Keith's Odyssey to Planet Fitness: Second summer browns

Thursday, February 12, 2026

Second summer browns

We are in the middle of second summer just now. Or maybe brown season, as some photographers call it. Lots of brown grass, bare trees, and a bit of dirty ice lurking on the footpaths where the snow had been packed down. The evergreen trees are dusty. And yet if you look, there are interesting photos to be had. This is from the Waterton ramble nearly a month ago now.

I've been out a few times with the big film camera, working on the 2026 project. Carefully. There's still lots of ice buried under the grass, and I don't want to find out the hard (wet) way how thin the river ice is. Last year I was exploring along the Elbow river and tried to walk down a slope that looked bare and dry. Not! Just under the dry surface was a thin layer of mud with ice under that. I went down pretty hard, but didn't break anything.

Tonight is a date night, going to cSpace for the Camera Store exhibition opening. They've got all 4 floors, and it looks like there's going to be a bunch of people I know. Then tomorrow I'll be going to the SAIT darkroom opening in Inglewood. Both of these are part of the Exposure Festival. Should be fun. Hope to see you there.

And for those of you who love my friend Sean's photos, he is off on another mega-ramble in a few days, starting with a series of flights that hurt my brain to even think about. I'm pretty sure they'd have to carry me off the plane afterward.

The New Brunswick book is proceeding. I got stuck in the middle, so I picked the photos I wanted to end with, and made some progress there. Every now and then I need to remind myself that everything is still a draft. I can put photos and text in, move them around easily, see what flows or not, and remove photos if that seems right. I'd picked a batch of about 90 photos to start with, and have already found that some of them go with other's that didn't make that cut. I'm back and forth between Lightroom and Bookwright. No idea when I'll be done, and even then I might let it sit and marinate a bit, as I wait for a Blurb sale.

Oh, and a followup medical appointment after a few more tests indicates the problem number is trending back down again, which is reassuring. Then we'll see how things look in 6 months.

A couple of buddies have started running again, which was a distinct surprise to me. I'm not, in case you were wondering. Trying to get regular in the pool again, but it's a struggle. On that front I heard a new word to me the other day. "Rucking." At first I thought it was something lewd, but that's just my dirty mind.

I'm doing less of that than I have in the past, mainly because now I'm going to carry only one camera with one lens, not a pack full of gear just in case I want to use it. And yes, there's times I've thought to myself, 'oh crap, the right lens for this photo is back at the house.' Oh well. The choice becomes to do the best I can with the gear in hand, or think about how much risk I want to take to get to the right spot, or do a series of photos to build into a panorama, or find another related photo, or maybe just sigh and enjoy the moment.

We had an evening of fabulous sunset clouds last week. I scrambled out with the camera and made the most of it. The fun thing was that a family who had been playing nearby came over and said hello. He turned out to be a photographer from UK visiting his daughter and grandchild. He'd never seen skies quite like this. (Hi Paul!)