10-2-25

I've joked that I take photographs because I don't have the patience for other forms of art. I can draw, I know how, and if I put my mind to it I can do it quite well, but it takes so long and I can have a photograph in a sixtieth of a second. I could have sixty photographs in a second, if you were to draw abstracts from the nature of the medium. I mean, it's not that simple, but in a way it is.

Yesterday's post is a good contrast to today's. Yesterday I held up a point and shoot digital camera and snapped a photo of an idea I had about "hiding" and "reality" and the essence is there but the photograph is all grainy and noisy and that can have its charm if it's intended but reality is that's just the way things turn out when you're impatient and don't use the right tools.

Today I ventured out with all 30 pounds of gear and tripod on my back and accepted the process. I was patient. This image is a 20 second exposure. That would be 1200 photographs at a sixtieth of a second by my old math. And it's odd what that extended exposure time does to your perception of taking photographs. I thought I had taken a few dozen images but I came home with maybe 10 because of the time invested in each one. I may have to revisit yesterday's image one day if I can be fortunate enough to find that right combination of dim windows and overcast skies and if I have the patience to set up a tripod and take the picture properly this time, if I can find the patience to do so.

10-2-24

You keep the filters on that make reality tolerable for so long that you're afraid to take them off because you might find everything you feared you were missing you really were missing.

10-2-23

The patron saint of burritos, as seen painted above a restaurant downtown.

10-2-22

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10-2-20

10-2-19

I got to drive this Land Rover. It's heavy and geared too low for the highway and rickety as all get out but it's incredibly fun to drive and can take a thorough beating without blinking. I don't need one but I really want one.

10-2-18

Even if it's a bit early for Vancouver it's mid February and the cherry trees are blossoming. Amazing.

10-2-17

10-2-16

10-2-15

As I was taking this photograph this morning a woman walked up to me and said, "I hope you don't think that's cool." It progressed to a heated discussion about there being an elementary school up the street and how the word "fuck " wasn't appropriate for the context. The whole thing is within a few blocks of Main and Hastings where drug dealing runs rampant, people shoot heroin in plain sight on the street, prostitutes exist in droves, and yet the word "fuck" was somehow the most offensive element of the context for this person who approached me. Well, second most offensive, she seemed more concerned about my taking a picture of the billboard, enough so to change her trajectory and interrupt mine.

I like the Olympics. Sort of. I think the whole thing needs a reality check. Too much money goes into a world wide "Play Day" for my liking but at the same time the spirit of human accomplishment is enlightening and motivational. When lives are risked and lost the merits of the events come into question but still, it's the best hockey the world gets to see (with less fights too) and it's pretty impressive to see someone navigate sheets of ice at 140kph.

My disdain for my critic was quickly attributed to the Vancouver context. I've never been so challenged in my day to day existence as I have been here. It makes me want to get a t-shirt that says in bold capitals "MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS." First there was the person that slowed her car to remind me that I should be wearing a helmet on my bike. Then there was the person who felt it very important to let me know that my daughter was walking too close to the road where there were dangerous cars waiting to run her down. And then there was the person who pulled up to me as I was riding my bike to tell me I should have a light on my kid bike trailer (I had two lights on my bike, reflective piping on my jacket and the bag on my back had reflective fabric on it too, and the trailer is covered in reflective paint, and there was a light on the trailer that happened to be low on batteries, said light being replaced within a couple of days with a working, functional model) Fair enough, I didn't have a glowing light on the trailer but I did stand 20 feet behind the trailer to see if my bike's lights were visible before setting out on my trip (they were) but still I was left defending my position in this society.

I questioned someone who was born in this city, I asked, "do you get challenged for 'being' in this city? Do you get people intervening and criticizing who you are and what you do? Randomly like?" Or something like that, those probably weren't the exact words despite my use of quotation marks. She swore I was being selective, that she had similar interventions in Calgary and Toronto, and that my disdain for Vancouver was clouding my judgement. Maybe she's right. But I genuinely don't ever remember anyone coming up to me in Calgary or Toronto and questioning any basic tenet of my being in those cities (and I hate Calgary much more than Vancouver so bias should be prevalent there as well) but I would never doubt her experiences in those cities.

I don't particularly like today's photograph. It's mostly my interaction with a Vancouver resident that has lent it some importance in my life. There may only be five or six people who look at these photos on this blog on any given day but still, it was important to me to put this photo up today. Not because I thought it was cool, but because I thought the reaction of some random Vancouverite was so lame.

Addendum: In the back of my mind I wondered how efficiently the Olympic machine would clean the statement off the billboard. Well, below is the same billboard the very next day. It would seem they are very protective of their image.

10-2-14

10-2-13

10-2-12

There she was, glowing in the twilight and longing for a long and open road through the desert dotted with the odd gas station that sells beer in singles and food under heat lamps. I wanted to rescue her.

10-2-11

I was fetching a coffee from the kitchen when the noise on the street was heard. Whoops and hollers, the thumping of bass, horns honking. I opened the front door to find the intersection being controlled by a throng of police, a caravan of Olympic sponsor vehicles, and a gathering crowd of people along the street. Standing across from the house was a girl holding an unlit Olympic torch looking down the street in anticipation. And then he was there, surrounded by a new group of men in black with suspicious bulges in their running gear, a man carrying a lit Olympic torch.

I won't pretend to be super enthusiastic about the Olympics. It has its issues with cost overruns being propped up by the taxpayers. And the corporate infiltration of the competition is offensive but it's hard to be too critical of that AND get upset about the cost since one is offset by the other. I am looking forward to watching the hockey, Olympic hockey is some of the most exciting to watch. Despite my apprehensions surrounding the games it's moments like this one, the torch run, where the torch is modestly carried carried by my home (modestly in the sense that it's not Arnold Schwarzenegger carrying it through a barriered road way, there is still an intimidation factor embodied in the Men in Black) that remind me if you look at the core of it all, the competition of the world's best athletes in a grand sporting event, it's really exciting. I wish I could afford tickets to see some of the events and I wish that some of the money spent on this spectacle could have been spent on social housing or health care or arts funding or education or day care subsidies. I wish there was an easy answer.

10-2-10

My good friend Johann had an opening tonight. He's the one in the middle like a rock star greeting his adoring fans.

10-2-9

The days are rare when I feel so conflicted about what picture to post. There was another image that I though for certain would be the photograph for today but after spending some time with this one the choice was easy. As a photographer it's easy to be your own hardest critic but there's something about this photograph I really enjoy. Almost every photograph on this blog is full frame and hand held. I've had a tripod for years but I just bought a real one, a good one, and I used it for this photograph. And it's a photograph that makes me happier than a lot of the ones I've taken recently. Don't get me wrong, I like the photographs I take, why else would I be here? but this one... somehow it's special. And so banal at the same time.

10-2-8

This one doesn't make me happy. It doesn't capture the starkness and honesty of the place. It's one of the few restaurants open late in the drug addled DTES of Vancouver and I try to eat there when I can. "Roast pork with rice? Maybe some bok choy?" That's as close to a menu as I've ever seen in this place. I've had the barbeque before too. It's really good but usually all gone by the time I find them. It's not a great restaurant but I like it for its honesty and lack of pretension. And the food is not bad and quite affordable.

10-2-7

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10-2-3

I didn't wake up one day thinking I should grow a beard. I mostly woke up one day without a reason to shave. And that's where I am today. I'm pretty sure the beard's days are numbered.

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