Hey kids…..drool this week features an interview with Ottawa
photographer Justin Wonnacott. Sure, he answers the questions
put; but he also raises a lot of issues. So if you’re looking for
“answers”, tough luck. Right after that interview there’s a
commercial break: pix I shot this week, accompanied by
some production notes. And finally, I’ve dredged up some
more USER Men shots, because, in the end, drool is pictures.

JUSTIN WONNACOTT

Dropped by Justin Wonnacott’s studio show this past Thursday. The thing
runs until this (Sunday) afternoon, so if you’re looking for a cultural diversion
get your ass over to Hull.

Once there you’ll see a tasty selection of his recent studio work: pictures
of fish, curiously titled: “I remember + I forget”. Plus a wall or two of prints
from another thing he’s working on, candid street shots.

Some scenes from Justin’s studio open house

Justin’s been shooting photos, talking and opining about them and
teaching foto-stuff since way back when. I thought I might conduct
an e-mail interview with him. Read on. But be warned….like all good
teachers, Justin’s responses ask as many questions as they provide
actual answers.

But that’s the way it should be. drool never professes to have the
answers and mistrusts those who say they do (have the answers).

Justin Wonnacott

drool:  Ok kids, today drool has an interview with longtime photo-
grapher and foto-educator Justin Wonnacott. Lets get a bit of the
old background out of the way first.  Justin, in a hundred words
or less:  Where are you coming from?

JW: I am from Belleville, I am nearly 60 and I am self taught as an
artist/photographer. My first “job” in photography was with Can-
adian School studios shooting kids high school portraits and I
lasted a week - really hated it. I hitchiked around Ontario and
down east looking for photographic work and moved here in
1974  to work for Photo Features as a lab technician and then
as  lab manager / photographer. Got a lot of press and com-
mercial experience there, quit in 1975.   Visited the national
gallery a lot , and decided I wanted to pursue photos as art
and culture about then and got really setious about that in
about 1979. Still doing it and I love it. Still learning too . . .

drool: I love the “still learning” bit.  Seems to me that maybe,
in this age of foto-saturation,”learning” is falling by the way-
side. Seems to me that learning is the point to being alive.
Well, learning and reacting.  So, what have you learned recently?
How have you reacted?

© Justin Wonnacott

JW: Hmm . . .  Learning to me is – thank you – a bit about being
alive. Over the last 15 years I have had to relearn my craft and
my relationship to the world with a camera has changed because
of my shift from silver to silicon. Now that I feel confident with
my new craft (and  my daughter is a bit older too) I have begun
engaging my photography more as a process and immersive
process like I did when I began teaching myself many years ago.
Shoot, look, study , reshoot – a lot, think some more edit edit edit.
My students are an important source of knowledge too and I am a
total photo book addict – my disposable income goes onto my book-
shelf. Some other things I have learned recently too are , I want to
really dive into the new photography and its convergent practices
(I am definitely not there but I want to learn more) and I have learned
that photographers have become quite unpopular in many ways recently.
I also learned good things by looking at Gabor Szilasi’s work again.

As for reactions – here are some. I now work with databases and large
numbers of photographs when I shoot certain kinds of work. Somerset
Street was selected from a huge number of photos made over almost
10 years – like 6 or 7 thousand exposures, recent street photography
is based on many many shots made  and subsequently edited down.
This can only happen in the digital realm – the film costs would be
prohibitive – learn by looking. Sort of like where I began when my
employer said I could use all the film I could eat in the mid 70’s.

© Justin Wonnacott

drool: Ok.  That’s a lot.  But I’m just gonna pick up on a couple of
things you mention.  When you say “….the new photography and
it’s convergent practices” what, exactly do you mean?  And, can
you talk a bit about photographers becoming “unpopular”?

JW: By the new photography and its convergent practices I am
talking about how people shoot and use pictures. A few examples:

- People can shoot just about anything anywhere now and do,
the picture world is much larger than it was 15 years ago and
I see this as a lot like the explosion of the image world in the
1890’s that accompanied the proliferation of flexible film and
the demise of glass plate photography. Amateur photography
changed how the world looked in many ways. The 20 years
after 1890 also saw an explosion in the use of photomech-
anical reproductions as illustrations in the popular press,
analogous in my opinion to the way photographs have become
more widely disseminated through publication on the internet.

-  Video, online databases and social networking of pics like
blogs,flickr, facebook – you name it. Even funeral homes are
in on the online photo game. People use pictures differently
than they used to.

-  Panoramas and “dive in” photos like the giga picture of
Obama’s inauguration or photosynth , collaborative online
stuff too.

-   The little photo slideshow in a picture frame for $100 and
the screensaver are rather profound uses of the photograph
in popular terms. The print as a photo species is in trouble.
 
All the above is partly related to the current unpopularity of
the photographer in public places and the paranoia that is
very common regarding the use of photos taken of people
on the street or in public. Every day we are photographed
by surveillance equipment and we never really do much
about it and yet a photographer with a DSLR on their face
will get no end of trouble on the street if they are taking
pix –hey who are you shooting for, you can’t take my picture,
I am going to call the police . There are bylaws ( and homeland
security junk too in the USA) constricting photography in many
places. The law(s) are not well understood – even by the police
or by the public. Interestingly , when the use of snapshot cameras
became common a hundred years or so ago some laws emerged
to deal with the “nuisance” and creep factor that photographers
presented in public parks.
 
Paradoxically, people do not seem to care much if you use a
small camera, cuz the photographer is less easy to identify
as a threat? I dunno. Amateur photos have changed the world
recently, point and shooter’s  brought down Abu Gharaib and
the reporters got too late to the Theo Van Gogh murder scene.
The cell phone pic got the front page. In Hollywood the paparazzi
use grabs from HD video instead of still cameras for the tabloids.

Justin’s studio

drool: So, Justin, having said all that I have to ask: why do you take
pictures? And how do you differentiate (or rationalize) your foto-
practice in the world you’ve just described?

© Justin Wonnacott

JW: I feel pretty connected in many ways to the photo world with
the way I work, I have a strong sense of craft and the new tools
let me work with that very well. I love printing and making prints,
but I know that only a few people will own or stand in front of them
compared to how many might see them on a screen S’ok – I will give
away reasonable facsimiles online and not whine if they show up as
a screensaver.
 
When I began to take pictures seriously I learned a huge amount from
the work of other photographers that I saw in the course of my day to
day work and through my constant visits to the library, workshops and
galleries- the networked world just makes it bigger and better.
 
My work moves between the studio/constructed image as a practice
and the faster paced real time world of social circumstances and
events depending on whether my eyes need to be refreshed by
one way of thinking or another– it is all part of still liking my “job”.
Sort of like finding a different place to stand and shoot from because
you have sore feet and need a break.
 
Actually, I  can’t  spell out why I take pictures too well for you because
I am not sure why myself and if I could tell you I probably would not
do it any more.  I would be bored of looking at life. I get a lot out of
pictures- as metaphor, reality check, documents and wishful thinking.
That goes double for other peoples pictures too.

drool: Kool, I like ending without everything resolved, ending with
questions. So. let’s call it a wrap. But, since this is an interview I
suppose you should get the last word. What is it?

JW: Sometimes I talk too much and should listen more.

© Justin Wonnacott

COMMERCIAL BREAK

Was busybusybusy last week shooting a swell mix of adverts,
corporate collateral and editorial. Can’t show the editorial until
after it runs, but here’s a taste of some of the collateral we shot,
along with a few production notes…….

A lot of the people we shoot are busy people They don’t have
time to stand around watching us set up shots, look at them
on the monitor and scratch our heads while muttering: “Why
does this shot suck so much?”, then take the steps to “unsuck”
the setup.

That’s one of the tasks assistants are used for. They stand in
for the subject to test backgrounds and provide the human
form needed to set and fine tune lighting.

Of course, sometimes the actual subject has much more mass
than the assistant, they block way more of the background, so
there’s often a final bit of finagling when they step in front of
the camera. That wasn’t the case on this shoot, though. All the
folks we shot were fit, firm and surprisingly fun.

Part of a photographer’s job is to think on their feet. Often we go
into shoots with sketchy sketches, threadbare themes, open options
and theoretical thoughts. The one constant in my practice, in the
kind of work I shoot, though, is I never know how the subjects will
perform. After all, I hardly ever shoot models. I shoot what, in the
biz, we call: “real people”.

Here’s a few pix of Dale and Andrew, who are partners at Ascribe.
These shots will have copy over them, a kind of “he said/she said”
take on different stimulus. The idea being that two heads are better
than one, but only if they bring different thoughts and perspectives
to the task at hand. (And, I must say, I couldn’t agree more. Seems
to me that disagreement and argument are necessary components
of moving forward.)

We shot 3 interior shots and 3 exteriors over the course of a day
and a half. The backgrounds had been scouted but the actual
blocking of the subjects and elements was made up on the fly.
Fortunately Dale and Andrew were great to work with, had a
great sense of humor and were open to the push/pull and the
back/forth that happen in fluid situations. Makes my job almost
easy.

USER Men (some out takes)

I like to shoot and edit quickly. (Beat poet Allen Ginsgerg,
paraphrasing the zen dudes, sez: “First thought best thought”,
and I believe it.) (The zen dudes will also tell you that it’s the
imperfections in things that make them interesting, and I believe
that, too.)

Anyway, all this to say (and I’ll keep it brief, there’s already been
a lot of verbiage on drool this week) so, all this to say:

I think these are out takes. Once the dust has settled and USER is
shaken out, we’ll see. But for now, well, let’s just call these portraits
of crack addicts.