Couchiching Sky

On the eastern shores of Lake Couchiching is the community of Rama First Nation, my home. I have spent most of my life here on the "Rama Reserve" taking baby steps to reclaim my culture. The historical records says we settled here sometime after the Wendat left this region dispersed by the Iroquois. By my estimation we have been in this general area of Lake Couchiching and Lake Simcoe for 7 generations or more. Enough time for our people to establish a strong spiritual connection with the land,air and water. I spend a considerable time capturing the interconnection of these three elements and what it means to me. It is vastly important place for me. I call this set of pictures Couchiching Sky.

Rama Ojibway Indian Council Hall 1928

Rama Ojibway Indian Council Hall 1928, originally uploaded by Robert Snache - Spirithands.net.

A little piece of history from my community. Image from D.T. Plett

Chicago Morning

Chicago Morning, originally uploaded by Robert Snache - Spirithands.net.

Just over a month ago we packed up the kids and a few essential things and flew on a mission of mercy. We were on our way to see my gravely ill mother-in-law in Marikina City, Philippines. I had a lot of doubts about taking this trip for financial reasons and pure uncertainty of the situation that was before us. A dying person so beloved, how can we not go, I thought?

I had real thoughts about my kids and whether or not they were going to enjoy this trip. We were last in the Philippines 4 years ago when both my babes were just a toddler and a new born. We went there because I was off for a few months and we just got word of my mother-in-law's diagnosis of cancer. This time the kids are older and knew a bit more about themselves and what they liked.

A funny thing happened on the way to Chicago. I was blessed by two wonderful kids who proved to be very adaptable to waking 2am in the morning to make a 6am flight in Toronto. They were excited to fly and go to see their Lola. The next blessing was a message from the spirit to me. I witnessed a beautiful sunrise on the way to Chicago. I didn't realize I had a perfect seat, the plane left at the right time, the clouds cleared at the right time and the Sun Shone so bright as we landed in Chicago. Everything was going to be ok and my spirit was lifted.

I am here today in Marikina with less than 10 days til we are due to fly back. My kids Lola, my wife's Nanay has had a miracle of 4 years of fighting cancer. This trip has saw only small steps of improvement in her ICU state. A far smaller miracle was experienced last week when she was moved from ICU to a private room. Alas, we don't know if or when the moment will come. The messages from the spirit don't tell secrets about this. At least not to me.

We continue to hope.

Stars and Night.

Many people who I am connected with in social media know that I have a passion for long exposure and night photography. I have begun to take that a step further to create Time lapse videos. Below is a rough cut of where my photography passion is going.

To create this I video I had amassed over 1000 frames of night shoots spread over 3 days. I was limited buy battery power and weather condition which hampered the duration and quality of the images due to the formation of frost. It gets cold in November! Once I had all my images processed, I created a virtual zoom and pan with the help of a Photoshop script found here. I next compiled the images in Picasa to create the videos at 1920x1080 resolution. I had the three video I created imported into Windows Live Movie Maker to do a simple video. The music is Virtue Lost which is Creative Commons audio.

Voila! I expect I will continue to create this moving image in the future.

Edit:
Here you will find my timelapse videos on vimeo.com

End of the Line

Just over a year ago I embarked on a photographic journey to improve my photographic abilities. I had been approached by a friend to do some photography for a magazine he was working on, providing several of my landscape photos for various articles written about Aboriginal Issues and the Environment.

He also required simple headshots of the authors for the articles. Knowing this going to happen soon I decided to start a project that I had followed on flickr.com called the 365 project. It is a project that entailed taking a photo a day for a year. In my case I was going for the most introspective project, the self portrait. An ambitious project by my own admission.

I had a few simple goals in addition to the ones stated at the beginning. To improve my technique and to be more disciplined in my photo taking.

I can certainly testify that it was a grueling journey that tested my dedication to my craft. The set of pictures I have hosted on flickr.com show a personal growth in my technique and persona that really shows an evolution of the self. It is so easy to focus on the negative stuff that happen in our day to day life. The most important struggle was to stay positive.

I intend to take that lesson to heart.

Robert Snache

Someday We Will Jump!, originally uploaded by Robert Snache - Spirithands.net.

Day 1

Bezhig

(edit) Decided to make this the starting point of a 365 journey!


End of the Line, originally uploaded by Robert Snache - Spirithands.net.

Day 365

I made it! Lots to reflect on this year. Highs and Lows and all points between.

The Lowest : My dear cousin Patti passing away. It was hard to continue doing this project and was close to giving up.

Low : Pityriasis Rosea took weeks to clear up and and hours of editing to clear it up!

Good : Me and My family are far more comfortable with a camera in the face!

Gooder! : I made some money selling my photos and being a hired gun.

Bestest : I have the understanding of my wife and kids that this is what I do. Photography feeds my creative soul and thrive on learning and sharing it. I am a true amateur in the sense that I do this because I love to do it.

I recommend people try a project and pursue to it's fullest because the rewards and growth are subtle while doing it but when complete you have greater sense of what you want to do with your creativity.

Strobist info. Bare flash camera right fired via sony IR wireless flash mode (full power).

10 minutes of regret!

10 minutes of regret!, originally uploaded by Robert Snache - Spirithands.net.

This location I had initially planned to photograph the milky way. Upon visiting this site after two o'clock in the morning I was disappointed that there was some outdoor lamp on a farmers lot that spread light all across the field. Without a second thought I left the scene for Plan B : a site closer to the small airport where for sure there was no lights. I was completely happy with my second location. The moonrise happened a little after 3 am and I packed my stuff for home, passing this scene again.

I stopped to take a "what if" shot, a 30 second exposure to see what the camera might produce. The milky way rising in this field was still visible with the naked eye. I was taken aback and swore to myself! Why didn't I stay here first of all? The light from the farmers lamp only helped the scene.

Although the moon was now risen I am sure that I could get a good shot of the milky way. I shot 20 frames at 30 seconds and combined these for 10 minutes of startrails. I ended up with a 2 minute integrated shot for the milky way seen here www.flickr.com/photos/rbs/3542221295 I regretted not starting here as the milky way shot would have been significantly better at this location than here www.flickr.com/photos/rbs/3553373448/

How to Display Flickr Slideshows into your own blog/website.

I have been playing around with ideas for a way of displaying my photography on my own website. I don't have an overall plan for it yet but I wanted to test out a few ways of displaying images without doubling my efforts. I post many of my experiences via flickr and was searching for a viable and simple way of exporting those images from there.

My first thought was to link them directly, but coding every individual image takes up time. Then I thought about linking to the simple little slideshow option displayed on the flickr pages. This again wasn't ideal, but if I was able to code the slideshow into an iframe tag in HTML code, then I have something much like what I want. As you can see I have linked my Top 50 set from flickr into this blog post. This worked beautifully in Firefox and Internet Explorer and will be using once I get my website up to task!

The beauty of doing it this way is that all you have to do is link to your preferred set. Additionally I have several automated sets on flickr which I can add images to by tagging specific photos in my flickr stream.

There are some drawbacks however. A potential visitor to your site could easily click away from your website and the background of your website must be set to black. The options for the flickr slideshow are limited.

This is the code I used to display the above slideshow.

iframe src="http://flickr.com/photos/rbs/sets/72157609409001284/show/"
width="500"
height="312"
scrolling="no"
frameborder="0"
marginwidth="0"
marginheight="0"
http://flickr.com/photos/rbs/sets/72157609409001284/show/
/iframe

Sixteen Things

Sixteen Things, originally uploaded by Robert Snache - Spirithands.net.

I don't usually participate in those chain mail type of tag games, but I needed something to get my blog rolling again. This one was simple enough.

Sixteen Random Things about me!

1. Most people mispronounce my name the first time. Only once in a foreign country did someone say it right! Snache is pronounced like Snake.

2. I am Anishnabe. Want to impress a Native American or Native Canadian? Call one by there Traditional name.

3. Photography seems to have taken over all my free time and thoughts!

4. Spring is my favorite season

5. I am a Gemini.

6. I was batised in a United Church, I had no choice! I truely walk a spiritual path with is guided strongly by the spirit

7. My wife and I first met in a chat room! We will have been married 7 years on February 19th.

8. I like experimenting and learning new and different approaches to photography and more importantly the Post Processing.

9. Obama's rise was truly the most inspiring world event to me!

10. I once live in Durham, NC! Go Bulls!

11. Someday I will retire in the Philippines! Spending winters there and summers in Canada.

12. I once studied Geography and Physics.

13. I am hooked on Podcasts. My current list of favorites are TWIP, TWIT, and CBC's Age of Persuasion and Search Engine.

14. My fascination with long exposure shots can be traced to one photo I saw as a kid. It was a picture of our new band office in the early 1980's with and the lights of a passing car painted across the photo. I remembered thinking of how did they do that and I wanted to do it too!

15. I have been published for the first time in November of last year. Some day I will get around to explaining how it all came about. I have turned around and invested in Sony's next camera the rumoured Alpha 800.

16. I am basically a landscape photographer trying to learn to be a portrait photographer!

The Snowflake Misses the North Wind

The Snowflake Misses the North Wind, originally uploaded by Rob Snache - Spirithands.net.

"I heard you have found a girlfriend"
"Yes I met my chat friend on my vacation."
"Do you have a picture?"
I had her a couple of snapshots from my trip to the Philippines.
"Oh Rob! She's beautiful!"
I looked at my cousin, eyes welling up with tears.
"You must miss her?"
I looked at her and nodded.
Patti reached over to me and gave me a hug. "Everything will be alright"

And it was.

Patti was the one in a million person in life who was quick to smile, offer support without judgment and always there for family and friends. To say that I miss her is a gross understatement.

She will be missed like the stars miss the moon, earth misses the sun and the snowflake misses the north wind

Rob Snache Endores Barack Obama!

RBS 4 BHO, originally uploaded by Rob Snache - Spirithands.net.

Hoping every United States Citizen will cast their vote tomorrow. I can not vote (I am an Ojibway or Native Canadian) but if I could I would cast it for Barack Obama. No other living politician in my lifetime as inspired me the way Obama has. A man of humble roots, he is the American Dream.

I have nothing but respect for John McCain. He truly and proudly served his country and would definitely be a fresh breath of air after 8 years of George W. Bush. But this year belongs to Barack Obama.