July 16 to 31: Settling In


#16 – GooX FXXX – 16 July 2017

Oh look, another picture with a person in it (If you remember yesterday’s, #15). So apparently I do take photos of people, or at least photos with people in them. This one was cropped extensively. Toronto was a pretty city, until we were all issued standardized gigantic plastic garbage, recycling and compost bins like the ones you see in the excerpt from the original image to the left. These ugly monsters are everywhere, all the time.   Especially in city parks. No one seems much to care though. The stereotypical conclusion is the correct one: most everyone is traipsing around with their head down, seeing not much at all. With the camera I get to choose whether to frame the monsters in or frame the monsters out. Choice is mostly good to have.

(There are several ways to interpret the title to this image.  Truth is: the neon sign above this neighbourhood restaurant reads “Good Food” but four letters as indicated no longer light up.)


#17 – English Lit – 17 July 2017

I don’t make photographs every day, there isn’t time. Especially during the week when work and life interferes. What to do when stock is running low?  How about tint something in an effort to boost its appeal — but hopefully also in a way that riffs on what the scene was trying to say and be. This one was rescued adding an invitation to feel something wispy, perhaps.


#18 – Run by rise – 18 July 2017

“Oh, what a tangled web we weave / When first we practise to deceive!” -Walter Scott. I looked that up after I made this photograph. ”Tangled web” is a curious phrase, because my observations of spiders’ webs tell me they are precise, geometric, engineered, rich in symmetry and textural rhythm. This one (or these?) is two planes, which could be described mathematically by their rectangular area and their degrees of offset one to the other. No tangles here.  It’s the silly suckers that fly into the web that become tangled in the math. The spider has it all sorted in advance.


#19 – Toronto Transit Commission – 19 July 2017

“Hey little boy, can you ‘print’ just one colour?” Of course not – its either black and white or its colour photography. I suppose I could use a colour filter on the lens to emphasize some colour over others, but that’s it. So wrong! In digital photography working in one colour is just a slider away. This is basic stuff, I suppose, but if like me you didn’t know about it then it’s a miracle the first time you discover it. Not to be overused, but once is grand. I remember when these were the new Toronto streetcars. Now, they are heading out of service. Time passes.  The image was taken through a glass viewing window, and you can see some faint reflections.


#20 – Moving very slowly – 20 July 2017

To  evaluate aspiring managers, the Canadian federal government used to administer the “in-box” test: how quickly could a candidate empty the box, actioning (that’s a government thing too – turning a noun into a verb) every item. A colleague of mine blew the competition away. Cleared the box to the bare bottom in no time flat. Yes exactly, I thought. This colleague was notorious for adding no value to things flying by. This colleague was also perennially anxious. Why have we made a virtue out of speed and efficiency? Photography is, for me,  an attempt to slow it all down.

I made a funner variant of this subject matter, as you can see to the left. Why did I post this one instead? Cannot remember now.

#21 – Glint – 21 July 2017

Even in photography, the external advise is often to rush. “You have to be fast, or you will have missed the shot.” Lets do some math here. There are infinite shots to be captured in a near infinite universe. How many times will you trip the shutter in a lifetime? At 100 a day (impressive and exhausting!) you would create 2.6 million images over 70 years (in this scenario you essentially keel over dead on the final day). Did you miss any? Lets see: infinity potential shots – 2.6M shots taken = infinity missed shots. We have to remind ourselves to chill out. Rushing at infinity is a fool’s errand, unless you are a wedding or sports photographer.


#22 – Zig Zag – 22 July 2017

At the University of Toronto in the early 1980s, there was a darkroom in the basement of Hart House. There were black and white enlargers, even a fancy colour enlarger. I never graduated to colour, but black and white was a lot of fun. What’s more fun for me now? Using modern technology to produce images with many more options, no set up and clean up time, no noxious chemicals, no one knocking on the door because my hour is up, colour as well as good old black and white. For those who think digital “post” manipulation is cheating here’s the observation: it was always thus even in the analogue days. In the darkroom you cropped, corrected exposure, burned and dodged, selected contrast levels (by choosing different contrast grades of paper, all of which you had to stock), double exposed ….


#23 – A Light Touch – 23 July 2017

Naming my images is a strange experience. I name the files for logistical purposes, just so as to keep them organized after I have exported them from the editing software. But those names aren’t necessarily evocative of the images. And so in constructing this website I am choosing new “artistic” names. But I am afraid of sounding affectatious, as I find many artists’ and photographers’ statements and labels to be. So why not leave them all unnamed and just let them speak for themselves? I don’t really know.


#24 – NOT A CAULIFLOWER – 24 July 2017

See how fun naming can be, though. Macro (close up) photography as I like to experience it is an exercise in through-the-viewfinder discovery. It’s impossible, while crawling around, to conjure in advance by naked eye what the lens will see. So after finding a spot, or a thing, or an idea, it’s then all about casting the lens into the scene and slowly trolling through the viewfinder until something appears and bites. One little shift of position (because its easier to focus by moving the whole camera back and forth than it is to turn the focus ring) and you get a whole new image — or nothing at all.

#25 – Life – 25 July 2018

Last of the west coast wedding-trip shots. It was a beautiful wedding, son of my best friend from high school, a man who rescued me from my introverted teenage self. The ceremony took place on a lawn sweeping down to the sea. The bride and groom’s getaway yacht was anchored behind them, readied for their escape. I did not bring my camera to the event. Two reasons. First, I wanted to be there in the moment with the people I knew, not distracted looking for compositions. Second I am shooting in manual mode (because I use 40 year old lenses that have no electronics aboard) and am only one month in with this new camera body, so I would have been doubly inattentive in a panicky attempt to get all the settings adjusted for each exposure. There were pros on scene.

 


#26 – Moving on – 26 July 2017

Graffiti on an underused railway trestle. Railways are part of the Canadian mythology. The building of the trans-Canadian railway in the 1880s and its role in cementing together the country is core school curriculum. I would not be surprised if Canadians logged more person-miles on trains now than back then, but that is an entirely different experience – short haul daily commuting mostly, in an urban and suburban context, not heading west with your worldly possessions under your seat to start a new life. Photography is a fantastic way to reveal change and the processes of moving on. Looking at the famous (to Canadians) image of the driving of the last spike in 1885 reveals that to be part of it you had to be:  a) male, b) white, c) a hat wearer and d) preferably bearded. Has much changed? Fewer beards in corporate boardrooms now, for sure. I’ve seen pictures.


#27 – NEXT BEND – 27 July 2018

On the streetcar the other day (see #19) I listened in as a young person spoke excitedly on her (digital) phone about the joys of shooting in (analogue) film. Young people are rediscovering analogue – film, tape, vinyl, knitting is all back. At the same time older folk (like me) are discovering digital realms that did not exist when we were young.  There is no right side to be on here.  Right is what makes you excited, makes you feel creative, helps you explore and discover, connects you. Go digital. Go analogue. Mix them together.


#28 – Closed for the night – 28 July 2017

By now you will have noticed a constant:  all my images are sized 16 by 9. I started with this ratio because it fully fills my computer screen and my television. In the absence of a printer, these are my platforms for viewing images on a larger scale. I dislike black stripes at the top-bottom or left-right of a screen, and 16 by 9 fits with precision and therefore eliminates these. So every image is viewed and taken 36 by 24 in the camera, and then cropped to 16 – 9 in the computer. Also, no vertical shots. I have since come to view 16 by 9 as a very natural recreation of how my eyes and brain also define my effective field of view as I walk around. So it’s a fit.

16 by 9 is a silly format to use in Instagram.  Instagram does not support full-screen landscape rotation, and my images appear quite tiny.  But I am not posting for Instagram, I am using Instagram to force myself to post.


#29 – Passageway – 29 July 2017

I get my haircut in the same rhythm as Ollie the dog. We both go to places on Queen St. E., Toronto,which you see here. To the right of this view begins the ravine in which my first posts were taken. Lake Ontario is to the left and down the slope, and it will be the subject of many images through the year. Downtown Toronto, skyscrapers and all, is straight ahead. Queen Street is slow, often plugged up with traffic and transit. There are no alternatives to get into the city core, which is only 6km away but out of sight. This and this alone has slowed down the rate of densification in our neightbourhood. I appreciate the absence of condo towers and canyon streets here where I live. While it lasts.


#30 – Waiting for daylight – 30 July 2017

How many important things can I do well at one time? One. How many important things can I do well sequentially, in a day or a week? Three, for me. How many important things would I like to do well?  My list has five things:  partnering my love Ruth, photography, music, work, and keeping fit. That’s two too many. Ruth is non-negotiable. Work, well I have to do it, and its better to do it well. And I’ve committed to a photograph a day for a year. There is no flexibility. Music and fitness are suffering. This leads sometimes to anxiety, regret, confusion, and a general paralysis where for periods of time I am doing nothing very well. Must  chill, or its going to be a very long year.


#31 – Lawnbowlers – 31 July 2017

Everything is saturated here, as you can see. On one hand it’s artificial. But actually, the added saturation reflects what I saw and felt when I stood at this fence looking in. It’s a lawn bowling club house (hence the intensely green grass) at dusk (hence the dark smolder of the roofing and siding) with a lights glowing warmly inside. Made me want to knock on the door and join whatever card games and conversations were in progress. But there’s a fence you see, so I can only look …

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