Winter Solstice

Highway 18, Near Hirsch, Saskatchewan. December 2004.

Though it is only making the news in the US recently with the advent of "fracking" technology and opening of the North Dakota drilling activity, the Canadian area of the "Bakken" oil fields in the area around my hometown has been drilled and actively explored for years. Pumpjacks like this one are peppered across the landscape, sometimes singles like this one, other times with several clustered together.


I took this one evening when I was coming back from a day trip to Estevan. The land is not *quite* dead flat, but close to it; a side effect of this is that the winter wind at -25C (before wind chill) is quite bitter. Given that I was facing west and into that wind while setting up and firing off a half dozen frames or so, by the time I got back to the car my goatee was hard-frozen. (Have never managed to get a picture of that, someday I will...)

I'm not sure if the exact day I took this was the solstice or not, but it was within a day or two. Besides, the CD "Splendour Solis" by The Tea Party is spinning in my stereo right now and it is never a bad thing to have a musically-inspired title.... [link]

No, not THAT "tea party" to you politically-inclined Americans who are watching the Republican election news. THIS one: [link]

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Technical Details
Scanned colour negative
Film:Konica 400-S
Body: Pentax Z-70 35mm analog
Lens: typical lens for that camera... 25-80mm F3.4-5.0 I think are the numbers.