DawnRunners

Medium:  Computer-generated imaging/Giclée Print
Image Sizes:  16" x 12", 14" x 11", 10" x 8"
Edition:  Unlimited

In 2003, I took a trip to the west of Canada to visit my brother whom I hadn't seen in some years. Mike built the circular corral when he had hopes of training his horses in the style of the Horse Whisperer. The landscape is his ranch just south of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan at 6:00 in the morning.

I've always had a concept of the west as being wide open, with wild mustangs running free - probably a result of watching too many Roy Rogers Saturday matinees as a child. When I went west last year, the country gave me such a strong sense of nostalgia and deja vu even though I had never seen it in person, that I created the piece to express how I felt about the land.

Something I couldn't capture visually was the incessant sound of the wind. It never stops, and the constant susurrus is as much a part of the land as the look or the scents of the sparse vegetation. Another thing I wasn't expecting is that everything that grows has prickles!  I brought back some cactus and have them growing in a shallow dish on the sideboard in a south window. They're having baby cacti!!

Because the original reference photo was too short, I needed more foreground, so, in Photoshop, I added a piece from a photo I took in the Qu'appelle Valley, since the vegetation and colouring were the same. Eventually, I hope to do a number of different images using this "ghosting technique, as I find it's a very effective way to tell a story about a landscape.