Growing...

I haven't been shooting much in the past month. Instead, I have been logging hours and hours, sitting on my butt culling my massive image library. It had to be done. I could procrastinate no longer. I was down to my last few gigabytes of disk space and I had photos to load and projects to edit. I needed space!

The easy solution would have been to open my wallet, buy some more disk space, archive a bunch of junk and be done with it. But as it turns out going through years and years of pictures turned out to be a pragmatic process.



First, it made me realize how many bad pictures I had to take in order to start making good ones. It gave me a chance to see how my photography had grown and improved since I grabbed my first SLR shot with a Canon Rebel Xti. I was able to spot photographic flaws more readily. I became ruthless in my editing, deleting literally thousands of images. It was a long, tiring, yet rewarding experience that is still only half way complete. But I think the best part of the whole exercise is that I found these little gems along the way. Images that stood out amongst all the - *cough* - crap. Small, positive reminders of growing skills.



It seems to me I *had* to make thousands of crappy shots in order to realize how to make good ones. I just wish I had of cleaned up the mess as I went (sigh).

Keep shooting.

Peace Bridge

Last week, I finally took a break from three weeks of butt surfing and got outside to take pictures of Calgary's new Peace Bridge as it was being pushed across the Bow River. The bridge is over a year behind schedule and has been a tad controversial since it was first announced but I have to admit it was very impressive to see it in person. The shot below I took late in the afternoon on the first day the bridge was on the move.

There still was a long way to go and it seemed like it was done moving for the day.

However, the very next day it was already fully across. I was actually quite surprised. I thought it would take a lot longer.

The bridge still needs to be plucked off of the temporary supports and placed on its permanent moorings. That should make for some exciting pictures so I will be watching the newsfeeds closely to make sure I don't miss it. I am also really excited for the photo opportunities once the temporary support structure is removed revealing the bridge's unique aesthetic fully.

Keep shooting.