B-Sides, Life and Form

Canon Camera, Canon Lens, Canon Live View, Journaling, Light Intensity, Lookback Photos - One Year Ago, Photoblog Intention, Project 365 - Photo-a-day, Still Life, Weather, Winter

Trappers Shack Diner – Fort Vermilion, Ab – Canada 1

Trappers Shack Diner – Fort Vermilion, Ab – Canada 2

Trappers Shack Diner – Fort Vermilion, Ab – Canada 3

Trappers Shack Diner – Fort Vermilion, Ab – Canada 4

Trappers Shack Diner – Fort Vermilion, Ab – Canada 5

Trappers Shack Diner – Fort Vermilion, Ab – Canada 6

Trappers Shack Diner – Fort Vermilion, Ab – Canada 7

Trappers Shack Diner – Fort Vermilion, Ab – Canada 8

Trappers Shack Diner – Fort Vermilion, Ab – Canada 9

This day had begun with intention – to consider the state of this wordpress blog and consider what’s next; what does it become? For the longest while this blog has been memory’s placeholder, a responding point for photographs created. In the editing of each image, memory could be pulled forward to surface, the image associating to personal history and consideration, a starting point from which to journal. Today, though, the question was that of what does this blog next become. Is it now time to move the photoblog towards a Blurb book or perhaps a Mixbook, a hardcopy, something you need two hands to look at?

The day began with photoblog intention, investigating the integrity of photo files starting with the blog’s oldest photos. I was surprised to find that first photos I’d posted were surprisingly out of focus – the consequence of using Adobe Lightroom with presets alone; these images were created long before editing images in NiK Collection and Topaz software. I returned to original images and had a second go at editing. Along the way I rediscovered images that had been b-sides, those that had not been first choices for presentation in this blog.

The endeavor began in fueling my body in front of a computer screen – coffee, an omelette and raisin toast. The images for editing were four-year old photos from Fort Vermilion, Alberta (December, 2011). A previous century building was first edit, a building that had been re-purposed to serve as restaurant – The Trappers Shack Diner. And, while it was all the go four years back, it has, within these past two years, sat vacant. This blog has tended to do that, encourage recognition of beginnings and recognition of how and when change occurs, particularly slower moving changes – the aging barn photographed has collapsed, the rare find of a La Crete-bound forties, three-tonne REO Speedwagon cab and chassis has now been sold and removed from its Manning, Alberta farmer’s field, the forested land that was forest, is now cleared, a farmer’s field with next use in Rocky Lane, Alberta.

Time editing, today, has held music. A friend and minister recommended new tunes, an album by Mary Coughlan and Erik Visser, ‘Scars on the Calendar’ – jazzy, dark and resonant in lyric and tune. A second album that I’ve previously looked for was recommended and found today on iTunes, ‘Another Day, Another Time: Celebrating the Music of ‘Inside Llewyn Davis,’ a look at the sixties folk scene and the music associated with the movie, ‘Inside Llewyn Davis.’

Curious Quotes to Consider – “‘Religion and art,’ he says, ‘are almost the same thing anyway. Just different ways of taking a man out of himself, bringing him to the emotional pitch that we call ecstasy or rapture. They’re both a rejection of the material, common-sense world for one that’s illusory, yet somehow more important. Now it’s always when a man turns away from this common-sense world around him that he begins to create, when he looks into a void, and has to give it life and form.’” … Mrs. Bentley quoting her husband. Sinclair Ross, ‘As for Me and My House,’ p. 112; after re-reading this curious quote, the pull toward Carl Jung and his quote surfaced – “Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakens.” Jung’s quote is engraved on a dark metal plaque I have hanging in my office at school.

Listening to – musician and songwriter, Brian Houston’s ‘We don’t need religion,’ a protest song – ‘we could use the love of God’ (excerpted lyrics).

Photographic Recollection

Canon Camera, Canon Lens, Canon Live View, Farmhouse, Home, Journaling, Photography & Conceptualizing Beauty, Project 365 - Photo-a-day, Season, Weather, Winter

Homestead in Late Fall – Fairview, Ab ii

Canadian Geese – Flying South, Fairview, Alberta – Canada

Homestead in Late Fall – Fairview, Ab i

Homestead in Fall – Fairview, Alberta – Canada 1

Homestead in Fall – Fairview, Alberta – Canada 2

Homestead in Fall – Fairview, Alberta – Canada 3

An audio-book calmed us, my wife and I, during a night drive north on Alberta’s highway 63. Moving past our Grassland pit stop, we turned left traveling northward to Fort McMurray. As we drove, a snow storm brewed until we were within a wall of big, heavy snow flakes. I backed off on the gas and turned our high-beams to low. I minded the road, scouting the snow track left by previous vehicles. I gave oncoming vehicles a wide berth. I placed our vehicle with care on this highway with sharp shoulders.

I pushed the first audio-cassette in.

A familiar, Canadian voice met our ears – Donald Sutherland began narrating our story. “Did he know? Had he guessed that I knew for certain what everyone else only suspected?” … “I found myself looking straight into the past. Sunday, October 28, 1956. A cabin, not ten miles from where I stood now.” … “This is the weekend when we’re closing the cabin for the season and my mother has been moving around in the other room, cleaning, but now the screen door snaps shut as she steps outside. It is now that I see my father. He is hurrying away from the cabin ….” (Part 1 – May Brightman, Chapter 1 – ‘The Red Fox’ by Anthony Hyde, 1986). The cabin is starting point for a narrative that moves the reader compellingly around the world, a journalistic detective story that weaves historical fiction into curious and intriguing questions of ‘what-if.’

The homestead in the photographs posted here is one I have photographed many times. The edit arrived at in this image has brought forward mind’s eye recollection of the family summer cabin that Robert Thorn, protagonist (and journalist) recalls, as well, in an October funeral for his mother. Anthony Hyde’s novel led us as listeners through the untangling of truth from lies and the consideration of possibilities and where their trajectories of reasoning would lead you – definitely the right book to listen to on a long, snowy drive into Alberta’s north.

Listening to – Bruce Springsteen’s ‘If I Should Fall Behind.’

Quote to Inspire/Consider – “The eye should learn to listen before it looks.” – Robert Frank

East Side Shed

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Granary in Fog – Dixonville, Ab – Canada i

Granary in Fog – Dixonville, Ab – Canada ii

I like this grain shed image. The shed resides perhaps halfway between Dixonville and Manning, Alberta. You can see it from the highway. It’s about a kilometre in on the East side of the highway. The image works with perspective, environmental condition (fog), light, colour and texture. The image has also been about editing and finding best rendering of a High Dynamic Range (HDR) shot. The weather is curious, something not seen every day. Fog, as precursor to winter snow, hangs, waiting … holding off.

A darker image, it recalls several scenes from Sinclair Ross’ novel, ‘As For Me and My House.’ The novel was required reading in Dr. Bruce Stovel’s Canadian Literature course in his second term at the University of Alberta, a narrative that holds one rendering of the Canadian experience during the Great Depression.

“The dust clouds behind the town kept darkening and thinning and swaying, a furtive tirelessness about the way they wavered and merged with one another that reminded me of northern lights in winter…. The little town cowered close to earth as if to hide itself. The elevators stood up passive and stoical. All round me ran a hurrying little whisper through the grass. (p. 100)

This narrative has moved around the world and received acclaim for holding features of Canadian experience and culture that become what is considered Canadian identity.

Quote to Consider – “Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and cheer and give strength to the body and soul alike.” – John Muir, his essay, ‘Nature Writings’

Listening to – Leem Lubany’s ‘Wild World,’ Brian Houston’s ‘Next to Me,’ and Bob Dylan’s ‘Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door.’

Miasma Cover

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Foggy Granary – Dixonville, Ab – Canada i

Foggy Granary – Dixonville, Ab – Canada ii

Foggy Granary – Dixonville, Ab – Canada iii

Foggy Granary – Dixonville, Ab – Canada iv

The return, a drive home in late October; fog hangs in the air for two hundred kilometres – from Peace River north to Keg River Cabins. I’ve had my eye on this granary within these past two years as one to investigate with my camera. I’m liking the colour, textures and miasma – all visual opportunity.

Listening to – ‘The Dignity of Difference,’ an On Being podcast with Jonathan Sacks.

“Beauty can be seen in all things, seeing and composing the beauty is what separates the snapshot from the photograph.” – Matt Hardy

Land’s Next Use

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Strewn Timber – Rocky Lane, Alberta – Canada iv

Strewn Timber – Rocky Lane, Alberta – Canada ii

Strewn Timber – Rocky Lane, Alberta – Canada iii

Strewn Timber – Rocky Lane, Alberta – Canada i

Timber, pushed down, lies strewn throughout a farmer’s field, a first step in clearing the land. Timber has also fallen across the structure of a homestead house yet has not crushed it. The house and a water-filled dugout suggest that a previous owner, another farmer, had initiated and abandoned a similar project in an earlier era. For now, timber will be gathered for burning; a winter or spring burn will reduce these trees and this homestead house to ashes, the land becoming ready for another use.

Quote to Consider – “I really believe there are things nobody would see if I didn’t photograph them.” – Diane Arbus

Listening to – Ibarionex Perello’s ‘The Candid Frame’ – episode 238, an interview with Sara Jane Boyers, Jesse Cook’s ‘Ocean Blue,’ Shadowfax’s ‘Move the Clouds,’ Agnes Obel’s ‘Fivefold,’ U2’s ‘Song for Someone’ and Sigur Ros’ ‘Glosoli.’

The Place Where We Are Right
by Yehuda Amichai

From the place where we are right
flowers will never grow
in the Spring.

The place where we are right
is hard and trampled
like a yard.

But doubts and loves
dig up the world
like a mole, a plough.
And a whisper will be heard in the place
where the ruined
house once stood.

Treasure, In Return

Backlight, Canon Camera, Canon Lens, Canon Live View, Combine (Farming), Fall, High Dynamic Range (HDR), Journaling, Light Intensity, Photography & Conceptualizing Beauty, Project 365 - Photo-a-day, Weather

MacKenzie River Bridge – Fort Providence, NT – Canada i

MacKenzie River Bridge – Fort Providence, NT – Canada ii

MacKenzie River Bridge – Fort Providence, NT – Canada iii

Perhaps twenty years ago, Chris Short, an art specialist from Newfoundland, slowed the pace of my thought when she asserted that between High Level and Edmonton, Alberta (750km), an artist could easily spend as many as three days to gather and respond to terrain and landscape in drawing and painting (and, then, you could repeat this task/vocation seasonally, too). Another friend coined an expression Chris would understand. In response to seeing fresh landscape and terrain, that friend would interrupt travel asking to … “Stop. Let me feast my eyes.” The call was to stop in our current proceedings and to take note with awe and wonder of something beautiful, right there, in front of us.

For the Yellowknife Photo Walk getting to destination would mean focusing on the drive and returning to many photographic opportunities encountered along the way at a future date. A similar conundrum confronted me in getting to my first Photo Walk in Fort St. John, British Columbia in 2011. In both cases, while opportunities for photos were available, my eyes and imagination would only be able to scout the scene and return to them at a later date. I would know where to return for future photographs, a treasure of sorts. Travel to Fort St. John had presented incredible autumn landscapes, a morning well-lit by sun with impending, dark winter clouds moving off in the distance; farmers, at that time, were completing their harvest, some still combining fields on either side of the highway between Rycroft and Fort St. John. In the same way, travel to and from Yellowknife presented many opportunities for images – the bridge among the terrain in the Rae Edzo area in the morning’s golden hour will be something to return for as will bison feeding on the warmer, sunlit side of the highway in the afternoon. Then, there was this bridge that crosses the MacKenzie River at Fort Providence. The river, at this point, spans almost two kilometres. Driving across this two lane bridge is a breathtaking experience. I stopped and in my friend’s words, I feasted my eyes. These images are the result.

Listening to – U2’s ‘Every Breaking Wave,’ John Mayer’s ‘The Age of Worry,’ Maroon 5’s ‘Lucky Strike,’ Coldplay’s ‘Us Against the World,’ Ed Sheeran’s ‘Little Bird’ and Snow Patrol’s ‘This Isn’t Everything You Are.’

Quotes to Consider – “Taking pictures is like tiptoeing into the kitchen late at night and stealing Oreo cookies.” – Diane Arbus; “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

An Air-nailer, Yellowknife Narrows and Camera Walk

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Float Plane – Yellowknife, NT Canada iv

Float Plane – Yellowknife, NT Canada iii

Float Plane – Yellowknife, NT Canada ii

Yellowknife Float Planes – The Narrows, Yellowknife WW Photo Walk – 3 Oct 2015

The Narrows – Yellowknife WW Photo Walk 3 Oct 2015

I had wanted to be a photographer-participant in the Kelby Worldwide Photo Walk in each of the last three years. The eighth, annual Kelby Photo Walk would be held around the globe last Saturday – October 3, 2015. Edmonton, Grande Prairie, Fort St. John, Edson, and Jasper – all in previous years had photo walks that I could potentially get to. Key in such consideration was locating myself at the photo walk site with time enough for solid rest so that I could see that corner of the world with fresh eyes.

Coming to last weekend, two photo walks intrigued me. One would be held in Fort Smith, Northwest Territories and another would be held in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories. The Fort Smith photo walk would begin quite early to catch the morning golden hour of dusk to sunrise and then to full morning – I’d need to be there quite early. The Yellowknife photo walk would start at 5:30 p.m.; but, I would need to be up and on the road quite early on Saturday to make it to the walk site. Going did not look promising because I would need seven hours to get there. But, happenstance prevailed. A group of roofers began nailing shingles to a neighbor’s roof early on Saturday morning; starting at 8:00 a.m. they began banging in nails with an air-nailer. I got out of bed, got a coffee and looked at the photo walk website and to the Yellowknife photo walk. I also got clear on the number of kilometres I would travel in order to be part of this event. My wife came downstairs and asked me about my Saturday and saw that I was looking at the photo walk. She got me going out the door and on my way.

I arrived in Yellowknife with forty-five minutes to spare, got a hotel room at the Explorer Hotel, showered and registered for the walk using my smartphone. I punched into my GPS the walk starting point – 3513 Ingraham Drive, Yellowknife (the parking lot at the base of Pilot’s Monument) and five minutes later I was at the site. Ten minutes after that I met the Walkers of our Yellowknife photo walk group, we counted thirteen.

The image presented here is my submission to the photo walk website – a float plane in the Narrows separating Yellowknife proper from Rock Island. My gratitude goes out to this photo walk group for their camaraderie, their welcome, their interest in photography and for how each photographer has worked photography into their lives. Good, good schtuff!

Quote to Consider – “Of course, there will always be those who look only at technique, who ask ‘how,’ while others of a more curious nature will ask ‘why.’ Personally, I have always preferred inspiration to information.” – Man Ray … sounds like a key attribute of this photo walk group.

Listening to – New Radicals’ “You Get What You Give;” seems almost to have a Mick Jagger kind of voicing to the song; a student of mine has me fretting this song with him … we’re both learning it.

Rainbow Re-edit

Best Practices - Photography, Canon 60D, Canon 70-200 mm 2.8 IS L Series Lens, Canon Camera, Canon Live View, Farm, Flora, High Dynamic Range (HDR), Journaling, Light Intensity, Lookback Photos - One Year Ago, Photography & Conceptualizing Beauty, Project 365 - Photo-a-day, Smoke, Summer, Weather

Wind Turbines and Rainbow – Oahu 1

Plantation Fire – Haleiwa, Oahu

Wind Turbines and Rainbow – Oahu 5

Wind Turbines and Rainbow – Oahu 4

Wind Turbines and Rainbow – Oahu 3

Two summers ago, my wife, daughter and I enjoyed two weeks on Oahu. We rented a car, a Ford Fusion, for the time and used it to take us on day trips exploring Oahu. In the second week we returned for perhaps the fourth time to Haleiwa, part of Oahu’s North Shore. Exploring, shopping and photo gathering were elements of that day. We’d each finished an ice cream cone and were buying t-shirts for my son when sirens of fire engines moved through town – one, then, five minutes later another.

To the north, a plantation, perhaps a mile away was burning and dark black smoke was billowing in the air.

When traffic had returned to its steady flow we got into the car with the intention of returning to Honolulu for the evening. Traffic had slowed, returning to an ambling pace. As we headed away from Haleiwa the idea to see the site of the fire attracted my curiosity. I took a right from the main road and followed a one-lane backroad toward the fire. I thought better of it; the backroad to the plantation was narrow and blocking traffic would be a problem.

I stopped our vehicle, got out and looked back over my right shoulder to see these wind turbines with a rainbow coming down in the midst of them – an opportunity for a photograph had presented itself. I attached my 70-200mm lens to my Canon 60D, zoomed in and captured these images. I posted the image on this blog maybe eighteen months ago, an image edited on my laptop while waiting for clothes to dry in the laundry room of the Marriott Hotel in Honolulu. The original posted is the third image above. Yesterday, I explored this sequence of images and found a few others to share. My thanks to Mark Kurtz for drawing my attention back to these images.

Listening to – Parov Stelar’s ‘Room Service,’ Nitin Sawhney’s ‘Firmament,’ the Gotan Project’s ‘Santa Maria (Del Buen Ayre)’ and Quantic & Tempo’s ‘Sabor.’

Quote to Consider – “In photography there are no shadows that cannot be illuminated.” – August Sander

Reflecting, Road Thought Work

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Homestead – La Glace, Alberta, Canada

Stop Ahead Turnoff – NW Alberta

Sunset – Warrensville, Alberta Canada 1

Sunset – Warrensville, Alberta Canada 2

Sunset – Warrensville, Alberta Canada 3

Sunset – Warrensville, Alberta Canada 4

Sunset – Warrensville, Alberta Canada 5

“We never see another person’s experience; all we see is their behaviour (R.D. Lang).”

I have had some alone time travelling in the past few weeks and been able to engage in uninterrupted thought work – some intersecting of ideas has occurred. I’ve listened to a 2007 John O’Donohue lecture on the creative force of the imagination and key ideas as starting points about our inner lives – in his words, “I always think that behind every face there is a secret life and that humanoids are the strangest creatures that you’d ever meet because so much is contained within the human body. A human face is one of the most unusual things in the world. On such a small canvas such a variety of presence can appear. And, behind every face there is a secret, hidden inner life … if friendship means anything it means in the presence of the other you begin to see who you are in how they reflect you back to you.”

Within this same time frame I took in a photography workshop offered by Joe McNally – ‘The Moment It Clicks.’ As I listened and watched Joe work to produce different portraits there was recognition that the photographer does what John O’Donohue proposes; ultimately, the photographer reflects the subject back to him- or herself. I have wondered, though, if portrait photography is really a dance of interrogation; I have wondered if shared vulnerabilities result in trust and a richer portrait. And, is it the photographer’s leading interrogation about the subject’s narrative that produces the best photograph? Or, is it something more mutual that does so? I am wondering if the good portrait photographer leads the subject in the relationship that produces the portrait? It is possible that subject and photographer would share a context of silence in portrait making.

John O’Donohue’s words highlight some of this – “No two humans inhabit the same world, internally. We all inhabit the same world physically. But, internally, each world is completely different.” On the side of the photographer and on the side of the subject, what follows is starting point. “… No one else sees the world the way you do. No one else sees it from the perspective that you do. In no one else is the same narrative building as there is within you. And even though similar things have happened to you as with other people the context that they find in your heart and mind and narrative is different from everyone else. Your inner world is completely hidden from other humans.” So, within portrait photography interrogation has the opportunity to work on both sides co-creating a reality – that of photographer and that of subject. Relationship and moment are captured and recorded as the shutter button is pressed.

As the week rounded out, I found myself among this theme, again, being explored and brought to life in Ben Stiller’s film of James Thurber’s story, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty.

Images from the Road – a derelict church in Woking, a La Glace homestead, the road at night and sunsets.

Quote to Consider – “If you’re having difficulty finding a natural or intuitive expression in a portrait session or having trouble identifying with the person you’re photographing, look into their eyes carefully and see if you can find your own reflection there. Discover yourself looking at you. Then, ask your subject to look into your camera lens and find their own reflection, and be prepared to make the portrait.” – Shelby Lee Adams, ‘Find Your Reflection’ … seems follow-up from the aphorism, “The more I know me, the more I know thee.” – Buber-esque and good, good schtuff!

Listening to – Jose Gonzalez’ ‘Stay Alive’ and Thomas Merton’s ‘The Seven Storey Mountain.’

Yellow Dazzling

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Canadian Grain Bin – Guy, Alberta, Canada 1

Canadian Grain Bin – Guy, Alberta, Canada 2

Canadian Grain Bin – Guy, Alberta i

Westeel Grain Bins – Warrensville, Alberta, Canada

The ground, seeded, transforms from dark, dirt black to green growth reaching its pinnacle of dazzling yellow before being harvested. I have driven through some of Alberta’s farmland in the past two weeks and Canola does seem the farmer grown plant of choice, this year, its yellows colouring and brightening what, in winter, had been a darker and more dreary landscape. I had hoped to catch Canola surrounding these Warrensville Westeel grain bins in the past two or three years, never returning to the site/sight until a week ago.

The Canada Flag painted on the side of a grain bin forms a landmark for travellers nearing the hamlet of Guy, Alberta. On Alberta highway 2, as you climb from the valley holding the Smoky River going north you’ll find the grain bin on your left two or three minutes along; for many the flag and shed serve as time marker for journeys northward. From this point, I can be at my doorstep in High Level, Alberta in three hours and forty minutes.

In addition to the broad reach of Canola’s yellows in these images, immensity surrounding the grain bin is also part of things; looking ahead through the miles a cumulonimbus cloud will later offer its weather, wind and rain, as something to be managed within our drive home. These images remind of photographs in which grain fields, mountains and breathtaking cloud work coalesce and immensity is the dominant feature within the image. I hadn’t considered it; but, the fact that a Canadian Flag has been painted on the side of a grain bin holds associations for the farmer – perhaps pride in being Canadian; it may also aim to have others consider the key role grain farmers play in Canada’s economy; or, perhaps the notion has something to do with being in the heart of Canada. What’s also there is perhaps something political … perhaps something like the assertion, ‘we are all Canadians first and foremost.’ The question intrigues – what was the point of origin for the idea of painting a Canadian flag on a farmer’s grain bin?

Quote to Consider – “A photograph is the story I fail to put into words.” – Destin Sparks

Listening to – Murray McLaughlin’s ‘Hard Rock Town,’ The Who’s ‘I Can See For Miles,’ Bob Dylan’s ‘Buckets of Rain,’ Steve Miller Band’s ‘Fly Like an Eagle,’ Ozark Mountain Daredevils’ ‘If You Wanna Get To Heaven,’ Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Radio Nowhere,’ Link Wray & the Wraymen’s ‘Rumble’ and Bruce Springsteen’s rendering of a Pete Seeger tune ‘We Shall Overcome.’