INUIT OWL CARVING

Another subject from around the house. This time a Inuit soap stone carving. This time a different approach. instead of black and white I decided to make a colour image and just like other visual artists I now have the complete freedom to decide the final outcome of my image.

COFFEE PERCOLATOR

Winter is a time to look for subject matter around you. Still interested in the work of the Pictorialists,  I photographed this simple still life of an antique coffee percolator on the dresser in our living room and recreated the style of that period in the early twentieth century.

LOCOMOTIVE

And of course we had to go and visit the old steam locomotive. Just when we arrived the wind picked up and it really started to snow. It was difficult getting around the engine because now it is really in storage. The snow was piled up around it and on the other side various items were stored next to the old machine. Anyway we did manage to get some decent images.

COLD STORAGE

These old trains have been sitting in this city storage yard for many. They are slowly deteriorating but hopefully they will be restored and displayed near the North Bay museum. In the blowing snow yesterday they added verry bright splashes of colour in an otherwise black and white landscape.

BLOWING SNOW

This morning my friend Dan and I set out on a little photo excursion. It was quite a bit warmer then it had been the last few days. of course it did not las tlong because it first started to snow then the wind picked up and we found ourselves in a complete whiteout. But we did manage to get some fine images. So all in all it did turn into a good little outing.

WINTER FENCE, ALSACE ROAD

Still too cold to wander outside. Although dan and I were going on a little photo trip to one of our favourite places on Alsace Road in Powassan. But that will have to wait a few days. So again I looked through my negative files and found a few negatives from the same area but I took these in 1990. Just recently I was looking at the early work by the great American photographer Edward Steichen, so I recreated this image in a pictorialist style so very popular around the beginning of the twentieth century.

ONE MORE

I could not resist to post one more last train image. It was a very cold and snowy evening. definitely not very good photography weather. Actually, I used my tripod for the colour picture. The film was simply not fast enough but I also made some black and white images. The light was so low that I really had to push process the film but I did like the end result.

LAST CONTINENTAL TRAIN, NORTH BAY

As I looking through my files, I came across some negatives of the last continental train arriving at the North bay railway station. It was a bitter cold night on January 14, 1990 but many people came to the station to say farewell to the last passenger train coming through this city. It was really the end of a great railway era here in Northern Ontario.

IT HAS BEEN AWHILE

It has been awhile since my last posting. There are acouple of reasons for this delay. The first one is the very cold weather we are experiencing since just before Christmas. So definitely not a great time to wander outside looking for pictures. Because of this unusually cold weather I thought this is a great time to start working on some projects I have been thinking about for some time. It is also time to look through my negative files. Some of my friends have been urging me to post pictures from these files and yes they are right and they are right I am finding many images I simply forgot. There you have it my excuse.

WINTER, PINE TREE

I have posted other pictures of this section of our back garden but just as the famous American photographer Edward Steichen was fascinated with a maple tree on his property, of which he took numerous pictures over the years resulting in a great visual photographic document of this simple tree, I keep taking pictures of this pine tree.

JANUARY THAW

All of a sudden the weather changed. This morning it started with freezing rain but later in the morning when the temperature started to rise above 0ºC it changed to rain. Again not a great time to wander around too much because it was difficult to walk with all the ice on the sidewalks and trails. I did manage to take some pictures in our backyard.

ROCK SCULPTURE

It is still too cold to go out and take photographs. Then I remembered that in the Summer I collected some rocks, which I simply liked for their rich textures and patterns. At the time I had no idea what I would do with these rocks but this week I took a few pictures and decided to make them into some large monumental natural sculpture. It was fun experimenting with these small found artworks.

WINTER BERRIES

I simply liked the bright colour of these berries adding colour to the predominantly black and white winter landscape.

IT'S COLD

This morning when I got out of bed, I checked the thermometer and it showed a temperature of -38º C. I almost crawled back in bed. Definitely not a time to venture outside.

WINTER LANDSCAPE, CUMBERLAND

Another start of a new year, but ithe beginning is rather chilly with temperatures hovering around -30ºC. Not exactly a great time to venture outside looking for pictures. So here is an image I made over the Christmas holidays at the small but wonderful outdoor museum in Cumberland. A simple image of a very textured tree contrasting with a steady rhythm of maples in the background.