Writings, Reviews, Cultural Criticism
I vacillate between wilderness and city, between landscape and street, between wildlife and urban living. I think most of us experience a consciousness divided between the natural world and our cultural accumulations, between innocence and experience, heart and mind. I take my camera into that divide to see what it reveals.
Fur is an imaginary riff on the life of Diane Arbus, who has come to be known as a photographer of freaks. That description might be a bit caricatured, but that’s what it comes down to.
I suppose there are different forms of visual jokes, but the one that strikes me most often is a kind of ironic juxtaposition.
I maintain a photography-based twitter account @dabpix. It’s a great way to see what other people are doing, discover new resources, get ideas and inspiration, and to share my own work.
Photography in the rain is a pain the ass. Water on the lens can wreck the shot. Water in the lens can wreck the lens. And yet rain produces reflective surfaces.
In Toronto, it can be easy to overlook the change of colours if you spend a lot of time in the downtown core, or walking through the PATH, or commuting by subway. An antidote to all the concrete is a walk through a cemetery.
This fall, I observe different species of birds passing through the Toronto Brickworks. First, I saw finches: Then the American tree sparrows: It’s not like the birds book a reservation in the quarry. There’s plenty of overlap as one species checks in and another checks out. Here’s a common starling: Over the past week, I’ve…
In Toronto, the leaves have pretty much turned and a good portion have fallen. The colours peaked and now begins the drear November.
There’s a culvert I’ve taken to photographing that is quickly becoming my favourite. It’s a continuation of Yellow Creek on the east side of Mount Pleasant Avenue.
It’s October 31st, the day of the night when the dead cast off their shackles and mingle for a time with the living. To get us into the mood, a few scary photos:
One wonders if some of the usual hostility towards graffiti doesn’t stem from the fact that it’s a kind of political speech.
When I see someone panhandling, or simply sitting there, obviously homeless, my usual response is no response at all. I stare straight ahead and direct all my energy to reaching a point further along the sidewalk. I pretend there is no hand outstretched, no voice asking if I can spare some change.
As a rule, I don’t do event photography. I prefer tramping around alone in a landscape (forest/urban/whatever). But every rule has its exceptions.
There are a surprising number of movies in which photography has an important role. Like writers who write novels about novelists, it’s almost as if film-makers need to engage in the same self-reflexive practice.
Is this a thing? I’ve noticed random arrows popping up. White arrows on an orange background. They don’t really point at anything. Or maybe they do. I don’t know. Maybe I’m supposed to follow them.