Okay, okay, I admit it…..drool is kinda boring this week.
Not really that difficult to admit because drool tries to
be pretty honest. (Actually, I try to be pretty honest,
even if I’m not drooling…..) And, face it, just like in
photography, or anything else in life, for that matter,
not everything you do can or will be riveting. Fact
of life.

Now, drool gets written over the course of a few days,
usually towards the end of the week. I peck away at
it and hit PUBLISH on Sunday morning. It’s now six
forty-five on a Sunday morning and I’m sitting here
spewing these final (even tho they’re at the beginning
of the post) words. Because I’m loath to publish this
week’s installment as just a list, which it kind of is.

So let me start here by saying something to stir the pot.
If you’re scared and lazy you can’t be a photographer.
Well, actually you can be a photographer, but only a
bad one. Or, at worst, a pretender.

To be clear, I’m not talking here about those who just
love to take fotos, the hobbyists whose love, passion
and industry when it comes to taking pictures I respect,
no matter what they choose to shoot. No, I’m talking
about the growing hoards of people armed with the
newest technology who, in their heads, define them-
selves as “photographers”, but don’t ever really take
pictures. At least not in the sense a “photographer”
would.

Let me tell you: being a photographer requires lots
of industry and desire. If you’re scared and lazy you
can’t be a photographer.

Okay, okay, now to the lists…….

ME (1 of 3)

Openings (especially my own) are not really my favorite
things. I get overwhelmed.

The American States opening was chock-a-block with folks,
coming, looking and staying and talking and going. I had
no time to document the sucker myself but I did manage to
get a hold of some snaps my nephew, Sebastien, took towards
the end of the nite…..

And here are some pix of the installation…..

ME (2 OF 3)

There was some press about the show, as well. Some in print
and some online…..

Peter Simpson wrote a swell article in The Ottawa Citizen. Lots
of stories in this story….

And here’s the shot of me and Gus that they ran in the print
version, but is missing from the online thing…..

© Peter Simpson

Guerilla Magazine ran a short interview on their blog….

Local fotog Clay De Voute wrote this….

ME (3 of 3)

And now that American States is up and running, it’s time to start
work on my next show.

USER opens at PIKTO, in Toronto, in exactly 2 months. A feature
show at the CONTACT foto festival……

OTHERS

Of course American States isn’t the only foto thing to see here.
Ottawa is full of fotos these days….

Exploded View, a group show at The Ottawa Art Gallery, is most
interesting. It’ll probably be one of the highlites of the spring
season here. Included are closeup fotos, by Diana Thorneycroft,
of dolls mouths….

At The Red Wall Gallery, Magida El Kassis is showing a typology
of people of “pure race”….

Gallery 101 is showing a series of strident images from occupied
Palestine by Rehab Nazzal

And Olga Chagaoutdinova is showing her latest fotos, along with
some videos, at Patrick Mikhail Gallery….

Sure, drool starts this week with a long thing about me.
But if you care to carry on down the page, why, you’ll
see other stuff, too.

Get going………

AMERICAN STATES

and it seems the same but it’s
all somehow different- like taking
1/4 hit of acid- these american
states of mine, the geography,
the people and the stories they
tell merely because i ask, pay
attention, and they, for some
reason, want to be represented,
pictured, and it’s impossible to
predict who i’ll meet, what i’ll see,
the only constant being my state
in these american states

I’ve been taking trips to the USA since 2002, to shoot
personal projects. There’s just something about that
country that turns my crank.

In all I’ve shot projects in California (twice), Mississippi
and Alabama, Ohio, New Jersey and Arkansas. Each trip
yielded a portfolio, each portfolio was, more or less, a
stand-alone thing.

When Carrie Colton, the curator at Exposure Gallery, asked
me if I’d be interested in showing some work there, well, I
jumped at the chance. I saw it as an opportunity to throw
all my American shooting into a big pile, stir it up and see
what came out.

Some of my American fotos

Anyone who follows drool knows that one of my favorite
things is to sequence fotos. I’m fascinated by how putting
fotos in a certain order can bring forward certain feelings.
It’s like a puzzle with no one correct solution, but some
solutions are more correct than others. Like chess. There
are a million permutations. It can be maddening. Move one
foto and a sweet, but not perfect enough, passage can fall
apart. Like dominoes.

Ah, the games we play……

Field, Ohio, 2005; My motel room, Mount Sterling, Ohio, 2004

The title, AMERICAN STATES, refers to many things. First,
and most obviously, the states I visited and photographed.
But this sequence is also about the state of America, from
my perspective. And it’s also about my state, when I travel
there to photograph. How can it not be?

Mechanic, Westmoreland, California, 2003

The opening is this Thursday, March 4th, from six thirty to
nine. Exposure Gallery is at 1255 Wellington Street West, in
Ottawa.

I hope you can make it.

JESSICA DIMMOCK

Jessica Dimmock burst onto the scene a few years ago with
her work The Ninth Floor. A series of fotos, shot over many
years, of a group of heroin addicts.

Moby, the musician, liked what he saw and commissioned
Dimmock to shoot a video for one of his songs.

Haunting. And, let me tell you…..I haven’t been affected
this much by anything in a long time.

(Be sure to watch this sucker full screen, please
and thank you.)

Moby ‘Wait For Me’ by Jessica Dimmock and Mark Jackson from Moby on Vimeo.

She talks a little bit about how this happened, and her
process, here.

(And, as an aside…..stuff like this, from fotografers who are
on the front lines of art/documentary, make those wildly pop-
ular videos being produced by the likes of Vincent Laforet, and
all those other commercial shooters, look like what they are:
slick drivel. There, I said it.)

MAGNUM WORKSHOPS AT CONTACT

CONTACT, the big Toronto foto fest, is offering what looks
to be some very interesting workshops. I know for sure that
if I wasn’t going to be super-busy dealing with last-minute
details and hanging my CONTACT show (USER at PIKTO,
opens May 7th), I’d be there in a heartbeat. I’d love to
study with Alec Soth.

Details here.

WINk MAGAZINE

Tyler Brülé, the dude behind Wallpaper* and Monocle magazines
also has an ad agency/design firm, called WINKREATIVE. Based
in London and Zurich.

I’m fortunate enough to have them as a sometimes client. The
folks there are amazing to work with and only want the most
forward, modern work. They have sweet budgets, too.

Another thing this consortium is up to these days is a foto mag,
called WINk Magazine.

So far they’ve only put out 2 issues, but this looks promising.

ARRESTED

Breakfast, earlier this week, sitting at my kitchen table
eating my nuts, drinking my smoothie and perusing The
Globe and Mail as usual, I turned a page and was arrested.

What stopped me was this advert for the Paralympics.

Wow…..straight forward, simple and beautiful can be
so powerful.

BEHIND THE SCENES

YOW at dawn

Takeoff

Landing

Just back, this Saturday nite, from a flying trip
to Toronto. Left Ottawa dawn Friday for one
and a half days of shooting for an advertising
campaign.

The details of the shoot were only finalized
mid-afternoon Thursday so, needless to say,
there was some last minute scrambling to nail
down all the last minute details.

We rented a studio at Silverline Studios, on Eastern
Avenue. Melissa, who mans the desk there, was
great to work with. She arranged for lights and
modifiers to be delivered from Headshots Rentals.
We found an assistant and makeup artist and
were ready to go.

One of the great things about Toronto is the amount
and quality of resources available for jobs like this.
Makes Ottawa seem like even more of a media-savvy-
backwater than it already is.

Drive to studio

The setup

The crew: Creative Director, Account Exec. (who’s job is never done),
Reena the assistant and Shawna, the MUA)

Shot a bunch of folks then called it a day. Trudged
around looking for the perfect restaurant then on
to The Sheraton on Bay to hit the hay.

Drive to hotel

Mr Sheraton and his son

View from hotel

Up at seven the next (this) morning for an overpriced
and really wretched breakfast at the hotel. Then back
to Silverline to shoot the day.

Getting the talent ready

The clients

Mohammed, the Towncar driver who ferried the talent to and from the studio

We had to wrap and get out the door by 2:30 in
order to make it to the airport in time to catch
the flight home.

We wrapped at 2:28.

Drive to airport

Creative Director’s reading material for the flight

AMERICAN STATES

My exhibition, AMERICAN STATES, opens at Exposure Gallery
in just under 2 weeks.

Invitation (Thanks to Donna Darby, over at Utopia Communications,
for the swell design.)

I did the lion’s share of the pre-production for this show
over the Xmas holidays. But, as you all know, there are a
million little details, irritants and last minute finaglings
that always accompany a project such as this.

(…..In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions
Which a minute will reverse…..
from: The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, by T.S. Eliot)

Framing supplies

The plan was to carry on as usual, being busy enough to
make a living and to peck away at producing the exhibition
during the times in between working for the fabulous moolah.

The fabulous moolah is, of course, my phrase for money.
It is also, however, the name Mary Lillian Ellison used when
she was a professional wrestler.

Anyway…..that was the plan.

But as any person living the freelance life knows, there’s never
an even strain. Some periods are WAY too busy, others WAY
too slow. And these days I’m WAY too busy.

But I’ve been busy before, you know. Somehow, though,
things have a way of getting done if needs be……

So it’s getting done and there are framed prints stacked
all over my house.

Framing

THE FRUITS OF MY LABOUR

Author Daniel Poliquin, photographed for Carleton Magazine

KODAK

I admit it. Way back when, I had a sort of fetish for things Kodak.

Those little boxes that held individual rolls of TX 120 smelled
and looked like potential. Cracking them open just felt good.

Of course, Kodak totally missed the boat when the medium
changed and now the company is a ghost of its former self.

I still pick up Kodak paraphernalia though, even if now it’s
only good for holding flowers……..

Vintage Kodak glass 32 ounce beaker

Detail

DOES THIS MAKE ANY SENSE?

Ottawa University students Martine Bedard and Cailyn Quade
came over to interview me for some project they were doing.

Somehow or other a video camera was produced and the interview
was taped, or whatever you call it these days.

Here’s a bit of it. Me talking about objectivity and subjectivity.
I’m not sure if I make any sense.

What else is new?

MORE AMERICAN STATES PRODUCTION

Like most photographers these days I print my images using
an inkjet printer.

Three or four years ago that technology was a bit iffy. What
with archival issues, available media and metamerism.

The good folks at Epson (and so on) have got that all worked
out now. The pleasure of watching a print roll out of the printer,
of holding it up and beholding it is now aesthetically and technically
satisfying.

One thing you must do though, before you frame an injet print is,
you must give it some time to off-gas. The pigments, after they
are laid on the paper, tend to “fart” for a day or two. If you frame
the prints too soon those “farts” end up on the glass.

To deal with this I just pin my prints up in my workroom for a
couple of days. So there’s been a constant parade of pix stuck
up there.

For instance…….

WESLEY KIRSCHNER AT SPAO

The Red Wall Gallery opened a new show by 3rd year student
Wesley Kirschner this past Friday.

A series of lyrical images of models wearing garb built/sewn
just to be photographed.

But interestingly enough the photos, for the most part, aren’t
really about the garb.

Wesley Kirschner

Installation view

© Wesley Kirschner

BBQ

Yes, I still use charcoal.

Yes, I barbecue in the winter.

Getting the coals going