New Brunswick Talk
On Thursday, January 7th, 2010,I will be presenting to the Moncton Focus Camera Club, talking about my work produced in Scotland in 2008. The meeting begins at 6:30 at the Université de Moncton Campus, Rémi-Rossignol Building - Rm. D102.
New site goes live…
On Friday, July 3, 2009, my first major site redesign in more than ten years is launched. The new site is by no means complete, but given that the old site was more than 30 months stale (no new work added since December of 2006), I felt it was better to post the new site, than to simply let the stale site sit.
With the new site live, new work will be added as it is created, and older work (from the 30 months of silence) will be added as I have time, with the goal of having the chronology of my work restored and coherent by the end of 2009.
Flower Photography Article
Today saw the publication of my first how-to article, of flower photography. One of my former students had contacted me about writing it for a client of hers, and low and behold, here it is!
Memory of Water Opens
My newest solo show, Memory of Water, opened this week at ViewPoint Gallery, in Halifax, Nova Scotia. A video filmed at the opening exhibition is located on YouTube. The exhibition is made up of thirty-five water nudes, dating from 1996 to 2007.
Best of 2006 PhotoArt.cz Published
PhotoArt.cz has published the Best of 2006 issue, which includes a 10 image portfolio of my work (the images I posted to my blog late last year), along with photo by 10 other photographers selected from the work published by PhotoArt.cz in 2006.
For the image by me used on the cover (top row, second image), PhotoArt.cz used Rivergod I
20 Years
It was twenty years ago today, On December 25, that I received my first camera, and unknowingly began this life-long journey. At the age of 17, my parents gave me a used Olympus OM-10 and a handful of film, to begin my exploration with. Weeks later I entered my first darkroom, and processed my first wet chemical print.
Since then I have custom built three darkrooms (with one, three and two enlargers in each respectively), and one digital “lightroom”. I have owned at least 25 cameras (small, medium and large format, and digital), and well over 50 lenses (not counting duplicate copies of the same lens), and almost a dozen tripods. I have lost one camera, light meter and a lens to a river, worn out (as in killed through excessive use) three Manfrotto tripods, and one digital SLR.
By rough estimate, I have made 70,000 film images (1,600 rolls of 35mm, 1,400 rolls of 120, and more than 8,000 sheets of 4x5 and 8x10 film) and 48,000 digital images (which after stitching make up about 22,000 actual photographs), for a whopping total of over 118,000 images (the irony here is that the 70K film images were made over 18 years, and the 48K digital were made over four years).
This does not include discarded film images (messed up in processing or incorrectly exposed), or deleted digital files (the 48,000 digital images were made on four cameras which collectively have made 147,000 photographs, meaning I delete approximately two images for each one photograph I kept).
My photography has introduced me to some wonderful people, from my partner, Joy, to supporters, patrons and models. All of these people have helped shape and fill a world that revolves around the creation and celebration of beauty. I have been privileged to photograph some wonderful individuals, both on their own, and as part of couples, with friends and as siblings. I have been granted the gift of photographing one of my best friends through not just one, but two pregnancies. The reward of working as I do is not only the images I create, but the people involved in the process.
The years have not been without the negative, however. I have lost wonderful images through darkroom and computer errors, had an image stolen from an exhibition, and had permission to use a complete body of work revoked by a model who’s life changed in a way incompatible with her modeling history. Permission to use still other images was lost to the end of my first marriage, as part of the fallout of the end of the relationship. These are small prices to pay for the rewards that photography has brought me
Other sorrows are felt deeper, and have taken longer to work through. Five years ago, a friend and model took her own life, something which I have not spoken/written about before. Her passing shook all who knew her, and took much of the magic out of the images we’d made, until I realized her own troubles didn’t tarnish the beauty she created with me, and that the images she’d left behind celebrated her. I still think of her often, and can now look at her photograph and smile.
So the first two decades are complete. I still have much left to say, visually, and with luck and fortune, lots of time to say it all in.
NITH
The culmination of the Naked in the House event was the exhibition of the 36 photographs produced by the 12 photographers, and the selection of the three top photographs. Scheduled a little more than 100 days after the photographs were made, the exhibition was the first chance for any of the photographers to view the work produced by the other competitors during the event.
The 36 images were displayed in sets of three, each set representing the images of one photographer. The display method, hanging them on large sheets of transparent plastic mounted in metal frames worked wonderfully, always permitting the viewer to get a sense of the room beyond while being able to easily focus on the images themselves.
Miranda, the New Brunswick Portfolio book is released
My fourth book, Miranda, the New Brunswick Portfolio is published today. The portfolio was produced over one week in the summer of 2005 working with Miranda in one province of Canada. Focusing on the ten image portfolio, the book also contains a session by session photo diary of the creation of the portfolio and more than sixty photos, including numerous documentary images that provide an intimate, behind-the-scenes view.
The Evolving Beauty Patron Site is Launched
Due to ever increasing traffic, I have split the original Evolving Beauty into two sites; the Showcase site, and the Patron site. The showcase site features 100 images, while the patron’s site provides access to 1,300 images.
Mortalities evolves into Evolving Beauty
My original site (Mortalities 1995-1998) is replaced with Evolving Beauty, with 120 images posted over 15 galleries.
