Prairie Snapshots

This random collection of prairie snapshots comes from a lot of driving between Alberta and Saskatchewan during my time in film school.  It wasn't uncommon for me to make the trek back and forth for long weekends or holidays, and in that case a lot of these images really are snapshots as they were captured from the window of my Buick on the highway. 

What I love about the prairies is the sense of space.  In a lot of these images it's clear that the focal point has to be the sky because there's almost nothing else to look at.  On those late summer and early fall drives the landscape was often at its best.  Golden fields, high contrasting light on the horizon, and expressive clouds really brought the countryside to life.  Even in its repetitiveness, I feel like I'm always finding new things that really make the Canadian prairies unique.

Snapshots Book Series

After publishing my first photo book with Blurb (for my 2009 road trip) I became hooked on the idea of sharing my photos in an original way.  What I opted for was creating smaller soft cover books of three previous trips.  

By creating a Polaroid template, I took a variety of my digital photos and created a uniform border for each image and page of my books.  I really just wanted to highlight some of the memorable spots that made up each trip.  I've since made several more in depth photo books for my 2010 trips to Singapore and California.  

I just thought it was worth bringing attention to these projects again as now you can view the books with them embedded on my blog.  The process and expense of creating some of these photo books is long and expensive, but the reactions and permanence of having a hard cover copy of your images is totally worth it.

Click the links to view the books - LA 2004, Rushmore 2007, Vegas 2008

Filmmakers Should Blog

In film school we were told to keep journals as a way to motivate our creativity.  At the time it felt like a chore, because frankly, nothing ever feels that creative when you're being forced to do it.  Pretty much as soon as I wasn't required to write out my random thoughts anymore I actually felt compelled to.  Go figure.

I now see what everyone was on about though.  Filmmakers should blog.  Creative people should blog.  If for no other reason than to indulge your own sense of achievement, blogging has provided me a way to work out my thoughts and frustrations.  Sometimes it's simply a distraction, but often it gives me a forum to really think about the things I want to say and in turn, what I want those things to mean.

This is kind of huge if you allow yourself to get past your own self-consciousness and want to learn more about yourself.  As a video editor I've always been keen to challenge my perception of the technical side of editing with the emotional side.  If I were to try and learn this through my contract editing I might only scratch the surface or maybe never have the opportunity to work out that obscure idea in the back of my mind.  Instead, random creations are fueled by my need to blog about something and it's those random creations that then give me something to analyze.

Blogging can then be more than just an exercise in futility, you can actually improve the way you think about things.  Knowing that I'm posting things publicly actually helps in some sense, because even if no one reads what I post I feel that I'm being held to a standard outside of my own.  When I'm writing an entry it's also one of the few times that I actually slow down to reflect on something that I've learned or something that inspired me.

Filmmaking is a form of communication and there are multiple facets within that framework that build the conversation.  You might not see the value in writing out your ideas at the moment, but if there's anything that Editing Luke has given me it's the ability to articulate an idea and explore my own aspirations.  This skill is invaluable.  Everyone can create, but not everyone can explain their thought process or perspective.  Don't kid yourself, creativity takes work and writing is a tried and true approach to overcoming those mental blocks.

But yes, I still hated being forced to write those film journals.