Alright, this every day thing is just not going to work. My arm is aching from the H1N1 vaccination, and I’m feeling woozy. I just worked 13 hours. My feet are swollen and my head is throbbing. Can I have a day off? Nobody wants to read my half-baked late-night ramblings. How about I promised to write when I’m inspired? I really did have the best intentions, but there’s really nothing left in the tank. Except for this:  Here’s a fascinating website sent to me by my friend Saty about a The Willard Suitcase Exhibit. The back-story:
And what a witness it is. This is a rich and complex story, with a large website, and I had to revisit it a few times. It was worth the time invested. The photographs are fantastic, full of life and mystery. Plus, the website includes some eighteen oral histories. The Willard mental health institution has an important place in the history of forced treatment for mental health issues. This exhibition does a very good job at illuminating that history and humanizing its characters. It is a rare and beautiful example of history that is worthy of being called art. November 1st, first day of National Novel Writing Month (or should that be International). In the spirit of the month, I will endevour to write a post every day. Let’s hope this doesn’t kill me! This week: lots more craziness, including a conference I organized, two new portfolios (2!), and a trip to New York. That’s the Big Apple, we’re not talkin’ Syracuse here. Not that I have anything against Syracuse, I once heard some wicked-awesome jazz clarinet there. Editing down to a new portfolio is a tough process. It requires a lot of self-knowledge and introspection. At least it does when I do it. Its always a little bit nerve-wracking, but fun in the end. I use a trick I learned a long time ago (but was reminded by Don Weber of how important it is): I print out every photo I think has a shot at making it to the final edit. Even some oddball ones, photos where you think “what was I getting at here”, or photos you think don’t belong with any others. I print them all out, and lay the proofs on a big table. Then I push them around. I sit some by others, I make little collections, remove a few. As everything slides around the table I start to see connections, relationships between the ideas. That’s how a story comes together. I’m always trying to understand what my photos mean, beyond the mere conceit of the image. Looking back over the thousands and thousands of photos I’ve shot over the last eight yeasrs, I’m starting to see some trends. Most of the time, my photos are about boundaries. No surprise there, I’ve been struggling my whole life to overcome isolation, abuse, and poverty. I used to focus on the external world. My photos were accessible, they employed easy metaphors that related to concrete limitations. I photographed things like fences and birds to illustrate my desire to break free. Then I started to look at internal limitations. For a long time I used blurry, foggy, murky photos to exercise my ghosts. On my vacations I went to places where people had been trapped: Granada and Sarajevo. I think I’ve finally gotten rid of most of those ghosts. Lately I’ve been thinking about interpersonal boundaries. Poverty is essentially an issue of social restriction (based on identity), so I’ve been taking pictures of people. My pictures of people are the most explicit of the photos I’m making now. I’d struggled to photograph people for a long time, but I think I’m finally starting to find my groove. In all of this, it is my desire to make dark places accessible. I want anyone looking at my photos to understand what it feels like to long to be free, to feel haunted, or to be isolated. I want to suggest ways out of darkness, and to give hope.
For about a week, I’ve been working my way through the video archives of the International Centre for Photography. They have a series of recorded artist talks that are simple but very well done. I was really taken by Jeff Liao, a young photographer in New York. His “Habitat 7″ photos are a series of high resolution (wall-sized) panoramas taken of, from, or about the number 7 subway line from Queens to Times Square. Liao uses the commuter train-line as a lovely metaphor. He likens it’s course to that of a river valley, along which can be found the myriad of communities that make up the living city. He puts it better than I ever could: 
I’m heading to New York for a visit next week. I’m looking forward to riding the subway, with Liao’s beautiful photos tucked in the back of my mind. I’d really like to see these pictures in person. The internet just doesn’t seem to do them justice. I’ve always loved riding the metro. The train is a great place to sit and to think. Of all of the great moments of clarity in my life, three have been on the subway. In 2005, on my way to Coney Island in the late afternoon, I watched a butch latina and her femme girlfriend talk and smile. The intoxicating pace of the crazy big city started to sink in, and I knew I was hooked on cities. A few years later on a gray New Year’s in Paris, on my way to pick up barbecue pork, I realized that I was actually enjoying traveling alone. A few days later in the tube in London I had the startling sensation of being at home in a completely new place. I love the train as a way to understand the urban social and architectural environment. We just don’t do subways right in Canada. We don’t do transcendent subways . You might think we would, what with the blistering winters we endure. And really we should build better subways, but Canadians live in car commuter cities. We’re not even close to being ecologically friendly, let alone multicultural in our approach to public transit (although that point is debatable for all colonial cities, of which I include American ones). It’s a shame to live in a country with an abundance of real rivers but so few social waterways. Holy, I am tired. It’s like I’ve been sprinting for four months straight. Working two jobs is getting to be pretty rough. I spend all day wishing for one of these:
My co-workers joke that I’ll be bringing a bed-roll into work soon. Late in the afternoon the other day, my neighbor came around the corner to find me sitting in front of the computer, blank staring, with the telephone receiver just hanging in my hand. “Go home” she said. I see the screen-zombies all over, transfixed like I was. When did it become normal to spend 16 hours a day in front of a glowing panel, whatever the size? I see them , the walking not-quite-dead-but-entertained, taking their dogs out in the evening. I see them on the bus. I see them doing all kind of things. What does it mean that so many people absent themselves from reality to spend time with a technologically mediated cultural product? I feel antisocial when I click-clack away at my very very important meeting registration emails on my Blackberry. Are we all scared of sharing space with other people? More likely we’d rather spend our time with our own little niche of social and cultural security than think about the world “out there” beyond our skin. As a photographer, I feel sometimes that I’m experiencing the world from behind a filter. I wonder if looking at the world through a keyhole is limiting. But then, thinking back through photo-school, to my days at the night lab, I remember the wonderful feeling of discovering photography. It was more like discovering how to see critically. I remember the sensation of surprise and glory of looking at the world in with a new awareness. Photography is not about taking pictures, its about noticing the world and making note. Photography is about a kind an awareness of the world and one’s self that you just can’t get in front of a screen.
Well, time flies. The MSF show was tonight (and through Sunday) at La Petite Mort and everything went well. Turnout was great, and most of the peices sold — mine was snapped up pretty quick. My favorite peice is a photograph by my friend Pedro Isztin of his father and nephew. Check out the show if you’re bumming around Ottawa this weekend with nothing to do. The photograph above, “I miss you,” was my donation. I was in Toronto last spring for a conference. After the second day, I rode my borrowed bicycle home from the CN Tower, through Trinity-Bellwoods park, up the little hill, and along the path past the tennis courts toward College and Danforth. That is where I saw the letters stitched into the fence. It was spring, still wet, and although the sun was warm it was still a little cold too. I don’t know why the words were there, or what they mean. I found them comforting, in a way, like I had been let into a private conversation between lovers, albeit in one direction. It was a photography conference. Not wanting to look like a big nerd (or at least a bigger one than I already am), I brought my little Minolta pocket camera with me. Maybe that makes me even nerdier. Whatever. In any case, the little no-controls-all-automatic brick of hard plastic and metal did a great job on that trip, and I got a few great photos. Great because they are important to me. It was a heady time, those months that I spent shuttling back and forth to the Big Smoke. I was there three times in six weeks. Each visit brought me a little closer to the possiblity of making something of photography. Every time I went things seemed a little more real. I gained a lot of confidence. Going to Toronto gave me the push I needed to start a series of investments that have resulted in some interesting, exciting, and rewarding work over the past few months. This photo is a product and a symbol of the process of re-investent that has allowed me to grow as an artist. It was long overdue. It’s really nice to see your work hanging in a gallery.
In just under two weeks, I’ll be participating in a fundraiser for Médecins Sans Frontières involving many of Ottawa’s best photographers. Held at Ottawa’s most pleasure oriented gallery come party spot, it’s shaping up to be a not-to-miss event. Particularly so because all prints will be $100, a real steal, and all proceeds go to MSF. Asuage your guilty conscience, enjoy art, and get drunk all in the same place. Would I ever steer you wrong? La Petite Mort Gallery presents…
More info: http://www.lapetitemortgallery.com/events/DoctorsWithoutBorders2009.htm See you there! Well, it was late arriving, but this is officially the song of the summer: This little pop gem is on repeat at my house, and I almost have the dance moves nailed. Amazing. Rapture. Once it gets in your head, there’s no turning back. Finally, credit where credit is due: this video was a tip from my friend Catriona Sturton.  Welcome Home balloons I walked into my father’s bar last week, and was met by a room full of fresh faces, young and tanned. That is the sign, that is how I know summer is soon to be over. Everyone is back from holidays, and school is about to start up again. There were a lot of new backpacks on the bus today. On my ride to work, a teenage girl didn’t know how to get off in front of the high school. She couldn’t find the pressure strip, with all it’s markings worn off by endless fingers. I had my own bus woes to start the day. Standing on the platform, I watched 3 buses pass as I waited for my connection. It was a half hour before I realized that construction had finished on the other side of the station, and that my stop had moved. It’s a confusing and exciting time for everyone, me included. I was late for work. This time last year, I was just getting ready for another new start. Going back to school was exciting. I’d been out for two years. With all the floating around and dropping out I’ve done, I was worried about being older than all the other students. It turned out that I actually liked being older. When you’re one of the few adults in a room of 500 seventeen-year-olds, the other adults have a way of finding you. That in itself was a bit of a revelation. It was the first year I actually felt like an adult. It was a hard year, an adult year. I was working two or three jobs a week, and going to school full time. Things were going alright, until our landlord started to go crazy. My roommate and I were almost illegally evicted in the middle of the winter. It was too much, and life started to fall apart. I showed up to work in ripped jeans once or twice. We relied on my father to bring groceries from Costco, and ate a lot of Chinese pork buns. Somehow, I scraped through the end of school and ended up doing fairly well. I was looking forward to going back this year. I was looking forward to ending the marathon, getting settled, and focusing on my studies. Then the offer came. A good job. A real Job, with a desk, and a salary, benefits. A “bridge in” that I took. This is my fourth week. Technically, my title is “Analyst, Information Transfer and Output” as part of the Policy and Research department of the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation. In reality, I am an online producer and (mostly digital) outreach worker for housing researchers. I pull the strings that support an online community. I do everything from organizing conference calls and social networking to information architecture design and usability measurement. It is an interesting little eddy of the government that I’ve found myself in, and a scary new world out there on the inter-webs. Luckily, the work I do is for a legally distinct non-governmental organization, so we can do some fun stuff.  Discarded clothes under the streetlight And the marathon continues. This time, however, it’s different. This time, it is my choice. It was hard to put down my plans to go to school, hard to switch gears so suddenly. But with the opportunity of steady employment comes the freedom to do what I couldn’t before: personal work. In my opinion, all good photography is personal. I am a feeling photographer, I go by emotion and see by feel. Working lets me pursue personal the projects I could never justify when I was hustling work and scraping by. In the long run, I feel that it is my personal work that will matter most. Christopher Morris once said that the best way to succeed in photography is to quit. I think that this is what I am doing. And I’ve been investing in myself at the same time. I found my voice at the end of a very long year. A conference and a couple of workshops helped. New friends and new perspectives were invaluable. A whole bunch of new gear, with new capabilities, made a big difference too. I’m more focused, more tuned-in, turned on, and aware. I read visual theory, and a bunch of good fiction. My thoughts are more clear. I feel like I am taking the next step towards doing meaningful documentary work on a regular basis. I’m ready, and now I have the resources to make it happen. Summer is almost over, it’s time to get to work. Time for another long year.  a little bit of alcoholic foreshadowing When it comes to photography, I’ve seen a lot in a relatively short time. I’ve been to crazy places, and met amazing people. I’ve filled many different roles along the way. Sometimes photography is just a lot of hard work, but I’ve been lucky and privileged to have a lot of fun at the same time. Today, part one of a three part series about assisting in the early-ier days of my photography career. Back when my friend Aaron McKenzie Fraser was living in Ottawa (and I was starting out in photography), we did a few jobs together. I didn’t assist for Aaron very much, but I was there for what were some pretty choice gigs. Like the time we photographed Stephan Dion. In the lead-up to the Liberal leadership race, Aaron was hired to take portraits of the candidate. It was an early-morning appointment, so we tested the lighting setup a couple days in advance. I don’t remember how Aaron got that job, but it seemed like a bit of a minor coup, and I sure did not want to mess it up. When the day came, Dion brought a bevy of assistants in tow. His advisers and consultants installed themselves on the big green couch in Aaron’s living room. The woman in charge of fashion decided that more red ties were needed. The young assistant was sent out, and soon returned with a fistful of crimson cravats from Harry Rosen. Dion was skinny and pale in his boxer shorts, like a boy. He seemed aloof, distant. He was uninterested in the proceedings unfolding before him in the little apartment in Centretown. The large screwdriver he drank a few minutes later dispelled any delusions of political infancy or wavering of purpose. The ability to drink steadily at all hours of the day is mark of a seasoned politician. There was a brain whirring behind Dion’s eyes. Every few minutes he’d call an order for some message to be given, some report to be retrieved.  A sad day for Stephan Dion “Turn your head to the left.” “Get so-and-so’s paper on environmental policy from my desk for my meeting with X this afternoon.” “Tilt your chin up.” “Ensure we get such-and-such statement on the website.” “Smile.” Flash. Click. Repeat. He was a man on fire, but we gave him not a hope in Hades of winning the leadership. I speculated at the time that his candidacy was an attempt to become kingmaker and secure a plum post in the coming Liberal government. Funny how things turned out. As the election progressed, I was impressed by Dion. He seemed, by far, the smartest of the bunch of jokers we call leaders these days. He was earnest, honest, endearing even. His policies were ahead of the times. His tax green tax scheme was progressive (and not that hard to understand), if politically poisonous. He spoke English better than any of the others spoke French. He may not have been a good politician, but he would have made a great Prime Minister. It’s too bad the Liberal party was divided and broke. It’s too bad we have the same spiteful and ill-spirited Prime Minister again. People say they want a politician they can trust, but what they really want is tax-breaks. Somewhere between the day I saw Stephan Dion in his underwear and election day, I changed my vote to support the Liberals. To me, Dion is the best of kind of Canadian: an intelligent, just, and thoughtful person who could straddle the divides of our country to forge a better future. Maybe one day we’ll get over our petty regional differences and be a real country. Next time: Aaron and I on the tarmac with fighter pilots, and one amazing slice of bread. | Being There by Jackson Couse is very happy to reccommend hosting by Fused Network.  |
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