Continuing my 'Red Period'...
Japanese maple leaves, covering the no longer used out door tables out side one North Vancouver high school... and giving up their usefulness as they begin the preparation for winter and next years new cycle...

Bronica ETRS, 100mm F3.5 lens, Kodak Ektachrome VS100 film.

More of my 'Red Period'...

These two images were shot in the parking lot of 'Ames Tile' in Burnaby while waiting for my order, work and pleasure merge...
Both images, Bronica ETRS, 100mm F3.5 lens, Kodak Ektachrome 100VS film

The season of frenzied activity and the inevitable compressed deadlines has come and gone, leaving some time to reflect over the past year's events, thoughts and directions...

And over the next months my thoughts look to some new directions...
Perhaps high up on the list...

I have 'GAS' (a common male photography problem known as 'gear acquisition syndrome')
The continued debate, film and/ or digital? (Please see above!)
Digital Leica, (still not cheap enough, and 'cheap' being a relative word) or digital Nikon, (more practical perhaps but how much computing power and weight do you want to carry around) (Again see above!)

And last and most important and before I get lost in own 'personal gas',
Where do I want to take my photography?

First, images from this past fall, 'My red period'

All 3 images, Bronica ETRS, 100mm F3.5 lens, Kodak Ektachrome 100VS film

Nails...... they hold things together and in their time, slowly release things from their bond.....

Image 1 and 2, Bronica ETRS, 100mm F3.5 lens, HP4 film

We all know that the dinosaurs are extinct, but every once in awhile I catch their spirits rising from the seas...

Image 1; A bird of prey scans the sky looking for it's next meal, Nikon F2, 24mm F2.8, Toronto Distillery District.
Image 2: Another huge animal lifts it's head scanning for danger, Leica 111G, Canon 50mm F1.4, Vancouver Main Container Port.
Image 3; Powerless and still, I lay beneath the monster hopping to remain unnoticed, Leica M6, 21mm F3.5 Voigtlander, Giant Coal Loader, Neptune Terminals, North Vancouver.

The rain of fall continues and with it, new image possibilities...

Rainy images and fun with an Iphone 4.

The grey sky's have returned and a kind of silent hand has descended over the sea, leaving space and solitude...

Image 1, Bronica ETRS, 100mm F3.5 lens, Kodak Tmax 100 film
Image 2, Bronica ETRS, 40mm F4.0 lens, Kodak Tmax 100 film
Image 3, Bronica ETRS, 100mm F3.5 lens, Kodak Tmax 100 film
Roberts Creek, British Columbia

A moment in time, embracing architecture during a minor melt down...

Main Street, Vancouver, Iphone 4

Having been in the design and construction world for most of my life and it has always been a source of fascination to watch how we use and populate the buildings we have created. This interaction between architecture and people is like moving sculpture, changing and evolving by the minute and over time...

Image 1, The completed Vancouver Convention Centre with a construction crane marking the rise of a new tower behind, Leica M6, 35mm F2.0 Summicron, Fuji velvia 50 film.
Image 2, 3 and 4, Recent images around the Vancouver Convention Centre, Leica 111G, 50mm F1.4 Canon, Kodak Tmax 100 film.
Image 5, The strange spaces created by the new ROM in Toronto, Leica 1, 15mm F4.0 Voigtlander lens, Kodak TriX 400 film.

A section of Union Street in Vancouver slices through a hill side, hence, homes on one side are below the street level and on the other, significantly above the street level.
On the raised north side, the gates and stairs create their own unique language...

All images, Leica M6, 50mm F1.4 Canon lens, Kodak ektachrome 100VS film

The loneliness and struggle that must have been; sometimes we still have glimpses of those how came before us and left their mark...

Images were taken just south of  Kamloops on Highway 5a to Merrit.
1st image, Leica M6, 50mm F1.4 Canon lens, Kodak ektachrome 100VS film
2nd image, Leica M6, 100mm F3.5 Canon lens, Kodak ektachrome 100Vs film
3rd image, Leica M6, 135mm F4.0 Elmar lens, Kodak ektachrome 100Vs film

I use a ladder to reach higher then I am able...

Powell Street, Vancouver
Leica M6, 90mm F2.0 Summicron, Fuji Velvia 50 film

And I use a ladder to climb from one plane to another...

Allied Ship Yards, North Vancouver
Leica M6, 90mm F2.8 Tele Elmirit, Kodak Ektachrome VS 100 film

It has been almost a month since I posted anything... too much to do in each day and days rushing by with strands left hanging. I worry when that happens as it leaves not enough time to breathe, think and...to experience silence
But during this month my camera has not been idle... continuing to explore the idea and struggles of freedom...

And I continue to find plants a potent symbol of this struggle to grow...anywhere and in so many conditions.

Image 1, Leica M6, 50mm F1.4 Canon lens (made in the late 1950's, the poor man's Summilux), North Vancouver ship yards.
Image 2, Leica M6, 90mm, F2.8 Tele elmirit (made in Canada), North Vancouver ship yards.

Perhaps as with our need to grow and be free, is the wish to be remembered. If we are wealthy,  perhaps putting our name on a building, if we are not, maybe a grave marker somewhere.  But in the end we will be largely forgotten as new life continues onward. Hence lately I have been looking for shadows, which are but fleeting in their very nature, perhaps like us, as the world hurtles through space...

Leica M6, 90mm F2.8 Tele elmirit (Canada) lens, Kodak ektachrome VS100 film; Shadows on steps at SFU in Burnaby

The built in desire and need to grow and to be free seems to permeate all life. I look at plants, around our home and in the city, which will just about grow any where and on any thing. And in this dispute between the living and the man made we often have magic... and conflict...
magical conflict?

And we humans have a very similar desire to grow and be free...and to be remembered. In the grand scheme of things these are just images, but to see, to record, to live and breathe, to grow in what ever we do and in the end to be free, is built in to all of us, just like the plants that grow where ever they can...

Image 1, Leica M6, 90mm F2.8 Tele elmirit lens, Kodak ektachrome VS100 film, Allied Shipyards, North Vancouver.
Image 2, Bronica ETRS, 150mm F3.5 lens, Kodak ektachrome VS 100 film, Vancouver garden.
Image 3, Bronica ETRS, 150mm F3.5 lens, Kodak ektachrome VS100 film, new North Vancouver City Hall entry area sculpture. 

We made a quick trip down to Bellingham, Washington two weeks ago and surprise surprise, it is way more then shopping malls! Most of our time was spent in Fairhaven, a town bi passed by progress close to a century ago and as a result not destroyed by modern strip malls. A few images of how I saw it...

Leica M6, 90mm F2.8 Tele elmirit lens, Kodak Ektachrome VS 100 film

I will continue for awhile with the medium format thread... This time images of sea grass from Steveston on the Fraser River...

Bronica ETRS, 100mm and 150mm F3.5 lens, Kodak ektrachrome 100VS film

I haven't used my old medium format camera in awhile and I felt it needed some air. Last week as part of a meetup group, 'Vancouver Photo Walks'; 50 of us wandered around the old fishing port of Steveston settled by Japanese salmon fishermen a century ago on a site used by first nation fishermen for probably thousands of years before them. Perched on the banks of the mighty Fraser River, Steveston is now a great place to wander, share a meal or an ice cream, but the shadows of the abundant salmon runs of the past still haunt the area...

The great cannery buildings are still there leaving us some sense of what came before us...

Bronica ETRS, 150mm F3.5 lens, Fuji velvia 100 film
The colour saturation and depth of the larger negatives even leap off a computer screen, just image projected images filling the living room wall. All this from camera equipment worth probably less then $500.00