choice may be a 1999 Toyota 4 Runner with 309000 km that should run for a few more 100000km and can be purchased in a private sale in Peace River. This vehicle should provide safe travel in and out of 4×4 throughout all seasons, no matter who was driving it. It would hold the road well.
Listening to Canadian Melissa McClelland sing Victoria Day (April Showers and May Flowers) from her album of the same name. Other songs standing out this morning have been Snow Patrol’s Lifeboats, Ray Lamontagne’s I Still Care for You and For the Summer. Jack White has featured among the Raconteurs in Steady as She Goes.
Quote to Inspire – “Light glorifies everything. It transforms and ennobles the most commonplace and ordinary subjects. The object is nothing, light is everything.” — Leonard Missone
Yesterday contained opportunity for a photowalk with photographers and a chance to witness the world with growing intensity of light and warmth late on a Thursday, winter afternoon in High Level, Alberta – all were giddy with being outside and anticipating spring’s arrival … still a month away.
Listening to several songs this evening. First, my daughter asked me to find and download four Glee tunes (Animal, Dog Days are Over, Bad and Smooth Criminal). Next, we loaded Adele’s 21 album/CD (a Christmas gift) onto our iTunes account; my daughter likes Set Fire to the Rain. Twice this week, I’ve returned home at day’s end to huge decibels of Adele preceding the dinner hour. Beyond this, we’ve downloaded Schubert’s Ave Maria, the music accompaniment to her current ballet performance, music for her to practice with. Of the songs that have played through, tonight, while editing photographs the ones that stand out are those from my father’s time If I didn’t Care, by the Inkspots, I’m Looking Over a Four Leaf Clover, by Bix Beiderbecke. I’ve been listening to the Get Low soundtrack which has eight songs involving Jerry Douglas and his dobro in a Bluegrass sound, one of the primary sound elements undergirding the music of Alison Krauss with Union Station. And, then the iTunes music shifted to Foster the People and Pumped Up Kicks … a catchy tune that stood out for me at West Edmonton Mall’s ice rink as Edmonton youth waited to personally meet Selena Gomez back in October prior to her concert.
Quote to Inspire – “Look and think before opening the shutter. The heart and mind are the true lens of the camera.” — Yousuf Karsh. If you are a photographer in need of inspiration I would point you to a podcast called The Naked Photo offered by Rianne de Beer, a Canadian photographer on Canada’s west coast (between Vancouver and Salt Spring Island); in episode 5 he looks at Yousuf Karsh’s approach to creating a portrait of Winston Churchill, a photograph commissioned by the Canadian government. There is a ton of insight to be gleaned on forethought and the process to capture essence … of the subject. http://thenakedphotopodcast.com/
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