An old friend of mine nominated me for one of those Black
and White challenges a while back where you are supposed to post a picture a
day to social media for five days. While it is great to see the general interest
in photography I can’t help but think we are all giving away our work when we
post to social media. This idea was drilled into me in school during the early
days of Facebook and while I now realize Facebook is more interested in selling
my online tendencies than my work I still struggle with posting work to social
media sites. The benefits of promoting your work should outweigh the fears of
being a victim of on-line theft and lets face it if someone is going to steal
your work they don’t need to go to Facebook to find it they will go to the
source.
Chris Sheppard nominated me for this challenge; Chris and I
go back to the early 2000’s before photography had fully consumed our lives. I
was still a professional chef while Chris was an actor, dishwasher, and baker.
Chris started photography documenting his rock collection and he sure has come
along way, currently he works at making stunning landscapes near his home in
Nova Scotia.
Check out his photographs here http://fundyrocks.blogspot.ca/
While you may never see more different photographers I
admire the beauty in his work and it has inspired me to think about using landscape
photography in my own photographic practice. I have a couple of projects cooking
in my thought bucket, they are percolating and stewing into ideas that hopefully
will be realized in the New Year.
Well this will be my version of the Black and White
challenge and no I don’t play by the rules. Only once did I ever purposely
start a project in Black and White. It was in 2007 and I began by shooting a
couple rolls of Ilford 400 on a Nikon f5 while wandering the streets of the
Parkdale neighborhood in Toronto. I was very interested in the history of Parkdale;
particularly how various developments like the Gardner Expressway changed the
dynamic of the area cutting off easy access to the lake. I also found the dichotomy
of the beautiful Victorian houses and the apartment blocks of Jamieson Street to
be fascinating. While I did not really come close to illustrating any of this I
learned a lot of lessons while shooting on the streets of Parkdale. Here is an
edit of the work and my answer to the Black and White challenge.
