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