Today drool starts with a bunch of stuff (fluff). Ends (I think) with
actual content.

If you’re like me, you might just find the fluff more entertaining.

But anyway, down there near the bottom, you’ll find opinion. I’m
also going to post a couple of USER out takes (not safe for work)
at the bottom. Tough to look at, but I’m willing to do what I do,
to stand by my convictions and let the chips fall where they may.

here we are now, entertain us
Kurt Cobain

PUPPY + LIGHT METER

Puppies and light meters don’t mix, I found out a few days ago.

I’d come home from a shoot and, lazy, left my Minolta Flashmeter
laying on top of a bag on the floor.

Went out for dinner, came back. Gus, our ten month old, sixty pound,
boxer/pit bull puppy, had found it, taken it out of its case and turned
it to toast.

Gus and chewed meter

VIEWBOOK

Viewbook, a pretty kool online service for fotografers, is running a contest.

Called viewbook: PHOTOSTORY, it allows you to join for free (trial member-
ship), upload your “best” photostory or sequence and have lots of folks look
at it. There are also prizes, these prizes being doled out by a fairly high profile
jury (mostly European) and by some kind of viewer vote thingy.

Anyhow…..the viewbook system is so easy to use even a total dork like me
could figure it out. The platform, ease and look of it are all all quite fab.

So, if you’ve got a few minutes to spare pop over here to look at some sub-
missions. (Perhaps one will grab you enough to make you want to cast a ballot.)

If you’ve got a sequence you want to enter go here.

.

ROADTRIP

Love the road trip. This one-day one took Magida and me to Gananoque and
Kingston. (Whoopie!!!)

We met up with Vanessa, a Toronto-based hair and make-up gal, who worked
wonders on the subjects shot.

Clouds, open roads, gas stations, submarine sandwiches and work. What more
do you need?

APRIL + ERIK

Finally worked out the edit and sequence for my upcoming show: APRIL + ERIK.

Wanna see ‘em big? Haul yer sorry ass down to the gallery.

Opens September 18th.

ANOTHER SHOW

This one a group show.

The paintings and fotos about BluesFest, commissioned by The Ottawa Citizen,
will be on display at Art Guise.

Preview Thursday, August 27th, silent auction (for charity) the next evening.

Seems like they used my image on the invitation………

CONTENT (OPINION)

In a recent interview over at too much chocolate, Alec Soth says:

“…..I also just think photography was much more interesting 50 plus
years ago, and now there is just this overabundance of photography.”

Of course, there’s a whole history of snapshooting. It’s just that these
days it’s so simple to take them, to squeeze off shots on your iPhone
and your P+S. And the dissemination of those snaps is now real easy
and very far-reaching. A glut. Plus, with the advent of prosumer digi
cameras, well…..it seems that just about everyone these days is a
capital “P” photographer.

I wonder if, way back in the olden days, before everyone could read
and write, I wonder if the scribes felt then what photographers are
feeling now? Their chosen (studied and practiced) medium is no
longer their exclusive domain. Damn!

If history is any use (debatable, since Humankind, which knows its
history, still makes the same stupid mistakes over and over and over)
I guess you’d have to say that the more people who are literate, the
better off we, as a species, become.

But, I think it’s important to remember (at the risk of being called elitist)
that, just because many people these days have learned to write, that
doesn’t mean you necessarily want to read what they’ve written. Same
goes for photos. Certain snaps, like certain written notes, will always
have a place in the heads and hearts of their intended audience of one.
Any other use for these things, these words/pictures, is only incidental,
a curiosity that may or may not be of any use to anyone else.

But, the genie is out of the bottle. You (we) can’t go back, no way. So
the only real hope (look out for hope) is for a more universal literacy,
more critical thought, when it comes to images.

The future is unwritten. I, for one, can hardly wait to see what happens.
But let me tell you, I’m not holding my breath.

No, I’m breathing in and breathing out.

USER OUTTAKES

Down on the corner things happen.

Even though I’m keying on just the men this year, I get asked by the
women if I’ll take their photos, too.

Here’s a shot of Bush, who I’d shot last year as well.

Bush, Ottawa, 2009

And, below, is Cheryl-Anne, who insisted, after I’d shot her clothed,
that I also shoot her with her top off.

I understand that these two photos are not real easy to look at. I also
understand that by posting them here I’m leaving myself open to all
kinds of criticism.

I’m a photographer. I take pictures. These are two of them, of people
I know, people who wanted me to take and show their photos. I’m
willing to give them that much. You can look. Or not.

Cheryl-Anne, Ottawa, 2009

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________

ADDED AFTER THE FACT

Upon re-reading and re-looking at the above post. I was struck by the
weird discrepancy between how it starts (puppy) and how it ends (crack
addicts).

People (whoever they are) say that photographers should only show
cohesive, consistent bodies of work. Lord knows that that’s what I
try to do when I post stuff to my web site, when I have exhibitions
of my work.

But drool isn’t like that. drool represents the random stuff (fluff)
and content (opinion) that comprise a week in the life.

After all, life is not cohesive, nor is it consistent.

Welcome to my life……..