Being There

Old sun­glasses at Abbas Gro­cery, Ottawa

Well, my brain is cooked.

I am in Toronto again this week­end, the third time in a month.  I should have rented an apart­ment!  I’m in town for a work­shop with Don­ald Weber, Cana­dian doc­u­men­tary pho­tog­ra­pher and mem­ber of the VII Network.

Don reviewed my work in 2007, at a con­fer­ence called the Great White North Work­shops. I showed him a port­fo­lio of my “I am Free” series (orig­i­nally called “Departs”). Nobody else at the con­fer­ence really “got” my pic­tures at the time, or engaged me hon­estly. Don did, and his advice at that time changed my direc­tion in pho­tog­ra­phy. He told me to start pho­tograph­ing peo­ple. He told me to get over my fear, and get closer. Two years later, at a con­fer­ence last month, he remem­bered my work.

Scrap metal at Baker’s in Ottawa

This time, he kicked my ass a bit. I have been shoot­ing peo­ple. I’ve been get­ting a lot closer lately. I’ve worked hard to be cog­nizant and crit­i­cal of my sur­round­ings, and the peo­ple in them. What Don did, and what I am grate­ful for, is called me out for not shoot­ing true to my vision. He is right.

Some­where along the way, I trained myself to ignore my instincts. I focused on style and tech­nique over sub­stance and mean­ing. I lost focus of why I love pho­tog­ra­phy. I’ve been sup­press­ing the emo­tional, non-technical, and intu­itive way of shoot­ing that is actu­ally my strength. Despite count­less hours work­ing on other types of pho­tog­ra­phy, I keep com­ing back to doc­u­men­tary pho­tog­ra­phy. I can’t stay away, and it’s time for me to be hon­est with myself about that. It’s time for me to make the jump, I just needed a lit­tle push from Don­ald Weber.

So if it’s all about the peo­ple (or, more specif­i­cally, rela­tion­ships), why did I choose two pho­tographs with­out peo­ple in them?  I just started a new project. These pic­tures are part of it, but I have to keep the peo­ple pho­tos to myself for a while.