A few years back a film featured Joe Pesci as homeless vagrant haunting the boiler room of a Harvard University library – seen by students a few times, more apparition than real … thought to be the ghost of Walt Whitman. A student, an honours student, loses his prize possession, what he thinks to be a flawless regurgitation of his economics professor’s thinking on the state of the world, to the homeless vagrant. Within the story an economy is established. The vagrant trades portions of the student’s thesis for meals and a place to sleep … and it’s winter. The place to sleep is within a Chevrolet Corvair, what commonly was thought of as the surfer van of the sixties. The first version of the Chevrolet Corvair presented here is a duplicate of the surfer van in which Joe Pesci lays his head down in that Harvard winter in the film ‘With Honours.’
Listening to – The Cult’s ‘She Sells Sanctuary,’ Duran Duran’s ‘Thank You,’ Babble’s ‘Tribe,’ Lyle Lovett performing Irving Berlin’s ‘Blue Skies,’ The Pretenders rendering of ‘Forever Young,’ Lindsey Buckingham’s ‘On the Wrong Side’ and Harry Warren with ‘Muchacha.’
Quote to Inspire – “Anyone can shoot chaos. But the most perceptive photographers can make compelling pictures out of uninteresting moments.” – Alex Tehrani
Scott Smith, CMO of Motivation to Move, was the first person to let me and his listeners in on certain rejuvenating aspects of the secret Life of entrepreneurs, the matter of setting aside the occasional Friday for walkabout, times to reconnect with friends and colleagues, times to check-in, play, have a beer; the walkabout Friday would be a day to cruise not too far out of town on your Harley Davidson motorcycle and to arrive and explore … sort of the same way people hit Farmer’s Markets on Saturday mornings.
Not a Harley, but a thirties sedan among other glory-days vehicle – the 64 Mercury Monterey and a 55 Chevrolet Truck (cream coloured behind the sedan). Walkabout Friday is in full swing in Nanaimo, British Columbia. My wife is indoors at the Valhalla Pure buying some Keen shoes.
Listening to – Great Lake Swimmers’ ‘The Great Exhale’ and ‘Cornflower Blue.’
Quote to Inspire – “Photography cannot do much. It provides some level of information, yet it has no pretensions about changing the world.” John Vink
Looking up from my Ford-focused Canon 60D the highway held a semi hauling a flat-deck trailer with a Diversified Bus on it, its roof crushed – a sight as curious as it is disturbing. Diversified runs buses in northeastern Alberta. A passenger bus like this, the kind Greyhound uses, is never something anyone wishes to see in this state – the image implies rollover and injury. Hopefully, the accident was less serious than can be imagined. But, on those long, northern Alberta drives Greyhound buses do slide sideways on ice, occasionally – accidents involving such buses do occur from time to time.
Each image presented, here, has been an editing exercise exploring editing sequences other photographers have utilized to arrive at final image renderings. Ford Motor Company (FOMOCO) provides subject for these images – the nose of the 1938 Ford One Ton Tow Truck, a late sixties Ford One Ton grain truck, a 64 Mercury Monterey and a 67 Ford Econoline van.
Listening to – Gwyneth Paltrow singing ‘Country Song’ and ‘Travis.’
Quote to Inspire – “Your first 10,000 photographs are your worst.” – Henri Cartier-Bresson
Good travel from a photographic perspective is something allowing the photographer to look out to the world and to engage visually with the narrative of situation and locale. What is out there? What is happening or has happened? What pulls your eye towards it? What colour is there? What shadow is there? What is the visual impression? The challenge is that travel is often expeditious – you need to arrive at your destination at a certain time or to return home because you have goals on the other end of your travel. The trick is to plan for the opportunity to stop and photograph starting out early enough that you give yourself abundance of time with your camera … and the world. For the same nine hour drive we make between High Level and Edmonton, Alberta, an artist we worked with, Chris Short, observed that there is enough visual information of interest to make it necessary to break the same trip into three days to allow her to sketch, draw and paint … along the way. The photos presented here are those on the return journey home last week. Not knowing the times or vicinities well and with the press of my family and me returning to other goals, my photography was more happenstance than planned or found.
Listening to – The B-52s with the Wild Crowd performing ‘Private Idaho,’ ‘Ultraviolet,’ ‘Roam,’ and ‘Cosmic Thing’.
Quote to Inspire – “Taking an image, freezing a moment, reveals how rich reality truly is.” – Anonymous
At -39C steam hangs in the air almost failing to dissipate, resolving into a fog residue – vehicle exhaust, factory steam, breath from your own mouth. Cold cranking car batteries fail and must be boosted. January into February, in the North we’re rounding the cold portion of the orbital arc, pulling January’s cold with us into February. To look back, to rework and to resurrect in new ways – former photographs become blessing. Blown, compacted, heated and crusted snow is the subject of two images. Summer images include a homestead house within a field of canola as well as the Elektra water bomber from July.
Listening to – Stompin’ Tom Connors’ ‘Sudbury Saturday Night,’ Ray Wylie Hubbard’s ‘Mother Blues,’ Gurf Morlix’s ‘Gasoline’ and Buddy Miller’s ‘Does My Ring Burn Your Finger.’
Quote to Inspire – “I have to shoot three cassettes of film a day, even when not ‘photographing’, in order to keep the eye in practice.” – Josef Koudelka
Saturday, we are two Saturdays before the Christmas of 2012. The Mayan calendar that had threatened to cancel all of time’s forward movement now seems unlikely to halt the movement of the moon and planets; the clock and calendar will continue to tick on, day by day.
Tonight, it’s been television with family – The Barbie Nutcracker and now Danny Kaye and Bing Crosby in White Christmas. Today, Christmas plans have been considered; how our few Christmas days will be spent with family has been hammered through. We will see my father, we will see my brothers, our kids – the cousins will gather and shop and talk; there will be Christmas games and family times … and photos. For us, way up north, most Christmas gifts have been gathered. Some discussions still need that – discussion; but, the gifting of gifts is being sorted through and understood with good understanding. A photo of a Rocky Lane homestead house, already framed upon my wall will become present for my father, a pioneering reminder/analogy for my father and his Edmonton work at Edmonton Works – the textures and highlights and colours work well together and hold the eye and interest of the viewer.
Tonight, there’s the excited buzz of cousins chatting at a distance over the telephone about the possibilities that their Christmas will hold – a holiday is being planned, places to shop are being determined and things asked for are being disclosed. There’s been a daughter/father phone call checking in on how Christmas will be spent at another location where we will not be; there’s been goodwill there and solid encouragement to spend time with that son of ours who’s been away at University these last four months. As things wind down at work, things are winding up for the Christmas we will make for our family and friends – last evening it was a joy just to sit around a kitchen table at a friend’s home, to chat and dig a little deeper into that thing we call Life … friendship’s blessing – something I’ve been able to count upon all year.
Today’s been a slower one, a day for recovery from a weeklong cold, a day to exercise and yet a day to slow down and gather energy. I fell asleep watching the Shawshank Redemption, a film that Steve Stockman (Stocki) has often recommended. I’ve been editing photographs today, older ones from within this year … a second glance, a second edit and the second-sight of understanding visual narrative within images; it’s been a time to experiment and play … a good day.
Listening to – Holly Golightly’s Wherever You Were, Tim Armstrong’s Into Action, Hawaii Five-O by the Ventures, Nazareth’s This Flight Tonight and Joy sung by Mick Jagger with Bono.
Quote to Inspire – “With photography, I like to create fiction out of reality. I try and do this by taking society’s natural prejudice and giving this a twist.” – Martin Parr
B-side images, ones that haven’t made the first cut reveal in their review how often I am impressed with technology’s artistry that comprises what becomes a vehicle. A veritable used car lot, these images display resurrected lives of vehicles, being breathed into new Life through the artistry of a would-be car crafter. Winter grain stocks hold interest in their various settings.
Listening to – Aqualung’s Strange and Beautiful (I’ll Put A Spell On You), the Volkswagen Beetle tune from a few years back.
Quote to Inspire (or draw one toward reality) – “Photography cannot do much. It provides some level of information, yet it has no pretensions about changing the world.”John Vink
Lingering, those photos remain, the ones I would not at first glance think of returning to – the scouting eye’s first glimpse and first understanding of subject, the first impression of subject captured through the camera lens by my eye. Editing’s go-round exposes each photo’s possibility, the ‘where’ of where the story is within the image. Editing is about exposing the story held within the visual narrative of the image. If a photograph is akin to description, editing is about drawing emphasis to that narrative. Remaining photos, those receiving their second and third glance, have yielded the treasure of narrative through editing.South from Nampa, Alberta, a June summer’s day finds this dormant grain truck now sporting an advertisement for Mike’s Sandblasting and Painting.
Listening to Klaus Schulze’s Captivity on the Magnetik album, ambient schtuff (double plus good).
Quote to Inspire – “It’s not how a photographer looks at the world that is important. It’s their intimate relationship with it.”– Antoine D’Agata
Fallen Timber 1 – Cathedral Grove, British Columbia
Fallen Timber 2 – Cathedral Grove, British Columbia
Log Boom – Close to Courtenay, British Columbia
Evening’s Dramatic Skies – Qualicum Beach, British Columbia
Robson Valley B/W – Mount Robson, British Columbia
Mountain Stream
Creating a photograph involves the photographer in workflow. You scout your scene for potential images – as Rick Sammon says, you ‘see’ it or you ‘walk the scene’. Then, you plan your photograph thinking it through in terms of image outcome – you determine best camera angle, you arrange and/or work with light, you plan your work with plane of focus and depth; you open the camera’s shutter and create an exposure/image. Later, you edit and crop the image; what is considered to be a photograph is that final point of image rendering in which the photographer determines that no further adjustment is needed. By the time first images are rendered you understand quite a lot about the image in terms of its visual information – the visual narrative within the photograph. First images become former images. And, former images seen again, after a time, allow time to breathe revelation into each image and its rendering possibilities. The images presented, here, are former first images, seen from time to time; the fun in the past few days has been in working through second edits to find those other possibilities that are/were present within the images – that other part of the visual narrative that was formerly hidden within the photograph.
Listening to Snow Patrol’s Those Distant Bells, New York and This Isn’t Everything You Are.
Quote to Inspire – “Taking pictures is like fishing or writing. It’s getting out of the unknown that which resists and refuses to come to light.” – Jean Gaumy
Quality vehicle restoration receives appreciation for its thorough undertaking (or perhaps its state of completion) – front to back and from the ground up the vehicle is brought back to strength and often is improved through innovation. Often the vehicle restored is re-engineered to handle innovation – a different engine is accommodated, the frame is adjusted toward a tighter or softer suspension, the vehicle’s shape receives alteration for aesthetic reasons. Always, the most distinctive design elements remain; the restoration’s innovation only improves upon previous design. And it’s the recognizable attributes of the vehicle that draw people to it.
For those who appreciate what is found in the vehicle restored, dialogue quickly falls into the car or truck someone also had many years ago, the times and memories associated with it, its performance and its idiosyncrasies, and its cost … back then (buying a two or three year old vehicle for $300). Reminiscence is to be found. But, so too, are the ‘ah-hah’ moments found when people consider and appreciate the how and why associated with each innovation encountered in the restored vehicle – what one dreamed of doing to his or her vehicle so long ago, has been breathed into Life in the vehicle restored, the vehicle before them.
Chevrolets of the fifties are the subject of these photos – more than other vehicles Chevrolets tend to be the ones restored, perhaps because of their abundant shape and form, perhaps because of their use of chrome and colour, perhaps because of the memories they associate with the glory days of good former times.
Listening to ‘Somewhere in Your Heart’by Isaac Guillory from The Days of Forty Nine.
Quote to Inspire – “A photograph is the pause button on life.” – Ty Holland
In My Back Pocket - Photography 
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