jimvanson

I've been trying to photograph this kind lady for several years. I

guess the time was right this last British Columbia Day long weekend.

Both ladies are regally dressed in their "Ladies Traditional Dancers" regalia; Most of which they have made themselves.

Vancouver's Cedar Cottage Pow Wow is always held on Mothersday and thats a wonderful day to Pow Wow as you're sure to meet several ladies like these; My two friends, Rita & Victoria.

Although heavily fogged it provided several good shots.

This is one.

(Pentax 645n & 75mm, D400@250 in Xtol 1+3, Epson 4870, grain courtesy: Grain Surgery).

Regardless, moody, well done!

The Vivitar lens & tele combo has produced a shot whose quality, quite frankly, blows me away!

My only suggestion is that a slight crop off the top & bottom, making the format more of a panorama, may work even better.

Well Done!

tkx...j

Also the framing using the trees.

And a question; how does it look as a square? (Or here I go -- as a B&W square).

Tkx for getting my imagination working...j

He certainly has a mischievous look in his eye. It was a duck that got me started in photography too -- once I photographed him I was hooked.

Tkx for jolting my ol' brain which in turn helped me recall that day so long ago.

This is what Gracie looked like before photoshop.

Never made a print from them, never saw them projected. Just shot them because that's what serious shooters were suppose to use.

Lost almost all of them in the mid 90's. Didn't really dwell too much on the loss -- I was learning to shoot B&W neg, I was livin' in a darkroom -- Hey! I could actually hold a print in my hand -- YES, who needs color slides!

Recently I scanned and tweaked a couple of surviving slides -- printed them on my Epson. Now I realize how serious my loss really was.

Hope you like Gracie...tkx...j

Untweaked Nanaimo Harbor 1980 -- prephotoshop

At one time I had a collection of slides that numbered in the tens of

thousands. They were lost in the mid 90's. This is one of the few

that survived.

All the West Coast Pow Wow's I've ever been to have been inter-tribal.

And there in lies a strange fact -- generally West Coast Nations do not Pow Wow, they potlatch. That means that there are very few participants in native West Coast regalia even when the Pow Wow is held on a West Coast Nations land.

And my buddy Ben? I believe that Ben is wearing Plains Indians (such as Cree, Sioux), "Fancy Dancer" regalia.

This guy is a cut above though, as he wheels around on his bike -- just like this;glasses upside down, crack pipe in his mouth.

Talkin' to him you realize he's a really bright guy, great sense of humor, a possible friend if it wasn't for the habit.

And the habit is what a lot of these users talk about -- how their gonna kick and go back to their family, school, jobs -- they usually say it just ain't fun being a RockStar no more.

Sadly, in the mean time, they keep on doing the things they gotta do to stay high. And if that means selling crack to your 14 year old daughter -- well, so be it.

So since this was outdoors I used that ol' standby Indian background -- a teepee!

Works for Ben cause he's still close to the ground (and the teepee's wide base). Doesn't work for other "fancy dancers" like Curtis Joe who when in his regalia is 7 feet plus tall and whose headdress -- at that height -- is wider then the narrowing teepee's cone.

The expression is one of fierce displeasure that he is being asked to stand in one spot for more then about half a second.

And how did I get him to stand for this shot? -- Why Thanks Mom!

A couple weeks ago one of the best known pot cafes/seed supplies -- Blunt Brothers -- went up in smoke.

This is a shot of one of the firemen that fought the very smoky 3 alarm blaze. (When I asked later I was told that none of the personal fighting the blaze inhaled).

A borrowed (Id kill for my own) handheld Canon EF 500mm F4L IS lens set at 1/125 was used for this series of shots; 95 percent were razor sharp.

This truly is an Incredible Lens. It allowed me to take pictures that would have been impossible if not for its IS

Not only is he whirling dervish, he is also a Fearsome Warrior!

Thanks Ben for letting me photograph you along with all the rest of your family too!

When viewing it on *my* monitor the brightness/contrast is better then the other shots.

I do wish you'd include more of the left hand tree. I wonder if you should consider selectively sharpening some areas of the shot. If the shot were mine I'd burn in or add some grain to the white sky.

Now having said all this I can only add that I sure wish I was there as the shot evokes all the senses -- I can almost smell the blossoms and hear the birds.

This shot is special to me as this lovely young lady, wearing her

mothers breastplate is trying so hard at being grown up. Shyness and

confidence and youth are all evident...

Thank You Ray, I believe I know what you mean because it's the people in the images that make everything so special!

I'm very fortunate to call some of these people my friends and I'm also Lucky because looking at these shots brings back that magic feeling that I get when I Pow Wow.

Yes, k williams depicts himself as a snapshooter -- a yoke at best!

One simply has to study the light, composition, shadow and texture of a shot such as this to know that k williams is in fact a spirited seer of light and shooter eggtraordinaire.