Unlimited 3.0

This month's issue of Unlimited magazine features a multi-excerpt from The Geography of Hope, accompanied by my photos. Cheers, Malcolm!



Split-level Earthship at the quarry "subdivision" in the Earthship Greater World Community, outside Taos NM.

I love this photo, and was thrilled to see that Malcolm decided to use it. The original shot has a lot of very very blue sky with amazing puffy clouds, above. It looks fake, it's so beautiful. The house itself is symmetrical and unusual to the pink-suburban-box-ized eyes many of us come with to the notion of "housing", and so it immediately flips you into another world to think about living in one of these things. The domes are undeniably "futuristic" and the solar panels flared beautifully blue in the midday sun. But what I like best is the stark landscape - evident in the sandy foreground and hardscrabble bushes trying to take root on the desert - punctuated by the weird abandoned appliances and kicked-in old cardboard boxes. It's anyone's unanticipated backyard garbage. The owner of this house didn't know I'd photograph her yard and then publish the picture all over the place 18 months later. In this way the Earthships give back as "real": it's not a Hobbit hole or a hippie hideaway. It's just some dude's house and he hasn't gathered up the yard trash this week yet. I love it.



Dr. Soontorn Boonyatikarn's amazing biosolar house, in the suburbs of Bangkok, Thailand.

Categories: GeoHope | Photography | Turner | Work work work

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2007 Year In Review

I learned and re-learned some lessons this past year. Wouldn't it be great if we knew it all at 18? Think of the world = oyster situation. Amazing.




On metabolic regulation: Remember to take your damn thyroid meds. Yes, every damn day.

On owning cats: One day you have a cat, the next day he's eaten by coyotes. So you grieve, and pull it together and get another cat. And then one day that cat is run over and you find yourself digging a second pet grave beside the house. So you reflect on your animal track record, but decide you still want to be a cat owner, and you get two more cats. And Sloane says, "Mama, please may we not let these new cats die?" Heh. We'll do our best.

On getting what I want: Patience and humility have done wonders for my win ratio. From photo assignments to getting Sloane into the right playschool, shutting up and being polite and proceeding with grace have been such amazing lubricants this year. Shoulda learned this one at age 20.




On getting fired for other people's bullshit: Sometimes you get fired for other people's bullshit, nothing you can do.

On parties: People will not come at the appointed time. The best people stay late, but the worst'll hang around until then, too. Exits define your attendance, particularly if you stomp the shrubbery on your way out. If you're serving mulled wine and beer, some friend-of-a-friend will still march in and ask for a good scotch straightaway (and we will give it to them). And we'd still love a few more invitations to other people's parties, please... a reminder to publications and corporate friends: freelancers have no Christmas parties or schmancy fundraisers to go to unless you invite them to yours.



On accounting people at various publications: People will take as long as inhumanly possible to pay you.

On finances: It's good to be able to mean it when you say, "Well, if we have to sell the car and the house, I can live with that."

On funding: If at first you don't succeed, try, try again.




On freelancing: Turner - "You will sometimes do your best work for free, you will sometimes do the most work for the least pay. The tradeoff is that you are your own master. ...Most of the time." September 26/07

On continuing education: As it turns out, I'm a complete obsessive, bent on perfection. If only Farokh could see me now (Farokh Afshar, my M.Sc. advisor, 1947-2007, peace be upon you).

On parenting: There are tough days. There are days when you are so flayed and raw and every smile and moment of concentrated attention is a huge effort. We want to keep her away from sugar, and tv, and crappy plastic toys, and the moronic cult of the fairy princess pervading the under-six crowd. But grandparents will still give her Smarties for breakfast, and Thomas the train dvds are incredibly helpful in moderation. So you try to find the middle way and hope to keep the scarring to a minimum.

Also on parenting: We are such good parents, way better than the rest of the parents out there. Also better than our own parents, of course.



On Sloane: She's the best. The talking, my god the talking. Being able to see into her little 2 year old mind has been such an amazing blessing every day. Even her temper tantrums are the best. And the hair is getting fabulous! When she hugs my head and says into my ear, "Ma-mee, Ma-mee, Ma-mee!" in this purposely hilarious pitched voice, I know she's going to have a great sense of humour and inner dialogue.

On attending weddings: Still a good idea, particularly when you've arranged babysitting.

On photography: Everyone wants to have their picture taken, even the ones who say they don't. Creating a meaningful photograph is one of the greatest gifts you can give a person. When they're ninety-nine and in a home and the caregivers ask for a photo from when they were young and beautiful, you bet they'll choose one of mine.

On sending out photos I've taken of people, having promised to send them copies: Managing expectations does wonders. Once I started saying, "Don't expect to receive these for quite a while," people were more grateful when they finally arrived. Take note McConnell Reunion-Goers, you still won't get your photos for quite a while.




On drinking: Sourpuss shots have their time and place.

On politicians: Disappointing liars, 98% of the time. I'm cautiously optimistic about the other two.

On marriage: I'd still rather be poor with Turner than rich with anyone else.



On Turner: I had this awesome and terrible realization about Turner. He is well aware of my many many failings, my ego, the judgemental edges. You think marriage is about loving someone so much. But the worst of it is that you have the love of someone else. Turner loves me despite everything he knows, and in the face of this I am appalled, and thunderously grateful.

On building community and having good friends: Pick the good people who love us back. Get rid of everyone else. Life is too short.

Also on friends: Sometimes people drift away. There're all sorts of reasons. I try not to take it personally, I figure the soul mates will resurface eventually.

On changing the world: It's exhausting. When you can't even convince your family to recycle their cans and bottles, the uphill battle seems that much more uphill. But boy, you take pride in your work, and you know you're on the side of good. Call it sanctimonious if you like, but it feels good to work hard.

On holidays: There are no holidays.

Categories: Ash | Married Life | Mom-ness | Photography | Sloane | Turner | Work work work

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I'm A Real Photographer!

Okay. Like, remember I took a course in the spring semester? Art History? And I completely crazed out and became one of those lunatic mature students and ended up with the highest mark in the class? And swore that I'd never take another spring course again? Yeah. All that's true. But I did come away with the impression that I needed more out of ACAD. The Alberta College of Art & Design clearly had a thing or two to teach me. I might not know it ALL, see.

So at the end of August I dutifully trooped down to ACAD and, after a few glitches, received an official dispensation from the Head of the Photo department to sign up for MADT 305: Photography. A FALL course. For the record, let us all bow down before Mr. Mitch Kern, M.F.A., my benefactor and truly the most inspiring and generous professor I've ever had the honour of having. Under his able and open tutelage I've had the most amazing semester of my life. Folks, I have nearly eight years of post-secondary under my belt. Mitch Kern is the best.




Okay. So I put this on the wall first. Second class, first crit. We were told, "Bring something that tells us something about you." So: I was in southern Alberta, south of Taber. In the middle of fricken no-WHERE, all by myself, kilometres from all living life. Shooting the wind farm for the Globe & Mail. I drove onto the wind farm (with permission from Enmax) and got out at the base of this turbine. Nothing about this photo suggests how huge the windmill is. I've been to a wind farm before, I shot the McBride Lake farm near Pincher Creek a few years ago. But these turbines are newer, and they're much, much bigger. In truth, they were so big that I was truly, unaccountably, afraid of them. I was fighting the new phobia when I was taking these photos: setting up the shots for later when the sun was lower. Without fully realizing why, I was keeping my head down, so I couldn't see the turbines, turning hugely above me. I was taking this shot and then I realized there was... something. A sound. Above me. Shhoooosh. Shhoooosh. Shhoooosh. The blades, turning, somewhere up there. The sound of the turbines.

I panicked. For the first time in my adult life, in broad daylight (shown), I panicked. I bolted for the car. I sat there for five full minutes. I drove away, CBC on full blast. I shot from the car for the next half hour. Finally ventured forth to do the real shoot in the twilight. Terrified, I won't lie. But I got the shot (in the Globe: Sept 2007).

So it's not the best photo of my professional life, not by a long shot. But it was the only one that felt honestly relevant to the class critique, six days later. Mine was one of the last ones chosen to discuss. I wasn't surprised, the rest were awesome. But I didn't mind mine sucking - I knew it looked crappy there on the wall, next to the rest of them, but it had a good explanation. It was a great starting point. In some ways there was nowhere to go but up!




So. Crit #2. We had this field trip to Kananaskis, most of the Photo program and classes. I rode up with Melinda, who basically taught me what from what as far as art school is concerned. In retrospect, I realize that the conversation we had between Calgary and Kan Village that day was the best thing that happened to me all fall.

I've known Melinda for a few years, I met her first through Cousin Jana in Tuscany. But it was totally unexpected to find her at ACAD this year. She's in the middle of her second year, majoring in Fibre. We both have kids. We're older than many of the profs. She's smart, and articulate, and funny. She let me ask all the stupid questions (ex. Q: "is some of the stuff people put on the wall total shit?" A: "Yes." ...You need to know this kind of thing) and brought me forward about a hundred km toward being 'an artist' (whatever that is?).

This day I resolved to just be in the zone when I was shooting. I took pictures only of what was interesting. I ended up with a triptych: a "solid shot", something that could be the cover of a magazine. Black and white image, bare poplar trees with mountains and clouds in the background. Then another shot, way more "arty" - a fisheye shot from way close, of a barren and dead pine tree, distrorted and beautiful, mountain range in the background. The third was this one. This was the first "piece" that I've ever seriously/obviously Photoshopped, the first where I was like, "well, I'm not sure what the hell this is, I'm not sure what it says, or why I'm happy with it. But it's done." I have to say, that's a pretty cool first experience.



Number Three. This was my crit submission for "(Wo)man and the Environment". I amalgamated it from a number of photos I took in New York City, during our trip there in October for Carla's wedding. People called it "painterly". For my part, I have no idea where this came from. This looks like nothing I'd ever produced before, frankly. I was happy with it, and it felt finished. I'm not sure I would've liked it if someone else had produced it, and found this fact interesting. Something of a transition piece, to be sure.




Next crit, "Object obscured". I'd never done a self portrait before. But I knew what I wanted and after much pondering was not optimistic about convincing Turner to half-suffocate himself on the plastic bag that comes with our morning paper to achieve the look. I came to think these had a lot to do with my experience of motherhood. Although initially it looks like a really alarming image, you'll notice I'm not struggling. I was thinking a lot about how motherhood confines and constricts you, how it limits and binds you, and yet how we, or at least I, give ourselves to it without real struggle. I was thinking about the weird suffocation of the pre-parent life that motherhood brings about; alternately how it's a fair trade, and ultimately incredibly worthwhile, the only thing really worth living for. But also about how it's not easy - that everything about your old life still feels so close and accessible and real, tantalizingly so. And all those experiences inform and support you, how grateful I've been for this aspect of my new life. But, they're all, ultimately, gone, nonetheless. I'm on the other side of the jam wall now, and there's no going back, and I miss it, but I wouldn't trade it. A willing death of that old life, falling into the new.
 
Ah. These. Well, this is a diptych, and they both have borders, fyi for the weird formatting, above. I'm very pleased with these. They're the best thing that came out of this course.

The idea was "The individual in the city". We were sort of meant to go downtown and photograph ourselves amongst the buildings or something, I think. It was a fun day of "FIELD TRIP". We all took the train downtown, we ran into each other on the street, we all met for lunch together to scarf down bad Chinese and take funny pictures of each other, and went off in pre-enforced pairs in the afternoon.

I knew this area of downtown well. There's about two blocks square, an area that starts at the Palliser and diamond-shape ends at about the old Eaton's Centre, that I know backwards. Lived it on foot for years as a teenager. I did everything valuable that day within an hour of arriving downtown.

The one on the left is Devonian Gardens, the top floor of TD Square. It's an indoor botanical garden, been there for years. The photo is a re-imagining/revisiting of an event I lived, myself, at 16 years old. December, 1989. It was the first time I'd ever been turned on. Like, for real. Making out with a guy, turned on to all get-out. And like an idiot, I played it ice-cold. This photo grabs at all the moronic teenage embarassment and bravado and later disappointment and eventual re-living (over and over), I caught it here. Right from Napoleon Dynamite: IDIOT! Initially I'd tried it in focus, but it was wrong. Had to be blurry to smear the time in between.

The photo on the left is an image of something I've been talking about for years. In grade eleven I used to meet Melissa and Olivia and Margaret downtown and we'd drink in the Eaton's Centre bathrooms, all crowding into the stall together, passing the mickey of tequila around. It might have been once, or half a dozen times. But there was something about being young, and under the radar, and drunk on tequila in public in the late winter of 1990, that sunk into me and stuck to my soul. I've been carrying the glee of those few moments with me for years, infecting my everyday life in all manner of wonderful ways. In this piece I was consciously touching backwards to those moments, the reflection/shadow depicted is me reflected in the bathroom stall wall paint, both then and now.



This was my final crit image. It's not quite "finished". But basically I was really inspired by a few of my classmates who are true genius artists. One had drawn on top of a photo of him and his siblings, and another had shown us an animation she'd done for another of her classes. Although I have no drawing skill whatsoever, and was working with a clunky mouse for the first time, I wanted to experiment with doodling on top of a photo I loved.

So. This is a picture of me, rightso. Taken by Jenna, in the car on the way back to John's wedding reception in Kelowna, in July 2006. Me an' the cousins, we'd been drinkin' and such in the hotel after the ceremony. I was wearing a dress that, even if I looked fat in it, I could rest assured was as flattering a garment as possible under the physical circumstances. We're using my fisheye lens, which appeals in a most ridiculously huge manner to my inner idiot - a character in full force this day.

Basically I feel this photo captures me perfectly. As in, as perfectly as a photo can capture a person. But for the first time I saw the opportunity to IMPROVE (for me, the only viewer, mind) the image, to help it BETTER represent me in these circumstances. I do love it, but it's not "done".

**

So there's two reasons for the post title. One, this fabulous book I bought at the International Center of Photography bookstore by Keith Arnatt, a visual artist and professor at an art college in the UK. Seriously, hilarious. Worth reading. The guy has produced a book of photos of his dog's poop. And notes to his wife. And shots of garbage from the back alley. I was thrilled with the title: "I'm A Real Photographer!" Exclamation point. On a book. Like it needed to be underlined or reinforced or told over again. I hear a specific voice when I think of that title. Mine. "I'm a REAL FO-TOG-RAFFER!" Smiling with all the zane. (Post-note: checked the book, there's no exclamation mark in the title. I made that up.)

The second reason is to thank the Alberta Foundation for the Arts for the official stamp of approval. On Christmas Eve the envelope came. They gave me a big grant, Merry Christmas. I'd applied to attend the "master class" of MADT 305 at ACAD at the invitation of the instructor. I'd proposed, way back in September, to expand my artistic sensibilities, to engage in an aesthetically rigorous investigation of my work and practice. Whoa. I re-read the grant I'd written and couldn't believe how my flowery-worded and hopeful explanation of what I'd officially wanted to achieve with the money had been so amazingly accurate and true to what I'd thought I quietly accomplished only for myself, in the end. Mabuhay to me.

And to AFA, and Mitch Kern, and the awesome & awe-inspiring classmates, and especially to Turner who took Sloane from 6am to 6pm every Friday every week without complaint: cheers. Cheers cheers cheers. And thank you.

Categories: Ash | Photography | Work work work

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