The hardly objective at all book review

It arrived! A couple days quicker than expected, and no extra shipping charges. I speak, of course, of my second book. This one.

And the fancy presentation box it came in.

I was giddy to see the UPS truck driving up, and didn't waste any time at all opening the box. The book is an oversize lay flat, 13 x 11 inches, with 69 photos over 42 pages of premium lustre paper.  

A professional layout artist might scorn what I've done here, with the images mostly centred near the spine of the book, usually 2 to a page, and a few taking up the full page. There are 4 panorama images taking up the full width of the double page, plus the one for the front and back cover. Some text is toward the outside page margins because I wanted the focus on the images, then have the eyes go outward to the text. 

I'm thrilled at how the photos have transitioned from screen to page. I took my normal screen edit from 2019, tweaked a couple of them given some of the new Lightroom tools and skills, and exported them to a working folder, and from there to a Bookwright folder. 

When you select a photo, there is a button down at the bottom called "auto image adjust". This tweaks the photo to prepare it for print. I don't know everything that it does, but it appears to brighten and sharpen the image. For almost all the photos this was a no-brainer. A few of them I went back and forth on, and left it adjusted. 

Overall, I'm really pleased at the colour and print quality! On only one image of the 69 am I not 100% happy, but then it's a tough image, and the screen edit would probably look worse. If I cold have done half the adjustment, I think it would be right. If I were to do a 2nd edition, I'd probably take another run at editing that image specifically for print myself, and not do the auto adjust. 

But then, a second edition would imply someone else wanted to buy the book. I'd be enormously flattered, and would happily do a personalized autographed copy if you wanted, though that means opening the shrink wrap. Hmmm, although I could put an image of my signature on the first page. Would that count?

However, this is an expensive book. Unless I catch a deal from Blurb, I'd have to charge you $225 plus shipping. Yes, I saw you wince. But like I said, printing any of the panorama photos would cost that much at least, and one would be at least twice that. Or think of it this way, only $3.25 a photo, and even if I do say so myself, these are gorgeous photos.

Still, if you must have one for your book shelf let me know. An edition of 10 gets a volume discount from Blurb and I'd pass that along.

Of the Day

Driftwood (NZ)

The serendipity images seem to come in waves. I haven't had one for a while, and then this blog gets two, with one of them being a double. So for the same image number you also get an ant exploring the edge of it's world, and another distressed wood and leaves composition. Some of you probably see the sperm whale with mouth agape in that one.

Driftwood (BC)

Peony

Flower

Yukon

The aurora from near Dawson City. We were right under it, which makes the view a bit less dramatic than it would be further south.

And a serendipity of Curtis! I thought I'd blogged all the edited photos of him. Or maybe I did blog it and forgot to tag it. In any case, I don't think I'm going to hear any objections. 

Film (new)

The central library during my Canada Day walk with the small film camera. This is one of the few images rescued from it seizing up.

Film (old)

July Image of the Month

This is going to be one of the hard months to decide. There's already been some dithering, and it isn't even August yet as I write this. I'm trying to decide between 10 images. Three are being in the right place at the right time with a camera pointed in the right direction. One is a zero setup snap shot. Two are end of roll photos with a wonderfully patient model.  Two are flower photos where I had lots of time to create the photo. One is a landscape scene with great light. One is a carefully composed reflection. Decisions, decisions.

Oddly enough, once I settled down and thought about it, IoTM was easy. Then the reflection because the more I look at it the more I like it. Then I struggled. I can give good reasons why any of the other 8 would have a place on the podium. 

2nd Runner Up

The white peony has been on the podium a number of times, and no surprise. All those ruffles, add some water drops, and halfway nice light, and you've got a good photo. Add in the future of the blossom, wondering what the two might say to each other if they could talk, and I think that puts the photo just a bit ahead of a steam train photo, or a southern Alberta landscape in sunset light. Interested readers can probably find those two photo without much difficulty, and can tell me why they think one of them should be here, instead of these.

1st Runner Up 

One of the photos during a walk in Fish Creek with a new to me EOS-3 film camera loaded with HP5+. I was looking for nature scenes with a variety of light, and the reflections were a bonus. The thumbnail below doesn't show much detail in the shadows, but they're there in the embiggened version. You can see more photos from this roll here. 

Image of the Month

You can find the story that goes with this owl here. 

A new colourful cultural experience

Let's start by saying that yesterday Michelle and I attended the public event part of the Tsuut'inna Nation Pow-wow. There's a lot to unpack here, and context is everything.

I've lived next to the nation for 40 years, but know little about the people. That's on me. As far as I know I have no indigenous heritage, and acknowledge that I was raised in a settler culture, giving me all sorts of preconceptions. I carry that around, and it's mixed with great experiences working with Indigenous summer students, along with day to day life in Calgary. For my American readers, on any random day I'm far more likely to see or interact with someone who is Indigenous, or who's ancestors came from China or India, than with someone who is Black. It's a function of where I live.

Why go to the pow-wow? I'm a curious guy. The various Indigenous peoples have been getting the shitty end of the stick essentially since Europeans came here. They are trying to overcome generations of trauma to bring back their languages and cultures. The pow-wow is one of the ways. This is where it gets complicated. Bear with me.

Let me start by saying that I went with the thought of being respectful and to learn. While I took my camera, I was determined to first find out where I could and could not use it, and what rules I should follow. I found a photographer setting up for posed portraits. He was very helpful, but didn't have the time to chat much. The important point was that outside of the grand entrance and dances in the arena, was to ask first. I shouldn't  expect to get lots of great portraits because I don't know the culture, and my potential subjects would know I don't know the culture. They would be right to question my motives and what I would do with the photo. That I think their regalia is beautiful and photogenic is meaningless to them, because each item has a cultural meaning, and they are under no obligation to explain it to me. Photography during the grand entrance and dances is fine, and that's where all the images below are from. I realize this is not a performance put on for the tourists.

It was clear this is a family event. There were numerous mentions of family relationships. The people dancing ranged from toddlers to I'm not sure how old 'golden age' is. But I liked the phrase, golden age, considering my age. The golden age dancers were some of the best, which I suppose is not a surprise given how much practice they've had the time for. Some of the dances are judged, and I was reminded of ballroom dance competitions. I saw people watching carefully, and handing in slips of paper after each dance.

I wandered around, looking at the various booths, but didn't buy anything. The words cultural appropriation came firmly to mind. It wasn't so long ago that white people could photograph anything they wanted and do whatever they wanted with the photographs. They could do the same in writing. Whatever biases they might have been carrying around infected the work they created, and then infected almost anyone viewing the work. Now we're coming to realize that some stories aren't ours to tell. I don't have the right to capture someone's image and sell it, or even display it out of context. There are entire museums full of plundered items, and the discussions about returning the items are only recently being taken seriously. 

As a side note, during the Unarchived video I saw recently, an Indigenous woman saw an archival video of a woman scraping a hide, and said that's my grandmother. She wanted a copy of the video to take home and share with her community. I was baffled and astonished that the response was not, "Sure, what format is best for you?"

There was ceremony and pageantry, and no end of colour. Even knowing little of the cultures involved, I enjoyed the day. I'm planning a trip to the Tsuut'ina cultural museum to learn more. Here's some of my photos.

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Some watery photos to cool you down

The main news is that I've finished the first draft of my next photo book. It's called Memories of Sundown at the Arctic Circle, A trip up the Dempster Highway in September 2019. Unless I come up with a better title. Right now it's 42 pages, 67 photos, several of which are panoramas taking up the entire width of the layflat book. My loyal blog readers will have seen at least some of the photos before. I need to fill out some of the stories that go with the text, but the main attraction, I hope, are the photos.

I am reminded of the 80 20 rule. During the first book I goofed on the layouts, and had lots of tweaking to do. I was more careful this time, but there's still a bit of tweaking. The whole size of the photo container vs the size of the photo is a bit of a pain in the butt.

Last week I dropped off 8 rolls of film to be developed, and as always, I can't wait to see what's on them.  While I was out and about on Canada Day with a film camera, I got asked why? The young adult couldn't get over the manual focussing, manual settings, not seeing if it was done right, waiting till the roll was done to take it out of the camera, dropping the film at the lab to be developed, waiting to get the negatives back (though I could have the developer scan them for me), scanning them myself, and then running them through Negative Lab Pro to finally, FINALLY see what is there. 

They thought it was such a hard process and took so long. But that's the point. People appreciate what they work for. There is more to photography than carrying around a camera set on auto, with the lens that someone told you was appropriate, pointed in the direction they said was a nice photo, edited by AI software.

It's been smoking hot here, and it seems everywhere else. So I thought I'd show you some photos of water captured in the last 3 months.  

1. Fish Creek in subdued light, finding out how Lomo 100 film reacted.

2. Fish Creek on a smoky day.

3. Fish Creek on Acros II film.

4. The film black and white version of #2 above.

5. Fish Creek.

6. A road trip into BC. This waterfall is just off the road to Takakkaw Falls. This is the digital version, I think I've blogged the film version that I happen to like better.

7. Takakkaw Falls.

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15. Film is Kodak Gold 200

16. Film is Kodak Gold 200

Of the Day

Driftwood (NZ)

Driftwood (BC)

Peony

Flower, One of Linda's new roses that is living near the front door.

Yukon, Miles Canyon.

Film (old) (You got lots of new film above.)