A short drool this week. I was so busy whipping my show into
shape. Last minute edits and printing. Framing. Hanging. A bit
of gardening……

GARDENING AND PHOTOGRAPHY

I was reading Sarah Milroy’s review, in the Globe and Mail,
of photographer Scott McFarland’s work. This sentence
jumped out at me:

“Gardening and photography have much in
common, both involving the weeding out of
extraneous details and the enhancement of
others to create the desired whole.”

View of Vale of Heath, Looking Towards Hampstead, 2007. copyright Scott McFarland

OPENING

Some scenes from my opening at La Petite Mort Gallery, Friday
nite. I would have shot more but I was WAY distracted, what with
all the schmoozing and the meeting and the greeting and the
so on and the so forth……

Partial installation view

Some people

The video crew (Ben and Chris), being shot by the stills guy (Remi).

Fateema (Ottawa Magazine) interviewing Sarah, Sarai and Alli

Guy kissing cristina

My work room the day after the opening, gotta clean up

MARTIN SCHOELLER

There’s an interesting interview with Martin Schoeller over
on Charlie Fish’s blog.

I got this thru Rob, over at APhotoEditor. And I’m going to
further bite Rob’s style by using the same pull-quote from
the Schoeller interview that APE used. Not because I’m lazy
(tho I can be), but because this quote pretty much sums up
how I think photographers should work.

“If you want to be a photographer, be
a photographer ten hours a day instead
of spending five hours retouching some
half-ass picture you don’t like in the first
place.”

I first became aware of Schroeller’s work about a year ago. In
fact, it was his series of close ups (what I call his BIG HEADS)
that inspired me to shoot the USER: Women series the way I did.

Howard Terrence and Eminem. copyright Martin Schoeller

I find it interesting that, even tho he inspired me, even tho we
used very similar methods, there is a big difference between his
shots and mine. (And, here, I don’t want to compare his great,
famous work to mine. As Jack Kerouac said: “Comparisons are
odious”…..but.) His shots are purposely devoid of personality.
After all, he came up in the Dusseldorf School of Photography.
Under the influence of Bernd and Hilla Becher he veers towards
typology.

Me, I shoot for soul and personality in my shots.

Discuss…….

Here’s a USER: Women out take.

April. from USER: Women, Ottawa 2008