IDEA

So I’ve got an idea, or maybe a rough idea, about some of the imagery I want to accumulate, throw into the stew that is my new project.

One of the things (if “things” is the correct word) I’m after is male and female flesh, bodies.

To this end I asked my friend Hannah if I might photograph her, her body. Sure, she said. Thank you very much, I replied.

Day of the shoot I went over to her place, we sat on the couch, talked a while. I tried to explain what I thought my idea was, why I wanted some flesh and bodies in the mix. The situation, then and there, seemed relaxed and interesting so I shot a frame.

But I was nervous to begin . . . what with having some pretty firm ideas about how and why photos of naked people should be used. In fact it feels a little weird posting these here. But there is a reason (I tell myself) for showing them, the duds and the ones that might, in the end, be useful. Just as there is (or might be) a reason why I need images like this at all.

Anyway, finally I gathered up my gumption and we moved to the bedroom and began.

To say the photos were bad would be an understatement, they seemed forced and stupid. My fault completely. (I’ve always maintained that when photographing people in a controlled situation the photographer is the only person who can make a mistake.)

Then I remembered how comfortable we had been sitting on the couch, talking. How that very first snap was so fresh and seemed real, and how I liked the way her eyes were cut off because I hadn’t been really looking or even trying.

So we moved back there . . .

And it felt closer to what I thought I had in mind.

But seen here, decontextualized from how it might be used in the project, it seems too blatant. I mean, I like the relaxed feeling and the fact the eyes were cut off (and that extra eye on her arm). The look on Hannah’s face works for me too. Maybe in the end I’ll be needing images like this. For now, for me, that’s reason enough to try.

And finally we did this . . .

And I thought, yes, that’s what I meant. It strikes me as maybe a viable piece of my project, which is a puzzle that, at this point, is undefined. But I think that this image provides, somehow, a piece of some definition.

I had set out to photograph flesh but it’s this photograph that embodies, for me, the feeling (and maybe even the meaning) of what I think I’m after.

Goes to show that what you think you want, what you think might be important, might not be what you want or what’s important.

Of course, these are early days and I’m not ruling anything out at this point. My job now is to make sure I’ve turned over as many stones as necessary to ensure I have enough “right” images to make the project work. And by work I mean to create a sequence that points in the direction of, and somehow defines, my idea. An idea which I’m still not going to say out loud.

OTTAWA NOTES

Not much to note in the KapitalCityPhotoScene this week. Next week, though, there’ll be some good stuff to report. And so it goes . . .

In the meantime, what about your project? Does it want to become a book? If it does then this workshop is for you.

A Practical Guide to Publishing a Photobook. It takes place at SPAO, July 20th. That’s a Saturday.

You’ll learn:

  • Why you should make a photobook and how to organize your images in a way that makes sense.
  • The various tools, both online and physical, you can use to work on your book.
  • How to make dummies (working prototypes) of your book as it evolves.
  • The steps you should take to refine the look and feel of the book.
  • The various means available to have your book printed.
  • And a lot of other stuff you’ve probably never considered, like how the weight of the book affects shipping charges, how to source packaging materials to make the delivery/distribution of your book more professional, and ways and means to publicize your book.

Go here to sign up.

Cover and page spreads of Official Ottawa
Printed on newsprint
2000 free copies distributed across Canada

INDUSTRY, HAPPENSTANCE AND PONDERING

This week we begin with a short thing, and a link, to a discussion about photographing power. There’s also an update on my new project, plus a couple of Ottawa Notes. And be sure to tune in next week when drool. will have a special BREXIT! edition.

Let’s begin . . .

PHOTOGRAPHING POWER

A little while ago I participated in a Skype-type round table discussion, the subject: Photographing Power. The discussion was moderated and edited by Laurence Butet-Roch, for The Magenta Foundation’s newsletter.

In on the discussion were Glenna Gordon, Janet Jarman, Yvonne Venegas, Paolo Woods and Luca Zanier. Some seriously smart photographers.

It’s a long(ish) read but if you are interested in, well, in how and why to photograph power you’ll find some interesting thoughts, ideas and links in there.

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INDUSTRY, HAPPENSTANCE AND PONDERING

When I began this project the plan was to allow my new camera, plus a certain amount of industry, happenstance and pondering, to provide direction. What the project might be about, what it would look and feel like, was totally undefined.

But now something, some possibility, is emerging out of the semi-randomness of my shooting.

For instance, I see these four as being connected. But the connection, whatever it is, is very crude and probably mostly in my head. And even then it’s foggy. But it does feel like I’ve caught a glimpse of something in that fog, some possibility, something to pursue.

Of course I’ve just begun, and the act of discovery (as opposed to executing a plan to arrive at a foregone conclusion) takes a lot of time. I have to keep reminding myself. Yes.

Plus, as I work away I’m sure there will be rethinks, maybe even wholesale revisions of what I think I’m trying to do.

Who knows?

And that’s the beauty of it.

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OTTAWA NOTES

PHOTOBOOK WORKSHOP

This workshop, at SPAO, will enlighten you about all kinds of practical photobook-making tips, tricks, strategies, resources, promotion and more. Stuff I learned the hard way, through trial and error, when I was running Straylight Press and produced 18 titles by 12 photographers.

Sign up here.

Covers of some Straylight Press photobooks.

RUTH STEINBERG: Comfortable in His Own Skin

After Angus Wright lost 300 pounds Ruth Steinberg photographed his body. The resulting images, large B&W prints from 4×5 negs, are on display at the Enriched Bread Artists gallery.

This is a hard yet elegant look at a male body. The photographs contain no gauzy symbolism, they are not overwrought, nor do they cater to romance. What they do do is, they tread the fine line between forensics and art history. They are difficult to ignore.

The viewing sched is a bit finicky, but this exhibition is definitely worth the effort. Go have a look and a think. Details here.


FRESH. FROM ANGOLA.

ÉMILIE RÉGNIER: La Bella de Luanda

I first met Émilie 4 or 5 years ago at the Boreal Bash in Toronto, where she showed her Passport West Africa work. I was immediately taken. Shot with a Polaroid passport camera, four identical images on a small piece of positive film. Mostly women, a few men and children. Headshots.

from: Passport West Africa ©Emilie Régnier

Since then I’ve been looking at her subsequent work with wonder. Created mostly in Africa, almost always based on fashion. But it’s not really of fashion, also in the mix is portraiture, culture, exoticism (to Western eyes), sociology, anthropology, art, and the document.

Her most recent work, La Bella de Luanda, photographed in Angola, stopped me in my tracks. There’s something about these images that seem (at least for me) to provoke interesting questions about representation, questions that photographers people these days might want to think about. And they do it in a fresh, modern way that invites wonder.

Top to Bottom
Miss Allina
Maria and Hortancia
Madame Mendes

I asked Emilie a few questions. Her answers are as fresh and honest as her photographs . . .

Tell me a little about how you came to photography and why you choose to work with cameras that seem to embrace, for lack of a better word, the analog qualities of the medium.

I came to photography at a very young age. My grandfather bought me my first Polaroid camera when I was about 6 years old. I was then living in Gabon, and I remember shooting whatever I could, my friends, landscapes etc… They were terrible images, but I was already infatuated with the magic of photography.

When I was 16, I start working, and I used my first paycheck ever to buy myself a semi-professional Pentax camera. I was then taking photos of my friends and parties until graduation, most photos were taken slightly drunk or high and I would paste them on the wall of my room. And from then, I tried hard to not embrace photography as a professional career, but at 20 after dropping out of college on a winter day because they were no more parking spots available… I decided that maybe it was time to stop running away from what I really wanted and I went to study photography at College Marsan in Montreal. I instinctively disliked digital at the beginning. It doesn’t have the same sensuality, the depth of field bothered me, it had with time became too sharp and mainly it doesn’t exist in the material world, plus the beauty of mistakes with film camera is hard to beat. But I guess I am just like a nostalgic DJ swearing vinyls are so much better than MP3….

Miss Oliveira
Miss Maria
Miss Fatima
Miss Esperança

What draws you to Africa?

I spent my childhood in Gabon, and we got back to Canada when I was about 8. I for a long time said and thought that I went to live and work on the African continent to be an actor of change and witness inequalities.

Today, if I am honest, I think I was drawn back to this continent because a part of me belongs here. I am mixed race, and I was raised in a suburb of Montreal where I always stood out. Despite the love and affection of my family and friends, there was not a day I didn’t remember that I was different. It could maybe have been another experience if my father would have been around and I would have a positive reference of what it is to be a person of color, but he didn’t, and I grew up around white peoples.

At that time, for me being black was either synonym of a gang, crimes, hip hop, absent father or Africa and starvations. When you are mixed, you embodied both, the oppressed and the oppressor. There’s a natural tendency to embrace the part of you that has been oppressed, as it is your weakest link. I used to hate being mixed from a Black father, so I guess I had to learn about that side of me, to learn about what it means to be Black.

When I first came to Dakar more than 10 years ago, I felt that there were other realities than the one I had been living in. That the narratives about peoples of color I have been exposed through Western media as a child and a teenager were lies and stereotypes, that this continent was something other than conflict and malnutrition, that this is a place of creativity where the world is being reinvented. And I felt I wanted to be part of these narratives, not the one I was seeking at first, but the one that is still taking shape in front of my eyes.

Miss Lebia
Blue
Madalena and Luzia
Miss Americo

To my eyes the work you are doing there moves well beyond what these days is commonly called “othering”, your photographs ask a lot of questions. Can you talk a bit about your approach, both on the ground with the people you choose to photograph, and how and why you came to this way of working?

The goal I am pursuing with my work is to build bridges, to create other narratives and other ways to look at peoples. Our brains are over lazy and Western ideas of success, beauty, wealth are widely spread through Western Media and are often held by the elite around the world. This has created conditioning on how we see ourselves and how we see others. I want to challenge those ideas. I have been exposed to them growing up, and every day I am working hard to rewire my brain and to believe other truths. I want my work to make others question their absolute beliefs. I don’t have answers, but I am continually seeking new questions. I believe Fashion and Art are powerful tools to lead to new ways of thinking and to expand our consciousness.

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OTTAWA NOTES

SPAO hosted their annual grad show this past Friday. As usual a swell crowd filled the premises. Merriment, chat, discussion, catching up, looking, et cetera, ensued.

But what about the work?

Well, as usual, each graduating student has brought their own voice, concerns, perspective and approach to the show. What struck me, though, is I can’t remember a graduating cohort who seem more outward-looking and politically engaged than this one (generally) is.

Some of the politics is overt.:

  • Katherine Fulwider’s prints on cardboard of homeless youth, these accompanied by cardboard signs those youth use to tell you what they want you to know.
  • Christine Potvin’s portraits with interviews of Canadian Forces veterans, if that’s the correct word, who were drummed out of service because they were gay.
  • BPG’s reimagining of supermarket tabloids as hard political propaganda.

Some is elliptical:

  • Vivian Törs’ reaction to letters, written from 1937 to 1944, by a Hungarian-Jewish wife and mother.
  • Lauren Boucher’s ode to home and surviving cancer.
  • Destroyed money by Nicolai Papove Gregory.

Some documentary:

  • Through her grown children, Patricia LaPrairie looks at life in her home.
  • Lindsay Irene’s portraits of sex workers.

Of course there’s more. And who knows, you may see politics there where I don’t. After all, couldn’t all self expression be classified as somehow political?

And, as usual, some of the bodies of work here are more accomplished, fully realized, sophisticated, multi-dimensional, (fill in your own word here), than others.

Go have a look and decide for yourself. It continues until May 5th.

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