Dimitri Beck, the editor of French (from France) photojournalism
magazine POLKA came to SPAO to give a talk.

Dimitri is obviously a smart, well-spoken and passionate, fellow. It
was swell to hear him talk about the genesis of the stories POLKA
runs, about editorial choices to be made, the magazine’s relation-
ship with it’s contributors and so on.

But I couldn’t help but wonder, given the talk and the context, about
“photojournalism”.

POLKA comes from another culture, one more steeped in and, perhaps,
more passionate about photojournalism than ours. And, it is important
to note that I have never really studied the magazine, so I only have what
Dimitri chose to show and discuss, his take and point of view, to go on.

But it all seemed a bit old fashioned and insistent upon on objectivity
(which drool doesn’t believe exists). True, Mr. Beck was careful to bring
up the fact that it was the fotografers’ “voice” that was important, that
made the magazine consider them for a particular gig. But that, the
fotografers’ voice, in and of itself, says “point of view”, and by subverting
that obvious fact behind the guise of old-skool foto-j ethics is, to me,
so late 20th Century.

drool believes that the honest way to report is to inject the fact of the
fotografers’ voice front and center, to acknowledge by the approach to
and the information contained in fotografs, that everyone has an agenda,
that it is the person and the brain that take good fotos, not a camera and
just being there, where ever “there” is.

drool will often pick nits, have a hard (and subjective) take on goings-on.
But in the end drool will always give props to any one or organization that
gets stuff done. No matter what.

So check out POLKA and see what you think.

NEWS

Ok, I’m excited and, like, totally scared. STRAYLIGHT Press.

Things are getting firmed up on the back end of the e-commerce website,
A couple of brand new ‘zines by local talent are in production. Not only
that, there are also a couple of my fave (not to mention: well-known)
American fotogs who are on-board and excited about contributing.

All this will come to light starting in June with, of course, some heavy
marketing in the form of lots of blog posts from the STRAYLIGHT site,
and other social media platforms.

The plan is to keep it informative, current and interesting. To, in other
words, contribute.

The hope is that concerned citizens will reciprocate.

Yes.

Yes, well. . .I suppose you could also ask yourself: HOW MUCH IS TOO MUCH?

I’m pretty sure I finished the book edit of LIVE THROUGH THIS. I started with
about 3000 images to choose from and took them through 6 iterations. There
will be 46 pictures in the book.

That got me a bit nervous. After all, you want to give the folks who buy the
book their money’s worth, don’t you? Is 46 enough?

But it seems to me that taking out all the extraneous images, the ones that
describe rather than evoke, the ones that don’t move the thing forward, is
really the final job of the fotografer.

So. . .46 it is. I’m going to print them in a book, offer them for sale. Give you
your money’s worth.

You’re welcome.

Out-take: Steph, March 30, 2011

FLORA and FAUNA

Ottawa fotografer Lorraine Gilbert invited a bunch of her friends and
colleagues down to the Nat’l Gallery of Canada to have a look at the
new exhibition in the Prints, Drawings and Photographs rooms.

And why shouldn’t she, she has 2 big pieces in the show. Thrilling,
I’m sure, to be shown at the National Gallery.

The theme of the show, curated by Ann Thomas, is Flora and Fauna.
Included are fotos, etchings and prints featuring the likes of Lucien
Freud, Rembrandt van Rijn and so on. There is also a whole bunch
of fotografy, which stands up well in such august company.

These are some of the fotografers represented. I’d show you more
but it would seem that folks are not allowed to take fotos of the
work and post them on blogs because of copyright reasons. This
despite the universally recognized “fair use” allowance when dis-
cussing works of art and other copyrighted materials. And despite
the fact that a fast Google search of a few of the works on display
turned up a plethora of sanctioned samples.

So, after I got caught snapping these samples I approached one of
the art guards and asked him if I could take a shot of Lorraine in
front of one of her pieces for my blog. Well, no I couldn’t. After a
tiny bit of polite push-back on my part a supervisor was summoned,
a conference ensued and then, this being a National Institution, the
next-higher-up supervisor was called.

Lorraine told them she was the artist and that she had no prob with
me including the work in the background of the shot I wanted to take.

And this is where we got into Bizarro Land. The main supervisor told
Lorriane that they would not allow it “for her protection”.

The copyright holder was right there in the room and had given her
permission. So, really, you have to wonder at just who the powers
that be were protecting. And the obvious answer, in this case, was
not the artist but themselves. Fair enough, but come on!

I understand that the guards were just doing their job, that in this
case the policy was a bit murky. There was no rancor, really, on
anyone’s part but one can’t help but wonder. . .

So, long story short, I’ll attach here the image Lorraine attached to
her invitation and just hope that no one turns it into a poster and
sells it for money.

And I’ll say that if you are in Ottawa this show is well worth a visit.
It’s beautiful.

Details here.

You go along day to day, and each one pretty much resembles the one
before.

Then, every so often, something seismic happens. You’re in a head-on
collision on the highway, your kidneys fail, you lose your job. Stuff like
that, stuff that you just can’t ignore, stuff that fundamentally changes
your perspective.

Or maybe stuff sneaks up on you. You shift a tiny bit every day and,
over the chain of those days the pressure builds and one day you
arrive at some new conclusion(s) you just can’t ignore.

But mostly we all just trudge along, hoping nothing changes, because
we fear it, change.

I bring all this up for a few reasons. . .

First, I’m wondering about drool.

drool has, for a long time, dwelt upon the non-commercial aspects
of my foto-practice and thoughts about fotografy. Which pretty much
means it (drool) needs to come up with (mostly) non-topical content.
But drool kind of feels like it’s running on empty. . .a bit repetitious
and, really, lame.

As well, I’ve been working hard on a couple of other fronts. Struggling
over the book edit of LIVE THROUGH THIS (which is starting to feel very
right) and setting up STRAYLIGHT Press (which involves a pretty steep
learning curve). But I don’t want to make public much about either of
these things (LTT and SP) until they get firmed up.

I’ve been pecking away, too, at my new project (OTTAWA: a survey) but,
like LTT and SP, want to keep that work a bit closer to my chest for now.

So that leaves me with nothing much to say.

(But all these projects are moving forward. You can expect major updates
in a few weeks.)

Plus, as regular droolers know, I have my moods. These days I’m so tired
of the perpetual hype social media hath wrought in the foto-universe. So
tired of the Fb updates, Tweets and Instagram messages that tell me where
some fotografer is, what s/he’s shooting, a pic of their latest acquisition and
so on.

The fotografer’s blog, which used to be a kind of long-form journalism,
a platform for the actual fleshing out of ideas, approach and personality,
seems to be on the wane these days. “The medium is the message”, as
Marshall McLuhan put it all those years ago. And these new mediums,
the social media, by promoting bite-sized bits that add up to nothing,
seem to be transforming not only how fotografers relate, but also how
they work and the meaning they assign to that work.

I’ve got no problem with a bit of the social media water-cooler talk/bullshit/
hype but, come on folks, lets get back to work and actually produce something.
Then we’ll have something to talk about.

It was one of those working trips where you see a lot of airport
(I won’t bore you with the obligatory airport pix), a lot of hotel
(I will bore you with the obligatory hotel fotos. . .)

Inside view, Orlando Hilton, and view from window

Bits of the venue where the action will take place. . .

And then, of course, there’s the set up. In this case we were
shooting portraits of execs and entrepreneurs on white. . .

Gear and set up

All this to say that I didn’t really have the time to figure out
a drool post for this week.

However, if you’re working on a Tumblr about fotos of nothing,
if you’re trying to define how nothing can look and feel, the bit
of Florida I was stuck in is fertile ground indeed.

I was posting on my Tumblr thru the week but dropped 6 more
pix in today. Bop on over to NOTHING and have a look.