In which John explores a library and starts to get his groove back

I’ve always had a fascination with libraries (and bookstores as the good lady wife will attest to). When I had the chance, through the Coffee and Cameras program put on by The Camera Store, to explore the New Calgary Public Library without any of the general public around I leapt at it.

Along with about 25 other folks I was able to spend 3 hours wandering the library unrestricted. Some brought tripods and flashes. I shot hand held for three glorious hours and, even better, I got into the zone a few times.

I’ve been thinking a lot about how I’ve been approaching how I shoot. If you’ve been following the “whole rotten saga” of my existential angst about making images you’ll see what I mean. Oddly enough, as if to prove the old saying “the teacher will come when the student is ready”, I got an an e-mail from Dave Duchemin announcing the 10th anniversary edition of “Within The Frame.” I have the original version but I like to support Dave so I bought it along with his other book “The Soul of The Camera.” I’d also been reading “The Practice of Contemplative Photography” and these two books gave me the figurative “slap upside the haid” that I needed.

At the New CPL I approached the library with no preconceived notions of what I was what images I was going to make. I even gave myself permission to make no images.

Wait, what? Make no images? Are you on glue? What’s the point of getting up early on a Sunday morning then? What’s the point of paying for 3 hours of access to the most innovative building in Calgary? Simple: letting go of the pressure to create, to produce. You can then silence that always chattering, problem solving part of the brain and open your senses to the potential images that may be created.

By silencing the old chatterbox I was able to be patient and wait until I could truly see the building. By silencing the old chatterbox I could be mindful and reflect on the essence of the building and use that as a starting point and literally dance with the building: listening to what it has to tell you. When you reach this sort of melding with a subject you begin to transcribe its essence (and yours) into a collaborative work that combines the essence of the subject and your state of consciousness into something, one hopes, creative and meaningful.

I did something else as well, something I used to do all the time but some how got away from doing: limbering up. Musicians do it, athletes do it, maybe even educated fleas do it. I parked the truck a few blocks east of the library and pulled out the camera. Getting the first shot out of the way really helps. You start to sketch, you tickle the ivory, do the sound check and after a bit it starts to come. First the National Music Centre

National Music Centre

Then the refurbished King Eddy (a gentrified shadow of its former self, I like the Blues Can better).

The King Eddy

And then the Enmax District Energy Centre.

Enmax District Energy Centre

By now, even though my fingers were freezing, my heel blister shrieking to “Shtaaaap!” everything was popping.

Waiting for Luke’s to open I wandered around some more

Photographer

Cross

And then inside. I didn’t set out to photograph any specific aspect of the building, I just responded to what caught my eye; often out of the corner of my eye. When, several days later I looked at what I had, I noticed an overall theme had evolved: abstraction and pattern.

Atrium

Quiet Reading Room Ceiling Detail

Quiet Reading Room, Ceiling Detail

Atrium Ceiling Detail

Child’s Toy, Childrens’ Play Area

The whole gallery is here:

Calgary Communities: New Calgary Public Library

I'm spending a lot of time experimenting with ON1 2019 Effects, Silver Efex and DxO Filmpack so that's why there are duplicates.

My oh my! It’s so nice to feel that groove coming back. Oh what a feeling, Oh what a rush.

Special Shout Out

Many thanks to the staff of The Camera Store for organizing these expeditions. It's a lot of work pulling these events together and then herding the cats. Peter needs to give you raises. Thank you!

If You Can't Shoot With the One You Love Honey…

Shoot With the One You're With

I don’t like carrying a camera around when I’m out and about with my better three-quarters. She flies and when she’s home, I’d rather be looking at her than through a viewfinder. Sometimes though there’s an image that’s screaming to be made.

Calgary has a new public library designed by Snøhetta. It’s a wonderful structure and replaces a decaying building across from City Hall. Light and airy, it maintains a sense of intimacy and even with high ceilings and even with an open plan quiet, even when full of people.

We had coffee at Luke’s (not the main floor cafe, but the one right inside the collection area) and spent a wonderful afternoon wandering through the building. We went from top to bottom and then the light went “boink”. I turned to my wife and said: “Sorry love, the light.” and dashed out to the entrance.

The main entrance is an arched tunnel lined with wood and is supposed to connect downtown and the East Village (a formerly rundown area in the midst of redevelopment). The arches reflect the Chinook arches that form here during the winter when the winds from the big ocean tumble down from the Rockies. In reality, the tunnel connects the backside of the Big Blue Playpen (New City Hall), the rail yards and the East Village. Downtown is about 3 blocks away. But hey, as an architect’s statement it’s no more arty bollocks than any any other architect’s statement.

The alignment of the passageway and the sun was right on. It was the golden hour (yes, 4:15 in the afternoon is the golden hour in November): the colour of the wood and the shadows of the passersby was in a word “WOW!”

OH NOES! No camera. Wait, iPhone 6s, 645 Pro app, problem solved. This app is probably the best camera app out there and it’s one of the reasons I’ve stuck with the iPhone ecosystem for as long as I have. If there was an equivalent for Android, I’d have switched a long time ago.

I made these three images. I’ve also posted the monochrome versions that I made using NIK Silver Efex. I do shoot all my cameras as RAW + Monochrome JPEG and 645 Pro is no exception. In this case I didn’t like the render so I used NIK instead. I had to work fast as figured I had about 15 minutes of light and couldn’t be arsed to fiddle fart about. This is one of those cases where “we’ll fix it in post, get the images first!”

Shadows, New Calgary Public Library

Shadows, New Calgary Public Library

Skaters, New Calgary Public Library

Skaters, New Calgary Public Library

Arches, New Calgary Public Library

Arches, New Calgary Public Library

You couldn’t have predicted it, you could have sat there day after day waiting but, with a chinook arch (ironically enough) overhead and the sun sliding behind the mountains flooding the tunnel with light the camera god looked down and smiled.

Not fantastic images, but a very good example of timing, luck and

Working Stiffs

It's been a while since I've written anything about, let done anything with a backlog of images dating to summer of last year.

First some background. My day job was (note the use of the word was) working as a flight coordinator for a charter airline. The airline flew oil company personnel to and from work sites in Northern Alberta and British Columbia. With the current geopolitical situation driving oil prices to below the costs of production (let's face it, the Western Sedimentary Basin and the Oil Sands are not low cost production environments) the flying started to slow down and my shift switched from a four on, four off rotation to three days on the weekends. All well and good. I had to do something productive with my time so I took in upon myself to write a boat load of software (something I did in a previous life, back when dinosaurs ruled and Borland was still a real company) for the OCC to streamline our operations, revamp the operations handbook and develop a series of online courses. Oddly enough this kinda sapped any creative juices I had left and I only photographed in fits and starts.

Well, as you can surmise, the flying kept going down and I got laid off about two weeks ago. No big deal, shit happens. I'll just re-invent myself, again (even though it is getting a litle stale, this re-inventing business, it being the third or fourth time; I've lost count).

Wouldn't you know it, I was able to return to the backlog and there, the creative juices started to flow. I noticed that I had a quite a few images of the working man, the guy that BTO sang about in opening verse "Takin' Care of Business". You know the ones: the ones who deliver the beer, make sure the traffic flows, make sure that the lads don't get out of control. The ones who build our buildings, clean our streets, catch our fish. I went back to some off my older images, and found a seam of hard working souls that had gone unrecognized.

I'll be adding to this collection and what is in the post gallery will change over time as images get added and deleted as the concept unfold.

After the parade, the sweeper comes always comes out. It's a tiresome job and it never seems to end.

Sweeper

New York cops, like the boys from Joisey have a natural knack for hanging out. These guys in Times Square on a hot and very muggy evening were watching the usual goings on with a sense of ennui that only comes from having seen it all night after night after night.

Another Night at Times Square

Steveston Docks is where you can buy fresh fish in Vancouver, right off the boat. It was one of those cold, damp, foggy days; the Scots would call it dreich. This fisherman kept warm by a space heater at his feet and bundled up in a parka was selling this morning's catch of spotted shrimp

Shrimp on Ice

Calgary has its dreich days as well, usually in early March when the rain is mixed with wet snow. This delivery driver is loading up in Chinatown with beef from a hole in the wall butcher shop.

Beef

Finally, this old timer was photographed in Nobleford, Alberta. He's retired, but had worked as a rig hand across the Prairies and from north of the Arctic Circle down to the Middle East. We spent a pleasant while yarning about the patch (I've worked the rigs too) and I was able to make this image.

Rig Hand

So here's to all those folks: the ones who make sure things get done. 

You can view the project here.

Backlog IV - The Last Bits

These three images don't really seem to fit in anywhere, yet. When I finished processing my backlog I had a clutch of images that didn't really fit anywhere. Over time these images may find their way into an evolving theme that I don't know that is evolving. 

The first two are tied, somewhat tenuously, by motion. The first one is a bakery at Granville Island. I really enjoyed dancing with the counter staff, reacting to their energy and becoming part of their choreographed motions. 

Our Daily Bread

This field is where Ernest Manning High School once was. It's now just a blasted heath as a result of the Westline LRT in Calgary; I have now idea what the city has in store for it. While I was on leave I had been driving my daughter to school and on the trip home this remnant of what was once a place of learning kept tweaking at me. It kept reminding me of some housing estate in Scotland; all what was missing was DI Rebus.

Finally, one rainy September morning everything came together; I had time, I had my cameras with me and I was feeling just right. I worked the perimters of the field and then as I was crouching down to take a shot of the pathway to the LRT station, these kids came running by; click, click, click. They actually apologized for running into the shot. I wish I could thank them and give them this image as they made the shot.

On the Run

The last one is the last "triste" image I think I'll take for a long time. I'm done with that, I think. I took this just as I was starting therapy and I was a truly emotional low. It was a grey, dull day and I almost didn't go out shooting but I set myself a challenge to make the light work for me. Wandering around the Glenmore Dam I came across a barricade to prevent people from skateboarding on the balustrade along the top of the dam. It's a nothing picture really; yet to me it reflected the barrier I was feeling looking out at the rest of the world.

You Shall Not Pass

With the backlog done, I can start working on projects anew. It was important to work through and reflect on these images as they were taken during a fairly tumultuous time of my life. Now however, it’s time to move on. This coming weekend I’ll be back at my old stamping ground, Heritage Park doing some more infill shooting.

Technical Notes

All of these were with a Leica M-E. The first two were shot using a Zeiss Biogon 35/2.8 and the latter with a Summicron 50/2.0.  Processing was done in LightRoom and b/w conversion done in SilverFX 2.0.

Backlog III - Break and a Smoke (and some mangled metaphors)

Part of my backlog is a large number of images that I've taken at one of my regular fishing holes in downtown Calgary: Stephen Avenue Mall. As I've said before the Mall is Calgary's living room (there, I've totally mixed my metaphors now) and always (let's see if I can mix it up even more) a happy hunting ground.

Some days I return empty handed, other days I return with my creel overflowing but most days, one image will be my take. I find that there about three spots that are worth setting up shop and casting for a while gives me good results.

Reviewing some of my backlog I found that I had several images that were reflective of "Break and a Smoke".

Export "A"

Early Morning Smoke

Poutine and Chop Sticks

Finally, a color image. This grabbed me as it was a perfectly good tubesteak left on a bench with a Pepsi to wash it down. I'm not sure where the diner went, it looks like they left in a hurry.

Break Over

Technical Notes

All of these images where captured using an Olympus E-P2 and the 45/1.8 lens. This is a really potent combination and while many like wide for the street, I like the portrait focal length. Processing in Lightroom and then into SilverFX 2 for the b/w images.