May’s Digital Postcard
May has been a bit of a dry month for me photographic wise. Many things on the go at once and never enough hours in the day to get everything done. The beginning of the was a cemetery update with a bunch of great people, who like me love to wonder through a cemetery. This little outing has turned into a long term project of transcribing old death registrations with research to go with it. The research has found a tragic family story of diphtheria wiping out an entire family to the finding of a Home Child and an update to the British Home Children’s Database. It has become a bit of an obsession.
The middle of May was the mid point of my artist registency. I have spent many hours learning and reworking ideas. Changing projects more times than I can count and just plain having fun. It is a great community to be part of and look forward to possible future projects and possible photography work. I promised, July’s Digital Postcard will be all about this adventure.
Spring has been a bit late in my part of the world. Would you believe over the last 24 hours, Lake Louise has gone snow and the ski hills won’t be closed anytime soon. The gardens around Calgary are behind too but that means I will have more time to watch spring grow. The two gardens I love to frequent are two very old gardens; The Deane Garden has been around for alway 100 years and Reader Rock as been around for also most 75 years. I will have to check those dates but I think I am close. But both are growing beautifully.
The “hands-on” approach of creating images. Not sure if you can call it “hands-on” but I like to think of it that way. It is more of a thinking than clicking process, the placement of the subject and a waiting game … I guess in a small way it is like film. A turmeric print takes a few steps from start to finish. From setting up the solution and painting on the surface what ever you are going to print on. To the collecting and placement of what you are going to print. And then to exposure it outside in the sun for a certain amount of time. Then you rinse off the turmeric solution. So with all that being said, sometimes the subject works and sometimes it doesn’t but its so much fun to see what you get!! The one thing I did learn from this little experiment . . . doesn’t work in the rain, hahah!!
One of the last things I did this month was to make a trip down the Pearce Estate Park to see how the birds were doing. It was a busy little park, loads of birds busy doing what birds do. I always try to get down just after the male Red-Winged Black Birds show up, they come before the females. Red-wings are beautiful and noisy little birds who are great fun to watch. It amazes me how many different birds are in the inner city park along the Bow River, from ducks to warblers to thrushes and so on. It is just a beautiful sound that I wait for all winter long for!!
