I should really have cropped better of the negative than this. I have a nasty habit of that. That should be a plan for the new year too; I should properly present. I could clone out scanner lines or at least clean the scanner and scan again.

I read somewhere someone calling resolutions, suggestions. I like it.

Here's another photo from Bell Island. It's incredible there. The cliff is scary and wild and beautiful. I could live there easily. I would have been out there taking photos today, instead I cleaned and went to the gym and chilled. Today was foggy and mild, and a great time to take photos. I haven't had it in me since back from Newfoundland. I am hoping this weekend gives me a boost of inspiration.

Hey, the setting sun into the rockies sounds amazing, and I hope there are setting suns this weekend for myself. I hope there's snow and rock hard ice. I'm asking for a lot, but I want to snow shoe, and not just eat fabulous food and drink fantastic wine and champagne. Did I tell you there is going to Dom? I think champagne could be a top 5 favourite food/drink item. Coffee is most definitely first!

Paula, I am with you on these plans! A show ... East/West. Oh boy. I think this is where my editing skills need to be sharpened.

Scott is not the best matter, but I think the boy could learn. :) He's patient like that.

Here's a link I think you may like ...eye curious. Have you come across it? I just did, from my facebook page.

This week has gone by fast. I'd like a do over.

D

Donna - ME TOO! I should have rented - what was I thinking. I didn't think of it until I read your post! Next trip. We went out to the flat prairie to watch the sun settle in to the Rockies, and it would have been amazing to have photographed the wind and snow swirling around the mountains, or the long shadows cast by the setting sun against the small isolated clouds! Plans for the year - there are many. First - we need to have an exhibit - or a show. Second, I am going to get more proficient with editting and adjusting. Third - lighting, but in a way that it enable the expression of a vision and not simply for the sake of announcing the lighting. Fourth - one of us needs to learn to mat and frame images!

Today was a beautiful day and I feel slightly guilty that I didn't take advantage and go for a bike ride. If I were around where this photo was taken in St. Shott's, I'd be wandering the beach below. Before this photo was taken we came across a small herd of Caribou and I kicked myself for not renting a lens.

Merry Christmas Donna and the blog-beyond! The house here is just now filling with the first hints of stuffing-bound-for-the-oven. It could be any Christmas, here, really 1987 with its blue reebok running shoes, 1993 with its strange night shirts, or 1980 with its large Tonka truck... It has been a great year. Donna and I started the company, photographed some great weddings, learned and shot stuff we likely never thought we would, launched this blog, made a facebook page, and even waded into the fray of twitter. For 2012 - I've got plans, big plans, action plans, even, plans for me, plans for us, and even some plans for Donna! But I'll save those for a day when I am not distracted by the aroma of Mom's stuffing. Donna, have a great dinner, and hope Paddy brought some Tums for that stuffing of your Mudder's!

The last year I was here we saw a seal bopping along out in the wild water. It's always wild here, and the sound of the round churning rocks tell you it doesn't let up. When you walk up the path to get here there's a two story's worth of beach wood and rock that has been pushed there by the tide.

The cold water alone is enough to keep you from dipping in, but the tide is no joke.

Have a great day, Paula! I'll be off to eat dressing and a jigs dinner!

D

This was taken after a long walk back and forth into the woods to get to a remote area that isn't really so remote anymore. Bog bikes are making everything easier these days. Where once everyone had a horse to haul out wood or to drag supplies in to a cabin, these days bog bikes are the norm, and holy these bikes are expensive with hand warmer grips and everything.

We passed two of these bikes and one got some help from my brother when he lost his keys.

My grandfather made this walk more times than I ever will, and it was a sad thing to relocate the families, my families, into more populated areas. It wasn't that far in and there was a road. Then again he might never have met my grandmother, if things didn't go down they way they did.

I like the idea of rolling out plans for the new year, Paula! My first plan is to purchase a flash for the dslr and become a whiz. I was at the mall today. I know...craziness, but the camera store's system was down and nothing could be purchased; not even with cash! Too bad for them on such a busy freaking day. I'll go back during the week.

What about you Paula? What is a plan of yours? I've got more, and I think daily while I am not working, I'll roll them out. It is pretty fantastic being away from the office. AND my cold is diminishing. Tonight N&C are coming over to exchange gifts. Did I tell you I got him Clocky?

D

What the land lacks now in snow has certainly been made up for in wind, which in turn leads to a lack of people traipsing through. There is an isolation to this landscape that is mirrored in many of Donna's NL images, perhaps a joint show in the New Year. Why New Year capitalized, it is just a new year, not always an event. Why put some much pressure on the new year. I've got NEW YEAR plans and if Donna does as well, perhaps we can roll them out here.

Yesterday I went to Milk River Ridge which is tucked between the western slope of the most southern Canadian rockies, and the border with the Montana. This ridge escaped glaciation with the last ice age. We have always had abstract-y watercolours of the ridge in the house where I grew up, and often heard the stories of varied hunts up on the ridge. It was the most open of land I have ever experienced. More to follow, and impressions and thoughts will take time to simmer.

The thing I miss most about the prairies is the openness. The expansive sky makes space so palpable. It's huge and unobstructed, save for rhythmic punctuation of the power lines. We went out to watch the prairie wake up to the rising sun, instead we watched a storm roll in.

And so ends my blogging blackout. Aren't Donna's NL images amazing. She has such a profound sense of space coupled with a subtle delivery of that profoundness. I have gone to the penultimately opposite province for the holidays and will be blogging from the prairie-scape. My father and I went searching for geese today. I most certainly won't be blamming any of them, but I have an idea to do shoot the shooter, so to speak. We found some geese but it is some hard finding unobstructed prairie!

I've never seen Love Actually, and I'm sitting here watching, and thinking I have.

I still need to buy a dozen gifts.

I ate at a new restaurant tonight called "the works."

My camera bag hasn't moved in more than a month. I am hoping that the new camera coming next week will shake things up. I believe it will.

I have big plans this holiday. Yep, I'm going to clean the mudroom, the cupboards, and I am most certainly going to nap or at least sleep in. Oh, and I'm going to read books, and get my book list in order for the new year! Happy days!

Whenever I get "down home" sick, I flip through my photos on the laptop. It doesn't help the sickness in any way. It just makes me want to hop a plane and fly right back.

My uncle asked what was my favourite spot to visit. Of course he meant Nfld, and of course I knew, and of course there are many favourites, but I'd say if I could, I would love to spend a year in St. Shott's. I dare say I have a bit of an obsession with the place.

Speaking of my uncle, someone asked him about his trip out west to Alberta. My Aunt and he drove and they took in all the sights, and nothing was overlooked doing it. So this someone asked, so what was the best thing he saw. I'm sure this someone thought he would say Banff or the mountains or even returning easterly, Quebec. Quebec is beautiful, but no, my uncle said coming up over White's hill was the most beautiful sight. Goosebumps, I say. Tears, I say. Coming up over "White's hill" is a clear shot to my Uncle's. You know, he's right.

Paula, the second photo is from St. Shott's and the first from the house looking down to my Uncle's.