Reddening

Canon Camera, Canon Lens, Canon Live View, High Dynamic Range (HDR), Photography & Conceptualizing Beauty, Season, Summer, Sunset, Weather
Skyline - Edmonton, Alberta - Canada

Skyline – Edmonton, Alberta – Canada

Edmonton Skyline - Edmonton, Alberta Canada 1

Edmonton Skyline – Edmonton, Alberta Canada 1

Edmonton Skyline - Edmonton, Alberta Canada 3

Edmonton Skyline – Edmonton, Alberta Canada 3

Skyline - Edmonton, Alberta - Canada 4

Skyline – Edmonton, Alberta – Canada 4

I dropped them off. Edmonton’s Commonwealth Stadium now held them – my wife, our daughter and our daughter’s friend – tickets, purchased last November; the event, a One Direction concert.

I began looking for possible photographs – different subjects presented themselves. I got out of our truck opposite Strathcona Composite School and had a look at a rat rod parked outside a gym on the southbound Calgary trail – very minimalistic in design and with little to draw the eye. I moved on. On Jasper Avenue the Gibson Building has always been an interesting subject to photograph – a building built to accommodate the wedge or pie piece shape of the land beneath it. But for the last eighteen months a neighboring construction zone has interfered with its presentation; I would need a fish eye lens to make something of the building without capturing the construction site. A photograph would not be viable today. Later, I had a good walk through the John Walter museum and gathered more information about the area and the history of one of the Walterdale homes I had photographed months before. There, in walking back to my truck, I ran into one of my daughter’s friends from her dance company – she was staying with grandparents and had recognized me. We said our hellos; I chatted with her and her granddad and we parted.

The evening clouded over. As the sun moved into its golden hour, I got to the Riverdale bike bridge and began gathering the shots above of the Edmonton Skyline. People walking by offered encouragement and saw the photographer’s opportunity of reddening clouds. One Direction’s music could be heard in the distance – people wondered if the music was part of the Taste of Edmonton event that was also going on, currently. In wind, spitting rain and cloud, wiping the lens with lens cloth regularly I gathered these images.

Quote to Consider – within the intention of ‘In My Back Pocket – Photography,’ has been the movement toward the seamless ‘See, Think, Do’ of image capture and image making. The following image conveys something similar and is found in Franz Kafka’s ‘The Wish to Be a Red Indian;’ “If one were only an Indian, instantly alert, and on a racing horse, leaning against the wind, kept on quivering jerkily over the quivering ground, until one shed one’s spurs, for there needed no spurs, threw away the reins, for there needed no reins, and hardly saw that the land before one was smoothly short heath when horse’s neck and head would be already gone.” Liking this … sort of what photography can become, response.

Listening to – Maeve Binchy’s ‘A Week in Winter’ for the long drive to and from Edmonton.

The Practical – Practically

Canon Camera, Canon Lens, Canon Live View, High Dynamic Range (HDR), Homestead, Light Intensity, Photography & Conceptualizing Beauty, Project 365 - Photo-a-day, Spring, Still Life
Gull Lake Homestead - Up Close, Fort Vermilion, Alberta Canada 1

Gull Lake Homestead – Up Close, Fort Vermilion, Alberta Canada 1

Gull Lake Homestead - Up Close, Fort Vermilion, Alberta Canada 2

Gull Lake Homestead – Up Close, Fort Vermilion, Alberta Canada 2

Gull Lake Homestead - Up Close, Fort Vermilion, Alberta Canada 3

Gull Lake Homestead – Up Close, Fort Vermilion, Alberta Canada 3

Dave Brosha offered a photography workshop last spring in Fort Vermilion, Alberta. One day was devoted to portrait photography; another was about landscape photography. The workshop allowed for many practical demonstrations (talked through practically) and for us to review and critique our photographs together as a group. There was also the encouragement to get together and get out as a shooting group. We had opportunities to watch Dave edit using Adobe Lightroom and one of the surprises that I’ve held onto was that the erase function (a circle area that you direct within the image to eliminate things like dust spots could be dragged instead of only clicked on much like an eraser to erase areas of the image). The images presented here are from our landscape work and in the Gull Lake homestead picture I’ve been able to remove a person from the photo with the erase function.

Gratitude – thank you, Dave. It was good to meet you and to witness your energy and approach as a photographer. It was good to take you into Buttertown to the St. Louis Catholic mission, a place that had been part of distant childhood memories for you with your Dad. Take good care of your good self.

Listening to – the Verve’s ‘Bittersweet Symphony,’ U2’s ‘In God’s Country,’ Coldplay’s ‘Life in Technicolor’ and Depeche Mode’s ‘Policy of Truth.’

Quote to Consider – “There is only you and your camera. The limitations in your photography are in yourself, for what we see is what we are.” – Ernst Haas (1921-1986)