Every so often, I, like all humans, get into a funk, or a rut, or it's dark and cold outside and, well.... It's easy to become distracted, or to invent some distractions at those times. I also occasionally fall into the "there's nothing to shoot" trap.

In the middle of January, a bare two weeks after the hype of the holidays, when the holiday decorations are 80 percent off, and the music is back to normal "muzak" in the shops, and when spring is yet another eight weeks away - and you know there's a few weeks of wicked cold still to come, hunkering down is a pretty attractive pass time. Today, in one of those moments, I settled in with a photography book I've had for a few months, and have cracked but not studied: Mike Drew's On the Road.

Mike is a seasoned photographer. He's been with the Calgary Sun since the Sun began and has travelled all over the planet shoot and working. This book, On the Road, is home-grown, simple, uncomplicated, deep and beautiful: it covers the roads around Calgary to a bunch of small, out-of-the-way places, where probably a few people would think, "there's nothing there too shoot."  And yet, there's everything to shoot. I read all the words, which Mike wrote, so much in his own voice. As I put the book down, having read it still in my jammies at 10 a.m., I thought, "What am I still doing inside? It's the middle of January, it's a gorgeous Alberta day, four degrees, and I have time before my shoot today."

I'm going to take advantage of these lulls, the days I'm unmotivated, the days I need to remember my photojournalism instructor's gruff, "Go shoot wild art," directives and how forcing point of view is a darned good means of pulling the focus in to a single point, and how calming that is. I've shot some of my favourite work on days I thought I didn't have time.

So this occasional series called One Hour will be the results of chasing wild art. Yesterday, I took my gear, my dog, and my hour, and went to the Weaslehead in North Glenmore Park in Calgary. It was nice.

Click this link for the gallery; Prints are available for purchase.
Enjoy.