Saturday, August 27, 2011

Gated Community

I am going to take you to visit a unique sort of
gated community. 


I have begun revisiting the images I took at Finn Slough in the Vancouver Lower Mainland last spring...



and playing with some of them in Photoshop.

This could take awhile.
But good things come to those who wait
(at the gate)



22 comments:

  1. you are very good at photoshop !
    I like the result of the second one :-)

    ps : I wrote a com on the last post but I can't see it ^

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  2. As a young immigrant kid in Vancouver I used to love wandering the farm and river lanes of Richmond (then Lulu Island).

    Looking forward to your pix.

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  3. Hmmmmm, a song, a song at the edge of memory, begins to take shape in the foggy pre-breakfast brain, ah yes, echoes of words start to ring with a flow not heard these last twenty years...

    The foreign sun, it squints upon
    A bed that is never mine
    As friends and other strangers
    From their fates try to resign
    Leaving men wholly, totally free
    To do anything they wish to do but die
    And there are no trials inside the Gates of Eden

    At dawn my lover comes to me
    And tells me of her dreams
    With no attempts to shovel the glimpse
    Into the ditch of what each one means
    At times I think there are no words
    But these to tell what’s true
    And there are no truths outside the Gates of Eden

    *******************

    I guess Eden was also a gated community...

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  4. How lovely to see your images and read Owen's poem first thing in the morning over a great espresso!

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  5. Karine,
    Quel dommage que Blogger a mangé ta dernière réponse. Mais te voici, et je suis très contente de te revoir.
    I must admit, I do love playing in Photoshop. I'm happy that you like the results.

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  6. DCW,
    As a kid, I always loved the name Lulu Island. I don't know that we ever went there much. Somehow the name is associated with strawberries in my memory. Plenty more pix to come of the slough. Fascinating place.

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  7. Owen,
    As no sound ever comes from the Gates of Eden it's amazing that you were able to hear a faint call through the morning mists of memory.

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  8. jann,
    Ah, a morning espresso. The world looks so much more appealing once one is equipped with a morning espresso. I make do with a mug of Seattle's Finest #5, wonderfully dark. Owen was recalling some fine lines from Mr. Dylan, which dredged up memories for me from my own rusty Gates of Eden.

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  9. ah, the promise in that glimpse of a road going ever on and on :)

    i'll camp here and wait a while.

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  10. m,
    Ah, nothing like the call of the long and winding road, is there, leading us to who knows where.

    Yes, best you camp here, at least until the weather's done blowing over NYC.

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  11. hate the usual type of gated communities - but love your version!! Greetings from the Riviera...

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  12. close to poetry.

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  13. Looks like the sort of place one could get lost in, if one strayed off the boardwark and into the slough... Funny, the only phrase or usage of "slough" I could remember was "to slough off the mortal coil", but checking my handy broken-backed American Heritage Dictionary I see :

    Slough 1. A mud hollow 2. a swamp 3. A state of dejection or despondency

    Slough 1. Dead tissue separated from a living structure 2. any outer layer or covering that is shed, to slough off

    So, it sounds like a joyous place, can't wait to see more ! :-)

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  14. Amazing photo and transition to the second... I bow down to your creative artistry and abilities with Photoshop. Thank you, Owen, for the remembrance of Dylan's work and, of course, of Blake's Gates of Paradise.

    Bises,
    Genie

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  15. Catherine,
    Definitely a gate of a different variety here...as is the community.

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  16. Robert,
    "I think that I shall never see a poem lovely as a..."...gate?

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  17. Owen,
    Oh yes, it is just the sort of place a toad such as yourself would love! Slimy, mossy, broken-down, overgrown, mucky, weedy, neglected, ramshackle. A slew of old possessions and habitations sloughed off and left to decompose in the slough! (Did you also note the difference in pronunciation between one slough and the other slough?)

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  18. Genie,
    Oh, I am not worthy of such praise, but I will gladly accept it as I, in turn, bow down to your photographic skills.
    :-)
    Good old Owen, eh?--always an appropriate song or poem for most any blogging situation.
    À la prochaine!
    bisoux

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  19. I think I'm going to enjoy this. For this shot, I think I like the original better but I see the potential and look forward to more.

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  20. Hilary,
    So happy to have you along for the tour. I may digress a little from time to time, as I did here, from one reality to another, but you can pick and choose as we stroll along.
    ;-)

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  21. wow, this entire Finn Slough series is so compelling, i don't know what to admire first, the incredible texture play, the autumnal colours, among my favourite...
    and pictures from last spring!!! i thought i was the only one having still unprocessed photos from years ago! i had been suffering about this for a while, but now i have given up home of ever catching up, or having entire series done, as i used to when i worked on film. now i just browse through them and only work on a couple of them, which i feel like posting...

    (so good to be here again!!!)

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  22. Roxana,
    And so good to have you here again! I have quite a "backlog" of digital photos from trips to Vancouver and Montreal that I haven't delved into. Is it like hoarding? I hope not. More like creative stashes. Potential. But the temptation is always there to go on to the new. In my art, I have several older pieces of work that need to be finished but I don't want to go back to that way of feeling and thinking: it becomes too much of an exercise.

    But never mind our cache of pictures, I understand that our friend Owen has a cast of thousands waiting in the wings, and he's still out there searching for stars and leading ladies.

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