INSIDE A DESIGNERS MIND:

I asked Paul if he would mind sending me a few of his initial “sketches”
of LIVE THROUGH THIS so I could put ‘em up here. He thought that that
was a crazy idea, seeing as he’s just started to play with the thing.

I explained that drool embraces process and first efforts and stuff, that
this doesn’t really have to be mystical, so he agreed.

I’m guessing that the pickle Paul finds himself in with this project is a
lot like that a fotografer finds him/herself in when starting a project.
A sea of possibilities, how to stay afloat? What to do? (What the fuck
am I doing!?)

It’s going to be interesting to watch the process as he wrangles this
thing to the ground.

Sketches of possible spreads

ABOUT BLOG

Couple of days ago Anne Maureen Mckeating, a senior art buyer at TAXI,
sent me an email wondering if she might use my blog as part of a course
she’s teaching (with Heather Morton) about fotog marketing.

The jist of Anne Maureen’s email was this:

…giving a talk with Heather on self promotion and
was wondering if it was ok with you if I do a grab
off your blog? My point will be that often personal
work is far more compelling than paying work. It
has certainly put you on my radar. However - have
you found that your personal work has limited your
professional options? Or has it increased traffic to
your professional site?…

(The preamble to my responses to her questions is that drool tries to be
as honest as possible, but the only person it ever really feels comfortable
calling out is its author. drool also, paradoxically, kind of believes in biting
the hand that feeds but tries as hard as it can to make those bites love-bites.)

The direct answer would be that I believe that my blog has cost me clients
and gained me clients. The clients it has cost me might have been a bad fit
and perhaps I’m better off without them. The clients it has gained me are
more on my wave-length and typically lead to more interesting assignments.

drool believes that creative types give lip-service to, and love the idea of,
fotogs who shoot and show personal work. It also believes that what most
dyed-in-the-wool commercial shooters call “personal” work really looks
pretty much like the work they do for money. The fact they’re not getting
paid to shoot it is what, in their mind, makes it “personal”. In other words,
the work isn’t really personal, it’s just more of the same.

drool believes that if you really want to get ahead in the commercial world
your blog will be a pretty much soulless recitation and exhibition of the
latest kool komercial projects you’ve shot, who you’re hanging with and
how great you are.

And it goes without saying that there are exceptions, on the agency side
and the fotog side, too.

But don’t take my word for it. Funnily enough, right at the time I was having
my conversation with Ms. Mckeating, another friend of mine was posting on
his blog about the exact same issues. But, as usual, Timothy Archibald puts
it in a much calmer, more thought out way.

If you’re looking for reason check out his way of putting it here.

from Tim Archibald’s blog

Steph, photographed by her son, Cole

after they arrested me they took me
to the cop shop in new glasgow and
i had to wait till xmas morning to get
transported to burnside jail in darth-
mouth where i was remanded till the
4th of january when i would appear
in court! and have a bail hearing.

i went to my court hearing and got
denied bail because i ran everytime
i got bail so i wasnt trusted when i
was in jail alls i could think of was
my son cole and i knew he wanted
me to take him to the play room at
mcdonalds, so alls i thought about
was going to the “rubber room” we
call it. people were asking me what
i was ganna do when i got out of jail
and i would laugh and tell them i’m
going to the rubber room with my
son lol.

they would wake you up at 7:00am
then by 11:00am they would serve
you lunch lock down from 12:00pm
til 1:00pm then supper at 4:00pm
then lock down from 6:45pm til 7:45
then lock up for the night at 11:00pm.

when i went to halifax i sat in front
of the judge and the crown was asking
for 4-6 months and my lawyer asked
for probation and sure enough i got it
then when i went to pictou courts my
lawyor asked for 6 months house
arrest and he got it too… if it wasnt
for my lawyer in halifax i would of
been fucked.

he fought for me to do house arrest
because i did so much in the last year
like he brought up how when i lived in
Ottawa i met this man named Tony
Fouhse was gonna help me get into
a rehab called the R.O Royal Ottawa
but i never came to the rehab because
i ended up growin a cist on my brain
and how Tony ended up helping me
weein from using Heroin to 1 dillie
(Dilaudid) 4mg a day and sent me
home to my family where i could
sober up and become a clean mom
and we did a project of my life on
the street.

i meet with my P.O once every 2
weeks and i have to go to drug
counciling first before i go to
school.

ADVENTURES IN PUBLISHING

Couple of developments this week. The first one is quite exciting
but may or may not have much to do with getting a book (or two)
published.

Let me explain. . . .

I’ve been invited to be a feature speaker at the Flash Forward Photo
Festival that is taking place in Boston this June. Been asked to talk
about both USER and LIVE THROUGH THIS.

Here’s the link to last year’s Flash Forward Fest, this year’s website isn’t live yet.

There will be a ton of industry big-hitters there and I’m hoping
that being a speaker might give me a bit more weight than just
being another fotog peddling a portfolio.

So, while I’m going to keep pecking away at learning the in’s and
out’s and the ways and means of publishing, I’m definitely going
to wait and see what the Boston thing might bring.

I have no-to-moderate expectations because that way any dis-
appointment I might suffer there won’t be too crushing.

Anyway, as the time approaches I’ll for sure be drooling about it.

And, on another note, I received a swell dummy in the mail, out
of the blue.

Cover of Gray City by George LeChat

San Fran fotog George LeChat sent me a copy of his maquette for
Gray City, a series of lonely fotos of S.F. Along with a letter talking
about his thoughts on publishing books and other forms of foto-
information distribution. Thanks George.

Some page spreads

MY HISTORY OF CAMERAS

A list of every make and model of camera I have ever put film through.
In chronological order.

Panos Pictures has initiated a very kool project. Collaborations
between fotografers and writers which then get printed, using
newsprint, in a tabloid newspaper format.

cover

cover, open

And then they give them away! Like in those TV adverts that
“give” you a second complete set of whatever it is they are
enticing you to buy, you only pay shipping. In this case it
was a measly $4.50.

And for that you get a 32 page paper about Cairo, photos
and an essay. All in all, most impressive and intelligent and
interesting.

You can see the website and order your own copy here.

a few inside spreads

ADVENTURES IN PUBLISHING

I have realized all along that LIVE THROUGH THIS, the book, needs a
designer. The first dummy I made of the project was pretty much a
straight forward telling of the tale. Being of German heritage I often
can’t get past some kind of need for Teutonic order.

I know that treating the images and the words and the story in a way
that is different from that more or less strict telling will add grit and
emotion to the book, will make the book a thing unto itself.

So with that in mind I asked Paul (no website) Cavanaugh, local design
wiz, if he might be interested in working on LTT, version 2. He was.

So this week he dropped by my place and had a look at all the fotos
I have taken for this thing, to get a feel for what I left on the cutting
room floor. And let me tell you, there are a lot.

Paul looking

Some of what he’s looking at

I expect Paul will bring a lot of goodness (ideas, expertise, enthusiasm)
to the table and I am looking forward to working with him, having the
discussions and the arguments and the agreements that will make this
book better.

Like I said last week, reaching out to people for help is one if the things
this project is teaching me. And that’s a little bit ironic, considering what
LIVE THROUGH THIS is about. . .reaching out and helping.

I can hardly wait to see how Paul handles this.

STEPHANIE (update)

Steph wrote me this, Thursday:

HEY YA I’M HOME NOW LOL THE JAIL
BIRD GOT 6 MONTH HOUSE ARREST
STARTING TO DAY WELL CALL ME I’M
AT MY HOUSE K I MISS YA AND CANT
WAIT TO HEAR FROM YA

She’s working on getting the whole thing down in words.
Once that’s done I’ll post it here.

But for now I can tell you that that’s for all of her old,
outstanding charges, charges that caused her to run
to Ottawa from Nova Scotia.

She’s no longer a fugitive and very relieved at that.

WINTERTIME EXTERIORS

Most shoots, you tee up the time and the place and that’s
that. If you want to shoot outside you’re at the mercy of the
weather and the light. Sure, you have an interior backup in
case it’s totally pissing rain or something, but. . .

Such was the case this week. Shooting exterior portraits in
a blizzard. And you know what? Even though it looks gnarly,
even though it was sort of cold and windy, that weather was
perfect. If this was Hollywood, that weather would have cost
tens of thousands of dollars. Here we get it for free.

Can’t show you the pix I took, but I can show you the weather
we took them in.

fotos: April Anne Hewens

Just found out Saturday that Steph is in jail.

Information is sketchy but I do know the charges are not drug related.
I have a bit more info (some of the news is actually good), but am not
going to post it here until I hear from Steph. We’ll find out Monday
whether that will be soon or in a few months.

I feel a little funny posting this but know that Steph would want you
all to know. Just as she would want you to know that your thoughts
and concerns mean something to her. Send your regards here or to
my email address and I will find a way to forward them to her.

The last foto I took of Steph, June 6, 2011

ADVENTURES IN PUBLISHING

I have been learning a lot, what with my recent adventures in publishing.

One of the things I’ve been working on is reaching out to others, others
who have some experience in the game. I’m just so used to doing every-
thing myself, but this project is so far outside my area of expertise that
that (reaching out) is required.

It just so happens that one of my fave fotogs, Scot Sothern, recently pub-
lished a book that blew me away, Low Life. Scot and I are Facebook friends
and he happened to “like” an image I posted. So I wrote to thank him. A
conversation ensued, I picked his brain some and then he suggested that
we exchange prints.

So not only do I get information about publishing from him, I also get one
of his amazing fotos.

©Scot Sothern

And here, on the printer, is the one of mine he chose. . .

Here’s what Scot had to say about this particular foto of Dakota:

It wasn’t easy but Dakota 2008 is
my choice. I want to put her up on
the wall and look at her every day.
I wish the world could look at her
face and see what I see, what she
sees, and what you so elegantly
saw when you hit the shutter.

Thank you Mr. Sothern. (Here)

HMAB

I get asked a lot to donate to charity/fund-raising auction events. So often,
in fact, that I now pick and choose. Not to protect my “brand”, but because
I just don’t have the time and resources to donate, donate, donate.

Typically I’ll help Aboriginal, youth and drug causes.

But when the friends of Heather Morton organized a fundraiser for her to
help defray the costs of her cancer treatment I was hoping they would ask
me to provide a print for the auction part of that event. (The organizers are
only asking 40 fotografers to donate.)

You see, Heather is a friend and a huge supporter of the foto-community.
She has done and shared so much to move the job of being a fotografer
forward.

Well, they asked me to donate and it is with great pleasure and hope for
Heather’s speedy recovery that I’m sending them this shot for the auction.

It’s so fantastic to see the foto-scene getting up and making common-cause.

D.C., Venice Beach, Los Angeles, 2011

You will find details about the event and auction here.