Endless Complexity of Being and Witness

Hi, this is my first picture of this entry.

In the bay, there is a person in the water of the lake among the trees between the mountains.

It is a beautiful day, but this refreshment is fed by glaciers and is cold.

And she’s coming to visit me where I cower upon the edge of a dock I photographed 4 years ago. But let us rewind a little.

This happened one evening in our town while I was finishing off ‘Platform’ by Houellebecq in August. I enjoyed all of it happening. But what I wanted to happen for most of the summer was forest fires to stop burning, roads to open and a vehicle to take me with special people to the family cabin. Well, eventually it happened.

And we were on our way.

We pulled down the soft driveway over pine needles and into silence early in the morning. It must have been nearly 3 am if it hadn’t already passed.

And in the following day I watched my nephew, Weston, crawl around the same grounds, picking up the same sticks and tripping over the same veins of the earth that I once had during the same age.

Because it’s an isolated environment many things never leave and seem to last forever, like toys, and so he set to fill the same trucks with the same dirt I used to haul in my childhood.

I think it was actually one of the strongest emotions I’ve ever felt.

And here I am at this dock again…

So I thought I’d wander around and raise the elbows at various objects. The condition of this tree actually makes me a little nervous. This point of view betrays the scary angle its hanging at today. The Gun Lake Noise-Makers is us, my family, or at least it used to be back in the 70s. Most of the noise seems to have come before my time.

The trucks used to roll across here for sure, among the alien moss and fungus formations.

He’s new.

He is not.

Think I edited these when my eyes were crossed.

The dump truck has a lever with that ball attached on the end and it manipulates the angle of the truck bed. The truck on the right has foam paddles attached to the front axle and when it rolls it scoops things up from the ground back in to the bed of the truck from underneath. In my opinion these are both good ideas for toy trucks.

My sister was hunting through the past too.

Although we don’t see much of a sunset from our position on the lake, later in the day a tranquil ambiance descends as the light reflects gently off the water.

While our first evening set in we brought out some beer. Somebody was a little anxious cracking theirs.

Lacking the thought of something to play I motioned that we take a simple chord progression from a Nightwish song and turn it into a wilderness folk-jam.

No, I didn’t sing it.

We made fajitas for dinner.

Although this is now ‘the kitchen’ now, there used to be 4 dirt bikes lined up in this corner all my life. They made good towel racks, said my sister.

The art did not evade me for long.

This place is looking a lot different than it did four years ago.

But I guess being there in the fall helped to bare the trees for the light. Also I had bigger balls, shooting wide open.

Maybe that one would make more sense during a different season or at a better time of day.

All of this has happened before, and all of this will happen again.

If it was the light before noon that gave me trouble it, it gave me other things as well.

Something quite anonymous.

Another structure, less anonymous.

Having wandered a while I wanted next to be stationary and shoot at some cans.

The look of failure.

More super-productive jamming happened throughout our stay.

And on the last afternoon there we realized something.

Weston will feed a horse all day long.

It doesn’t really matter if the horse is not real, or if all he’s got to feed the horse with is branches and dirt.

We went for a walk and I managed to convince my sister it would be a good idea to wear the horse for a while.

If ever a photo needed to be printed, framed and hung on the wall…

Hmm, nice moment to reflect upon.

He was completely uninterested in becoming the horse, unfortunately. Not that I blame him, it’s a rather isolating and claustrophobic environment to be in.

Putting things in your mouth though, you usually can’t beat that for a good time.

We stayed at the cabin for 4 nights. Just enough time to finally unwind and be comfortable, then it’s time to pack up and leave. And we had planned to leave at 11 am! Well in the morning I asked Randall to give some assistance making some artistic portraits. Especially because inside I had found in a stack of children’s books this book titled ‘Horses’. I thought it’d kind of be just like a dude sitting on the porch reading ‘People’ magazine.

I knew the light at that angle wasn’t going to work so I gave my position a turn and got a bit sophisticated.

On the road back home, just outside the town of Lillooet it was necessary to make a brief stop.

The horse child had an accident keeping his breakfast stored in his stomach. He got cleaned up and the remains were buried in the gravel.

Spirits were raised.

It almost seemed like he was emulating me there.

Nearly 7 hours later we were back to civilization.

A gesture which speaks volumes.

I think that’s it for now. Thanks for having this party with me. Bye.

Somebody I know got their long lusted iPhone this summer. My bookmark’s on the table. It is recognizable to the scholars among us.

I decided one morning that making photographs of the bees might be a good idea. You can’t really make them out here but I promise they are there.

Okay, that’s a personal favourite. Fuck the haters. You’re jealous and you want to be me.

Something is always missing from the standard flower photographs.

“Human beings must have had a lot of courage to colonize cold regions.” You can’t read it but if I printed it large enough you would. Or if you read that book. (which you should)

I guess I was someones passenger. QQ the SLR times. We do what we gotta do when the Leica quits us like a lady.

Such as, take photos of the ground. It’s the shoegaze of photography.

In August I met the father and the lady for lunch. Pretty without any attempt.

While we sat there, music was playing on the street not 20 yards away. Of course I was tempted hither with glass and acetate.

This band is called DRMHLLR. They left an impression, or I guess I would not have left the patio table to steal their souls.

Those digital adjustments were inspired by deviantart. Wee!!!!

There’s a special secret objective to this, you’re not allowed to know.

Hey, check out that ice cream truck. They wanted me to buy an ice cream REALLY bad. I said that’s way too much sugar. They said today is a great day for ice cream and sugar. I said fuck that shit, nigga!

She almost hit me in the head with the street hockey ball.

Maybe I lied, I think we’ll introduce the horse next time.

watch out for mogwai.

no feeding.’

Tonight it’s someones birthday. Mission: get drunk and see a good band.

Yes, it’s JAPANDROIDS entry 2.0. This time at the Rickshaw Theatre. If you don’t like Japandroids you have some boring scrolling to do. Sorry.

As you can tell I’m working on a project involving diversity in live music photography.

Enjoying coffee with Kev-bo and Tanya.

The following day I ran up behind them and HYPERFOCAL’D their asses. Once again demonstrating that I’m all about photography of great depth.

Here’s Kevin demonstrating how well he can focus on my shoulder/a bag of garbage. Come to think of it I’m a little disturbed that there is a bag of garbage on the counter. Here’s Randy demonstrating that he knows how to pose for spontaneous portraits.

We met with old friends that we don’t see so often.

I had a quick draw contest with Kevin in the kitchen. He’s holding a ‘retarded-bright’ EDC flashlight. 180 lumens for the nerds who care to know.

He asian’d the shit out of everyone in the house for the nerds who care to know.

Still dreaming about this show. The ticket’s on my desk next to me.

Guest guitarist on Talking In Figures. I didn’t know his name actually, but he did a beautiful thing.

Rock and roll. Over and out.

Maybe it’s not the typical time to be doing so but I did a lot of reading over the summer along with a lot of coffee drinking. Here is a summary of my cirriculum.

• Watchmen, by Alan Moore. Glad I read it but I felt let down for all the hype. On the other hand it lowered my expectations for the movie and ended up enjoying it unlike the fanatics.
• A Singular Man, by J. P. Donleavy. This guy is a virtuoso. I can’t wait to read more Donleavy.
• Beautiful Losers, by Leonard Cohen. Some great stories in here but something about this book felt dated to me, as if culture had moved on or at least I had. I bet it was amazing to read 30 or 40 years ago.
• The God Delusion, by Richard Dawkins. Not sure what to say about this but I think everyone should read it, especially you fence-sitting agnostics. As awkward as Dawkins comes across when speaking publicly, in print he has a charm which reminds us that he’s probably the most passionate and outspoken ultrageek we’ve ever known. (Note: It should go without saying that when we read books, especially books like this, we don’t read them to be told what to think, we read them to challenge and re-evaluate what we’ve thought and will think)
• The Runes of the Earth, by Stephen Donaldson. Book 7 in the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant. It was terrible and yet I’m still attached to the series for some reason. I guess it’s just because Thomas Covenant fucking rules.
• What is the What? by Dave Eggers. The story of a Sudanese refugee and his coming of age. It is disturbing and also humbling.
• Platform, by Michel Houellebecq. If he’s not my favourite author he’s the author I most wish will write more books.
• Blood Meridian, by Cormac McCarthy. One book where I feel insulting to think of using mere adjectives as description. There is a quote from this book I might talk about in a future entry as it relates to photography. Some of you may have already figured out what quote that’s going to be!

But of course I do actually have some photography to share.

Down the block from my apartment this was happening.

But that evening in Yaletown something involving a bit of drinking was also happening.

By the way, many of these wides are from my little plastic Nikon Series E 28mm f/2.8.

In most entries you’ll see them playing instruments, but this time you’ll see them chewing chicken.

We both laughed after that and I said “you know what I got, right” and he said “yes, I know what you got.”

The next thing to do was to take a little walk…

And to get back just in time to witness Jonathan extract a shot from somewhere between Tanner’s legs.

By now you might have guessed that this was Jonathan’s stag.

We continued to drink into the evening outside on the patio. f/1.4 at 1/6th. Later we went to see dancing girls and due to my camera I was refused at the door. When I eventually got inside I realized why, the girls performing at that venue bored me sober.

How to transition from the peelers to hanging out with my family gracefully? No idea really.

This photo is best without context…

Shifting gears a bit, aheh. And films, shooting 125px in the Leica and Tri-X in the F100. On the first weekend of August my mother was giving her new dragster some break-in runs at Mission Raceway.

Catching the launch.

That was the first time I really wanted to have a rapidwinder on my M.

Here’s the crew before heading down to the end of the track to guide the dragster back. That’s my grandfather on the right wondering why she didn’t hit 3rd gear on that run.

I followed him back to the trailer. My grandfather made a name for himself racing in the 60’s with a car that he built himself, the Syndicate Scuderia.

He brought the car to put on display and it was difficult to get a moment when it was not being crowded with digital cameras.

My sister was camped down near the end of the track, the only place you’d ever find some shade, but it was a long walk back and forth.

The shutter on my M drags at 1/1000 so I made one at 1/500 just to see what I could catch of a nitro funny car. That car ran 6.739s at 207.08 mph.

It had been forever since I’d seen my nephew that weekend. He loves the cars but the sun was intense, it was one of the hottest weekends of the year.

Then my mom sent us a text to let us know it was time to drive again.

When I caught up with her they were in the staging lanes. I’ve never seen my F100 overlap a frame like that before but it hasn’t happened again fortunately.

The one time I brought my F100 to the line to make use of continuous mode, she was placed in the opposite lane. Sad face.

This is almost comedic, especially if you haven’t tried to shoot something like this before. Anticipating a bit too quick, but it is a barrage of the senses, feels and sounds much more beautiful than it ever looks.

Looks like she bounced there.

And the crew setting off to meet her at the end again.

Mom wanted to run alongside him but their crew told us their car wasn’t running straight so they did seperate runs. He ran straight, but slower. Good thing for his ego I guess ;].

Lady spectating in difficult light. f/2.8 @ 1/4000.

Bringing the car back after the burnout.

Catching some air again.

Pulling back up to the trailer. She was running pretty consistently about 140mph that weekend, but I don’t remember the times. Right around 9 seconds I’m guessing.

Went to watch the funny cars from another angle. Even in the first half of the 1/4 mile you can’t stop them at 1/500.

I think my good man maybe needs some shades.

Getting some shade again with my sisters friends.

Finishing off the roll back in the city.

We had some lovely mini-taco things.