Into The Foto: Night Patrol

Blessed Snow Pile

There was no clapping of a perky tour director’s hands or cheery exhortations for us to line up. Just a nod between everybody and a quiet “Well, let's get at it.” Beers finished, tabs settled and like a platoon going on patrol we prepare our cameras, hoisting bags of equipment onto our shoulders and form up outside.

We spread out into the night, photonic warriors hunting for images. Point, flank and drag: we patrol the streets – cameras nosing back and forth, looking, sniffing. An image? Perhaps. Work it. Shutters snicking like automatic fire and then silence. Further into the night, through the deserted streets we wander. Suddenly a flash illuminates the dark. More images found and captured.

Then, as quickly as we formed up, we are at the next encampment. Bags are unslung, field jackets are removed and beer is ordered. The conversation drifts to the images captured, what gear crapped out, what worked, what didn’t. Shots not taken as important as those that were. We share our photonic prisoners held captive on our memory cards.

Another The Camera Store “Beer & Cameras” is over until the next time. Luckily, it was relatively warm that night considering the next day the overnight temperatures went to -20 or so and stayed there until mid-March. I was glad of the chance to make some images before having to hibernate, yet again.

With the exception of “Street Corner” all of these are all straight OOC with only minor lens adjustments and crops to my two preferred formats, 8x10 and 1x1. “Street Corner” was processed in NIK dFine and NIK Silver Efex.

When I made the “Blessed Snow Pile” and “Calgary Tower, Circle K” images I wasn't expecting to see any lens flare at all; both were made with my Leica so I didn't see anything in the viewfinder. I'm glad it's there as the flare has added some interest to what are perhaps bland images.