GOT BEEF?

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LONGEVITY

I’ve been shooting for the fabulous moolah for going on
20 years now. Sometimes I come across some of my early
paid work and cringe.

One of the things about coming up as a young (or in my
case middle aged, but totally inexperienced) commercial
and editorial photographer (especially when film was used
and the possibility of blowing a shoot was much larger than
it is these days) is, you make your mistakes in public.

Sure, not as public as, say, professional athletes. Can
you imagine having a job where 18,000 people boo if
you make a mistake? But when you’re coming up, your
less than stellar, your primitive pix, do get published
with your name underneath. And some people do pay
attention.

Anyway, not everything I shot way back when was shite,
just like everything I shoot these days isn’t the be all and
end all.

So, here are a couple of my earliest editorial portraits and,
funnily enough, accompanying images, shot 15 years later,
of the same subjects. Famous Ottawa chefs.

keithjones
Chef Keith Jones (1991 and 2007)

robertbourassa
Chef Robert Bourassa (1991 and 2007)

GOT BEEF?

There have been times where I sat down and pounded
out a drool post criticizing some fotos I’ve seen. Some
total crap being held up, featured. Work that is asking
to be considered.

I think to myself: Well, if they’re asking for that, for
consideration, why don’t I give them my opinion?

Then, upon reading what I’ve written, I’ve hit “DELETE”.
It was just way too critical.

After all, who am I to say what’s right or what’s wrong?
What’s good, what’s bad? And, too, why should anyone
even “consider” bad fotos?

Sometimes I wish I wasn’t such a wuss, I wish that I was
brave/stupid enough to just fucking lay it on the line. To
say: “This work is crap and whoever is supporting it is a
bleeding idiot”.

That’s something I’ve always kinda liked about the hip hop
world. The airing of beefs. We all know how that can end,
though, right? Bleeding to death from gunshot wounds in
Las Vegas. And, besides, isn’t that really just a pissing
contest. Machismo out of control?

Be that as it may, I think that factions (and factionalism)
can be a good thing. They make you hone your philosophy
and the way you do what you do. They raise your game.
Working in opposition makes you ask and answer questions,
which (if you ask me) is much better than always just having
your biases confirmed by like minds.

Okay, I’m not sure how to end these thoughts, I seem to
have written myself into a corner here. So let me close by
saying: I believe that sometimes it’s good to just say right
out loud, when confronted by something, anything, that
offends your sensibility, that you know is just plain bad,
wrong: “What the fuck is this shit?”

On the other hand…..what’s the point?

Damn!

USED FOTOS/USED WORDS

Last week I posted a bunch of second hand stuff. At the risk
of repeating myself (and you droolers know how much I love
to repeat myself. I love to repeat myself. Yes I do. Love to
repeat myself). I’m reposting a thing I shot a few years back
for Ottawa Magazine.

This project was the one and only time, so far, where I’ve
been asked to supply the copy as well as the fotos. So, find
following the copy and a few of the pix from a thing I call:

INTERSECTION

You can’t find this intersection on any map.
It’s not there, it has no real defined latitude
and longitude. It keeps shifting. It morphs.
Slowly. Surely.

But if you look around you can see it right
before your eyes. There, as you drive by
(you hardly ever walk), something new
growing at the edge of a field, in front
of the tree-line in the distance.

In my head I pictured a photographic
treatise on the romance of the edge of
Ottawa, on the topography of my youth.
The landscape that I saw sitting in the
back of the family Studebaker, all those
years ago, as we drove (for some reason)
to the edge of town. Motels that aren’t
Super 8’s, a general store, not a 7 eleven,
righteous diners instead of fast food. I
wanted to show these old structures and
commercial concerns resisting the erosion
of the city’s relentless expansion.

But once I started this project I quickly came
to the realization that you can’t go back. The
camera is a time machine, but it can only
freeze the present.

So here are some scenes from the edge of town,
2007. One day in the future you’ll be driving by,
further out, looking at an entirely different (but
eerily similar) landscape and think to yourself: I
remember when…..

Playground and grain silos