Born on B.C. My father was with the army so I have moved around the country. Start getting the shakes if I live in one location for more than five years. Picked up a 127 Brownie as a youngster and just kept shooting. Couldn’t decide whatto be when I grew up (still haven’t, don’t rush important decisions) by the end of high school and one of my chums said, “You should be a photographer.” I think it was because I could calculate a guide number quicker than him. Electronics have all bet eliminated guide numbers. Yeah thyristors!
I can’t draw or carry a tune.
Quite a few. Nobody gets ahead without the help of others and if I were to list my parents, teachers, friends and colleagues plus the photographers whose support, advice and work has inspired me it would be quite a few names.
“The camera is the least important psrt of photography.” John Blakemore, U.K. photographer and lecturer. Many photographers don’t appreciate the importance of logistics in photography. It isn’t a coincidence that the Nation Geographic photographer Paul Nicklen credits his photographic success to hunting with the Inuit. He transposes such skills to his shooting.
Would just like to wander.
I’d say my brain but it might sound a tad egotistical. Many people aren’t aware that about half the human brain is dedicated to image processing and that the human eye sees upside down, right to left like a view camera. The brain transposes the image El Greco’s distinct painting style is thought to be due to a visual impairment. What the eye sees, what the brain sees and what the camera sees are three different things. I’m a fan of Ansel Adam’s pre-visualization, and Zone System, seeing the final image in your mind’s eye before you press the shutter. Easier said than done.
An RV.
Keep shooting. Shoot lots, shoot often and try and make mistakes. Write down, where possible, what you did so you can redo it. One of the disadvantages of digital is that you don’t need to do all the pre-shooting work of film days and consequently many people aren’t putting the thought in before pressing the shutter. When film and processing was $30 for a roll of 36 exposures, you thought a lot harder. One of the great and perhaps biggest advantages of digital, besides not having to send transparencies to Edmonton for processing, is the time and costs of post processing has disappeared. I get upset when it takes the computer several minutes to render an image completely forgetting that ten years ago that to get such an image would have required a firm of strippers and retouchers and scanners over at least several days at a price I couldn’t afford. Post processing is as important, if not more so, than pressing the shutter. In some ways I tire of hearing how digital has changed photography. It has, but photography has always been rapidly changing. 150 years ago the photographers that accompanied the surveyors for CP rail needed six mules to carry their gear. The interesting thing about photography is that it effects people in different ways, they have a particular gift to follow and develop in photography. I can think of two young photographers in the NT for whom portraiture is a gift, a talent that can be improved but not necessarily learned. I envy them, a gift I haven’t got. Another NT young artist is doing fabulous mixed media work. That is the thing that is so appealing for me now. Watching such young people get ahead and start to break away from the conventions of film and explore the new photography that digital offers. With digital, the concept and breadth of photography will, over the next few years change dramatically.
Have some work in the Contact show in Toronto. I can’t afford to fly down for the opening gala free champagne. Going to have a couple of shows this year at the Gallery on 47th St. in Yellowknife. Looking at some shows in other parts of the country, yet to be confirmed. May put up a website but not until next winter. Not wasting a short Northern summer inside building a site. |
NWT Photography 