The Art of the Photograph

Purses or dogs?

I was in Victoria today interviewing Quinton Gordon and Diana Millar of Luz Gallery for an upcoming article for Victoria's Boulevard magazine. It's so great to talk to someone who has so much experience as a photographer and who has a vision about what they're trying to achieve.

They have a lovely new space full of light as a result of the big windows and in a funky old building on the corner of Oak Bay Avenue and Fell Street about 10 minutes, if that, from downtown.

We had a good conversation about what the last year has been like for them birthing this new venture, what they look for in portfolios and about the difference between a focus on process and a focus on content as well as how they've made it so that community - at least the photographic community not just in Victoria but in Portland and Vancouver and other places is finding them making everyone's lives richer who need a place to talk about visual art.

Quinton talked about how happy he is to hear people coming in to discuss the art and the projects that created the work, not the process. He emphasized how important it is to start with the why behind the photograph and then the process. Too many people have it backwards he said.

It made me think of my experience at the market. One of the questions I always get at the market when I'm selling my photos is "What kind of camera do you use?" As if the camera had anything to do with the image. My eyes just glaze over when someone asks me that.  It's the least important aspect of photography.

 It might just be a way for them to make conversation and I understand that but honestly, I have a low end Nikon D40 digital camera. It's not the camera that sees and then decides what to take or make a photograph of and it's not the camera that makes further decisions about what photos might actually be appealing to people in the context of the Saturday market. When it comes to the market it's all about taking photographs "of" something. The most basic form of capturing an image.

Then there's the people  who want to challenge you about the fact that you altered the photo as if it's now tainted or something?Where does that come from in an age of digital manipulation? I mean, even in the past when photographers were burning and dodging in the darkroom process, they manipulated their photographs. Do you like the end result or not? Does it really matter how the creator of the photo reached the end point of an image that either speaks to you or not?  As with all art, it's subjective. It's the same as in life. What you perceive is much more about you than the actual physical thing or person in front of you. It's about what emotions or memories it evokes for you and the experiences you've had that colour your interpretation of it in the first place. It's why we don't all love the same piece of art or the same photo or the same anything.

It was the kind of conversation that I have too rarely and I forget how much I enjoy talking about that stuff - the stuff of creativity - until I happen up against it in a moment.

It was a good day.

Silent Warriors speak through Eric Klemm's Photographs

photo by Eric Klemm

On the weekend, I went to an exhibit of photographs by local Salt Spring resident, Eric Klemm, a photographer with an international reputation.

Klemm trained as a graphic artist and was a commercial photographer in Germany working for some of the top magazines there prior to moving to the Maldives, then France, Vancouver and Salt Spring, BC. When I asked him why he lives here now, he said he didn't know. He admits he could live anywhere and isn't sure why he lives on Salt Spring. I liked that answer. It's such a rare response.

His latest project, Italian Journey, is based on following the voyage in 1786 by the German poet, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Klemm traveled through Italy visiting the same places, on the same days, 300 years later.

When he retired from commercial photography, he found himself to be “very grumpy” and his need to create propelled him back into the creative realm in the form of Fine Art photography. In the six years since he began that, he  has produced an immense amount of work. His projects have included old cars found on Salt Spring in various states of decay or Metamorphosis to what he calls subject-less photographs that use only light and shadow to captivate, abstracts of coloured pencil shavings, and back alleys in Vancouver as well as his latest project, the Journey to Italy.

The exhibit at Mahon Hall on Salt Spring showed a sampling of photographs from these projects since he re-invented himself. Many more of the photographs (40) he has taken for the Silent Warriors project are currently being shown in Portland, Oregon. He is hoping to get a show of  them in Santa Fe at the Photo-Eye gallery.

In 2006, he travelled in Canada and the US spending more than $200,000 of his own money to photograph native people where he found them. On Vancouver’s Downtown East Side and at Pow Wows or outside stores in small towns such as Williams Lake, into the Shuswap and New Mexico, Texas, Florida. He worked with an assistant, Chris Taylor.

Sometimes, he'd take a photo within minutes of encountering an individual and other times he'd have to engage someone for a few hours to convince them to have their photo taken as part of the Silent Warriors project.  For these photographs, he used only natural light and a neutral white backdrop.

He photographed more than 300 people and Silent Warriors was published in a book by German publisher Steidl .

What I realized, as I spent a lot of time interviewing him, moving from one photo to the next, was how true professionals, regardless of what status they may have achieved as a result of their talent, have a passion for their work that is contagious.  They do not differentiate between whether you are from the New York Times or The Gulf Islands Driftwood. I liked that and I really appreciated the time he took with me.

Very inspiring!

To see the work of other Salt Spring artists, visit the Salt Spring Artist Directory.

Salt Spring Saturday Market Preparations

I've been busy getting ready for The Market which begins on Saturday, April 3. There have been trips to Victoria and trips to Opus and Value Village and Capital Iron. 

So much decision-making goes into selling your own photography or anything for that matter. Like everyone else, I'm trying to add to my "products" to make them unique in some way. Not an easy task when it comes to photography but I think I have succeeded. I have no idea whether my new little product will be a success but it will be fun to hope and see what happens. 

Pricing is always a challenge. I wrote a story on an artist lately and I felt very motherly telling him that he was underselling his talent and that the price should not be related to how long it took him and that he needed to honour his talent.

Umm. Say that again so I can hear it myself why don't I?  I want to price my stuff accordingly but I don't want to overprice it. Just about everything is overpriced here starting with the gas - which must be organic or something - because it costs between 120 and 126 which is probably more than anywhere else in Canada. Salt Spring used to be synonymous with sheep but now me thinks it's just synonymous with "show me the money!"

Lately I've been running into a lot of people whose Salt Spring dreams have run their course and as a result, they're done, they're packing up, they're moving on. I expect that's an ongoing phenomenon here and I wonder when something inside will tell me it's my turn.

But, back to photography, something about the above photo really appeals to me. I call it "Strength."

I was just sitting on the dock at Ganges and looked down into the water to see the light hitting the chain in a way that really drew me in. I hope you find it interesting in some way.

Seeing your way out of a Rut

- this little boy, yes, it's a boy, has the most wonderful head of hair. He's really young. Maybe 4or 5 and I have no idea why he was wearing these sunglasses backwards but his head looks like the head of a mannequin. Funny.

When you spend a lot of time taking photographs, after some time, you begin to get into a rut. Suddenly you realize that the images you've been taking resemble images that you've taken before in the way you've captured the subject through your choice of angle, distance, light, or well, just pick any aspect really.

I think part of that is related to the fact that like everything you spend a significant amount of time doing, you usually get better at it. And, when you get better at something, your expectations and discrimination levels go way up. Suddenly what you used to think was a good photo is now just pretty ordinary and nothing special. In fact, when you look at it, the little voice in your head is going, " Oh god, can't you come up with something more original than that? Been there. Done that."

In writing, it's a good idea to look at it and ask yourself whether each word you're using (and this is true for poetry) is really of any value. Is it the right word? Does it really add anything to what you're trying to communicate? Would your piece/poem be stronger without that word?

Afterall, I think everyone knows by now that writing isn't about the writing, it's about getting rid of the first thing you wrote which in the end you will inevitably, most often, see as a piece of garbage when you really finish the piece. (Let me just say, having said that, that the Blog is different. For me the Blog is just about BLAH - let it all hang out and don't worry too much about it. Stream of consciousness is fine. Those are my rules. I can live by my own Blog rules. If you don't like 'em, get your own blog! I mean that in the nicest way of course.)

So, I find myself in a photographic rut wondering how to shake myself out of it.
A good photographer/friend of mine wrote to me saying, "Plateaus in photography mean that you can now "see farther, better" and your task is to move from old ways into new ones. Of course, the new is built on the old. So don't fret, just let loose and do some photography that shakes up old patterns and you will discover something new." He makes it sound so easy. Examples of photography that shakes up old patterns. (Hold the camera upside down?) Shoot at night. Force yourself to take photos that are in an area no more than 6 feet in circumference. Ask someone whether they can be your subject?

It helps to look at other people's approaches to photography. Especially I think photographers whose work really appeals to you so that you can try and figure out why their images strike you. It's always, I think, about capturing the universal in the specific. Capturing emotion. Capturing light as close to the way we experience it when our camera is nowhere to be found and how it makes us feel. I can still remember the light in a room I woke up in when I was young and greatly infatuated. I remember the way the light looked on the curtains at The ghost ranch in my cabin. I'll remember the orange coming through the fir bough and the purple mountain against the sky as I sit here and type this looking out my window.

I've been reading this book on Kindness lately and it talks a lot about how being open, trusting, and giving others the benefit of the doubt will change your life because suddenly you will "see" possibilities and instead of shutting out the unknown, if you embrace it, and consciously bring yourself back to the moment by being present for yourself and to others, then you will begin to notice things that otherwise you would have missed. So many of us were raised to be exactly the opposite and it's such a burden to come from that place.

So, my challenge is to figure out how to push myself past my current way of seeing - with and without - my camera.

Can't See the Forest for the Trees

I've been thinking a lot lately about my photography and what I'm going to do with it. I don't like taking pictures of trees. I find that kind of boring. This photo above is two photos combined together. I came across this cross etched into an Arbutus tree while on a hike and the leaf, well, just a leaf on the ground during a walk.

I think you can reach a point with your photography where you can feel stuck. I feel that way. I'm not doing anything that's interesting and even though I might take some pretty pictures, they aren't cohesive and there's nothing about them that is getting at the heart of me expressing something creative that means something to me personally. They just aren't cutting it.

That's where I feel I'm at. I need a way to define my way of seeing, a niche, an approach that's about more than just photos that are pleasing to look at.

Here I am surrounded by the most heavenly beauty and for some reason I suddenly feel like I have nothing to photograph. I've never experienced that before.

North of Secrets

There is just something over the top exciting about receiving a book in the mail that you created. For me this book, North of Secrets, represents so many things.

It's a representation of a decade worth of personal history. It's a record of some people who have been very important to me. It has some of my favorite photos. It outlines some of my thoughts related to therapy, of emotional struggles, healing and the ability to change.

It contains many poems that I wrote from the past when it seemed as if, as a result of depression and some very sad events, that I would not so much think in words or sentences but in poems that seemed to come to me as if given to me by someone else fully formed. They seemed to come so easily back then when most of them were written in the late 90s.

It contains 59 of my favorite photos from places I've been that have most significantly left their mark on me, for better or worse: The West End and Stanley Park. Saltspring. Abiquiu, New Mexico and Santa Fe. Salmon Arm. Chiapas, Mexico.

Yes, I admit it, these are not exactly international destinations of intrigue but places, in my small life, that are alive in my memories and in photos that capture my take on a time and place where very significant experiences happened for me.

I just can't say enough about how great it is that an idea/reality such as Blurb.com exists so that anyone who wants to has the ability to showcase their creativity. Why wait to be famous when the likelihood of that happening is less than winning a lottery?

There's more than enough room in the world for all representations of creativity, not just of the chosen few that are rather arbitrarily determined (by whom?) to be worthy of public recognition.

I don't believe anything has made me happier in the past year than the process involved in putting together this book and now being able to hold it in my hands knowing that I have created for myself, a bit of a legacy, one that I would have no other way to create since I have never had, nor ever will have, children. (But, in a way this is even better because, unlike offspring, I had full control of the outcome!)

I've chosen to keep this book private on the Blurb.com site because of the extremely personal nature of the contents and because some of the photos of people within it, but [if you are a personal friend of mine] and you would like a copy, I can order one for you. The cost is $25.00

It contains 44 pages of 17 poems and 59 photos (along with descriptions about how the poems came to be in terms of the person, place or thing that sparked their origin).

Here's a little teaser:

On the surface, this book may seem to be about some of my poetry and photos.

And, that it is!

But, those are the end products of a much more important journey that forced me inside to that placed located north of my own secrets.

We all know when we're keeping a secret. But, what of that place that's even deeper and full of secrets that we may not even know we have: the subconscious.

It wasn't a place I thought I'd ever be visiting. A melancholy place, always present, extremely bothersome, causing all sorts of chaos in my everyday existence until the emotions were unearthed and expressed...

Reflections

Whenever I'm wandering around with my camera, I'm always drawn to reflections. I'm not sure why that is but I found this reflection of a building on Georgia Street reflecting in the water that is part of Coal Harbour near the Vancouver Rowing Club just across the street from it. Sometimes it's good to capture the subject of the reflection in the photo but I thought these worked very well without that.
These photos look to me like abstract paintings. I like them very much so I thought I'd share them with you.