a daily practice

Totem - Kakaso'las

Ellen Neel was the first woman to become a North West Coast carver and among the first to achieve an international career of commissions for museums, cities, and collectors. This pole was completed in 1955 for Woodwards Department Store.

Totem II

Totem - Thunderbird House Post

This pole carved by Tony Hunt (1987)to replace an older pole by Kwakwaka'wakw carver Charlie James in the early 1900's.

Totem

I wanted to experiment with cross processing (briefly: processing, in this case Fuji Astia slide film in a C41 chemical protocol (the bath for print film) rather than the E6 process typically used for slide film). You can expect unexpected wild colour shifts, high contrast, and often more grainy images. I thought a good subject would be the totem poles in Stanley Park - already slightly surreal and mysterious to my (white man's) eye.

For the most part successful. These images are otherwise as is, out of the camera. I wish I had taken a few brands of slide film down that day, just for a variety of responses to each film's unique chemical makeup. And I wish I had chosen at least 400 speed film: you need to overexpose by two stops, so the camera was shooting 100asa as if it were 25asa. That meant, with a polarizer attached, and smaller apertures to preserve extended DOF, that I was limited to shooting long exposures on a tripod -- sometimes slowing down spontaneity and compositional choices.

I do like the colour harmony the technique provides across a portfolio of related images, and I love the gorgeous red coppery colour of spring foliage, and those lavender skies! The additional contrast too I find attractive. I'd like to achieve a grainier image; maybe that will come with a higher speed film?

Details: Canon Rebel G; 75-300 Canon lens; circular polarizer; tripod; Fujia Astia 100 film; cross-processed and printed. This is a scan of the print.

Academic Quadrangle, SFU

Sakura: clears vision

The end of a seven day series studying a set of japanese cherry blossom trees blooming in the midst of the city - surrounded by the Hyatt, the Bentall towers, Christ Church, and the construction of the Bell Tower. Blossoms blanket commuters emerging from the skytrain station underground.

Saturday in the park

It's cherry blossom time in Vancouver again. Caught these painters in the park last Saturday, undoubtedly working on their entries for the juried art show of plein-air painting at Van Dusen April 15/16 as part of the city's first Cherry Blossom Festival. Historically in Japan, the cherry or sakura tree inspired new music, poetry, and new art.

I'll be posting four or five images in a series over the next week.

Granville Island Yellow

My entry for the weekly Photo Friday Challenge - each week a theme is posted ("imperfect" or "emptiness" or "neighbourhood") and hundreds photographers upload their variation on that week's theme. This week: "yellow". This collage is from a walkabout of Vancouver's Granville Island last year, trying to capture the essence of the place while restricting my colour palette to the hues of yellow found in that environment.

8 windows

(25 Nov 05; 1/40sec; f/5; 220mm; Canon EOS 350D)

Wallace Shipyards #2

(24 Aug 05; 1/640sec; f/9; ISO800; 155 mm; Canon EOS 350D)