12/11/2023
One of the Gargoyles, near Elfin Lakes in Garibaldi Park.
I’m really proud of this image, I can’t wait until I’m able to manage the time to get down to the darkroom to print it. I hiked into Elfin lakes with a pack filled to the brim. Filled to the brim largely because I brought this large format camera to shoot Atwell from closer up while the sun was raking across it before sundown. I did shoot Atwell, then after shooting 6/8 frames I had loaded with film, I scrambled down the hill to shoot this formation while the sun was still sculpting it.
I had to make a choice, wait for ‘real’ Golden Hour from the vantage I had of Atwell, or shoot these two frames composed in a hurry as the sun was rapidly making moves to disappear. I decided, particularly informed by the black and white film I had loaded, that Magic Hour from the backside wouldn’t have been all that Magic. The East side I was facing would largely be in shadow, and I was worried the natural haze turning golden orange/pink would actually flatten the contrast of the sunset. I’m sure it would have been lovely in colour, but I won’t really know, I only brought this one camera and 8 loaded sheets of black and white film up the extra 3km of trail to this point.
The beautiful thing about shooting film is often being deliberate. Taking the moment to say, “What do I want from this image”. It’s doubly nice when time and silence are afforded by a location where a cell phone doesn’t really work and the main sounds are the wind through the valleys and the ravens playing in the air, conking and clicking at each other while doing barrel rolls lazily but gracefully.
The trip to shoot this photo was truthfully my first ‘backcountry’ camping trip, as well as I think my first solo camping trip outside of sleeping in the van while I’m working. It was no Reality-TV backcountry experience. I parked my car and walked up a hill to a campsite with pit toilets and nice, ready to use bear-hangs for your food. But I’ve been thinking about it constantly since. I hate that I’m hung up on a piece of gear before the next camera outing, this time it’s not even photography gear. It turns out that packing my (regular, not super heavy, but not light) tent/sleeping bag and as minimal gear for preparing two meals with a 4x5 camera, tripod etc weighed in at a cool 48 lbs without adding water yet. Sure the weight made me tired from the uphill grind in, but it’s mostly that my pack was seam-bursting full and not transferring that weight well. I have my eyes on a pack for next summer, that if the strikes hadn’t happened this year I definitely would have already purchased.
Anyways. I feel like I’m ready to start planning more trips specifically for landscapes. I have a few in mind next summer as stepping stones to a comfort in the backcountry that lets me develop further in my landscape practice. I am hoping that by April or so, that I’ll have more work I want to make prints of to bring into local gift shops. I feel like I’m trying to get a lot of balls in motion for my escape plan of the business I want to run in Squamish, and small parts like having some income from photos in gift shops and going to craft/art markets is part of that puzzle. Seeing images come out how I imagined at the location gives me confidence I’m moving everything on the right tracks. I’m just moving it slowly and steady so I don’t fuck it up.