Jan. 31 – Committed to the Resolution

It's not the picture, rather the commitment to the task.

Location: Ruth's Ridge from Road 88N
Time: 21:37:30
Temperature: -24° C.
Winds: WNW 13 km/hr
Windchill: -33
Humidity: 61%

Jan. 30 – Snowed Out

Returned from Riding Mountain National Park to Ruth's Ridge at about 2 p.m. this afternoon... snowed out as expected. After 75 minutes of snowblowing the 150 yards of driveway and garage approach, the car was again back in the stable.

Jan. 29 – Granddaughter, Kate

What with my having not seen Kate too often over the past 18 months since her birth (due to the housebuilding project), she's both intrigued and tentative about the growly-voiced, mustachioed old man.

Jan. 28 – Treeline, Riding Mountain Nat'l Park

The morning after a 6" (15 cm) snowfall across most of southern Manitoba. Outside the home of our son-in-law & daughter, Pete & Allison Sinkins, at Moon Lake District office just south of Dauphin.

Jan. 27 – Back Yard, Ruth's Ridge

Jan 26 – Red Barn on #236

With a hint of spring in the weather.

Jan. 25 – From gloze to GNVQ

Lectern courtesy of St. John's Anglican in the Balmoral area. Now Jim & Johanna Rodger's dictionary stand.

Jan. 24 – Mom's Old Flour Shaker

Jan. 23 – Niece @ the Manitoba Museum

Our niece mugging a prehistoric skull.

Photo removed.

Jan. 22 – Sunrise in the Great Room

Jan. 21 – Sunset over Woodpeckers' Tree

Jan. 20 – Old Harvester in Snow

Jan. 19 – The East Pasture, at a Three-Hour Interval

It's my blog, and break the rules if I want to.

Jan. 18 – Homemade Egg Noodles

Busy day. Friends are expecting a meal of homemade Chicken Noodle Soup with homemade egg noodles tomorrow. Given the cold temperatures outdoors, the dogged photographer sniffs out his prey within his sheltered, homemade environs.

Jan. 17 – Winter's Waves off the Ridge

The wondrous winter light caught these undulating snow ridges for most of the day; kept me from other tasks. The sombre side of this high-key image is that the snow in the field – a field that ended the Fall covered in sodden ponds – is knee-deep. There's going to be an unbelievable amount of runoff this spring. Let's postulate "the flood of the millennium."

Jan. 16 – Cole, at 26

Two minutes before the stroke of midnight. Seeing again that Cole is as uneasy as his Dad when face-on with a camera. A too hasty shot to commemorate Cole's birthday, preceded by an afternoon of snacking, talking, then supping bowls of chicken noodle soup, wining, playing Cranium. Happy birthday, beloved son.

Jan. 15 – Morning Light

Time to start getting off the yard for a few shots. Today, though, the priority was tiling the kitchen backsplash, so it's a non-inspired grab-n-grin.

Jan. 14 – Hoarfrost, for Billie

Jan. 13 – Winter's Player Piano Roll

Okay, many won't know what a piano roll is or what its use. This is actually the snow overlying our verandah. Just being playfully desperate on another very dull and busy day.

Jan. 12 – Chickadee

The hoarfrost may have made a winter wonderland of places like Winnipeg, but today was dull, dull, dull light up on Ruth's Ridge. That environmental fact, combined with the urgency to move casing and baseboard installation forward limited my focus on photography. This is a soft image of Chickadee having just launched from the feeder. But at least a photograph was taken today.

Jan. 11 – Snow-Crowned Grasses

I bought the original Lumix LX1 because of its Leica lens and RAW format capability (US $575 from B&H Photo Video – ouch). Except in bright light conditions, its processing engine did a lousy job with colour noise, etc. so I shelved it in favour of a Canon SD850. Then my father borrowed it for awhile. Recently, he returned it and I decided to give it another go. Here's what it does in bright light @ ISO 80.

Jan. 10 – Woodpecker

Jan. 9 – Front Door á la Mondrian

One aspect of this exercise – "photograph one new image each day" – is to choose only one image. (Side-note: the advent of digital capture has made the act of choosing all the more important, given how quickly and cheaply images can be amassed.) The photo of the glass in our front door is not as good as the beautiful light in our snowy front yard at the same point in time, but it demonstrates at attempt to look beyond the obvious.

Jan. 8 – Sun on Snow

The challenge of holding detail in sunlit snow – both in scenics and close-ups.

Jan. 7 – Frogs

Scavenging for subjects on another very dull day. The forecaster is suggesting sun for tomorrow.

Jan. 6 – Self Portrait

The lens I'm holding is a Goerz Patent 6 In. Double Anastigmat f: 7.7 with additional markings, "No. 3495 Ross, London." While this lens stops down to f: 64, I am still three years and six weeks from qualifying for that illustrious and select club, bags under the eyes notwithstanding.

Jan. 5 – Nabob Pepper Shaker

Jan. 4 – Sadie

Jan. 3 – Dusk on Road 88N

Jan. 2 – Sunrise in the Loft

Jan. 1 – Chair & Christmas Stocking

Working My Way Back to the Future

A notorious Manitoba television personality was one "Cactus" Jack Wells, who often referred to himself as "the ol' dobserver." Now, as the end of my 61st year looms, I hope to make that descriptor my own. I have rarely been more at peace than those times when observing the world through a camera lens. One of my mantras has been, "I just want to see," that seeing being more than just ocular. I have resolved to hone my photographic interests from hereon in.

The stripped-down and slightly harsh truth is that I have been a dilettante for too much of my life. This fact can be seen in my working life, my avocational interests and, sadly, even in some of my relationships.

My children, K. Jill Peters and Cole Peters, have also seen fit to pursue "creative" lives. I won't be so vain (or self-chastising) as to suggest they followed my example. Unlike me, both of them have demonstrated the willingness and commitment to immerse themselves in the educational and practice components to advance themselves beyond the level of dilettante. Jill persisted against some outrageous academic circumstances to obtain her BFA before launching a career as a fine jeweller. Cole was, from the age of 14 through 18, completely immersed in graphic design. A flirtation with turntablism sidelined that focus, but then he decided on photography and threw himself wholly into it. After taking the same Red River course I did, he continued to research, study and practice his craft. In the process, he has gained a deep appreciation for the history of the medium that informs his development as a considered photographer. All of the foregoing to demonstrate that children can go their parents one better, and that I am much relieved that their entry into the financially unreliable world of the arts is informed by a broader and deeper foundation than I laid.

Okay, so self-deprecation aside, photography has been an abiding preoccupation for close to 50 years. It was spawned by my father's interest in documenting holidays and family events, persisted through my school years, flourished through the '70s, languished somewhat in the '80s, then began to show signs of life again in the '90s. Over the past 20 years, however, the need to earn a living, to help raise two – then five – children, the end of one marriage and the beginning of another gave me all the excuses I needed not to hone my ongoing passion.

Again, that's a bit harsh, I suppose, because I did discover the joy of – and my facility with – the digital darkroom about 10 years ago. As I mentioned in my companion blog (oneoldphotographperday.blogspot.com), I was thrilled to discover that technically I had been very good at film exposure and developing; it was my wet darkroom skills that seemed incapable of finesse. The purchase of a film scanner and learning the rudiments of PhotoShop vaulted my printmaking abilities to a whole new level.

But the first prerequisite in photography is a keen, insightful eye. As with virtuoso musical performance, there is no substitute for regular, rigorous practice. This I have not done for 30 years.

Practice is what this blog is about. I'm going to go out on a safe limb here and state that many of the forthcoming photographs will be of limited interest or "artistic" merit, but they will hopefully be the start of a new, strong foundation and the honing of clearer photographic vision.

Open, Empty, Serene, Accepting, Grateful.

Thus far, I have photographed every day of 2011. I'll start posting images within the next couple of days.