A couple of weeks ago, I received a letter from the Stephen Lewis Foundation thanking me for the contributions I’ve raised through the sale of my photography. The letter detailed some of its funded projects and associated costs, which I thought would be good to share here:

“In Swaziland, $2000 builds a community garden, including: a reservoir for watering, and the tools, seeds and chemicals needed for the garden. The women who tend the garden will feed their families nutritious food and sell their remaining crops. Their earnings will go to school fees so the orphan children in their care can attend school.

In South Africa, $352 will fund a sewing workshop for grandmothers, including: the sewing machine, the lessons and supplies/materials needed for a year. The income generated will mean a granny can feed orphans in her care who can then focus on school instead of hunger.

In Zambia, for $140  a vulnerable girl will attend school and live in an empowering and positive environment for a year. When she graduates with vocational training, business start-up skills, or an undergraduate certification, she will have the capacity and self-esteem to build a future for herself.”

So far I’ve contributed about $100  to the Stephen Lewis Foundation. Another cheque is in the mail for $50, so I think I’ll just donate the whole amount, so we will have raised enough for a girl to feel more empowered in Zambia.

Apparently, the foundation has been in operation for five years now, and in that time Canadians have donated over $30 million. That money has been spent on more than 250 projects in 15 countries struggling with the AIDS pandemic. Its kept its administrative costs at or below 10 percent. I’m so pleased to have the opportunity to support such  important work. And to the people who have bought my work: thank you!

Last weekend I went to a workshop with Ruth Kaplan in the Distillery District in Toronto. I was hoping to find out how documentary photographers navigate the ethical problems of documentary photography and also just how that kind of work unfolds, ways of working and gaining access. I was also hoping to get an introduction to using artifcial light and get some tips for working with people.

I did get those things from the workshop although in a roundabout, organic sort of way that required a few days to realize it. I really liked Ruth personally, and she’s clearly an expert. Initially, however, I was disappointed. I was hoping we’d get a sort of list of how-to’s that we’d then go and apply shooting other workshop participants. But we didn’t. We went out shooting in small groups and Ruth came along and sort of pointed out possible shots and angles, ways to get the subject to loosen up without saying, “Loosen up!”

We shot for a few hours and then went in and critiqued our work. By the time I got stuck in traffic on the way home, I had a headache, I was tired, and I felt frustrated. But in the days since, I’ve realized that I did get what I wanted from the day. It’s just that the kind of things Ruth was teaching don’t come on a neat and tidy list. She was showing us how to respond to the immediate demands and constraints of a particular subject and location, and that’s really something that can only solidify with practice.

So my goal for the rest of the summer is to set up shoots with friends and acquaintances and practice making people comfortable in front of a camera. I’m hoping to enlist some of my belly dancing friends first.

I also got recommendations for movies that might help me get over my photographer’s guilt (does anyone else suffer from that?!?) and a few more concrete tips, like:

* A lot of photographers make pictures of people acting real moments rather than the original real moments. They see a moment, then recreate it. This information inspires me.

* Ruth always scouts the location before shooting, and often just keeps a little list in her mind of possible locations around the city to use for magazine jobs that come up.

* She almost always shoots with flash because it adds sharpness. She responds to the natural light first, usually, but then tones it down with the flash. Watch for reflections from the flash in picture frames and windows.

* She’s only just switched digital for some of her work, but she’s thinking about getting a point and shoot Canon G9 because it’s less obtrusive and shoots RAW. Hmmm…

Movie Recommendations:

* The little video of Annie Leibovitz shooting the Queen, which I later found on Strobist

* The True Meaning of Pictures: Shelby Lee Adams’ Appalachia (as a communications professional, I’ll forgive the missing s after the apostrophe)

* Richard Avedon: Darkness and Light

Here are a few of my shots from the workshop:

This was the workshop coordinator. She was a generous model and very easy to shoot.

(Can you tell I discovered the clarity slider in Lightroom? It reminds me of the Orton Effect.)

This was my partner in the class. I think this is my favourite shot of her; her expression is so stark. I couldn’t figure out at first why, but now I realize it’s probably the catchlights in her eyes. Not sure if it was at the workshop or in some recent online reading where I heard/saw, “Catchlights make the portrait come alive!”

Back in April, right before I went to Cuba, I bought a 50 mm f1.8 fixed lens. I love shooting in available light, and my f3.5-4.5 kit lens just wasn’t cutting it. I’ve been quite enjoying exploring the world through its fixed frame. Plus it’s a LOT lighter than my zoom lens and makes my camera a little less conspicuous.

Last Friday, I went to my belly dance instructor’s student recital. I took my camera and decided to stick with the fixed lens and see what it could do in very low light. I also didn’t really feel like lugging the bigger lens with it. I shot entirely without flash, and the fixed lens forced me to explore angles I probably wouldn’t have otherwise considered. Here are some of the results:

In my last post, before real life blew up with exciting possibilities (within two weeks we’ve bought a house and sold our current one), I was going to write about some of the things I’ve seen online and some of the things I’ve been thinking about. I’ll be honest that this space feels a bit unfriendly, so my posts have been more self-absorbed than I would prefer because it’s felt safer that way. I haven’t wanted to stick my neck out again with a potentially unpopular opinion. But I have lots of opinions and I don’t want to let fear rule me, so I’m gonna jump back on that horse.

Last week, I saw a post at We Can’t Paint about how the author doesn’t like most street photography. As a street photographer myself, I was all set to get up in arms. But then I reread what he wrote and realized it wasn’t so bad. He said:

“This is not to say that I think street photography is bad, it’s simply my opinion that so much of this type of photography seems to only provide answers instead of questions (here comes the hate mail). This is to say that the visual puns as well as the often over done sentimental imagery of the genre keep me from connecting with it in a significant way.”

And then I remembered that I don’t like a lot of street photography either, much as it’s the closest label I can come up with for my work. As much as I enjoy visual puns (and verbal puns for that matter), a photo whose only point of interest is a visual pun more often than not leaves me feeling empty. I’d like to hear more about the author’s take on the “often overdone sentimental imagery of the genre,” because I’m not sure where to draw the line between emotional impact — a characteristic of great photos in my opinion — and sentimentality. I worried to a friend of mine recently that perhaps my photography romantizes poverty, but she was pretty emphatic that it does not. That by not being overwhelmed with pity for those in poverty, by seeing life and joy alongside the poverty, I was doing the opposite.

Last week, I caught up with Tony Fouhse’s blog and saw an older post in which he distinguished between eye photographs and brain photographs. He also raised the possibility of heart photographs, but I’m not sure just what to do with that. I think that the best photographs are both eye and brain photographs. The street photography that leaves me empty are purely eye photographs and the Art (capital A) photographs that I’ve seen a lot of lately are purely brain photographs with not much eye (I may as well just come out and say it: in my opinion a lot of conceptual photographs are just butt ugly). The example that Tony gave as a brain photograph is also very much an eye shot.

Anyways, since I started this blog, I’ve been collecting links to photographers whose work inspires me, whose images are both eye and brain photographs. If you haven’t checked them out, let me highlight a few. Just the other day, I found Edward van Herk, who’s done a great series in Soweto. Although I only spent most of a day in Soweto, I’ve spent a total of six weeks in South Africa, and I fell in love with the people. I love how he’s captured the spirit of the people.

I discovered Hector Mediavilla probably a couple of months ago now. My favourite work of his is of the Congolese sapeurs, people who dress in finery and pride themselves on impeccable manners in the Congo. He’s done three series and I love them all: one, two, and three.

With both of these photographers, I love that they are going beyond the stereotype of poor starving Africans. I think I came across both of those at the New Breed of Documentary Photographers, a great blog for finding new inspiration.

During the frenzied last few weeks, I haven’t shot much of anything, and I haven’t edited much of the backlog either. But I did get my galleries of Cuba and Parking Meters in Lunenburg up here.

Finally, Imagekind is offering 25 percent off frames until July 7, 2008, which applies to all of my images.

I intended to write a longish post about art and photography and all that, but some real-life stuff got in the way and I’ve run out of time. Instead, I just clicked over to Imagekind and discovered that I’m the featured artist on its homepage today. Cool!

I guess that explains why someone emailed me this moring wondering why I donate to a charity that helps people on the other side of the world when people are struggling so much on this side. To which I responded, I also contribute to local charities. It’s just that half my Imagekind sales, at this time, go to the Stephen Lewis Foundation. And of course, South Africa feels like my second country, since my husband was born and raised there and almost all my in-laws still live there. Ultimately, anyone who donates anything to any decent charity is doing just fine in my books.

Imagekind is offering free ground shipping in the US until June 16, 2008. If you’ve been thinking about buying one of my prints or cards and you live in the US, now might be the time to take advantage. Just make sure to enter the promo code, DAD2008, when you check out.

My Cuba photos are available for sale there now, although I haven’t edited the collection thoroughly enough to put a new gallery up here. I will, however, post a couple of my favourites:

I suspect this size doesn’t really do them justice. I’d love to see these printed in the largest size possible on the wall, to really get a sense of the grandeur of Havana’s architecture.

What do you think? Feedback and comments most welcome (although I am human, so please try to keep it constructive).

So I went to Nova Scotia for the long weekend for a get-together with some girlfriends. I went all by myself, sans husband and sans child. Having learned from my recent trip to Cuba to keep my expectations for photos low, I figured I’d spend the whole weekend socializing and not take any photos. We did spend an afternoon wandering around Lunenburg, a UNESCO world heritage site. It’s quite a pretty town and I found myself shooting parking meters. At first I resisted, thinking that I really didn’t need any more parking meter shots, but then I decided to give in and use parking meters as a sort of theme to link my Lunenburg images together. You’d think it would feel restrictive deliberately shooting one thing, but instead I felt free! It was so much fun, and I’m very happy with the images.

Before I went away, a discussion over at pixelated image made me decide to try shooting RAW and processing in Adobe Lightroom. And I’m so glad I did! I can’t believe the difference all that extra data makes. And Lightroom really is a LOT faster than Photoshop for adjusting contrast and tone and all that.

I’ve got a few more parking meter shots to process and then I’ll post them as a new gallery here, but in the meantime I offer this teaser:

Saturday was such a treat! Seeing Mapplethorpe’s work on the wall gave me a much better sense of what fine prints they are than looking in books many years ago. I was a bit disappointed that the collection only contained his pretty images, not the more challenging images. But only a bit, because every single image was breathtaking.

The gallery that showed his work is a converted industrial space with like 30 foot ceilings; when I was there it was quiet as a church. Looking at his photos, I felt something almost religious. As long as I was looking at the photos, I felt good, but as soon as I started to explore the gallery, I felt awkward, like I didn’t belong in that ritzy gallery world. When I went to the bathroom, I discovered that the feeling of having my fly down wasn’t just metaphorical. Oh well.

Next up was a lecture and slide show from David Hurn, a photojournalist who’s been with Magnum since like 1967.

A few highlights from the lecture that really resonated for me:

- insatiable curiosity is a must-have for photographers (Hurrah, now I don’t have to feel guilty for being such a nosy parker)

- the daughter of one of his subjects (from an MG car owners’ ball) wrote him not long ago, several years after her dad died, to tell Hurn how much joy seeing her father’s picture published everywhere brings her.

- Hurn said it was really nice to hear from her because he never asks permission to make photos, despite the constant worry of intruding on people’s space (though he dismissed that notion quickly enough as academic).

- that reminded me of two articles I just read last week, both in the New Yorker, about Jill Freedman. The first article found its way into one of her subject’s hands, and he hadn’t known about the photo (it was shot back in the 70s or 80s) until very recently. The bottom line was he was happy to discover the photo.

- he’s worked on several projects involving poets choosing one of his photos to write about, and writing a poem to accompany it. I may want to try this out sometime. He says it doesn’t work the other way around – making photographs to illustrate poems.

- he mostly only shoots with two lenses: a 28 mm and a 50 mm

- he once spent 32 days working intimately in an Arizona hospital with a great infant mortality rate

- he once worked as a cleaner in a strip club for 10 days to try to find a way to photograph naked ladies. It worked, when one of them mentioned that she needed a passport and he offered, and it grew from there.

- he finds contact sheets more interesting than individual prints, especially from students, because contact sheets show you how a photographer works, how they shoot.

- he ended his slide show with the most important photo ever in his life: his colon cancer. Just to make sure we don’t get too arrogant, the most important picture in his life was taken by a doctor with a camera up his ass.

- in the questions section, he mentioned that he doesn’t pay conscious attention to light, but on the content. He then moves into what he thinks is the best place to see the real content most clearly, and shoots. Of course he does probably notice the light and other elements subconsciously. I kind of shoot this way, and I sometimes feel like I should think more before shooting. But I really prefer to think after.

- he doesn’t much care for digital, not because what’s in the back of the camera really matters, but because people have a tendency to manipulate (like that’s a bad thing! Or like film photographers don’t do that in the darkroom!). He also thinks digital shooters stop shooting too soon – they take a shot, look at the screen, figure they got a decent shot, and stop shooting. But if you keep shooting, and you wait for something more to happen, it usually does and you get an even better shot.

- As soon as I came home, I told my husband about that last point, because if we’re out together, he’s always nagging at me to stop shooting already.

It was quite a long lecture, though I didn’t notice until I was back on the street and was surprised by how late it was. (Good thing I’d been to Robert Mapplethorpe already because I was pretty done.) There was an exhibition that I’d earmarked within a couple of blocks, though, so I decided to check it out before heading home.

The exhibition I expected wasn’t there (apparently noticing start and end dates is not my forte), but instead there was a small collection of street photography. There were the usual suspects: Cartier-Bresson, Eugene Atget, André Kertesz, but also some Canadian work, including a few shots from Toronto and Montreal in the winter of 1971, the one that everyone was talking this past winter when the snow just wouldn’t quit. 1971 is also the same winter my parents always talk about because my sister was born that winter and the streets were so bad my dad had to walk miles to the hospital for visits. One image in particular, by Michel Lambeth, stopped me utterly. It was titled St. Lawrence Market, Toronto, from 1957, and it showed a women holding an old glass pepsi bottle with a mass of shopping bags near her feet, and an open door just on the edge of the frame. It was so simple an the light coming in the open door was stunning. I was hoping to find a copy online but only this collection with many of the images not available.

The only way Saturday could have been any better was if I’d somehow found a mentor. Anyone out there interested in the job?

Tomorrow I’m going to the Contact Photography Festival. I plan to go to a lecture by Bruce Gilden and David Hurn. Sadly, the street shoot with them was full when I emailed.

I’ve also scoped out all the feature exhibitions, and have ambitiously chosen five to try to get to as well. My number one choice is an exhibition of Robert Mapplethorpe in the Junction. To think we almost moved to a neighbourhood that would end up showing Robert Mapplethorpe’s work.

I’m also very interested in 100 Stories of My Grandmother.  I’m so excited!

Last night at the grocery store, I happened to glance at the newspapers as I was leaving. The headline of the Guelph Mercury read, “Rags to Riches,” and I had a cynical moment of yeah whatever, thinking of the people at the drop-in centre. A familiar name floated in through my cynicism… I looked closer at the paper and stopped dead. Not only a familiar face, but a familiar photo. My photo! On the front page!

There was no photo credit; it said only “submitted photo.” The reproduction was lousy, and I wondered why, figuring it had been stolen off flickr. I reread the headline, and realized that it had been submitted by the man himself, Rick. It feels right that I didn’t get credit. It feels good that he liked the picture enough to share it with the paper, and it seems right that he doesn’t know my name. It wasn’t exactly how I hoped a photo of mine would get on the cover of a newspaper, but I’m pretty chuffed nonetheless.

I took his picture about a year ago, along with some others. The day I took that picture, I had this to say (which I later submitted to JPG Magazine and generated a somewhat heated exchange in the comments):

I have seen this man around town for years, asking for spare change in a gruff, slightly intimidating voice. Sometimes he seems a bit drunk, other times not, but he’s usually sitting on the sidewalk or a concrete planter.

For years I have avoided eye contact as I pass him, just gently shaking my head no and trying to make less jarring footfalls in the hopes that my loose change doesn’t jingle and give me away. I have never given him any change. Partly it’s because I carry my change in a change purse, so I don’t want to stand next to him while I awkwardly unzip the cranky zipper and finger through the loonies and toonie to fish out what I feel may be an appropriate coin; I didn’t want him to watch my selection.

(Not long ago, I read a mind-altering blog post about why you should give money to panhandlers, even if it could be supporting someone’s addiction. We all have damaging addictions, it’s just that some are more socially acceptable than others. Consider our addiction to gasoline and coffee and Walmart and goods manufactured by workers in appalling conditions… next to those addictions, is it really worth getting bent out of shape over fifty cents or a buck?

Now I am converted. As the author of that post said: “I give because someone in trouble is asking. I can’t be that attached to what they do with it once I do, because see, it’s a gift. I am offering a gift, perhaps under persuasion, but I am still offering it nonetheless.”)

Anyways, on this day he was sitting on the sidewalk outside a bar. I saw him sitting on this same corner the week before, the blue awnings and red railings echoing outwards from him like a wave, and I wanted to make a picture. But I was too afraid, so I just kept walking.

When I saw him there again, this time on the other side of the building’s corner, I couldn’t resist. I shot from across the street, and I think I saw him looking at me through the lens but figured I was just shooting the building or something.

As I went from shop to shop, shooting here and there, he stuck in my mind. I wanted more photos. I decided that I would ask for a picture if he was still there on my way home. Sometimes I get fatalistic in my photography, working my courage up to match the shot in my mind’s eye. I give myself time and figure if they’re still there, it was meant to be.

As I approached him, I couldn’t resist shooting a bit more, just in case he said no (ethics anyone?). As I shot, two pedestrians passed him by with barely a glance, one just outside the frame but indicated by the gesture of his hand holding the smoke. The passing bus changed the composition in a way I like.

Finally, I got up the courage to approach, loonie in my outstretched hand. He took it and said thanks. Then he immediately struck up a friendly conversation with my then 14-month-old son in the stroller, noting how healthy he looked, and I mentioned my son’s recent illness, and we talked for a bit. We had as nice a conversation as I’ve ever had with a random stranger, perhaps nicer because there was no unsolicited parenting advice.

I asked for his photo and he obliged happily. (It surprises me that almost no one asks why I want their photo… I wonder what they think of me and my camera?)

He said, “I’ll even give you a smile,” and he seemed downright joyful to me. Maybe it was just the contrast between my initial impression of him that’s been cemented in me for years and this friendly reality, but he seemed awfully pleased.

I left feeling like I had made a friend. The next day, on our way to the farmer’s market, we passed him, sitting a ways down the street from where he was before, but still directly on the concrete and with his crutches beside him. I made to smile at him, but he didn’t look at me; guess I was just another invisible passerby.

************

I saw him again a week later, and shot him outside the bank, but didn’t see him for many months. If you read his story, it turns out that he disappeared because shortly after I tok that picture, a police officer became friends with him and helped get him in touch with local services, like the Drop In Centre and housing.

This past January I started volunteering at the Drop In Centre on Sunday mornings. I kept hoping I would see the man so I could give him some prints, but it wasn’t until I had to switch to a Saturday morning that I saw him. I reminded him of the photos, and he said he’d like some copies. When I gave them to him a few weeks later, I was really nervous that he wouldn’t like them. But he did. His face broke into a huge smile and he passed them around his table.

This story really shows that one person CAN make a difference. I love Sister Christine’s quote at the end of the story, “When one person helps that person, others will come and help that person,” she explained. “You have to have a main person…”