Category: PROCESS

TAKE IT OR LEAVE IT

Couple of quick announcements. Don’t worry, these are followed by some actual content . . .

drool. is about to become a bi-weekly thing. That is: published every second Sunday.

But, wait!, you say, that’ll be too confusing. How am I supposed to keep track of “every second Sunday”?

  • drool.
    all killer, no filler

No prob. Just subscribe using the handy subscribe form, there at the top, on the right. If you are on a mobile use this direct link or scroll to the very bottom for a subscribe button.

Fill it in. Get HYPO. delivered to your inbox. (And know that I’ll never share or sell your information.)

As well, I’ll be experimenting a bit with the format and content as drool. moves forward into the ’20’s. Maybe a bit more multi-faceted, maybe even funnier than it already is (as if that’s even possible, yuk, yuk, yuk).

So sign up and come along for the ride.

  • drool.
    automatic delivery
Automat, Groningen, The Netherlands

And since we’re on the subject . . . let me tell you why I do drool.:

I enjoy the process. The writing helps me know what I’m thinking (and, sometimes, feeling). And that, in turn, informs a whole bunch of other stuff that comprises certain (but not all) aspects of this project I call my life.

That’s the reason I do photo projects, too. Except with those I get to go out into the world and meet people and experience places. (Which, in my opinion, is a richer, more rewarding pursuit than writing.)

And the reason I make them public is ego and a desire to communicate.

Simple. Take it or leave it.

  • Talking with the Rayburn family, Monroeville, Alabama
  • Outside Monroeville, Alabama, 2004
  • Pondering the mysteries of New Jersey, 2006
  • Shipping containers, outside Newark, New Jersey, 2006
  • Talking with Tracey, Ottawa, 2008
  • Tracey, Ottawa, 2008
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OTTAWA NOTES

TALK/DAVE HEATH

Sunday, January 19th Studio Sixty Six will be hosting a conversation between Michael Schreier and yours truly. The public are invited.

The topic we’ll be discussing is something along the lines of “the interior muse”. This predicated by my previous blog post and the exhibition, at Studio Sixty Six, of Dave Heath’s late work.

Who knows what’ll happen.

Anyway, it begins at four Sunday afternoon and ends at six. There will be a bar for some drinkypoos afterwards, to facilitate general hobnobbing.

Plus, if you haven’t seen the show . . . well, that’s a good chance/excuse to have a look.

All the details here.

Plus! Some pictures from the exhibition to give you a taste . . .

Robert and June, New York, May 25. 2004
Untitled, New York, circa 2008
Untitled, Dedicated to Gaugin, no date
Lamentation for September 11. no date

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AN INTERIOR VIEW

April last year I bought a new camera, first new one in ten or twelve years. An easy one-handed snap-shooter. The plan was to shoot random stuff and see what developed.

I haven’t done a project this open-ended since I was a young man. Back then I revelled in chaos, randomness and a devil-may-care outlook. For at least the past twenty years, though, I’ve set geographic and/or demographic parameters for myself to, you know, tone down the confusion.

  • Me, Toronto, 1979
  • 40 years later, in Ottawa

Well anyway, I got off to a good start, if “good” means consistently shooting a bunch of random stuff. But after a while I got bogged down, confused, maybe even a little bit pissed off. Nothing I was doing made any sense. It didn’t add up.

There were a few fleeting moments when I thought I had caught a glimpse of what this project might be about. I put a bit of effort into sequencing some images, to see what I had been doing, but it just didn’t pan out. I couldn’t find a handle.

Then, over the holidays I said to myself, I said, Tony, have a solid look at what you’ve done so far. Pick ten that feel right, put ’em into a row, shuffle them around, reshuffle, add and subtract images, re-reshuffle, repeat as required, find the thread. Begin, goddammit.

A few of the selects I looked at

So I did. And now, after nine months of effort and aimlessness, I think I’ve finally figured it out, realized what I’ve been working towards, where I want this to go . . .

As I mentioned above, all my previous projects were rooted, somehow, in the specific location or demographics I was photographing. But that’s not what’s important here. This project is not about any specific location or demographic, in fact it’s not about the exterior world at all. It’s an interior view.

Of course it’s all tenuous at this point, and my thinking about the way forward, about the permutations and possibilities, is very bare-bones. But my thoughts now have a foundation on which to build.

In the meantime . . . this sequence is my first glimpse at the way forward. Into the inside.

(Best viewed enlarged on a big monitor. Click the first one for the slide show.
But I know that, these days, that’s probably asking too much.)

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OTTAWA NOTES

DAVE HEATH- In Concert For The Silent Witness

Though best known for A Dialogue with Solitude (1965), American photographer Dave Heath (1931-2016) spent his latter years in Toronto, teaching and photographing.

His good friend, Michael Schreier, was left with the archive of colour photos Dave was working on towards the end of his life. A selection of these works will be on display at Studio Sixty Six. Opening January 9th and continuing until February 9th.

Not to be missed. All the details here.

Joanne, Toronto, Circa 2008 ©Dave Heath

BACK IN NOVEMBER

Last year I was photographing November. I had 30 or so sheets of 4×5 film and a month to do it. Vertical landscapes.

But not really just landscapes, no, I wanted the photographs to represent how November feels. Psychological. And for those of you not from here, here November is a grey, bitter month. Foreboding.

  • Camera porn, au naturel.

But November light and skies are something else. On the right day they encapsulate more than just November. Some primal thing . . . the end of the world, or maybe some new beginning. I reckoned this would be a kind of a riff on my last project, After the Fact.

November 10th last year . . .

And then, November sixteenth last year, there was a huge snowfall. Overnight everything turned pretty. Damn. I didn’t want pretty.

A different road, six days after the previous photo . . .

Well, I was bummed. How are you supposed to photograph bleak and grey when there’s a soft white layer covering everything? So I abandoned the project and began to think about other things.

And then what happened? I’ll tell you what happened. Another November happened. That’s what. Turns out there’s one every year.

So I loaded up some film and went out to feel the biting wind on my face and the waning sun on my back. Once again I was in my glory, out in the world feeling . . .

And then it happened again. Snow. Lots of snow. This is what the short walk to the street in front of my house looked like on November 12th . . .

But in the meantime I’ve managed to cobble together ten images that seem to get the job done. (Ten or twelve final photographs was my aim for this project). If you want to see them big click on this. (Best seen on a large monitor for all the 4×5 goodness.)

I might revisit this again next November. I might not. We’ll see . . .

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OTTAWA NOTES

FIGUREWORKS

For those of you who like the competitive aspects of the art world, Figureworks Prize announces the big winner of their local portrait contest. Wednesday, November 10th at St. Brigid’s Centre for the Arts, six to ten. Some photography is involved.

OPAL Issue Nº 3: launch

Local photo publication The OPAL Community launches Issue Nº 3. Featuring photography from all over. Thursday November 21st, five thirty to nine at House of Common, 11B Fairmont Avenue (around the back).