in guelph, for now

i am in guelph for a time, living with my family and saving some money. i am also living in the tension between the life of a full time construction worker and that of a developing artist. it is a push and a struggle to be artistic, to continue to exercise my creativity. and so, after a long break, i have decided to re-emerge into the blogging world. hopefully, as well as working through some new photographic ideas this will provide me with an opportunity to practice writing, and being intentional about myself as a photographer. as always, i would love for this to be a place of community and discussion. please join me through this process.

maya

this is maya.
i haven't done much fine-art style photography lately but i was grateful for the opportunity to practice taking advantage of the great shots that children can provide. i always miss more great shots than i am able to capture when i'm with maya, but it usually ends up in a few great photos. this was a fun trip to the park, with lots of "maya do 'self". another thing i love about children is that they wear such bright colours. beautiful, if you ask me.

a bit of fun

this group of my friends has just completed production on the compost bins they are standing in. it is the class of '09 gift to st. stephen's university
this is a fun photo. i like it because although it is posed, it retains some creativity and spontaneity. perhaps this is a good reason to shoot when people aren't ready, and to shoot five or six candid shots for each posed one. it works for me anyways.

away with what we know

in the deep
there is a quiet life
a contemplative
sunny afternoon yearning,
hope and mystery and, yes,
adventure

i know who it is, that spirit in the woods,
whose whispers are the hungry birdsongs
peace, unknown peace
you are the tranquil, moonlit night

more experiments with film

this picture is also from the jazz party. maybe it's just the black and white, or the great texture that film gives a photo, but i am so much happier with these photos than i have ever been with party pictures before. hopefully you agree. if not, this is your chance to shame me. . .















how about some more. . .
i started this roll at grand manan. here are a few beach photographs i took there.

back to the beginning

look like something from the 50s? it should. i took this picture on my grandpa's minolta srt 303, a camera introduced in the '60s and scanned the processed film with my crappy canon printer. a few digital touch-up's and presto.

the model is sam, and it's his "50's jazz" birthday.

i love this photo. i guess this is my way of encouraging us all (myself included) to avoid the standard 'party photography' that we so easily fall into. i didn't blind sam with my flash, even though it was dark. i also didn't hold the camera and stand beside him with my tongue out. let's hold ourselves to a higher standard. art can happen anywhere, if you look for it.

memories

there are pieces of the beach on my desk. two rocks. some sea glass. drift wood. shell bits. it occurred to me just now as i stared towards them how past-focused we are as people. do you- as i do- cling desperately to both the sweet and the bitter of yesterday? of your childhood? photos are a little bit like that i think.

i look around my room. there are so many pleasant moments and feelings conjured by the visuals that i have surrounded myself with. memories of bustling, romantic, and peace filled moments in europe. friends' hands. lumber-laden trains.

what does this mean about looking at other people's photos? does it have to be a moment that you were part of in order for you to fully appreciate it? or is it enough to simply have been there? how many of us appreciate a good picture of the eiffel tower? perhaps we should create a new category of photography to incorporate these 'memory photographs' and set them aside from photography that is created as fine art or, as another category, commercial photography.

until it becomes oppressive i believe that this past-focus can be a good thing. my memories spur me on with hope for a better tomorrow. they fill me like a dried sponge with forgotten emotion. memories, i think, are extremely life-giving.

the beach

i chose this photo for two reasons. first, there are some things about it that really work for me. the lines in particular. i love the patterns that the water makes, and i think that it is composed pretty well too, if i don't say so myself. second, i chose to show it for conversation's sake. i think that it is missing something. the point here is, this is an example of a photo that is missing that one, elusive little something that distinguishes a good photograph from a great one. what is it? i'm not sure. i'm thinking maybe some foreground interest. a shell? a rock? a person? or maybe it needs something else all together, perhaps the problem is in the background? what do you think?

grand manan

grand manan island ice storm.

the digital and the real

is there anything real about a photograph? does it make a difference whether that photograph is digital? there are unlimited options available for changing digital photogrpahs, or film photos that are scanned, and one could easily change anything from color, scenery, people involved, what color of hair a model has, eye color, breast size, you get it. the implications are obvious, even if you have never thought about them. one of our main values for photography is its ability to document reality. this is exactly the embodiment of media. so. what if we cannot trust photography?

probably, we need to find new values, or new ways of reading digital photography. it isn't enough to read a photo as a portrayal of an event. it is a 'representation' or 'stylization' (these are the sorts of terms that editors often accompany highly edited photos with). what sort of person are you? do you look at the photos here on my blog and assume that i edit them? did i change any of these colours? for the purpose of the discussion, i'm not going to tell. but isn't that exactly the point? we don't know, we can't. it is impossible to tell whether a photo has been edited or not (although computer programmers are working on software to accomplish just that). do you look at the news and understand that the people on the screen may or may not look like that? i'm sure you do, when the news is a tabloid.

i would submit first of all that there are different levels of acceptability when it comes to photo editing. if a photographer takes a photo of someone who is having a bad day, and consequently has bags under her eyes, it would not necessarily be dishonest to do a bit of quick photoshopping and clean up the eyes. changing breast size, eye and hair colour, and location, on the other hand, crosses several lines. the photo ceases to be a person and becomes a creation. perhaps, if creating is the understood intent, this is ok.

here is an even bigger question: what does all of this say about our culture? what does it mean that our highest standard for a woman is 'better than natural'? if we take the most beautiful women we can find, photograph them, and then fix them, what are we saying about beauty? we are saying that it is not real. we are saying that fake is more beautiful than real. take food for example. do you think the picture mcdonalds uses for its advertisment was ever a real hambergur? i doubt it. what on god's green earth has driven us to the place where we reject the real in favour of the 'representation'?

the next question is, should it be this way? do we need to push for a 'purist' art form where the only true art is to portray truth? to capture reality and exhibit it in its purist form? this is something that i am toying with. but then, i also really like what boosting exposure, contrast, and saturation can do for the look of a sunrise.

for more on the implications of digital photography, check out the afterphotography blog listed to the right. i read ritchin's book. its really interesting, and it sparked most of the ideas from this post.

what is the importance of subject?

i've been thinking about this for a while. i bring it before you now, so that you can add your questions to my own, or if i'm lucky, so you can lend me some hard earned wisdom. put generally, i'm wondering what exact role the subject plays in a photograph.
specifically: if art can be used to make a statement, if portraiture is a window into the soul and if fine art is said to have meaning, then how are these meanings changed depending on what the lens captures. for example: two people take two different pictures. ansel adams sees beauty in the shape and form of sand dunes. warhol uses a picture of marilyn monroe for his art prints. these are drastically different forms of photography. next, take the guy who takes pictures of birds with a ten billion times zoom lens. take war photography. is there any merit in calling any of these 'better' or 'worse'? or are they all just different categories of art, which happen to also all use cameras? what do you think?
'but wait!' you say. what about when it's not two different forms of art? what about two people who go about trying to say the same thing with a photograph, but they use different subjects to accomplish the task? i want to know what social critique a photo of a flower could possibly provide. or a bird.
i suppose part of what i'm asking (and i might also be asserting it) is whether there is a point where beauty becomes secondary to the purpose of the artist, a mere tool in the box alongside shock, fear, line, texture, color, you get the idea. a picture of a flower or a bird is nice, and if it's pretty, great! but what role do these types of subjects play in art, a term which should be preserved for something higher than mere beauty.
too often i bring my camera into the forrest in order to take a picture of the forrest, because i want to see something beautiful. so when it comes down to it, i suppose my question is this: how can we begin to see the variety of unused images available for visual artists to use to make informed statements about life with, and in what situations are those images more valid than others?

professionalism

so i wrote that postmodernism was going to bring the end of the professional. perhaps i was wrong. let me tell you why

i believe that 'pure' postmodernism is next to impossible. also, when it comes to art, i think that there is always a category or division into which a piece of art will fit. there will never be a photograph that is purely postmodern, since even if all of the characteristics of a photo are postmodern by definition, those characteristics will still fall into categories like 'found' 'cubist' 'dada' and so on.

so. if that made absolutely no sense to you, suffice it to say that art will never be purely subjective. the categories that we fit every piece into will accord us with the criteria by which to judge it. this is where the professional comes in. even though everyone and avril lavigne has a canon, (an advertising campaign that truly sickens me) there is still a criteria by which to value the professional quality photo, so long as it continues to be better than the photo made by the amateur.

after that little foray into artistic philosophy; something nice to look at:

ctrl c

i have run into something interesting. lets see if you agree. copyright as we know it is going down the tubes. i can't tell you exactly what is going on, all i know is that there has been some activity in the artistic blog world recently following several legal cases where artists have been attempting to hold on to the rights for their work.

so my question (and anything i write here should likely be attributed to either fred ritchen-- check out his new and extremely provocative book 'after photography'-- or chase jarvis) is what will the future of artistic rights look like? is authorship truly dead?

the nature of postmodern art, combined with the ease with which digital photography can be copied and manipulated suggest that there needs to be change. it looks like a change away from the professional, to the world where everyone and avril lavigne has an slr, and news photography is done by the average citizen. questions, questions. where are the answers?

here is a completely unrelated photograph (if that is indeed possible) of my beautiful new nephew:

tidal waters

this is a photo from today: ice in the tidal river near my house.

examining the portrait

today i read an article by chase jarvis (photographer with a masters degree, perfect!) called 'the dichotomy of the photographic portrait'. his point is this: the nature of art, portraiture in particular, is such that in is nearly impossible to avoid creating a manipulated view of the subject, because of a collaboration that occurs between the subject and the photographer. this manipulation is, says jarvis, almost always a form of advertisement for the individual. he claims that it is nearly impossible for the subject not to react to the camera, just as the photographer inevitably attempts to 'color' the look of his or her subject.

on the one hand, i think this is true. and not only for dedicated photographers doing serious portraiture. the general idea, at least, holds true for point-and-shoots at parties. we all think something when we see a camera, whether it is an intentional smile, or an intentional non-smile. perhaps you are one of those who has a well practiced photo-face. or, you may be camera shy, and cover or hide your face. whatever the case, it seems true that the photographer and the subject almost always collaborate to make some form of advertisement of the individual.

the problem for me is that this line of argument ends in the claim that the essence of the individual cannot be portrayed photographically (or the more difficult, philisophical claim that there is no essence, but that is a digression). certainly i will agree that an essence is very difficult to arrive at, particularly for the professional photographer who meets a subject once, for an hour. in contrast to this, however, is the serious photographer who spends years getting to know his/her subject, and makes prints with the weight of that knowledge in mind. i am thinking of an american photographer named edward sheriff curtis, who spent thirty years getting to know and then photographing tribal native americans (check out the national geographic history of photography). perhaps these different types of portraiture are simply two different shades of grey, but curtis's is without doubt a much closer 'essence' of the individual than we will find in the standard portrait, particularly in today's media.

perhaps candid portraiture is the way of the future.


http://blog.chasejarvis.com/blog/2007/02/dichotomy-of-photographic-portrait.html

stock photography

today i read an article about the merits of stock photography. it you don't already know what this is, it is essentially a massive collection of photographs which are taken and edited with the express purpose of sale (often at a low price) to art/photo buyers who have a specific vision or photo in mind. stock photos might be used for a magazine ad, a logo, a poster. it could be anything, but often it will be marketing.

so here is the issue. the author (post-production man on board with chase jarvis, a popular adventure photographer) contended that the specific guidelines and editing process involved in stock photography, as well as the 'crisp perfection' required for submission, stifle the 'raw emotive' quality of photography. stock photography, he seemed to be saying, is dead. it lacks imagination. i suppose that the issue here is dependent on the stock company. certainly imaginative photos could be found within the stock photography tradition, but the question is not about the exception so much as the rule.

i believe that part of the issue is that people are lazy. it is just to easy to log into google, type in 'zebra', and up comes your picture. if you want something of printable quality, you throw in the word 'stock' or 'photo' and presto, somewhere in the top ten is going to be something you can buy, print, advertise. you get the picture. lazy buyers make lazy artists. if i, the aspiring photographer, see pristine, edited photos of frogs and lamps all over the internet, then that's what i'm going to try to learn, make available, and thus the cycle.

let me just cut to the chase. i believe that emotion is an integral element to art. i also believe that creativity can be almost anywhere.

the question is, does every photograph need to fall into the same category of art? could the distinction between 'fine art' and 'art' be the difference between 'raw emotive' photography and the picture of the tree frog that sells cell phones? taken to the extreme, the question becomes, should thoughtful and artistic people be making stock photography?

lucas

distance and time are a womb. where will all the love go?
when i fear i will run out of places to put it?
child
you stretch my heart; i fear i could burst for want to meet you. for want to break this second water and release you into pure reality. into existence as i know it
lucas

artistic sanctions

problem: economic sanctions against dictatorship governments don’t work. look at zimbabwe. mugabe isn’t about to give up his outlived presidency just because western nations pressure him too. he is quite happy to ignore the suffering of his people, a suffering that our sanctions have become the scapegoat for.

so if we believe that something should be done, and if we want to avoid military aggression, then we need to find a way of making the rich uncomfortable, without denying life-necessities to the poor. if we refuse to trade with the people of zimbabwe we prolong their poverty, at the same time failing to empower those poor and starving citizens to speak up against their corrupt government.

i believe that we need to hit the luxuries. what if it were possible to deny all foreign art (hollywood films, music, german made cars, italian leather, watches, etc) to be traded. Probably, it would have to start small. A group of politically active, and thoughtful artists begins a movement, and eventually some bono figure picks up the cause and runs with it.
but what if? what if we could impose artistic sanctions on foreign countries. this form of sanction would, arguably, leave the poor unaffected while denying the rich the enjoyment of their ill-earned riches. discomfort is key. what’s the point of being rich if your money can’t set you apart from the poor. i know, i know, there is way more at work here, we are talking about the greed for power, not just money.

would it work? i have no idea. but it’s an idea.

this poem was written to accompany some of my winter photos. i originally titled it 'blues' but i would prefer to call it 'winter blues'. even then i'm not sure that that is a satisfying title. anyways, title notwithstanding, it is a poem about trying to get out of the winter mindsets of boredom and depression. here goes:

frozen is not death

cold is not night

beneath, beyond, within:

excitement



crystals and diamonds

motion and structure

in rigidity

lie dormant

in want only of the life of light

evolution

this is a small river that feeds into the atlantic ocean at a beach in calais maine. i had a friend tell me today that photos like this one, the classical, pastoral scene with the 'silky' water are cliche. is this true? it seems obvious that art changes. the difference between a successful painting one hundred years ago and another today are countless, but i wonder whether that change incorporates nature. or the way that we look at nature? should the artist begin to look for new ways to interpret the beauty of nature?
like it or not, i believe that we are all a little bit post-modern. the idea that only one type of photography or painting could be beautiful or successful sounds shocking. this is because i (and i believe that the same is true of you) would rather take it for granted that we all have different artistic 'taste' and that what is, in fact, beautiful is made so in part by those who view it. however, i also don't believe that complete cultural relativism is possible (hence we have trends). i suppose this leaves the artist in an awkward place somewhere between following and leading the latest definition of beauty.

ice

here are two shots from today. Both have suffered minor color tuning (euphemism), nothing too drastic. what i find interesting is that nearly anything can make a subject for a good quality photography. we can probably agree that this is art, but what makes it so? there's no pretty model here, and no rose pedal. somehow nature gets clumped in to a huge amount of art (painting, photography, even songs, poems, and stories) so what is it that is so fascinating to us about this all? the forms? the colours? some hidden concept?

i've been thinking a lot about intentionality lately, and i think that might have a role to play in deciding what becomes art. take the blank "painting" on display at the museum, for example. or some of piccasso's stuff. a child could have done either, it could be argued. but would it still be art? or just a happy coincidence?

jan. 20

as i had intended to upload photos the day i took them, while still fresh in my mind, i suppose this is cheating a little bit. ah, well..

the inspiration here is threefold. first, i love the monochrome. it is about the bleakness of winter; a long empty field guarded by a dilapidated old fence.

second is composition. as usual, i tried to incorporate the rule of thirds (pole) and i think that the footsteps leading away create just enough interest, as well as leading the viewer's eye across the field. 

third, this is an image that speaks to where i am. it looks like a walk, a good one through an open field. perhaps an adventure. perhaps some good old fashion solitude.

number two

it has been less than twenty four hours and already i am struck by the audacity of what i am trying to do here. MYSTERY OF HUMANITY? it seems a little much.

and yet, here i am

true, i'm engaged in a second disclaimer to an idea that has barely gotten itself off the ground, but don't we all love disclaimers?

so here it is: this is a site about art. predominantly photography, but i also have a deep love of poetry and prose. so if you are looking for a lesson in technique you may be in the wrong place. if, however, you are interested in a discourse on the relationship between art and beauty, and on the role of the photographer in this self-destructive world that we live in

tune in and read on. and please, let me know what you think

mystery of humanity?

Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote that to create a work of art is to throw light upon the mystery of humanity. My hope is to be able to contribute to that tradition both through written word and through my visual art; photography. I mean for it to be a journey. With hope, it will be a journey upwards, through the concentric circles of life towards beauty. For any who journey with me, my hope is that you will learn a little something true, about yourself or at least the world around you, as you learn about me. Please, share your comments. Let us work together to be the change that we would like to see.