My laptop, which has been with me for at least seven years, finally stopped working the other day. She was a Toshiba. She was fabulous.
She gave me lots of signs. I should have gently put her to rest when she started giving me "Virtual Memory too Low" warnings after every upload in Photoshop CS2. I should have patted her and closed programs when I had more than one webpage running at the same time and she would freak out and load the same page 36 times. But instead, I suffered with her. I surfed the web on my iPhone while I waited for a page to load, an effect to materialize, light levels to be detected. I read pages from novels and flipped through the glossy's in magazines while I waited for her to take her sweet time.
Her on/off button had not worked in a month. So I pried at her insides with a knife to turn her on. A knife. Not the butter-knife kind of knife, but the slicing-frozen-meat kind of knife. And it worked. Until it didn't.
So finally, at 11AM on Friday November 27th, no matter how much prying and wiggling and blowing into her metallic insides I performed, she decided: "That's it, I'm done." Fair enough.
I had transferred all my photos and writing onto an external hard drive in preparation of this day. And then it came, and it was no easier. Knowing I don't have access to Photoshop made me a little crazed for a moment. Then I realized that not having an editing platform, I could focus on other things I had wanted to do other than editing photos, resizing prints for the web, sending prints to the printer, etc. I could do other creative things.
And so I picked up my camera, which has not served for artful excursions in months, and went outside. I came home hours later; cold fingers, red nosed, and invigorated. And not just because of the cold.
Before this period of enjoying the freedom of not being tied to a computer is over, I'd best be bringing home a new gal to introduce myself to. I've had my eye on something in particular. I'm going big. I'm going 27 inches big. Photoshop CS4 big. I'm a little short of breath thinking about it. One day soon, I'll bring home this beauty. I imagine our introductions will go something like this:
Pet, pet, caress.
"New computer, hello."
Tap tap, caress.
"Welcome to my home. Well, your home. We're going to spend years together abusing one another and making each other happy. Please be kind to me. I'll do my best to be gentle."
And then once I'm done dancing around her and sharing a bottle of wine with her, I'll be in an editing fever. And then I'll be in an uploading fever to share it all with you.
29.11.09
28.11.09
A name
Some people have been asking where my shop name comes from, so here’s the answer: My father’s middle name is Walter and my mother’s middle name is Helena. I honour them both in ways that are known to just the three of us, but I wanted a mode to do so that was more outright, slightly more obvious and, well, written in ink. (And I adore the juxtaposition that the terribly grumpy sounding “Walter” has against the fluid and feminine “Helena.”) So, now you know.
5.11.09
Backcountry: Riske Creek, British Columbia
This is one of the latest conglomerations in the landscape series in the same vein as the Canmore series below. I was interested in capturing the transient nature of spaces; a whirl of silent activity in the burnt brush of this reserve.
Riske Creek is an anomaly of space; hundreds of lakes and ponds along rolling hills and forests so thick that even with the whitened bark of the trees, the ground was shaded. Thousands of acres of untouched land that sees few people but biologists and horseback riders. The roads here are mere lines of brushed dirt and we had to strain at times to recognize the thin double lines ahead of the truck.
I spent the better part of a week driving in and out of this reserve. Wild horses kept the larger lakes between us and them while watching our truck roll about the holes in the trail. We kayaked the lakes and walked the cresting green of the hills. I saw the smallest wild strawberries. The medallion leaves of the trees seemed to be the only things moving at times. When there is such an expanse of space it all seems to be quieter and softer. Herds of cattle ran from us and pounded the ground with so many hooves. Hawks dark and swirling above contrasted the white-bleached rocks and stones around the saltier lakes.
Ideally, the photographs in this series will be printed to their largest scale (60 x 60 inches) so the viewer, when placing themselves in front of the canvas, can see nothing but the landscape and so be part of it. I want the colour, hue, texture, and focus to assist in bringing something to a room or a mind that was not there previously but has an air of familiarity.
The Riske Creek series was taken in the summer of 2009. I have worked on similar series' in Death Valley, Canmore, Mount Shasta, Kennedy Lake, South Washington, and Williams Lake.
Riske Creek is an anomaly of space; hundreds of lakes and ponds along rolling hills and forests so thick that even with the whitened bark of the trees, the ground was shaded. Thousands of acres of untouched land that sees few people but biologists and horseback riders. The roads here are mere lines of brushed dirt and we had to strain at times to recognize the thin double lines ahead of the truck.
I spent the better part of a week driving in and out of this reserve. Wild horses kept the larger lakes between us and them while watching our truck roll about the holes in the trail. We kayaked the lakes and walked the cresting green of the hills. I saw the smallest wild strawberries. The medallion leaves of the trees seemed to be the only things moving at times. When there is such an expanse of space it all seems to be quieter and softer. Herds of cattle ran from us and pounded the ground with so many hooves. Hawks dark and swirling above contrasted the white-bleached rocks and stones around the saltier lakes.
Ideally, the photographs in this series will be printed to their largest scale (60 x 60 inches) so the viewer, when placing themselves in front of the canvas, can see nothing but the landscape and so be part of it. I want the colour, hue, texture, and focus to assist in bringing something to a room or a mind that was not there previously but has an air of familiarity.
The Riske Creek series was taken in the summer of 2009. I have worked on similar series' in Death Valley, Canmore, Mount Shasta, Kennedy Lake, South Washington, and Williams Lake.
Turquoise series: Canmore, Alberta
I have created a handful of series' of large-scale atmospheric landscape photographs aimed at capturing the transient nature of spaces. A recognition, of sorts, of having no home but the one inside of you.
Ideally, the photographs in this series will be printed to their largest scale (60 x 60 inches) so the viewer, when placing themselves in front of the canvas, can see nothing but the landscape and so be part of it. I want the colour, hue, texture, and focus to assist in bringing something to a room or a mind that was not there previously but has an air of familiarity.
The Canmore series was the first of these conglomerations of mood and place. I took these photographs in the winter of 2008. Since then I have worked on similar series' in Death Valley, Riske Creek, Mount Shasta, Kennedy Lake, South Washington, and Williams Lake.
Ideally, the photographs in this series will be printed to their largest scale (60 x 60 inches) so the viewer, when placing themselves in front of the canvas, can see nothing but the landscape and so be part of it. I want the colour, hue, texture, and focus to assist in bringing something to a room or a mind that was not there previously but has an air of familiarity.
The Canmore series was the first of these conglomerations of mood and place. I took these photographs in the winter of 2008. Since then I have worked on similar series' in Death Valley, Riske Creek, Mount Shasta, Kennedy Lake, South Washington, and Williams Lake.
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