Sixfoot8

Suspended, 24×36 archival print face-mounted on acrylic, Cultural Intersection Exhibition, Calgary, June -July 2009

originally uploaded by sixfoot8.

Here is my submission to the Cultural Intersection Art Exhibition that runs from June 25th to July 3rd. They selected “Suspended” and it is hung in the Atrium of City Hall to the left of the main entrance. I like the rhythm of this image.  It was taken deep within Lower Antelope Canyon in Arizona where the light reflects against unseen canyon walls to paint different colors at varying depths.  This is a half second tripod mounted exposure in the very dusty and dark canyon.

I’m excited as this is my first public show!  Here are the details… Cultural Intersection Art Exhibition Poster

The website can be seen by clicking through at http://www.calgarymulti.com/

What follows is the propaganda that accompanied my submission along with a couple of images that didn’t make the cut this year.   Read at your own risk.

BIOGRAPHY
As a grade school student, my fascination with Africa was apparent in every essay and presentation. I wrote about leopards and cheetahs and listened endlessly to Kipling’s Jungle Book. I was born in Durban, South Africa in 1973 and it seemed such a magnificent and vibrant place so far removed from the stark white of the Canadian winter. However, I was also aware of the negative undertones of being a white South African. After the Soweto riots of 1976, my parents deliberately removed my sister and I from the Apartheid regime they despised and emigrated to Canada. To the tune of “Free Nelson Mandela”, I watched the world unite against a racist regime that tarnished my birthplace. However, from my multi-cultural Canadian upbringing, I never understood how such a system could sink such deep roots. Shortly after the release of Mandela in 1990, I returned to South Africa for the first time. I was struck by a world of razor wire fences that didn’t protect anyone from an ever-present fear of an unknown face but was similarly moved by the joyous love shared amongst friends and family of all backgrounds. The discovery of such a different world outside of Canada’s borders ignited a passion for travel that I have happily fed through trips to Europe, Japan, and Turkey. However, as a citizen, I am always proud to wear the Canadian flag and to return home to the country I love.
Professionally, I graduated from the University of Calgary in 1996 and received my Chartered Accountant designation in 1998. I am currently on a one year leave of absence from my position at ConocoPhillips Canada in an effort to pursue my love of photography and travel.

ARTIST’S STATEMENT
I have learned how the world can be seen differently through a changing of perspective. Like literature, photography’s power lies in its ability to allow others to pause and share your view for an instant in time.
“This recognition, in real life, of a rhythm of surfaces, lines, and values is for me the essence of photography.” Henri Cartier-Bresson

The submitted images are from my “Rhythm” series and were all taken on a tour of the American Southwest in October to December, 2008. All of these places have a presence that draws you in and almost compells the tripping of the shutter. The bilateral symmetry of the images helps to uncover some of this natural rhythm. Medical studies have shown that symmetrical images promote activity in different areas of the human brain and have a role in pattern and object recognition. This mirroring is seen throughout nature and serves as the root of the largest Linnaean group classification of animals, the Bilateria.
As your brain scans to find secondary images within the reflection, I hope that the complex beauty of nature and the interplay of light and shadow are more clearly revealed.
“Suspended” – Lower Antelope Canyon near Page, Arizona, November 2008
“Two Roads” – Grand Staircase – Escalante National Monument, Utah, October 2008
“Solar Flare” – Grand Prismatic Spring, Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming, October 2008

These images were not included in the exhibit this year but come from the same series…

Solar Flare

Two Roads

Batman

Batman, originally uploaded by sixfoot8.

Hello all,
The past few weeks have seen me leave the glorious, spectacular, decidedly rustic , and charmingly unamenitied state of Utah to enter Arizona - a land of 24 hour electricity, central heating, CNN, hot tubs, Safeway, twice or thrice daily showers, and fabulous Canadians that I know personally. Like an unwashed bear emerging from hibernation or Harrison unthawed from Carbonite, this sensory overloading experience has left me somewhat stunned and at a loss for what to do next.

Happily, my role “standing up” for Scott involved little more than the name implies. The wedding was fabulous, the bride beautiful, and the location at the Copperwynd resort amazing. The sole impetus for my little adventure over the last few weeks was to be in Scottsdale in November for the big event. Accordingly, I owe the happy couple an even bigger debt of gratitude.

Unfortunately for you, the last two weeks have been filled with happy, well balanced people with personal hygiene beyond reproach, thereby leaving me precious few humorous or (to my knowledge) personally embarrassing anecdotes to recount.

The only one I can immediately recall occurred just inside the Arizona border in a small town known as Fredonia that had clearly been christened by either Captain Kirk or a Flintstones SuperFan. By way of preamble, my car has no MPH gauge so by reference to my GPS, I generally have a vague idea of the corresponding KPH speed. However, I tend to round up or down (but generally up) to the closest marker on my speedometer for ease of monitoring on the 2 minute legs between photo stops. Accordingly, as I approached the police cruiser conspicuously parked on the main street of town, the knee-jerk reaction of any seasoned interstate driver kicked in and I touched the brakes. I immediately determined that the front seat of the black and white was occupied and my mind began to race. I didn’t think I was speeding, but you can never be sure because I had already been through several Roscoe P. Coltrane inspired traps where a large tree masked a seemingly unwarranted 10 MPH drop in the speed limit and its matching cruiser. Heart racing and mind quickly sorting through potential excuses (no MPH gauge, what speed change?, stupid Canuck), I prepared for the rubber-neck that would reveal my fate. As I pulled parallel, I donned my most innocent looking expression and glanced over….. at a mannequin in police clothing? What? Was this the police version of Johnson’s steaming cup of coffee? Did I accidentally stumble across the set of Mythbusters? Did a long lost Love doll sit too long in lost and found before some enterprising traffic-cop had a Eureka moment?

Sadly, it then dawned on me that the low tech Robo Cop ruse had actually worked… but something just doesn’t feel right about it. I can appreciate the locals having some fun at the expense of out-of-towners but how do the actual cops feel about their job being adequately performed by a dummy? Was this standard practice across all of Arizona? Isn’t there some law about impersonating an officer? Who knows?

With that feeble story out of the way, let me tell you that the photos for this leg are much more abstract in nature than the previous iterations. Most were taken with a gyro scoping head during a 3 hour stint in Lower Antelope Canyon in Page Arizona. Don’t ask me which way is up, cause I don’t know. The remainder are near my current location in Sedona. See them here….. http://flickr.com/photos/sixfoot8/sets/72157609079209855/

Now like LL, I’m going back to Cali. However, to cleanse me of all my big city bad habits, I’ll spend a few nights at Joshua Tree National Park (but without the magic mushrooms or RV used by the cast of Entourage).

I hope this finds you all well. Thanks for your comments on my past notes. When you’re alone in the wilderness, it’s nice to connect with friends from home.

Best regards,
Richard

Sunset on Delicate Arch
Because of the dark foreground and light background, I was bracketing exposures here. I don’t have time to process everything on the road so I just picked this middle of the range shot to give you an idea. A pretty amazing night.

Sunset on Delicate Arch, originally uploaded by sixfoot8.

Hello dear reader,
This correspondence comes to you from the pitch dark wooden porch of the Bryce Canyon National Park General Store. This notwithstanding the fact that the store closed several weeks ago. However, due to the benevolent nature of my Utah hosts, the external power plugs remain active and by some miraculous occurrence, so does their Wifi.
Accordingly, I have planted myself in a folding camp chair and am warding off potentially ravaging chipmunks and racoons with my LED headlamp (the illumination of the keyboard is an added, but ancillary, bonus). Thankfully this is Utah so I don’t think Mormon axe-murderers are on my watch list.

So that you can fully appreciate my position, I’m attempting to conjure as many multi-syllabic words as possible as it is below freezing and while my body is warmly ensconced in down, my hands must be fleet or they will freeze. Many thanks to that Asteroidesque video game that taught me to type by blasting incoming words that threatened the mother ship. I love you guys, but computing is relegated to a night-time activity as there is too much to see and do by daylight.

So when last I wrote, I was testing my aerodynamic performance in the Glacier National Park Wind Tunnel. Needless to say, you won’t see Lance Armstrong on a bike shaped like me anytime soon. I’m sure Lance is happy about that because I’m more than slightly put off by the two-man bobsleigh direction that metaphor insidiously took me.
Since then, the trip has been amazing but there have been some amusing adventures.
After a few weeks on the road, I’ve begun to assume a decidedly vagabond quality that I seem to be curiously proud of. Complete strangers have taken to dropping by unexpectedly and offering me their unneeded fire-wood, sometimes driving across the campground to seek me out. I’d like to think this is because of my Alberta plates and the decreased likelihood of being Dick Cheney’d while approaching a Canadian. However, I fear it may have something to do with the fact that I’m primarily staying at national park campgrounds whose showers have closed for the season (primarily due to low temperatures and the risk of freezing pipes). With the exception of a night at the Day’s Inn in Rock Springs, a town that my Dad aptly referred to as the “asshole of Wyoming”, and a week of luxury at a timeshare in Breckenridge, I’ve only been able to grab a shower every 4 days or so as I pass a KOA or some other “luxury campground” enroute to my next destination. This leaves the possibility that my benefactors were following their nose in order to locate me. I’d prefer to think of them identifying me as that forlorn soul huddled by the meager light of my headlamp and warmed only by the sputtering of my wisperlight backpacking stove that they can see out the pop-out bay window of their luxury motor coach (tents are very rare this time of year). Since I tend to arrive at my next destination at nightfall, I rarely arrive in time to buy firewood. However, with the risk of the former rather than the latter reason being causal, I resolved to look and smell like a higher class of vagrant going forward.

With that in mind, on departing Arches National Park and the fabulous Devil’s Garden Campground that you see pictured in a few of my shots, I resolved to find a shower in Moab.  Once presented with a few options by my friendly park warden, I selected the Lazy Lizard hostel as in my European experience they are generally clean and centrally located.

A few minutes later, I pulled up to a ramshackle group of wooden buildings on the outskirts of Moab.  Unfazed, I entered through what appeared to be the front door but turned out to be a dorm room complete with strangely stained bunk beds and packs opened and overflowing with travelling shrapnel.  I explored through a dark maze-like corridor and exhausted all possibilities for a reception on this level  before proceeding downstairs to find a few people scattered on mismatched furniture and an unattended reception desk.  I stood there impatiently for several minutes with towel over shoulder and money in hand before a suitable break in TV programming incited one of the couch surfers to wander over and enquire whether I needed any help.   After procuring my shower, I was not invited back upstairs to the showers I had noticed on my preliminary exploration but rather to the reputedly “nicer” bathhouse that was located in one of the out-buildings to my right.  At this time, I was also handed an “Admit One” ticket as a type of receipt.   Little did I know that this ticket was, in reality, procuring entrance to a Haunted House come early.

Somewhat uncertain now, I strode across the property passing several of the Lizard’s aged patrons spilling out of small cabin-like dorm rooms apparently huddled together for warmth in a scene reminiscent of Lange’s famous photograph “Migrant Mother“.  I then passed a room sadisticly entitled “hot tub” that looked more like a human Petri dish than anything I might be tempted to soak so much as a toe.  Now, spurned on only by repeated gifts of fire-wood, I turned the corner and entered the bathhouse.

My worst fears confirmed, I selected the stall with the least amount of discarded hair, half used soaps, and errant socks, cautiously pulled back the slimy shower curtain (while attempting not to touch it in the process), and stepped my croc’d foot into the stall.  With a stern look at the black mould that threatened to fight me for elbow-room like two Sumo’s jostling for an armrest on Continental, I closed my eyes (and my mouth) and turned on the hot water.

Beautiful warm, redeeming water flooded from the shower head ALMOST allowing me to forget my surroundings but more than hot enough to allow an enjoyable experience.  Like Andre 3000, I was then feeling so fresh and so clean that I hastened out of the Little Shop of Horrors so I could find a car wash to share this new experience with my trusty steed.

So that was my awkward experience for this leg.  The rest of it can be summed up by rounding yet another curve in the road and uttering “Oh fuck” in an exasperated tone  because I was confronted with a scene of such beauty that I was forced to pull over AGAIN, for the 10^th time in as many miles.  One morning at Capital Reef National Park, I got up before dawn and packed up my frigid tent in an effort to get to Bryce early enough for a prime campsite.   Typically, I rounded a corner to find a crescent shaped river flowing amidst yellow Cottonwoods before a red cliff in first light.  Begrudgingly, I pulled over and set up my tripod to get a shot.  Just when I was about to get on my way, I dear wandered down from the meadow and stared drinking in the golden stream.   Damn it, I’ve got places to be!!!!

Utah is amazing.  You should all pack your bags right now and come here.

Once again, I’ve compiled a few random shots of my adventures through Arches, Natural Bridges National Park, Monument Valley, Glen Canyon, Capital Reef, Bryce, and Zion.  Presented in compressed form (as my internet connections are generally not highspeed), I suggest using the Flickr slideshow  button as this allows you to see them a bit bigger.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/sixfoot8/sets/72157608346639932/

I really hope this finds you all well.  And please do something about that Canadian dollar would ya?

Best regards,

R

P.S. With a nod to full disclosure, I must also say that I did in fact freeze on that dark porch at Bryce and this update was completed at 4000 feet (as opposed to 8500 feet) at the much warmer and picturesque park outside the public library at Zion.  The writing process covertly aided by a couple of bottles of Polygamy Porter.

High Plains Drifters, Blacktail plateau, Yellowstone
I spotted this Bison herd on the North side of the road, crossed a few hundred meters into a field ahead of them, found a nice boulder to hide behind and then watched them pass by me for about an hour. The best shots came after they had made there way across the road to a grassland made golden by the afternoon sun.

High Plains Drifters, Blacktail plateau, Yellowstone, originally uploaded by sixfoot8.

In early October I embarked on an ambitious but ambiguously planned road trip through the U.S. National Parks with the goal of making it to Scottsdale Arizona by the first week in November to celebrate the marriage of my friends Scott and Winnie. Unfortunately the trip began with a whimper rather than a bang as I eagerly inserted my key in the ignition with visions of the open road before me only to hear….. nothing. I had managed to flatten my car battery through the ill advised use of a plug-in cooler prior to ignition. Nothing a call to AMA didn’t fix however this minor setback did lead to a mad dash to the US border to make the 10pm closing. I was then left to set up my tent in Glacier National Park in an absolutely deserted and pitch dark campground that was beset by a howling wind that threatened to send me kite surfing across a very frigid mountain lake.

However improbable it may sound to you, at many times during that sleepless night I thought my tent was about to achieve liftoff. 300+ pounds of accountant and assorted MEC gear launched like that Cow in Twister toward a very uncertain fate. What I thought were heavy raindrops were actually a mix of frozen spray and pebbles ripped off the lake and nearby roads to be hurled laterally against my tent. I got up and tried to peg down every available lash point but only succeeded in tightening the skin on the wind’s drum. I gave up at 5am and packed up in the same pitch dark that had welcomed me. The only advantage to that particular situation is that by clutching a single corner of the fly and suitably anchoring myself, I managed to completely clean the tent of all the muck caked on by the previous night as the wind whipped the fabric back and forth so furiously that nothing could hope to cling to it.

With an eager mind but empty belly I then raised my chin and started down.. or rather up.. the famous “Road to the Sun” that runs across the Glacier highlands…. only to discover some 30 miles later that the road had recently been closed early for construction. The road was not scheduled to close until November… I had checked. Upon questioning a flat brimmed U.S. Park Warden about why this was not more widely publicized she was able to dust off some dank corner of the NPR website that contained the offending small type. Preparation be damned.

With this great start, I turned my car around and headed to Yellowstone a day early via a different route and, excepting a blizzard that chased me out of the Tetons, everything has been fabulous since.

Good times make poor travel stories so I’ll leave you with a few pictures to explain the rest of my trip through Yellowstone, Denver, Rocky Mountain National Park, and Breckenridge Colorado. Some pictures have hastily penned commentary if you’re curious. Here is the link…. http://www.flickr.com/photos/sixfoot8/sets/72157608138005043/

View the slideshow (top right) as it makes the pictures a bit bigger.

As the internet permits, I’ll send more updates as I go through Utah and Arizona. However, Starbucks are very scarce in Utah so it may be a while.

Take good care,

R

Win in the opening match of the Feb 2008 Davis Cup Tie between Canada and Mexico.

The Silken Tent

The Silken Tent, originally uploaded by sixfoot8.

The Silken Tent

She is as in a field a silken tent
At midday when the sunny summer breeze
Has dried the dew and all its ropes relent,
So that in guys it gently sways at ease,
And its supporting central cedar pole,
That is its pinnacle to heavenward
And signifies the sureness of the soul,
Seems to owe naught to any single cord,
But strictly held by none, is loosely bound
By countless silken ties of love and thought
To every thing on earth the compass round,
And only by one’s going slightly taut
In the capriciousness of summer air
Is of the slightlest bondage made aware.

Robert Frost

Caged Sun

Caged Sun, originally uploaded by sixfoot8.

Apparently this past Saturday - 7/7/007 - was the biggest day for weddings in recent memory.

I liked Casino Royal as much as the next guy - that first stunt sequence with the Parcours was unbelievable - but I had no idea Mr. Bond had that much pull.

Here’s a pic of an engagement ring by way of congrats to all those happy couples that tied the knot.

False Dusk

False Dusk, originally uploaded by sixfoot8.

I was watching a National Geographic special about “Speed Week” on the Bonneville Salt Flats. Right before a driver was killed in a tragic roll over, he wrote to his wife saying, ” LIfe isn’t measured by the number of breaths you take, but by the number of times your breath is taken away.”

I don’t know if I’m sold on this idea, but I know I could use a bit of this attitude right about now.

Is it that Simple?

Is it that Simple?, originally uploaded by sixfoot8.

I’m sure it is. I just can’t seem to fiigure out how to get from here to there. Maybe I should just hop on a bike and try riding away from my current spot.

Cannibal
Dinner is served

Cannibal, originally uploaded by sixfoot8.

Sometimes there is nothing more fun in life than getting a Venus Fly Trap for your birthday.