Photo of the MONTH. No. 1

Yo my cheezits!

First words I thought of. The beauty of blogging is that, unlike writing an essay or scientific paper or professional email, you can actually just leave that first, shitty sentence that comes to mind and never edit it, delete it or otherwise purge it from existence! My co-contributor Charlotte (yes, she still exists, she is merely in her dormant phase) and I have discussed this in convos past, how the first step of an english essay is to write several trash sentences just so that they are no longer haunting your brain and you can move on to your true brilliance. After a few of those "everyone can relate to _____", "who has not felt the sway of _____ in their life?" or "______: a transcendent and magnificent idea" (insert the main theme/point of your essay in the blank) type sentences are actually written down on the page and you can see just how painful they are, THEN you can write a real essay.

But lucky for you guys, I'm not obligated to write anything real, inspiring or even sort-of-good-quality on this blog! I guess you can be thankful that I'm not using this awesome power for evil, although I'm not sure how writing my most impulsive and senseless thoughts on here could ever be a directed power for anything. Anyways, done that tangent! On to the real reason why you and I are here today: another blog revamp! After a solid ten editions of weekly photo blogging (well, perhaps semi-solid. More like...emulsive? Emulsive weeks? Sounds like a dope band name. I can imagine some punky girl with a pink pixie cut and rad knee socks being like "WE. ARE. EMULSIVE WEEEEEEEKS!!! and then commencing to play music I am not at all interested in hearing), I have decided that you guys don't deserve my paltry, sad, last-minute efforts at getting a photo up on the weekly. This regime of the Weekly Photo has given us such gems as: a picture of my cat! that time Charlotte and I wore onesies! and various other times you didn't give a shit!

As a result, I give you: the Monthly Photo. Weekly Photo sits ashamed in the corner, clad in a dunce cap and laughed at by his colleagues, while Monthly Photo steps up to the home plate confidently shouldering his shiny cool baseball bat (analogy would be helped by knowing some baseball brands) and swings a handy home run. With the Monthly Photo, you get quality, you get swagger, you get the cream of the crop. Normally I will probably post stuff at the end of the month, such that I can review all my amazing SENapshots (guess how much time I spent trying to come up with an instagram account name? THAT much time) and give you the true winner, the creme de la creme, if you will. Apparently cream is a great descriptor of quality. Anyways, since the idea hit me recently and I hadn't posted anything since that pretty cool philosophical Jasper special (whooooaaa, might you click that? might you end up on a blog spiral, clicking and clicking until you have viewed all of our posts? a veritable wikipedia syndrome experience?? I challenge you. You may find greatly confusing material), I thought I'd start now!

Erego, January's photo:

This is actually an oldie from one of my previous night stumbles, taken of the Mormon temple at the edge of my neighbourhood. I punched up the saturation, cranked that baby to 11 even, and that made the street and fence look super deep red. Which I actually just love, because with the stark contrast against the temple, it immediately makes me think of bloodshed and sacrifice in the name of the church. Not implicating the Mormons of my neighbourhood in anything in particular of course (concerning that I even feel the need to cover my butt on that), or even the Mormon religion of anything since I honestly know nothing of their ways. It's just what the image brings to my mind, and I like the bleak effect. Plus I myself am not at ALL religious and in fact if I'd be honest about it, religion totally creeps me out. Just one of those feelings I can never shake; I think Douglas Adams put it best when he wrote (regarding sharing a plane ride with a group of missionaries):

"The atmosphere on board the plane, on the other hand, was so claustrophobically nice it made you want to spit. Everyone was nice, everyone smiled, everyone laughed that terribly benign fading away kind of laugh which sets your teeth on edge."

Why in the name of (someone who is not god) do they have to be so creepily nice?! Am I so jaded that I can't stand someone being equally nice and forgiving to everyone? It just seems insincere and staged, like they're trying to follow some set of rules that dictates how they have to act - oh wait. Anyways, this post was not meant to get on a rant like that, but apparently I felt the need to defend myself using evidence that I clearly put too much effort into obtaining. Hopefully you dogs catch my drift!

Ok, til February, when I will have yet another stunning and amazing photo to wow the socks off of you with!

SENapshot

aka trendiest intagrammer ever

Photo of the Week #10

Jasper Special

I know, I know. I have been a terrible photo blogger. Some weeks: photos. Other weeks: no photos. It just doesn't seem right. Let me make it up to you by showing you many photos of a cool place I got to go to that you didn't! Jasper is a super town, the kind of place I'd love to live if my funds were unlimited and I could just throw my cash bundles at people and say HA! GIVE ME THAT! then twirl my moustache and saunter off. Alas, I lack the cash bundles and the facial hair for such a life.

I bring to you today a slightly different version of this small, charming mountain town than I thought I would. At the end of my trip I realized I had a collection of photos that said something a little melancholy about Jasper, but I hope you'll take the message with a grain of salt.

Jasper: going the wrong way? Ok, kind of a pretentious question to ask. I only started thinking about this question because of this chance photo. I was trying to only get the raven, but before I could zoom in it started to fly off so I just snapped the picture and the sign ended up being in the frame. I only noticed what the sign said later, but altogether the photo got me thinking. What direction is the town headed? It gets more and more popular as a tourist destination every year, and while the town seems to remain small which I'm glad of, the landscape is undeniably changed as tourism increases.

This is a view of a river that runs nearby the Jasper Park Lodge (no I didn't stay there, don't have the mad cash for JPL!) taken through the frame of a bridge built across the river to access the hotel and golf course. It was actually so difficult to see the mountain range without the bridge getting in the way that I chose just to take a shot straight through it. The experience definitely made me think about how intrusive manmade structures can be, and how much we often struggle to take pictures that appear natural and far from the influence of cityscapes. I know that I took my fair share of pains to try to crop roads, cars and people out of my photos while I was in Jasper. Although this landscape looks infinitely better without the bridge overlaying it, sometimes maybe it's worth acknowledging our presence and influence, rather than trying to ignore it or crop it out.

Here was a bit of a sad scene we came by on the way home. A herd of bighorn sheep trying to cross the highway was intercepted by an equally large herd of cars that stopped to observe them, many pulling over unknowingly in the way of many sheep that had yet to come down the cliffs and join the rest of the group. This little one shuffled down the rock face, saw all the vehicles and people poised with their camera phones and dashed haphazardly across, only calming down once it had rejoined its herd. The poor guy just seemed so afraid, and although this event can hardly be said to have a significant impact on the sheep's wellbeing, it makes you think about how we change the lives of animals just by being in a certain time and space.

But these small moments of pause are just that - small. These landscapes and animals remain beautiful, and for the most part, undisturbed. I think it's worth taking the pause, for sure. But it's also worth thinking about why all these manmade structures are present: because we appreciate this place. People care about the wilderness and they don't want to see it go away, they want to be able to visit it and revisit it intact. Jasper is still a gorgeous place and I think people try to disturb it as little as they can. I was lucky to spend some of my winter break there and I'm sure I'll be back next year!

Happy Holidays.

SEN

Photo of the Week #9

These are some lights in my backyard. Because I basically only take pictures of my backyard. They are very pretty and nice and I like them and look there's sparkles in the snow! And that is nice too. Clearly this is written post-final exam period because I can only process very small ideas.

Til Next Time.

SarahHH

Photo of the Week #8

Oh boy, this is shameful. I missed a week and now I'm late, too. You know what that means? You're about to be lavished with TWO PHOTOS. A photo blog daily double, if you will. (aside: I would like to just put it out there that "if you will" is possibly one of the most painful things to say if you aren't doing it ironically. For example, an excerpt from my developmental biology textbook: "...the anterior end of the embryo is more advanced in its development (having a "head start," if you will)..." Oh ho ho. Can't you just imagine the writer's chuckle. I do tend to use a lot of bad puns so maybe I'm not qualified to make fun, but that one sure got a tired eye-roll from me. Possibly because trying to understand embryonic development is hard enough to put you in a cynical mood to start with.)

I took some more nighttime shots this week 'cause I'm out on the street slinging rocks anyways, might as well take some pics while I rake in the illegal dough. I also really love nighttime during the winter, which is a good thing since those two conditions are on the haps for most of your lifetime if you live in Edmonton. The city is starting to do this thing where we just put lights on everything to try to make the perma-darkness more enjoyable, which I am super down for. For instance, the high level bridge across the river now lights up at night, and the trees on the  U of A quad are all covered in lights this year. Definitely makes you appreciate the sparkly dreamy nighttime of winter months more!

So here are some dreamy sparkly winter night shots of my own. I got a little distracted by street lamps.

Luv winter 4ever,

<3 SNASON

Photo of the Week #7

Whoa guys, check out this different format! It's wiggin' me out! Picture on one side, text on other side? Crazy.

So as promised I have some snowtography this week! Finally winter has descended on E-Town, I am happy to say. I love the snow, unlike many of my jaded Edmontonian companions who have just lived here too long. Well, I have too (goin' on year 17!), but I have not lost a childish joy for all things sparkly yet. Who can resist purposely sliding along icy sidewalks, or kicking up big puffs of snow just to watch it fly and sparkle, or the satisfying crunch under your feet when you liberate a previously untrodden snowfall? To me, snow is ~romance~ and wonder and delight! Anyways, I'm still adjusting to temperatures in the minuses though. I might love snow with a bit of a freaky intensity, but the cold that comes with it is a bummeeerrrr.

These are some glass-blown balls my mom installed as lawn ornaments in our backyard. After the first snowfall they acquired these adorable snow hats that had to be captured. It took a while to find an angle that showed the snow caps without being a totally boring snoozefest (ie. just a flat view from the front) but aren't you glad I found it?? They're pretty. That's all I really have to say here.

Luv,
SEN!

Photo of the Week #6

Okay, lots of totally laaaaame talk about composition and crud lately, right?!? I bet everyone's like ENOUGH OF THIS SHIT SARAhHHHHhhHH. Well, this one's just for fun, folks. Charlotte and I on Halloween in our excellent onesies, because the people who write this blog are cool and you should know it.

(by the way Charlotte is a red panda. It's hard to tell, so I thought I'd help her out here.)

Photo of the Week #5

Okay, I'm a little late on this one! Forgive me, my tiny readership!

This is a picture of my aunt and uncle's dog, Jake, that I took over the Thanksgiving weekend. As long as they've had this dog, he has come along with this hilarious "flinger" contraption which allows you to exert max laziness while interacting with your overly active Schnoodle. And he can chase those goddamn tennis balls FOR. EVER. I swear that if we didn't stop him, he would cheerfully expend all the calories in his body and die playing fetch. To die in your arms, tennis ball, is such a lovely way to die. Oh and that's my brother's knee, clad in his silly homemade pants. That's a story for another day.

Anyways, how bout dis shot?! I'm realizing more and more that as an ex-painter (that's depressing, let's call me a painter on hiatus) and art history enthusiast, I enjoy composing photos a lot more than thinking about how I can use the mechanics of the machine to produce cool pictures. It's just where my mind tends to go, so I'm kinda embracing that. I love the composition of this photo because all the lines of the image direct your focus to Jake's superexcitedOMGface even though he's not at the center of the photo, which is where our eyes usually migrate to. The horizon of the shot perfectly lines up with his eye height, naturally guiding your eye there, and the way the sun was setting happened to produce a shadow that creates a line from the bottom left corner directly to our lovely doggie as well. Finally, the bright orange tennis ball flinger points right at him and is a nice touch because we know exactly what he's thinking about!

It's fun how I wasn't even thinking about all these compositional elements at the time of taking the photo, but when I was scrolling through my photos for the day they jumped out at me and really made this the best photo of the day! This is also probably the last sunkissed photo on the blog for a while, since winter is descending here in E-Town. (I recently learned another Edmonton nickname is Edmonchuck...definitely doesn't roll off the tongue, in my opinion!) Excited to take some winter piccsxxcscsssccss though!

See you next (hopefully SNOWY) time!

Sarah