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
I’m sifting photographs on my computer, tonight, aiming to locate photographs taken of the road among mountains between Grande Prairie and Banff, Alberta, a trip taken this fall in early October. To refer to them will allow future planning of High Dynamic Range (HDR) shots; but, photographs have been shifted between my C: drive and L: drive within the past three months and am having no luck, tonight. Sifting at a later date will yield them.
A photograph has caught my eye, a reward for my look-back – a photo of an early fifties Plymouth Savoy dragged into the woods behind the McNaught homestead, home to Alberta artist, Euphemia McNaught. She’s had some intention in dragging the vehicle to where it sits among Aspen willows spaced with what appears to be regular rhythm as you look across the car from front to back and diagonally from driver’s side to passenger rear. This back drop changes in colour with the seasons – whites and blacks in winter, greens in summer and the reds of leaves in fall.
Those who discover and view the vehicle orient themselves to still life juxtaposition, a car oxidizes among the regular cycle of life and death of plants and greenery; the scene is a treasure in terms of colour, shape, context, season, light and themes of still life. The day amidst its drizzle did get cold but not before two hours had gone by looking through my camera lens at the car, its situation and the play of light.
Listening to U2’s One, tonight from the U218 Singles album.
Quote to Inspire – “You don’t take a photograph, you make it.” ~ Ansel Adams.
Edmonton – June 2, 2011 – In 1988, in Anzac, Alberta I painted the walls of a Northland School Division teacherage making it home for my wife and I in our second year of marriage. That fall, I listened and painted as a song aired for the first few times on the local FM radio station from Fort McMurray featuring Robbie Robertson and familiar ‘Joshua Tree’ vocals as back-up to the song with also familiar chiming guitar work. As I listened I was confirming the sacred arena that the lyrics were dealing with. Backing to the song was provided by Bono and Edge of U2. The song, Sweet Fire of Love, alluded to and opened out the experience of awakening to the Holy Spirit’s work. In the lyrics, awakening was the issue and the story side of the song had a biographical element, something true and encountered by members of U2.
I would read about such awakening in Steve Stockman’s Walk On – The Spiritual Journey of U2, a book originating in response to a Canadian in Vancouver, British Columbia challenging Steve to set out proofs that members of U2 were Christian. There was much disbelief about U2 being Christian. The band’s appeal to audiences would seem worldly and something quite far away from … ministry. Yet, Steve set about looking through the U2 canon to establish context and biblical reference for U2 songs and in doing so exposed the bad and good, the hurt and the love experienced in the current Church. Moreover, Steve considered the role contemporary secular and Christian music play in overcoming or ameliorating a grace-filled Christian walk.
Throughout this time of challenge regarding U2’s credible Christian walk, Steve hosted a Sunday radio show called Rhythm and Soul on BBC Radio Ulster (8:00 p.m. – Ulster, 1:00 p.m. – Alberta) that examined Christian message found in contemporary Christian and secular music; over the internet, I tuned in from 2002 to 2007. By the time Rhythm and Soul completed its run, Steve had written three books considering music in the Christian walk, completed a Masters of Theology, led youth (young adult) missions trips to Cape Town, South Africa and had served as Dean of Derryvolgie Hall at Queens University in Belfast, Ireland. In the summer of 2005, I enjoyed an hour’s visit and dialogue with Steve at Regent College (Vancouver, British Columbia). After a few years, Steve became chaplain at Fitzroy Presbyterian Church in Belfast, Ireland; he now has a blog that follows from his Rhythm and Soul days and his Rhythms of Redemption blog – its called Soul Surmise. For Steve, Bono of U2 remains his favourite Irish pastor. For me, I finally got to see U2 in Edmonton, Alberta at Commonwealth Stadium in my forty-ninth year, days before I would turn fifty – 2 June 2011.
The photographs presented here capture something of the evening. It being an overcast day on June 2, 2011, the night became chilly and U2 donned extra clothing to stay warm. The evening held stories of Bono hitch-hiking in a Vancouver rainstorm and being picked up by a Vancouver Canuck’s player who Bono rewarded with tickets to the Edmonton performance. Bono sought out a female audience member to sing a Canadian tune, Neil Young’s Heart of Gold. The whole of the stadium knew each song of the U2 canon; all sang with U2, and together. As I would remark later – I was glad to be able to take my wife, daughter and son to see a live performance by a band whose music has filled our home through the years – a memorable, once-in-a-lifetime night.
Here’s the set list.
Even Better Than The Real Thing
I Will Follow
Get On Your Boots
Magnificent
Mysterious Ways
Elevation
Until The End Of The World
All I Want Is You
Stay (Faraway, So Close!)
Beautiful Day
Pride (In The Name Of Love)
Miss Sarajevo
Zooropa
City Of Blinding Lights
Vertigo
I’ll Go Crazy If I Don’t Go Crazy Tonight
Sunday Bloody Sunday
Scarlet
Walk On
Encore: One
Where The Streets Have No Name
Encore 2: Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me
With Or Without You
Moment of Surrender
Curious quote for the pondering:
“… 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.” ~ Steve Stockman, from poem,Up on Scarlet Street
Listening to Ryan Adams’ Wonderwall from the album, Love is Hell
On Vale Island, part of the old Hay River town site, at the wooded corner of 100th Street and 102nd Avenue, if you look into the trees of the northwest corner the sight you’ll see is that of four or five derelict wooden boats of various sizes, some small enough to have navigated the east channel alone, others with size enough to have been considered, in their day, seaworthy on the Great Slave Lake. Three of these boats are the subject of my second high dynamic range (HDR) photograph, boats well-past their prime, dragged to higher ground to rot away among the aspen willows. They will no longer be a nuisance there and they’ll need little upkeep. In actual fact, what I’ve come across is the cemetery plot for these old boats. While life has gone out from them, these vessels, without doubt, saw service in my life time; but, would they have been built in my life time?
The picture and this present consideration of boat-life reminds of a reader colleague and friend who pointed me toward Alice Munroe’s 2001 novel about the different ‘ships’ we sail within throughout our lives; it’s entitled Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage, and has now been republished with the title ‘Away From Her.’ Within each state we act and move with different intents and purposes. But, a ship graveyard such as this found on Vale Island reminds that our journey within these collective or collected states has beginning, duration and an end, as well. The book was a tough go reading-wise, more something exposing malaise and truth than … hope?
The boats of Vale Island while having had lives that preceded this photograph, have certainly ferried human lives living within the various ‘ships’ that Alice Munroe has proposed in and around Hay River, NWT. These boats still hold their line and shape. Now, beyond their service, they are in demise. And, the winds blow from the Great Slave Lake through Vale Island, among these boats and into Hay River.
Listening to Ride Forever, sung by Paul Gross as part of the Due South soundtrack, a single song referencing the Great Slave Lake, living in Alberta … and matters of growing old.
Quote to Inspire – “Where I come from the challenges are quite different. There are no drug dealers or pimps, few thieves to bother with. There was only the environment and surviving in the face of it is the challenge of the Inuit. A mother gives birth somewhere out on a glacier field, hundreds of miles from the nearest outpost and she knows that the odds are stacked against her son even living to see the spring with disease, lack of food or the elements. And, even if they should survive and if he should grow to be a boy, she knows very well that all he has to do is lose his footing on the smooth surface of a glacier and that’ll be that. In other words, she should know that if her son cannot live … why should she try? Well I know this woman. I helped deliver her son. She was weak and undernourished. The next morning she stood up and she picked her child up into her arms and she set out again into the blinding snow. And, I think that was one of the most courageous acts that I’ve ever seen.” ~ Paul Gross, Fraser/Inuit Soliloquy – Due South
My daughter misses her brother who’s away at University. As the baker in our family and as someone who’s grown up with stories of and experiences with a grandmother who’s practiced and creative flare showed through her tasty dishes upon her dining room table, my daughter understands that care is expressed for others through the art of food. My son, who’s seven years older than my daughter, values and respects his sister’s abilities, creations and talent. Tonight, my daughter has baked muffins for her brother to send his way in a ‘care package.’
For my part, stories surrounding manna in the ancient wisdom text have me wondering about the longevity (or shelf-life) of this food parcel being sent 800km south; manna was to be collected once a day, a portion (an omer) for each member of the family; collecting more than was needed would see the uneaten portion rot, becoming filled with worms and maggots – all this to teach a people absolute reliance upon the creator. Still, for us, we are at that cold, polar, northern part of our year that sees temperatures drop to -40 where Celsius and Fahrenheit scales intersect. The cold will, no doubt, easily prolong the shelf-life of my daughter’s care package muffins, certainly long enough for my son and his dorm-mate to enjoy.
The muffins my daughter has baked are subject for tonight’s photographs. Later, with her, we added photographs of various teas from our cupboard and placed two ounce-bottles of the grandparent’s favourite spirits on the table to work with glass and shape. We experimented with depth of field and focusing with the Canon 60D’s live view display. Our photography session came about partially because my daughter was intrigued this morning when I showed her a PhotoPlus article on Food photography; it’s part of a monthly feature in which a pro photographer mentors an interested and willing amateur. Now that I’ve had a go at it, the article deserves a re-read.
Quote to Inspire – “Inspiration is always a surprising visitor.” ― John O’Donohue, Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom
Listening to Mozart’s Andantino con variazioni from Flute and Harp Concerto K. 299
I’ve been out for a 6K walk around town tonight. It is -35C and I’ve listened to a lecture given by John O’Donohue on Imagination. After the walk, I recalled this vehicle in the High Level industrial park, a vehicle that I’ve known about but never photographed, a 1960 Mercury M 100 long box pickup truck. It’s been on my mind for the better part of a year. I’ve never photographed it because the landscape or situation it is set in seems bleak and uninteresting. Perhaps such context draws out beauty from the vehicle’s lines and shape or perhaps through time one acclimates to beauty, form and style.
In taking this photograph, I’m using a Canon 75-300 mm telephoto zoom lens and quite literally taking the photograph to see what is there … a rusting relic awaiting restoration when time and circumstance allow. In terms of integrity the M 100 looks more complete and useable than not. The photograph also demonstrates the compression that happens with a telephoto zoom as you shoot more flatly toward the subject – the distance from the first snow drift to the truck is 100 m and the posts in front of the truck are actually about 6-10 feet in front of it.
Quote to Inspire – “The duty of privilege is absolute integrity; the duty of privilege is integrity to ourselves, to our possibilities and to live to the full the life that we’d love and to animate and realize everything because the time is so short and it will be soon gone.” ~ John O’Donohue
Listening to Crash into Me from Dave Matthews & Tim Reynolds, Live At Radio City and as fretted on my Martin Backpacker.
I woke this morning having dreamed. And, I woke with intention to make good use of this day for photography. My progress to my truck and terrain was slowed … Life got in the way is an expression taken to mean that where and when there’s a task that needs done that helps others it needs to be done, presently. I got the business done. And, before getting underway I enlisted my daughter’s help in pinning a map of our municipal district (all six feet worth of map) to the west wall in our garage above the work bench. We also pinned a map of High Level above our freezer on the east wall of the garage. With both, the intention is to locate places and subjects of previous photographs as a means to sort out return visits or new places to explore. By 2:00 p.m., I was on the road having shifted from staying within our municipal district (the size of three smaller European countries) to northward travel to Alexandra Falls and to Hay River – both in the Northwest Territories. I arrived at the falls by 5:00 p.m. and saw the curious way it had iced over and pushed ice over the falls. An hour later I was in Hay River investigating what happens to its ship yards in winter; you’d never think that you would drive north to find the largest inland lake in the world, the Great Slave Lake, a lake making use of trawlers and barges, a lake needing more than a few vessels of the Canadian Coast Guard.
The photographs show Alexandra falls and its ice. Dimensions to grasp – the far wall that river drops down is a 60 foot drop; so, that clump of ice that has fallen over the falls this winter is huge – in height and volume equal to a small two story house. The next photographs are of boats that have been pulled ashore and are not presently used. The first shot is of three derelict boats pulled far into the woods, left to rot. The ships are those at the Hay River shipyard close to the southern tip of the Great Slave Lake; at -22C, with wind from the lake, it was a cold time capturing these images – my camera will lock up when it and its battery is cold.
While I would have preferred to see all of this in daylight it was good gathering these photographs. For these and others I was using exposure bracketing because I want to investigate High Dynamic Range photography (probably with Photomatix – thank you’s to Shuttertime’s Mac and Sid for encouraging this). Perhaps the most enjoyable part of the day/evening was being alone with the wind and the sounds of northern winter on the west bank above Alexandra falls. Good schtuff!
Listening to – a lot of CBC tonight – DNTO and a theme of walking in another’s shoes; also am intrigued to see that John Le Carre’s Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy has had a remake and should be out next Friday – Le Carre’s novels were the light reading during university and my son and I have enjoyed Alec Guiness as George Smiley. Music – David Gray’s Silver Lining from his White Ladder album.
Quote to Inspire – “To me, photography is an art of observation. It’s about finding something interesting in an ordinary place… I’ve found it has little to do with the things you see and everything to do with the way you see them.” ~ Elliott Erwitt
On Thursday evening, the temperature in High Level, Alberta dropped from -10C to -20C+. The moisture in the air transitioned to noticeable fog and then crystallized on physical objects producing a beautiful array of hoarfrost on trees, buildings and fences throughout the town. I went for my evening walk, walking a counter clockwise, reverse 6 km circuit through High Level, returning home to collect my Canon 60D and Manfrotto Tripod. The variation in subjects is limited – bus lane light standards between High Level Public School and Florence MacDougall Community School (showing the play of light against fog), a hoarfrosted tree in parking lot to the west, three entrance images to High Level Public School and the school’s playground equipment. In all images, a change in the weather has altered the landscape, creating new possibilities for photographs.
Composition for photographs has been on my mind and while there are many rules or principles to guide angle of view, subject and lighting, the thing I’ve been reminded of is that composition is about ‘finding’ the strongest way of seeing the subject. Here, Angela Patterson of the Ditch Divas would remind me that while there are technical considerations, it is also important to get to the point of taking the picture … not to over-think the opportunity in front of you … likely because it’s impermanent.
Listening to Impermanent Things by Peter Himmelman from his Stage Diving album; (thank you to Stocki for this Rhythms of Redemption recommendation … all those years ago).
Quote to Inspire – “Photographs really are experience captured, and the camera is the ideal arm of consciousness in its acquisitive mood.” ~ Susan Sontag, On Photography
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In My Back Pocket - Photography 
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