Fixing The Window

I stood in the parking lot of a 7-11 looking at this house.  I had been out driving around looking for interesting images and this house grabbed my eye, I had done a u-turn at the next intersectionand now I had to figure out how to make the image.  I felt as though the house needed to have a very straightforward angle, nothing fancy, so I chose to shoot it straight on, so the viewer could only see the front wall of the house.  It felt almost as though this is what would have been drawn in the set director’s sketchbook when the scene from the movie called for a rundown house with some character so I wanted it to look, as much as possible like a facade so I shot it straight on.  I was also pretty sure that I wanted to end up with a square frame, I felt that it fit the visual language of the house so now I just had to choose which side of the house put on the edge of the frame.  The rather lifeless looking tree on the right side, fit into the frame better than the spruce trees on the left and they added to the mood and tone that already existed in the house.  I was also pretty sure, right from the start that the house needed to be slightly off-centre so all of these ideas came together in the composition that you see here.

-Russell Berg

www.seeingberg.com

Paul leaned forward on the ladder his position, somewhat precarious.  He felt the old gutter pipe bend and give a little more as he leaned forward.  The stairwell window had been leaking and there was now a brown stain on the plaster on the the inside wall.  He had watched the stain grow every time he climbed the stairs to his room over the last two months.  He had noticed it when it was just a small semi-circle under the moulding around the window but now it was overlapping layers of brown streaks running from the edge of the window to the floor.  In some ways it had marked the passage of time in his life better than the calendar, better than the schedule at his job assembling fences at construction sites, better than the mounting number of days that had passed since he had last spoken to his father.  But now, now it was time to fix it, now it was time to put a fresh layer of caulk around each pane.  This might stop the water from making the stain grow, but it wouldn’t stop the unending rows of construction fencing and it for sure would not make his father pick up the phone.  But… it would stop the leak.

Elbow on the Sill

I have found the city of Victoria and it’s architecture to be a significant inspiration for me.  There is something that strikes me as I wander those streets with my camera that pushes the photographer in me to see things differently.  I find the parts of a city that are on the edges of survival to have a truth in them that is so much more beautiful than the manicured lawns and refinished driveways of suburbia.  The texture of this wall jumped out at me as a wonderful background to the three black openings of the windows.  The texture of the glass that remains in the windows provides an interesting counterpoint to the yawning darkness below.  The rusty stains around the edges and the lichens growing on the window sills bear silent testimony to dozens of winters, to hundreds of eyes looking out, to the arms resting on summer evenings watching the city walk by.

Other Victoria images here, here, and here​

-Russell Berg

The Banjo King

A lonely busker sits on the street, plucking at his banjo. Fuji X10 28mm f/2.8 1/1000 ISO 200

There is something that rises inside of him and pushes against the inside of his skull.  It is almost an ache, a presence there in his brain that is only relieved when his fingers are moving, when the sound comes and the vibrations pulse.  Music sits deep inside him and it must find an exit.  This creative impulse is at the centre of himself and it must needs find a way out.

Sometimes getting a good picture is simply a matter of having a camera with you.  I was driving around Victoria and stopped at a light.  I looked over to my left and saw this guy sitting on the sidewalk.  I grabbed my X10 out of my purse and quickly snapped off an image.  I wanted to put him off centre and to have a large empty space in the sidewalk so I composed and snapped before the light changed.  The amount of thought and planning I put into the image was minimal but having my camera with me and ready to go made the image possible.

-Russell Berg

Painting The City

A Victoria building covered in vibrant graffiti art. Canon EOS 7D EF-S 17-85 at 21mm f/14 1/50 ISO 400

he back of a building, hidden from view reveals an incredible trove of detailed graffiti. Canon EOS 7D EF-S 17-85 at 44mm f/14 1/80 ISO 400

Concentration

The chef concentrating on his work at bin 4 burger lounge. Fuji X10 at 22mm f/2.8 1/18 ISO 800

I sit down at the bar and opposite me the serving window opens up to the kitchen.  The kitchen is small, but the staff slide past each other and into their work with a studied efficiency.  It is a tightly packed Swiss watch with the parts moving in chorus, each meeting the other where the hand, the plate, the food is expected.  I sit and just watch, it is a joy to watch professionals work hard to produce something beautiful and so delicious.

My wife and I were in Victoria and we stopped at the bin 4 Burger Lounge for lunch.  I had my X10 in my purse and when we were seated at the bar opposite the kitchen I was hoping to catch a decent portrait of the staff at work.  There was not a lot of light so once again I was very happy for the fast 2.8 on the Fuji. Even so it was a difficult shot to take.  It was a very busy restaurant so there were often people moving back and forth in front of me.  The light was so low that it necessitated a very slow shutter speed so I had to time the shot for a moment when movement was minimal.  I had a lot of wasted frames to get this image but I am quite happy with it.  I really like the way that the light falls on the chef’s face from his right creating some interesting shadows.  His look of concentration is also quite compelling.  The slow shutter speed gave just the right amount of blur to his hand and the burger producing the feeling of motion.  I cropped the photo to include the line of receipts hanging down from above, this line is echoed in the line of food below it.  I was also very happy that there were the two small bowls of sauce on the far right to act as an accent to pull your eye across the image.  They make amazing sauces and dips at bin 4.  All their food is amazing, check it out if you are in Victoria.

-Russell Berg