What's going on with these trucks? Are they having a mechanical relationship? And what other mysteries might this prairie village conceal beneath a sheltering cloak of softly falling, winter-wonderland-like snow?
I was sitting in Tumbleweeds Café with my friends Joseph and Diana when the big fat flakes started drifting down, becoming thicker. After excusing myself and running home for my camera (one block), I did a walkabout with the 70-200 mm.
Photography of one's own neighbourhood is always a challenge; it's hard NOT to see the stuff of regular real life as mundane. This may be a precursor to a series I hope to upload sometime in 2020 that I will call "Photography of Ordinary Things". However, there are a great many other items lined up ahead of those, so I don't know if I will get to them.
By the way, it wasn't cold. Cold in Saskatchewan is defined by a different standard than most places, and wind is usually a key component. As you can see, the snowflakes are falling down, not sideways. No wind! The pointillist effect can be strikingly beautiful, even when the subject matter is a couple of battered old rust-buckets in some kind of conference - or confrontation - in a little village at the edge of the known world.
Photographed in Val Marie, Saskatchewan (Canada). Don't use this image on websites, blogs, or other media without explicit permission © 2020 James R. Page - all rights reserved.
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He was standing on a pink pedestal bearing the name "Floyd" - of course - but he wasn't as interesting as his namesake. His particular talent seemed to be spray painting himself pink and standing motionless while children tried to make him smile or get some other response. Well, I suppose it's a living. Sort of. I don't know why the ratty umbrella wasn't also pink; maybe he ran out of paint. I wish I hadn't clipped his feet; maybe he unnerved me.
I find photographing people more stressful than wildlife. Generally they are more dangerous, and certainly more self-conscious. Therefore a big challenge, even if I treat them as "just another wildlife species", which is my usual explanation when people appear puzzled that I would put any effort at all into people pics. Just as with bears or bison, I look for interesting behaviour. Which this definitely is.
More to come. I have a handful of candid or casual (ie. unposed) people shots lined up - broken into two handfuls, actually, and interspersed with insects. If you don't really like photos of your own species, stay tuned for the bugs!
Photographed at the inner harbour in Victoria, Vancouver Island, BC (Canada). Don't use this image on websites, blogs, or other media without explicit permission © 2019 James R. Page - all rights reserved.
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The man in the photo is Gabriel Dumont, Louis Riel's military strategist during the 1885 Northwest Rebellion in Saskatchewan. A polarizing filter can reduce reflections, but it also filters out some of the light, and I didn't have my tripod that day, so I just pressed the lens up against the display case glass for this shot.
Photographed at Batoche National Historic Site, Saskatchewan. Don't use this image on websites, blogs, or other media without explicit permission © 2017 James R. Page - all rights reserved.
Tags: display museum vertical behind glass grave marker pistol revolver oil lamp Gabriel Dumont military strategist fighter leader Métis Northwest Rebellion 1885 artifacts history Batoche National Historic Site Saskatchewan Canada copyrighted James R. Page
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We've had rain and a general cooling over the past two days, which is a relief to all. Brings to mind my trip to Banff and Jasper just over a year ago, when the weather varied from really good to really bad. Here I am scraping the very bottom of the barrel for photo ideas...
Photographed in Banff National Park, Alberta. Don't use this image on websites, blogs, or other media without explicit permission © 2016 James R. Page - all rights reserved.
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Part of a series I work on in my spare time. Right now I am trying to get some wedding pictures out on deadline, buy a new car, and mow my lawn - not necessarily in that order - so I shall probably dip into my files over the next few days, until I get a chance to process more of the recent nature & wildlife stuff.
No editorializing on this one. I've never been much of a drinker; the stuff doesn't agree with my physiology. Lucky me. Others I've known have not been so lucky.
Photographed at Val Marie, Saskatchewan. Don't use this image on websites, blogs, or other media without explicit permission © 2014 James R. Page - all rights reserved.
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