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Somewhere around the time that I started this blog I heard this hip hop poet say “Anything that is not growing is dead.”
The other day Emily and I walked through the streets alongside her house looking for my new home. We talked about the necessity of change and how much of it we have experienced throughout the years. Some of it painful but all of it positive in the end. It was a gentle remembrance that we cannot predict the changes that we need or even will want — and this is a good thing. Recently I gave up the apartment that was my home in favour of an unknown place. Through a bout of homesickness I realized that my almost insane love of Toronto and my old apartment on Dupont is really a love for the people that I have found here and continue to live alongside with. This is cause for celebration and not only fuel for my upcoming project The Loved Ones, but also a newfound appreciation for My Hometown, Your Hometown, Little City, the Royal Family, and all the other projects born out of this love.
I have thousands of photos I want to share with you. Adventures unseen, unprocessed, unshot. On with 2012.
(The photos above: Emily in the snow on an adventure her and Robert took me on when I was sick last year. And the second is an outtake from this shoot.)
A little remembrance
Have you ever woke up one morning and completely felt disconnected from your past work? It happens to me sometimes. I don’t recognize the feelings behind the images I’ve created. I can’t connect to whatever I was trying to evoke. It is as if I am looking at the work of someone I don’t know. This morning person never took photos, and won’t in the future. I sometimes wonder if that is the cost of growth, life experience and maturity. Then something curious happens — it all comes flooding back; the hurt, the love, the suspense, the grace, all the extravagantly rich feelings that previously seemed like a lost coin. The medium of photography becomes new.
Source books are a great way to work through the creative muddle. I look back at these pages from 2007 books and I’m intrigued by how much they meant to me. The crisp process of mixing and matching thoughts and ideas was much more appealing than the finished product. My friend was telling me about some ideas that were keeping her up at night — it seemed so clear to me that she needed an outlet. And then it occurred to me that I should follow my own advice. So this is where I will be, away from the computer and getting my fingers sticky with glue.
Lovers
And I don’t just mean “world peace”. I mean peaceful hearts, friendships, families, neighbourhoods, cities, and countries.
Good morning Nova Scotia
Yesterday I took a taxi, a ferry, a plane, a car, another plane, and then a truck all so this could be the first thing I saw this morning. After twenty-two hours on only four hours of sleep I can safely say it was worth it. Shooting in Gatineau Park (Quebec) yesterday was a thrill and I am even more thrilled to be shooting oceanside here in Nova Scotia today.
The value of applying (yourself)
From a recent photo shoot with Dar. You can read about it over on Little City.
Honesty
I was recently accepted into the Lucie E-pprentice program, and I was lucky enough to be paired with the one and only Michael Crouser. During our first mentoring session, I asked him about how he dealt with the pressure to be innovative all the time. It not only seems unsustainable, it actually feels impossible to constantly stay ahead of the pack. His answer was simple but comforting: he doesn’t worry about it. He simply spends (and takes) his time working steadily on images that interest him. It occurred to me that our idolatry of innovation might actually prevent us from creating honest imagery that reflects our true interests. How are those weird alter-interests that we think we should have interfering with all the great things we could be sharing? I’ve been a photographer for about five and a half years, which is not many compared to the giants in the industry. I think it’s a nice reminder to my peers out there — shoot what you like. Tell the stories that need to be told. Let your infinite curiosity take care of the rest.
With that in mind, here’s a lonely shirt that I photographed in Punjab, India. The children in this particular village would wash their school clothes each evening so that they could be worn again the next day.
Quiet city
On Saturday morning I woke up before then sun, laced up my steel toe boots, strapped my camera bag to my bike, and glided through the empty streets of our lovely city. The clouds only seemed present in order to make the rising sun more beautiful and the wind gently pushed me downtown as if it knew exactly where I was going. I usually photograph people, but this time my assignment involved photographing a building. It reminded me of my days with Eye Weekly when I would explore places that Shawn Micallef had detailed in Stroll. Every once in a while I would show up to a location and the mysteriousness of it would peak my curiosity. Time would fly by and the it seemed like the only sound in the world was my shutter opening and closing. All photographers are different, but for me little else is more satisfying.
