It’s Saturday, late morning, and I just sat down to pound
out another edition of drool. Lo and behold, when I opened
the Wordpress program I use, well…..it all looked different.
I’ve been upgraded. I hope I can figure it out. Probably it’ll
look the same at your end but, man, all the buttons and stuff
at my end have been moved around and/or re-named.

So, please bear with me here. Things may not look “normal”
this week. As well, let me know if you are experiencing any
weirdness’ here. I’m sure I’ll be able to work out the kinks
over the next week or two.

The drool upgrade is part of a couple of web-related upgrades
I’ve undergone this week.

CONTROVERSY? WHAT CONTROVERSY?

The latest edition of Capital Arts has an article about contro-
versial art in Ottawa. Author Hannah Yakobi talks to, amongst
others, Jonathan Shaughnessy, from the National Gallery; Melinda
Mollineaux, from the Canada Council, Stefan St. Laurent, from
SAW Gallery and yours truly.

I’ve done two major projects in Ottawa. One was a 2 1/2 year
documentation of the Ottawa neighbourhood Mechanicsville.
The other is my ongoing series of portraits of crack addicts.

2 images from: MECHANICSVILLE

Catherine; from: USER

Both of these series were “controversial” when they were exhibited/published.
Now, I may be thick, but I don’t get it. Controversial? All I’m doing is looking
and recording from one (my) point of view.

My opinion is that most controversy in the art world simply stems from people
criticizing what they don’t understand or don’t want to see. Knee jerks.

Anyway…..If you have the time and inclination you can read the article here.

TOOLS

I read on some blog, some time ago, a comment from some young
photographer.

Her comment was in response to a post about another photographer
who only shoots film.

The comment was something along the lines of: “If you shoot film,
how do you know that the pictures turned out?”.

I guess that these days, with so many fotogs just knowing how to
shoot with a digital camera, the concept of knowing-what-you’re-
doing-without-checking-the-back-of-your-camera-after-every-
frame is totally alien.

Now, this isn’t going to turn into a big slag of digital cameras. I
have one and love it. There’s certainly something to be said for
the instant feedback that they provide.

I maintain, though, that there’s a lot to be said for understanding
the basic concepts of exposure and framing and approach; under-
standing them in a way that allows the fotografer to just go out and
shoot and not check what they’re doing. To shoot way less frames,
to just be in the situation they’re trying to interpret.

A camera is just a tool. Changing your tool every so often can’t be
a bad thing.

different tools, different effects

AROUND TOWN

If you’re in Ottawa this month be sure to drop by Gallery La Petite Mort.
Toronto artist Osheen Harruthoonyan is showing his heavily manipulated
silver prints.

Osheen at La Petite Mort Gallery

One of his prints

Installation view

Also on view, at The Red Wall Gallery, TWINKLE TWINKLE LITTLE STAR,
a collection of studio portraits of some of Ottawa’s cultural movers and
shakers as seen by Sarai Strikefoot.

Installation view

Installation view

Sarai herself

NEW LOOK

Finally, I’m happy to announce my totally new web site.

Of course, by “totally new” I mean the look, architecture, navigation
and hosting. Not every photo is new.

But, you will see 2 new personal galleries (Xmas in the Mississippi
Delta and Beside the Passaic), a bunch of new editorial and commercial
shots and a couple rough cuts from some of the video Ben and I have
shot around the USER project. As well, I’ve changed the edits in almost
all of the PERSONAL galleries. There’s also a section called STUFF that’s
just that: stuff. Fun/funny stuff, tear sheets and so on…….

My new host tells me that it may take up to 3 days for the site to fully
migrate from my old host to the new one.

My new home page should look like this:

So, go check it out. And, once you’re into the galleries, don’t forget to
click on “fullscreen” to see the pix BIG.

And, if you encounter any problems in the site I’d surely appreciate it if
you would let me know.

HERE IT IS

Thank you for your time.