Canada | Fotoeins Fotografie

Posts from the ‘Canada’ category

Yaletown, Vancouver, BC, Canada, 26 Oct 2014, fotoeins.com

What about now? How about now?

I think I’ve struck a nugget of gold.

I also believe the chances of finding it again might well be slim to none …

Jean François Paul de Gondi, Cardinal de Retz, wrote in the 17th-century:

Il n’y a rien dans ce monde qui n’ait un moment decisif. (There is nothing in this world that does not have a decisive moment.)

Photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson used this quote for the preface of his 1952 book “Images à la sauvette” (The Decisive Moment). That phrase has been described in great detail and (mis)interpreted over the years, undoubtedly adding only to the legend and his place in the history of photography. With his landmark photograph “Derrière la gare Saint-Lazare” (Paris 1932), Cartier-Bresson described moments like these as:

To me, photography is the simultaneous recognition, in a fraction of a second, of the significance of an event as well as of a precise organization of forms which give that event its proper expression. (Photographier: c’est dans un même instant et en une fraction de seconde reconnaître un fait et l’organisation rigoureuse de formes perçues visuellement qui expriment et signifient ce fait.)

What does any of this have to do with the photo above? Everything.

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Fotoeins’ Fotograms: 14 for 14, in 2014 (IG)

At the end of 2013, I listed my 13 instants for the year. I continue to be fascinated by how we look at the world in square format in contrast with 4-by-3 or 3-by-2 formats. It’s not exactly the throwback to a distant past with square photographic plates, but the same physical and photographic principles regarding central symmetry apply. Here are 14 ‘fotograms’ from 2014, including a new 6D, watching my father die, and a return ‘home’ to Deutschland.

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Seawall, Stanley Park, Burrard Inlet, Salish Sea, Vancouver, BC, Canada, fotoeins.com

My progress with Canon, from 450D to 6D

Above/featured: Along Vancouver’s Seawall to a partly obscured Lions Gate Bridge – 17 Jan 2014.

I skipped a step, as I’ve moved from a triple-digit camera model to a single-digit model.

For over five years, I owned an entry-level Canon DSLR (digital single lens reflex) camera. Carrying the EOS 450D (XSi) along for the ride, I traveled over one million miles in the air and I made over 75000 exposures.

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Sunset over the Salish Sea (English Bay), from St. Paul's Hospital, Vancouver, BC, Canada - 8 Aug 2014, fotoeins.com

His final sunset over the Salish Sea

Every day felt like a bonus, a sweet taste of daily magic.

Over the time he spent in the hospital, Dad charmed the staff by chatting with them in broken English; it was a way for him to express some measure of control. As expected with decreasing hemoglobin levels, his body continued the downward slide. His mind and spirit departed at the beginning of the third week; he had become unresponsive. Over the next five days, his body remained, the breathing steady, though shallow and sometimes laboured. He was calm, at peace, and thanks to the meds, without pain.

From the top of St. Paul’s Hospital in Vancouver, Canada, I photographed this post-sunset scene on 8 August 2014, with fading light peeking up and over the cirrus, high over the Salish Sea (English Bay) and the downtown peninsula. I’m sure he sensed the daily change in light, even though he could no longer see by the end.

Hours later the following morning, Dad breathed his last and slipped away for good. He marked his 82nd birthday six weeks earlier.

The long road for him has ended; another chapter and another journey begins.

Warmest thanks to the staff at St. Paul’s Hospital, and particularly, the men and women who work enthusiastically and gracefully in the hospital’s Palliative Care Unit. This post appears on Fotoeins Fotopress at fotoeins.com as http://wp.me/p1BIdT-5vy.

Vancouver: the forgotten’s fireworks from St. Paul’s

2 August 2014.

I’m in one of the city’s hospitals, visiting my father who’s in very bad shape.

I’ve helped feed him dinner of roast pork, peas, and gravy, a direct sensory reminder of his past as ‘line cook’ in a downtown diner nearby. He eats with great enthusiasm, the most I’ve seen him eat in weeks. Dinner’s done, and he’s worn out. I suggest we go “around the corner” with him in a wheelchair to watch the evening’s fireworks, but he gently declines. A twinge reflects the growing reality of him never seeing fireworks again, but the feeling is moderated by resolved acceptance and mild resignation.

I go out into the corridor where people have already gathered by the windows next to the elevators. From the heights of the hospital, there are spectacular views of the downtown peninsula, towards Burrard Inlet, English Bay, and the waters of the Salish Sea. What sacred spirits have come and gone, then and the now.

Waiting patiently to catch a brief glimpse of fireworks are other hospital patients, their family, and various hospital staff taking breaks in their work schedule. It’s a four-day holiday weekend here in the province of British Columbia, and early August weather is summertime hot under the dome of clear blue skies.

Judging by the look in some people’s eyes, I empathize with feelings which must remain unspoken: “I’d rather be outside, laughing and having a good time, surrounded by family and friends.”

I thought about making a few photographs of the fireworks through the large windows, but something pulls me back, and I decide not to image the fireworks directly.

My thinking about this situation quickly clarifies. What I’ll do is record people watching the fireworks through the windows of the hospital’s upper floors.

They are not forgotten. It’s my promise to capture with a camera’s all-seeing eye an elemental and universal desire for something beyond the ephemeral and temporal, something that approaches a kind of eternity.

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