I CAN’T BELIEVE IT

I finished printing USER and binding it into a portfolio this week.

What production looks like

Four years work, who knows how many hours spent on the block,
not to mention the scanning, the editing, the post-producing and
and the printing and this is what I end up with: Fourty two fotos
in a book.

Thinking back now, thinking about all that time on the block, the
people I met and collaborated with, the horror and the humor I
encountered on this project, and its repercussions, it’s kind of
difficult to see it finished…..so boiled down.

But I am showing the last year’s shooting of USER at Gallery La
Petite Mort. The show is up until the end of the month, so get
on down if you care and have a look.

A big thank you to Ottawa Citizen Arts Editor Peter Simpson for
the swell thing he wrote about it. (Here)

I shared the front of section with an article about Sarah McLaughlin
She was in town to perform at The National Arts Centre and, funnily
enough, I was scheduled to shoot a portrait of her that afternoon.

Front of section

Sarah and me

AND IT’S ON TO THE NEXT THING

Well, the cat’s sort of out of the bag, vis-a-vis my next project.

I’ve alluded to it here on drool but didn’t really want to nail it
down, build a box-of-expectations.

But I applied to The Awesome Foundation for some funding to
help defray the costs of shooting 4×5 and had to kind of spell
out my intentions.

I received the funding and they (The Awesomes) posted it on
their blog. (A hearty thank-you-very-much to them.)

Of course, the project is still really in the research and develop
ment stages and might (will) probably morph into something
other than what I expect.

For now, though, here’s part of the statement I submitted with
my The Awesome Foundation application:

OTTAWA, a survey

The intention of this project is to seek out and
photograph the many and various people and
demographics that exist here in Ottawa. It will
also include crowd shots, details, architectural
views and interiors. A survey.

Such an undertaking, of course, does not imply
any lack of subjectivity. While my work has always
had traces of anthropology and sociology running
through it, in the end it is about my point of view,
my politics.

By applying this approach, these filters (point of
view, politics), to Ottawa, a city usually seen in the
most hackneyed and clichéd ways, this project will
create a compendium of its demographics while at
the same time bringing into question the veracity
of such an undertaking.

Embassy of The United States of America, 490 Sussex Dr., Ottawa, September 20, 2011

REWARDS

I like to help folks out by contributing to group funding initiatives.
The great thing about them is that you really only need to contribute
a small sum, though you can give a lot, too, if you like.

And once you give you know you are helping get shit done. And you
get something else, something besides the great feeling of helping
projects get completed. You get stuff. Rewards.

Here’s the postcard my friend Johan Hallberg-Campbell sent me from
Newfoundland, where he continues to photograph the disappearing
coastal communities.

You can see his group funding video here. It’s very beautiful.

And the same day I received a swell catalog from Brett Gundlock’s show:
PRISONERS.

His RocketHub vid is here.

Both these fotografers are Toronto based. Both are involved in shooting
stuff that actually matters. Both bring their politics to the table.

Can someone please tell me why this kind of stuff, this commitment and
politics is so rarely seen here in Capital City fotografy?

STEPH’S LETTER CONCLUDES