15-8-10

H I A T U S

It's been nearly 7 years of daily photos, 8 since I started, but after the first year I stepped away for a while. And then I came back. I'm sure I'll be back again, but I'm going to take a break. A week. A month. A year. I'm not sure. But I'm going to take a break. 

I took all these photos today. 23 of them. 

Nothing is permanent. Concrete too. 

 I'm selling this car. It's been for sale for a while. I could have sold it a couple of years ago. I'm still asking more for it than the last offer I got for it a couple of years ago. It's a good car. It's a lot of fun to drive. I just don't drive it often. I guess if I miss it I can always buy another one. Similar or the same. 

 This 35mm lens is amazing. 

 Holes in fences. It's a metaphor. You can see the door through this one. It's a break in the outer defenses with direct access to the center. 

The things we protect, wrapped in blue tarps. It seems to be an odd way to protect stuff. We all protect stuff in odd ways. 

Home. 

Home. Part 2. Where the Skytrain drives by your bedroom window.  

You build a building, you fill it full of shit, you attach a large intestine and streamline the removal of all that shit so you can fill it with shit again. 

 This might be my favourite photo today. 

"Like a bird on the wire, 
Like a drunk in some old midnight choir 
I have tried in my way to be free." - Leonard Cohen

 Prides of lions. Pride of a lion. A person took the time to put this here, as permanently as a person can. 

 Home, part 2. 

 Undefeated. Or, not yet defeated. I don't understand why we contort these things so. How can we allow a tree to exist on our terms? It makes no sense. 

It makes no sense.

 Undefeated, part 2. There is no reason for this car to still exist other than the passion of a human being. It's nice to know such passion still exists. 

 Home, part 3. This house is probably worth a million dollars. Maybe even more. And it sits there on this corner and the owner has planted bushes and put up a fence, but what was meant to keep the world out is pushing back in. New houses to the left, in the background, the bushes hacked back. Is the owner winning? Or does he/she feel oppressed? It's an interesting fight. I'd root for the house owner, but is that because we love rooting for the underdog? It's disconcerting to be rooting for the underdog. 

 It's nice to know that fences can make allowances. 

Green vs Blue tarps. I wonder which one is better at protecting dreams from the elements? I remember having a conversation with a Dutch woman who ran a storage lot in Calgary. I asked her about all the rusting vintage cars and various odds and ends under tarps etc, "How do you feel about all this?" I asked. "We store peoples' dreams," she said.

 It's cliche. I take these photos sometimes, just because I can. But I don't have to.

But I do. Cliche. 

I guess nostalgia plays a heavy role in the theme of photos like this. Because of a good friend I was lucky to see Fred Herzog give a talk about taking photographs. He said, and I paraphrase, "Take pictures of old things. People seem to like pictures of old things." That wasn't exactly what he was saying, and I think he was very aware of taking a dig at his own popularity as a photographer (he must hate that he's never stopped taking photographs but everyone tells him he isn't allowed to show his most recent photographs) There were a number of popular people who discussed Fred's photographs. I remember someone (was it Shelagh Rogers?) discussing the underlying narratives of a photo Fred took of two crusty women handing out religious propaganda, and she went off on any number of art-speak narratives, and Herzog says (and he's hard of hearing), "I don't know what Shelagh said, but I saw these two old birds handing out books and I thought it would make a good picture." Or something like that. 

So here's a picture of an old Mustang. Save for the license plate, this photo could have been taken 20 years ago or more. And that, as much as anything, is what this photo is about. I like the tension created by a new photograph without a temporal reference. 

 Layers. New vs. old vs. older. 

 I don't like a lot about this city. But I do like how alive it is.

 But I do like how alive this city is despite how much money you spend on your fancy imported SUV. 

Home. This is where people live. And it's home. And I live here. I should embrace that more than I do. I don't always understand how one takes pride in a big window and a small window set in a grey wall of stucco but, regardless, those windows let light in just like all the other windows, and sometimes they let light out too. 

So there it is. 23 photographs and then a hiatus. I don't often explain the photographs. Today I explained 23 of them. They are Coles Notes versions of the explanations, I might come back here and expand upon them, or I might not. But I'm taking some time. I might shoot film for a while. I might write instead. I might do nothing. I doubt I'll do nothing, but maybe I should do nothing. 

H I A T U S