wild life

The past couple of weeks were quite fruitful, with a once and a lifetime experience hanging out with a brown bear mama and cub. This fall has been bountiful for animal encounters and sightings. I wasn’t exactly expecting to film wildlife, as I was running a time-lapse of the river valley at my local lookout spot. While was running it I happened to see a bear at the edge of the river, or at least it took a second to register. I grabbed a quick shot of bear and reset the time-lapse. An older local couple who live up the hill were doing their rounds in the car with their small black and white dog, head first out of the passenger window, whose sole purpose seem to be bear spotting. They stopped and told me there was a couple of bears below, and went on to tell me to be safe and go have some fun! I thanked them, ran to my house to get my regular camera set up. I grabbed my keys to the car so I had some form of shelter in place if I had to. I went down the hill to see if they were still around. Initially I didn’t see them and went to a turn around, pulled a 180 and slowly went back the direction I had come. At last I saw them on a large slope scoping out the apple trees and stopped. I had no time to check settings, and realised I forgot my tripod. My adrenaline was going for sure, they were pretty close, albeit consumed in eating apples, the last of falls delights. I started my camera and tried to shoot from the window, it was a tad shaky, and unbalanced. So I eventually I made sure it was safe and jumped out to set up a sand bag on the rail of a fence, a tripod would been the preferred setup for my rig, however in a pinch the sand bag worked quite well. I had a good look at the bears to see their behaviour towards me being there, and they watched me, no doubt, as well. I was very slow in my movements, calm, and never gave them reason to feel threatened in any way. I kept a healthy distance you could say and somewhat close to the vehicle just in case she felt otherwise. She would look at me and then nearly simultaneously her cub would look. I lucked out and managed to get a bunch of shots and eventually the pair went off down into the bay. I was elated beyond words. To spend time with these beautiful beings and see them do things I had no idea bears did….all I can say is the magic is real. Before this encounter I had been working on quite a bit of content for an art installation idea called, valley flow, which you can see examples of in my last 2 posts. I was hoping to gather some more animal activity, and hello did the universe ever deliver! What’s even stranger or cool…the same night I went home to organise my footage, and wouldn’t you know it the mama bear came up my deck and we had this moment where we both looked at each other through a pane of glass, thankfully. She made the most beautiful sound and proceeded to jump up on the rail of my deck and climbed down the side of the house, and into the darkness of the night. From my own experience and through books I have read, the bear is a messenger of strength, family, vitality, health, and independence. I will also add that bears in my experience are quite inquisitive, playful and a highly aware beings. I was very touched by the experience which I think comes across a bit…hopefully at least…in my latest digital short film. I also did some of my own sound FX in this one, to match some of the footage, which I think really lends to the experience. I am creating a series of shorts which I will showcase in an art installation sometime in 2023 called, ‘Valley Flow’.

The title of this short is Autumnal: Wildlife of the East Kootenay

Also a special thanks to the Columbia Kootenay Cultural Alliance for their support, as well as my family and friends out there, somewhere, on this tiny blue dot, we call home.

All animals were loved during filming.

Autumnal

Fall is a quick season here in Canada. Its relative short existence provides the eyes with a bountiful array of Autumn colours that make soul sing. With camera in hand I set off to document the fleeting season. Collecting images and sounds for an art installation I have been dreaming up. I have a beautiful space to present my work, and due to the digital medium, there is always the possibility of seeking additional spaces. For the last several months I have been rolling around BC and doing lots of video and sound recording. I started out with very little knowledge, at least in terms of modern digital cameras and field recording. I am still learning these crafts, albeit with interesting results. I like to create short digital films, or miniMOs. Each one unique and usually scored with field recordings and electronic music I make on my laptop. I do have a story to tell, and dreams to share. There is the story of the landscape and how it changes and moves. In the mountains weather is a common phenomenon, especially as the seasons change. I find time-lapse is a great way to show its movements, ebbs and flows. I also have been to the best of my ability capturing the wildlife I witness on a daily basis. Occasionally I do get lucky and the magic happens. I will continue to gather footage as we roll into winter, and am excited to try out some new ways of documenting and presenting my work. With some help from the Columbia Kootenay Cultural Alliance I have a year to develop my project ‘Valley Flow’ and present the finished work as an art installation. Below is my video ‘Autumnal’ which features the East Kootenay region. The forest section is on a road up to the local ski resort, Panorama. I go there from time to time to hang out with the trees, roll time-lapses and gather forest clips and sounds. This part of Earth is as beautiful as any other Natural environments I have been to. It has its own unique characteristics, and flow. My project also looks at how we experience our world. Before we all starred at screens, we gazed deep with wonder and awe into the expansive Cosmos. That need to look and gaze has not necessarily left us, it has nevertheless been altered. How we perceive things, including ourselves and the planet is changing. I am very much interested in this.

thoughts I had…

Everything I witness is just a tiny fraction of this ever-changing whole. I like to imagine everything all at once. Every sound, movement, every animal, human, insect, and tree.

Instead of chasing dreams, why not live in the dream.

the call

seen

Hälts on getting the Shot

There is a lot to see, and accepting that I cannot see it all, I let this thing called spirit do the seeing. Now of course there is technical procedure when recording, and knowing these fundamentals is kind of key in letting this tool be an expressive instrument. This is all great but it is the art I am trying to focus on. I shoot spontaneously, and find this works well. Doing a thousand takes over and over kills a scene. It becomes unnatural, and forced. A good scene is elusive, it takes some luck and lots of patience. I find timing works best when I just let my creative brain do it’s thing naturally and easily. Now, I do sometimes fight with this. Like fighting with settings on a camera. How many times when I try to document an eagle take off from it’s perch. They watch me fiddling with my settings, and just when I get it to what I think is right, they fly off before I had a chance to hit record. Now I know that this is part of the dance. Sometimes I let it just happen, press record with nothing in particular in the frame, my settings dialled, and I record a beautiful scene of a bald eagle in flight during a wind storm. Or I am out for walk to the lookout where I like to do time-lapse and happenstance on a buck ruminating back lit by the fall orange sun. I am patient in my approach, usually if I try to rush a shot, it doesn’t work out. The key for me is to be in rhythm with the subject/environment, where my timing is synchronised with the moment. That’s when the magic happens.

This is Autumnal, part 2 of my last video ‘salmon run’ in part made possible with the help from the Columbia Kootenay Cultural Alliance. Thank you.