Unnamed Twenty One, 2017 — Sidelong :: (click to see more)
Wait a sec – I’m not interested in the intersection of time and rhythm, like I said last week – it’s just rhythm.
Time is a factor of rhythm not a separate element – so are cycles, so is movement, so is pattern. This is why music is so strongly linked. It’s full of pattern and rhythm – on all levels, music is entirely comprised of rhythm.
I do think time is fascinating but it’s an element of my main interest. However, rhythm couldn’t properly exist outside the framework of time – without the expression of time rhythm becomes pattern.
And Alignment is rhythm too – on a different scale… perhaps.
What an A-HA! moment.
Isentropic lift, 2017 — Convergent :: (click to see more)
I was thinking about how photography and music production software and equipment has improved so incredibly over my career. This has boosted the quality of work produced by artists and we’ve collectively come to expect more from artists too. The software and equipment improvements have also democratized access – lowered the barrier to entry and made it less expensive to become involved. Consequently more people have produced work, which in a feedback loop, increases our expectations over quality. What was once considered acceptable is now considered mediocre.
True, it’s become much easier to make great things – the software and equipment has leveraged our creativity to incredible levels, such that now what were once extremely difficult tasks are routine and commonplace. These improvements have also opened new vistas of cross-polination between artistic disciplines and opened up possibilities that didn’t and couldn’t exist before.
It’s difficult to project where this will lead. We humans think in linear terms and project in straight lines – but these changes have been non-linear. They’ve seen exponential growth and we aren’t well equipped to imagine that kind of change.
Red Smear Over Orange Brown, 2013 – Light Signatures :: (click to see more)
I’ve been struggling today with fatigue and disillusionment. Trying to think about what to write and not too happy with myself in general – in short – moping.
But as I’m finishing this image I’m thinking what would it take to lift this cloud – what’s missing exactly. You know I don’t think its any object or service that’s missing from my life. There’s nothing much I couldn’t procure if I really thought it was important. Money is not the issue – not saying I have lots – just that it’s not the solution or the means to a solution.
I’ve read that lottery winners, after an initial high from their winnings will return to their previous life upsets and issues. Having gobs of money doesn’t make you happy – much to everyone’s dismay.
Honestly, I think its the simple pleasures of life that bring the most happiness. Waking up to the sun, a good meal, a good sleep, laughing with friends, visiting family, crying, music, learning. These are all fundamentals that give the greatest happiness in our lives. Things that are the essence of ourselves. When we ignore them we feel emptiness.
Think of your happiest moments – weren’t they something like this?
I keep saying I need to live in the now but in fact more precisely – I need to live in the simple pleasures of the now.
Undulating Green Smoke, 2013 – Light Signatures :: (click to see more)
I just read about a body of work Alfred Stieglitz made of clouds he titled Equivalents. For him, they were equivalent to music. I’d never heard of this work of his before but it immediately felt right. The premise that you can make photographs that represent something as ephemeral as music or emotion is at the core of what I do – finding a way to articulate the emotional state of urban living.
As I’ve said in the past, my interest lies in the instant when waves of movement coincide – intersecting actions that reinforce and multiply each other. Music is an important enabler when photographing and finding these moments. Music was essential for me as I photographed for Coloured City and music is absolutely essential as I edit and finish images. Music allows me to see into an image I’m working on – connect with it on a fundamental level so I perceive what it can become as I methodically expose it’s potential – it puts me into the right mind state.
Anywhere there are large numbers of people living, there is an accelerated pace – an increased potential. The greater the urban density the greater the pressure of possibility – not too dissimilar to compressing gas into a liquid – the pace of action is elevated and with it the coincident intersections.
This is when it gets interesting – when it gets fun.
Stormy Sky Over Dark Water, 2013 – Light Signatures :: (click to see more)
I’ve been trying to get to the heart of why chaos and order are so fundamental to my efforts. I could cite the patterning by music I was so thoroughly exposed to in my formative years as a source. But also equally important were my summers spent north in the woods camping experiencing the natural world. And then there is my innate desire to build that manifested at an early age – people thought I would become an engineer. Somewhere – held in balance in this triangle of forces – is my desire to find order in chaos.
Order from chaos is a slippery concept. One could argue that chaos is a relative state dependent on the sample size of the system in question. Order can be found in any chaotic system if you take a large enough perspective… this is my intuitive feeling at least. But if you look closely the overall patterns disappear and all you see is random behavior. In an active system such as a city, it’s at the boundary layer – between the large and the small sample – that interesting things happen. Where the abrupt manifestation of pattern in the noise will give a tantalizing glimpse of the larger order.
I find this fascinating – and strangely – hopeful.
Green Pink Orange Red Wisps, 2012 – Light Signatures :: (click to see more)
When I first began talking about the images I was making, I used to say I was searching for beauty with my work. But as time passed, as I gave it more thought, as I matured (chuckle), I came to realize that although beauty was an element it certainly wasn’t the driving force behind my images.
I can’t say for sure what I was doing before I began working on the Metro Motion series except to say that I saw things that resonated within me and so I would photograph them and attempt to portray my inner vision. But with the Metro Motion work, I made a conscious effort to find a new way of seeing the city – one I could be happy with – and with this I began to think differently about what I was doing. I experimented with different techniques I liked, including long exposures, camera movement and pinhole photography. Around this time I saw some amazing pinhole work by Michael Wesely – Open Shutter at the MOMA in New York that validated my interest in finding a different way to portray the city.
Everything I’ve done since has, in my mind at least, followed some kind of evolution from that original idea of seeing the city differently. As to why the city – I realize now that I photograph as part of my daily life and so I photograph where I live and travel. Up until Metro Motion I had been slightly nomadic and driving a lot and so I was able to photograph landscapes in the countryside.
Between 1988-93 or so I lived and worked in Hamilton and Windsor but drove a lot around southern Ontario and traveled elsewhere. I would photograph mostly while I was driving and traveling but also began to explore the industrial landscape of Hamilton, Windsor and Detroit too.
It wasn’t until 1994 when I moved to Toronto and stopped traveling and driving so much that I was fully confronted with a need to find an interesting and fulfilling way to photograph city life – since that was pretty much all the photographic material I had at my disposal. Up to that point I had predominantly shot landscapes in black and white and tried the same when photographing the city and industrial areas but I was dissatisfied with this – it wasn’t interesting enough. This was also around when I converted from a black and white darkroom to colour transparency film, scanning my film, digital image processing and ultimately digital printing. It was an exciting period of learning and discovery – exploring new production and image processing possibilities.
I still don’t have a clear handle on what I’m doing but I do know that music is an essential part. I always work with my favourite music playing and for the Coloured City series, while I was shooting also. I find the right music facilitates a flow state while I work – a kind of mental disconnect from my surroundings or perhaps a hyper-connect with the image I’m working on – whichever, it allows me to enter into the image. I don’t know how to describe this clearly without sounding hokey but suffice it to say, the flow state enables me to identify and amplify elements within the image – to build the image up in a succession of layers using painterly techniques, until I have something that feels complete.
Interestingly, in writing this post I checked the Michael Wesely book I have about his Open Shutter project. In his book I found two images I didn’t remember that are clearly influential precursors for my Light Signatures series. One is from his New York Vertical series and the other is from the series American Landscape – both of which contain strong elements of what I’m exploring now.
