Vehicle Restoration

The Cargo – A Book or A Ford’s

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Ford Among Fords - Vavenby, British Columbia

Ford Among Fords – Vavenby, British Columbia

A truck has as its intended purpose that of providing its owner with the opportunity of carrying or moving a payload from point of origin to an intended destination. A book does something similar, transporting its reader from point of origin or initial setting through the twists and turns of plot through to a closing destination. The cargo is human in imagination’s resemblance and there is something the author proposes to be learned/understood as one participates in the book’s movement of mind to its conclusion and denouement. This Vavenby, British Columbia truck does have me consider how it was used and the peoples and cargos it has transported. I appreciate its owner having given me permission to photograph it – thank you, Marvin Ritchie. The photographic respite you allowed helped make the long westward drive more doable.

Quote to Inspire – “If a photographer cares about the people before the lens and is compassionate, much is given. It is the photographer, not the camera, that is the instrument.” – Eve Arnold

Listening to – U2’s With or Without You, Mysterious Ways and Elevation (as viewed from the Live at Boston DVD).

Reflection – Rain-soaked and Waxless

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One Ton Truck - Edmonton, Alberta

One Ton Truck – Edmonton, Alberta

Of the renderings considered, this image of the one ton grain truck (or perhaps utility truck) from the fifties intrigues by way of its waxless reflection brought out by its being rain soaked.  The image’s colours are late summer’s end-of-day colours.  Night isn’t too far off, the shot taken within evening’s Golden Hour in Edmonton.  John Grisham wrote A Painted House, a growing up novel written about a boy’s witnessing America’s move from the farm (a cotton plantation) to its cities in America’s fifties; this is the kind of truck that might have been found within Grisham’s narrative.  I hadn’t thought his narrative (as autobiographical as it is) might be considered sibling narrative to Jack Kerouac’s On the Road until now.

Listening to – what is seemingly a rural truck reminds of Lucinda Williams’ Car Wheels on a Gravel Road.

Quote to Inspire – “The goal is not to change your subjects, but for the subject to change the photographer.” – Anonymous

Perseverance Required

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Muddied Mudder

Muddied Mudder

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

Threshold’s Threshing & Winnowing

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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

Yardio

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Tonight has been an evening of yardio – yard-work and cardio effort. Our lawn is now dethatched, the old grass bagged (and ready for garbage day) and our lawn is fertilized and being watered as I write. For the first time this spring I have sudsed-up our Nissan Altima – I’ve washed it by hand, with brushes and sprayer, first with Palmolive soap to take the dirt off and then with Mother’s Vehicle soap. The Altima is clean. But, its six-year old exterior is in need of detailing – a good go-round with a good glazing polish, buffer and various amounts of elbow grease. If I’d had some Autoglym Bodywork Shampoo the wash would have produced a glossy sheen. My cabinet in the garage holds two things that will brighten this vehicle – Autoglym Super Resin polish and Autoglym High Definition paste wax. Not only will the paint gleam but the relief in the vehicle’s shape will be enhanced optically, in some cases to a degree of optical illusion. The waxing will have to wait until summer break and the chore will become a way to settle towards summer’s calm following a hectic school year. The chore, the time invested and the dazzling outcome are things I look forward to as summer projects.

Most photographs presented here are ones taken in the final hour of sunlight last Saturday night; it’s about half past ten heading to eleven o’clock. The river bank at Dunvegan features shadow play with shadows lengthening and darkening to enhance the rolling mounds of hillage above the Peace River. In two photos rusting relics are stored in public view.  The three early sixties GMC half-tons seem ready to share parts in order to cluster into one working whole.  The ready interchangeability of parts between the three trucks points to a need to gather them all rather than only one. Canada Geese move actively at sunset in a farmer’s field feeding. And, a disused barn catches the light of sunset … a dusky day’s end in Alberta’s late spring.

Listening to – J J Heller’s Your Hands, Missy Higgins’ Warm Whispers, Coldplay’s See You Soon, David Gray’s Kathleen, Jem singing Maybe I’m Amazed, Ray LaMontagne’s I Still Care for You and all the way through to John Denver’s Thank God I’m a Country Boy.  The playlist rounds out to the Counting Crows’ Raining in Baltimore and David Gray’s Jackdaw.

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

Kudos – Northern Actors’ Guild 2012 & Grease Production

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Early Fifties Chevrolet - Parksville, British Columbia

Early Fifties Chevrolet – Parksville, British Columbia

Summer ends – the year is 1959. Grade eleven students return to Rydell High School as seniors, sporting opinions about school, staff and each other. In this final high school year, they are top rung, the school is theirs and they’re able to assume power and status as seniors; they’re a force to be reckoned with. Girls cluster with girls. Guys ‘hang’ with guys. The senior year is about next steps – next steps in and beyond high school, next steps in terms of courtship and couple-hood, next steps …. A new girl enters the arena of school, Sandra Dombrowsky and the social equilibrium of year twelve becomes flux, teetering several relationships toward daring next steps, more permanent next steps.

So begins the musical of Grease with its notable characters – Danny Zucko, Rizzo, Frenchy, Kenickie, Doody and others. And, our student actors have concluded twelve months work in grappling with all that’s involved in bringing this narrative to Life and doing so musically. For our student actors, the coming-on of confidence was notable and palpable within the last few rehearsals. And, it was most notable between the first and last night of performance with student actors coming-into their own and enjoying the business of acting out the Lives and potentialities of their characters. For these student actors, connection and response from the audience was found, understood, seized and used to bring off a performance worthy of any metropolitan theatre. They found their way to an excellent performance and standing ovation last Saturday night. In helping this student endeavor along my role was to capture a series of threshold moments moving the troupe from its final three rehearsals through to three live performances. The images I’ve provided the group draw mainly from their final performance in which they were most in sync with their characters, each other and enjoying it all. I also contributed a print from the first cattails series a few weeks back – I printed it out and had it framed in Peace River by Jill Plaizier of Custom Frameworks; she was able to handle a quick turn-around time and to create a beautiful framing of the print that accentuates its colours.

Tonight, while I do not have permission to display student photos on the website, I do wish to celebrate them and their accomplishment with this photo of an early fifties Chevrolet that’s undergone the kind of transformation that Kenickie’s 1940 Dodge Sedan goes through in the film version of Grease; Kenickie and pals begin this section of the musical with “… It’s Systematic … It’s Hydromatic … Why … It’s Greased Lightning.” For me, tonight, I’m at the other end of the project.  I’ve edited some six hundred photographs of the two-thousand or so taken.  I’ve created an Animoto and DVDs for each cast member. I’m providing them each with photos of their best night.  And, I’ve got them a print to frame for hanging upon school walls.

Listening to – while there has been the Grease tunes like Greased Lightning, Grease and You’re the One that I Want, there’s also been David Lindley’s Mercury Blues and then the curiosity referred to by Jimmy Paige as one of those songs that pushed him forward in his guitar work – Rumble by Link Wray and the Wraymen.

Quote to Inspire – “You’ve got to push yourself harder.  You’ve got to start looking for pictures nobody else could take.  You’ve got to take the tools you have and probe deeper.” – William Albert Allard

Makeshift Autoyard

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Charles Dickens once wrote a novel about an Old Curiosity Shop, a shop much like that of current second-hand stores or thrift stores in which a store owner collects collectibles, curiosities that satisfy our need to discover things that fit the environment we wish to create for our lives. Tonight, day-long, spring snow flurries bring about a look-back through photos. This photograph surfaced as one provoking the curiosities that rusting relics are at that point before restoration in which appraisal and consideration of possibility occurs – questions stir about what needs done, what the vehicle can become, what it will be like to drive and who will drive it.  Possibility is leveraged as much by reminiscence as by future anticipation. Something of this imaginative aspect regarding a curiosity to be purchased is what Dickens explores in his novel The Olde Curiosity Shop – the nature of how we choose what we will put into our lives. Rusting relics in this rag-tag, makeshift auto-yard have me wondering about the curiosity that these older vehicles hold and highlight the necessity of imagination in investigating the possibility of what any of these vehicles can become. For me, the teal blue 1959 or 1960 Chevrolet reminds of a car that my grandfather drove when I was three or four.  I can only recall being transported in this vehicle two or three times in and around Edmonton and then back to their home on Strathearn Drive – a memory that requires some reaching back.

Listening to – Snow Patrol’s Lifeboats, Radiohead’s High and Dry, Coldplay’s Don’t Panic and Kings of Leon’s Closer; the song that’s been on my mind throughout the post has been The Tragically Hip’s As Makeshift As We Are.

Quotes to Inspire – (1) “Photography can only represent the present. Once photographed, the subject becomes part of the past.” – Bernice Abbott (2) “A photograph is a secret about a secret. The more it tells you the less you know.” – Diane Arbus

Transformation’s Glaze

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I’ve just checked. It is still around, that thing that catalyzed so much of the work and time I’ve invested in cars I’ve owned and cars I’ve worked with. I happened on it by chance and by the end of that first day I had received an education in using it. On a Saturday morning in early summer 1982, I drove a green 1969 Pontiac Parisienne to a good friend’s house to see what we were up to that day. He had a project going, a task fueled by his father’s expertise in restoring and rehabilitating old cars.

I found him compounding (using rubbing compound on) the maroon paint of his two-door Dodge Aspen, a new acquisition – his first car. The idea was to remove paint that had dulled and oxidized and then add a layer of glazing resin to seal and maintain the maroon paint in pristine condition. As many things were in those days, this was a Tom Sawyer experience – a project he was engaged in was something I wanted to help with and he had the grace to allow me to do so. In two hours, our combined elbow grease brought out evenly the car’s true maroon colour in the paint. Then we added the glazing resin, something called TR-3 Resin Glaze; we rubbed it into the paint.  We let it powder up and dry. And, then we used terry-towel rags to remove swirls of resin glaze residue.

What happened was remarkable. Our elbow grease, our use of rubbing compound and resin glaze according to instruction produced transformation – a previously dull, tired looking Dodge Aspen now looked new, even better than new. We’d seen this once before and talked about it.  An older gentleman in the house next door, a man confined to a wheelchair had brought about similar transformation to his late sixties Dodge Dart. His candy apple red Dodge Dart was emaculate, the result of patient application of intelligence, initiative and diligence toward visual result.

In terms of photographs, not many vehicles these days sport hood ornaments.  Hood ornamentation tends to be associated with higher-end cars … perhaps they always have been.  Hood ornaments accentuate the forward most part of the vehicle and perhaps in their being sculpted remind owner and driver of their vehicle being art, something crafted by others.  Hood ornaments seem to have started out primarily as skilfully fashioned radiator caps; others serve to mark the hood’s center allowing drivers to position the vehicle on the road in relation to designated space between lines. Hood ornaments from several vehicles at the LeMay Car Museum feature as subject for this post’s photos.

Listening to a genius playlist starting from Over the Rhine’s Sleep Baby Jane; it moves on to Patty Griffin’s Mil Besos and then to Dar Williams’ Fishing in the Morning. In terms of audiobooks, I’m continuing to walk and listen to Lady Chatterley’s Lover;  what struck me this morning is commonality of era. After all that the first world war was, the world my grandfather and grandmother would have shared as a young married couple was this same period as that of Constance and Clifford Chatterley, except that my granddad’s wounding at Vimy Ridge led him to become a military instructor for the remainder of the war and then back to Canada to marry the woman who would become my grandmother. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover was a book most likely banned in their time because it dealt with physical sensuality and challenged mainstream morality;  I wonder about their take on the book … was it a book not to be read if you were a person of integrity?

Quote to Inspire – “There is nothing worse than a brilliant image of a fuzzy concept.” – Ansel Adams

325 – 152nd Street East, Tacoma, Washington

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One of the bigger treats for me in visiting Seattle, Washington this Easter was something my wife and daughter allowed me to do on the Thursday before we returned to Canada, something that they joined me in. That Thursday morning, we drove from Seattle an hour south to Tacoma and using our TomTom GPS were able to navigate to 325 – 152nd Street East to arrive at the LeMay Car Collection/Museum at Marymount.

Imagine a former convent/school resurrected to become storage and showing site for the LeMay collection of cars and trucks, vehicles of the last one hundred years. At the museum, a docent will lead you through each collecting point on the Marymount property. Not only do rusting relics inhabit these spaces, but you also find that the majority of vehicles within these confines will have received restoration or would have been kept in their original pristine condition throughout their years. Beyond this, imagine that your docent has heart and understands well your connection to cars and knows each car’s history intimately. He’s able to tell you all that you didn’t know about each car. Our docent, Mr. Pierce, led us, this way and that, through the maze of cars parked end to end in each of three buildings, a means to house them all. He was introducing each car to us – what the car was about practically, what had been each automaker’s intentions for the vehicle conceptually and how the car came to reside within the LeMay collection.

And, Mr. Pierce allowed me a kind of grace that only a fellow gear-head would ever let you have … he allowed time to photograph the vehicles and for that I will be forever grateful. At two hours in to my tour my wife went to be with my daughter out in our rental car while I rounded off the tour with Mr. Pierce looking up close at some of the first-ever self-propelled vehicles to transport people around the Americas. In terms of next steps, I’m considering becoming a member at the LeMay museum – they may be able to make use of this old-time car jockey who used to dust and polish cars at Edmonton’s Waterloo Mercury.

Listening to – U2’s Magnificent, Coldplay’s Yes and Radiohead’s All I Need.  In terms of audiobooks, the last two morning walks have been a listen through D.H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover; it’s been more than a couple of year’s since I’ve been through the book and this audio-recording has a good reader –  Maxine Peake.

Quote to Inspire – “Photography does not create eternity, as art does; it embalms time, rescuing it simply from its proper corruption.” – Andre Bazin (1918-1958), French film critic.

Tougher & Last Man Standing

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Fifties Flatdeck Truck - Nampa, Alberta

Fifties Flatdeck Truck - Nampa, Alberta

A few things make today a tougher go – not the legitimate student response to spring’s arrival and the fever it’s engendering, nor is it those minds that recognize that their attitudes are blocked, stalemated or closed with the past six months of winter’s interior Life at home and school; at this time of year openness in perception, thought and attitude itches in angst to break free of winter’s constraints of living.  These are all within the arena of Life work in early spring in High Level, Alberta.

At this time of year, it’s too easy to say the wrong thing. It’s too easy to get caught-up in oneself and one’s endeavors. It’s too easy to neglect where one’s care needs legitimate directing.  This season is one in which humour can get you into serious trouble while also being a source of tremendous healing and celebration.  It’s a time of year when it’s good to have a bonfire that is shared among others, a bonfire that extends the day into the wee hours of the night.  It’s a time when strength of body and strength of mind carry you forward into this next season that is spring.  At such a bonfire it’s good to have a keeper of the fire, the last man standing for when the last ember dies, someone we know who will see the night through on our behalf when we find that we should direct ourselves home and to sleep.  And, perhaps that’s it, the toughest part of today is that of helping one’s body overcome extended wakefulness as the season changes from winter to spring.

The photograph presented here is that of a late fifties flat-deck truck in Nampa, Alberta.  In Nampa the historical-agricultural museum is in the process of re-locating.  So, farming equipment/implements, vehicles, train cars and buildings are shifting location.  Until the new site is completed these items remain scattered throughout Nampa.  This flat-deck truck sits in someone’s backyard alongside other vehicles and looks to be in readiness for use. This truck has seen perhaps fifty or so years of service and its structure still has integrity.  It seems to be one of the last vehicles standing and seems to have strength associated with preserved shape and ability to function.  Its look is that which we’d find in the wizened face, that face of the last man standing – the keeper of the fire – when we need to direct ourselves to sleep.

Listening to Over the Rhine’s Spark, Joseph Arthur’s In the Sun (with Michael Stipe) and U2’s One;  other songs have included Eric Angus Whyte’s Beggars and Buskers (of Belfast), Liz Longley’s Free and the Steve Miller Band’s Rock’n Me.  My daughter has had me download Young the Giant’s Cough Syrup and Kelly Clarkson’s Stronger (What Doesn’t Kill You);  Demi Lovato’s Skyscraper has also received download tonight.

Quotes to Inspire –  (1) “If I knew how to take a good photograph, I’d do it every time.” –  Robert Doisneau; and, (2) “If I have any ‘message’ worth giving to a beginner it is that there are no short cuts in photography.” – Edward Weston.