Pancho & Sal Pace

Pancho and Sal Pace. Musicians. Taken August 8, 2011

Also known as the Rio Samaya Band, I know of few other people who's lives have been so given up to the Music. Inspired by it, governed by it, constantly following it, drinking it, breathing it in and exhaling it as life.

Pancho and Sal Pace. Musicians. Taken August 8, 2011

While I set up they took out instruments and began to play. I was particularly struck by Manhã de Carnaval. The song was sad and tragic, filled with beauty and rhythm. I had to just listen. I may have set up the room for a photo shoot, but they instantly transformed it into a Brazilian café.

Pancho was born in San Jorge, Argentina. As a young man he moved to Europe. He told me he was fascinated by instruments and always wanted to learn how to play them. Which instruments? I asked. All instruments! he replied. He followed his ambition; to create music and use it as a way to travel the world. After touring many countries, he was a confident troubadour-style musician.

The biography on the Rio Samaya Band page gives more detail: "While playing with Gypsies in the South of France, he learned rumbas and flamenco. His compositions reflect these influences of flamenco and other folk rhythms. After years of exchange with other musicians, his original music has a wide diversity of styles."

"Sal, who was born in England and raised in Canada, met Pancho in Cuzco, Peru, and from then on together as a family and musical duo have established a name for themselves. Sal compliments the music with her vocals, accordion, shakers, chachas, bombo and guitar. They have a unique poetic style of translating simultaneously from Spanish to English."

You can see many of the videos from their concerts at riosamayaband.com. They are presently touring India.

Miriam Gil

Miriam Gil. Artist. Taken August, 2, 2011

I first met Miriam in the early nineties while volunteering at the Pacific Cinematheque. We worked the coffee bar. It was loud and the combination of the  coffee machine, popcorn machine, and her Columbian accent meant that I could almost never catch what she was saying. When I could hear her we talked about art, film, and writers. Since high school I had loved the works of Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Miriam told me that in Columbia he was so popular they just called him “Gabo”.

The only certainty was that they took everything with them: money, December breezes, the bread knife, thunder at three in the afternoon, the scent of jasmines, love. All that remained were the dusty almond trees, the reverberating streets, the houses of wood and roofs of rusting tin with their taciturn inhabitants, devastated by memories. – Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Living to Tell the Tale.

I rented a room in her house for a few years. There were late night conversations over bowls of steaming chocolaté. There was a tulip tree that grew too close to the house. I could open the kitchen window and hang a bird feeder in the branches. I filled it in the morning with a teacup tied to a broom handle. The Steller’s jays loved the seeds and screeched their delight when it was full. Miriam had many friends and one Christmas she made a huge basin of a traditional Columbian potato-chicken soup. It was not served until late and it had a strange narcoleptic effect on the guests. Taking turns, in twos and threes, the guests fell asleep. A couple would doze for ten minutes, and wake up, only to find that another couple was drifting off.

She is a teller of stories, a painter and artist. You can find her artworks on her site miriamgil.com

Jaron Freeman-Fox

Jaron Freeman-Fox. Musician. Taken July 13, 2011

Constantly in motion and generating a climate of theatre about himself, Mr. Freeman-Fox offered up endless possibilities. He can be seen here, listening to the bridge.

Jaron grew up on one of the Gulf Islands, in a uniquely west-coast environment. Now he calls Toronto home. He is one of the many musicians influenced (and fortunate lad, mentored) by legendary musician and composer, the late Oliver Schroer (who was lovingly known as Canada's talest free-standing fiddler). Jaron carries Oliver's five string fiddle with him. He uses it to play his own compelling interpretation of Field of Stars. The fiddle was accidentally decapitated in September, sending shock-waves through the folk music world. The fiddle has been restored and lives again. If you are in Toronto you can probably catch Jaron playing solo or in one of the seemingly endless combinations of musicians that make up the TO music scene. If you are on the West Coast, keep your eyes on the Sunshine coast.

Chris Coole

Chris Coole. Musician. Taken June 29, 2011

Chris arrived, banjo in hand. The banjo is a great instrument and the one that Chris brought was a five-string, open-back banjo. It was beat-up and wonderfully photogenic in itself. To my surprise, Chris had some postage stamps inside the body of the instrument - one of which was the Canadian commemorative of Yousuf Karsh. How interesting. We got some good shots of Chris with the body held up next to his head. We even tried some with Mr. Coole looking like a orthodox icon. 

My assistant, Esme, is crouching behind him, holding the banjo, trying both not to be seen and keep the banjo steady. Sadly there is not much of a connection between old-time music and Russian ikon painting or the photo would have been more useful. I much prefer the laughing Chris at the top.

Check out Five Strings Attached with no Backing it's a favourite or Old Dog - his solo CD. If you ever get a chance to catch one of the many bands that he shows up in you're in for a treat.

Find out all about him at his site chriscoole.com.

Here is an index of portraits.

Dan Bouman

Dan Bouman. Photographer. Conservationalist. Taken June 28, 2011

In 2005 Dan Bouman turned a room in the Gibsons Public Art Gallery into a giant camera obscura. Entering it was an unusual and strangely unsettling experience. It was a bright sunny day in lower Gibsons and the interior of the camera was very dark. It took about four minuted for my eyes to adjust to the light. But when they did I could see the water, the dock and fishing boats of the harbour inverted and "projected" on the wall of the room. It made even ordinary events like the passage of a car or the progress of a person seem magical. As if the movement confirmed that this was not simply a reflection or faint slide projection, but was, in fact a copy of reality. The magic was accomplished with no more than darkness and a tiny hole placed in exactly the right spot.

There is a famous scene in the Pressburger and Powel film A Matter of Life and Death (also known as Stairway to Heaven) that opens with a man in a camera obscura, observing, godlike, the daily goings on in his English village at the time of the second world war. The scene has implications for what will transpire in the rest of the film. [I've embedded the clip at the end of this post.]

Dan is also the man behind a set of very well done photos of thespians in the Heritage Playhouse. Mostly completed around 2001, Dan took some time to set up the shots. They are perfectly lit and communicate a wonderful sense of humour and drama. The photos lined the theatre entrance and I was always inspired by them every time I passed by.

On the Sunshine Coast many of us know Dan as the director of the Sunshine Coast Conservation Association. Dan is the director. His clear-headed, tireless work is much appreciated. To back up this endorsement I made an on-line donation to the SCCA the day this post went up.

Dan's camera obscura and pin-hole photography is the subject of a review in Going Coastal Magazine and a feature in The Georgia Straight by Andrew Scott. You can find out more about him in the directors page of the SCCA.

Chelsea Sleep

Chelsea Sleep. Musician and Composer. Taken June 13, 2011.

I first heard Chelsea play fiddle when she was about 16, warming up outside the Gibson's Heritage Playhouse. A remarkable player, she has since become a courageous instructor of younger fiddlers. Her group Bad to the Bow worked most of this summer in the recording studio to lay down tracks for their first CD. Together with Emilyn Stam Chelsea also formed The Twisted String, a group dedicated to performing the work of legendary Canadian composer and musician Oliver Schroer. Chelsea worked closely with Oliver for a number of years before his untimely death in 2008. One of the earlier students of Michelle Bruce Chelsea was also a key player in the Coast String Fiddlers, a group that inspired an entire generation of musicians. Chelsea recently released her first CD, Simple Song.

We had a number of good things come out of the shoot. The Twisted String were well known for doing an entire-band jump in the middle of some songs. So we got a bit of air time. We also took a lot of shots of her with her violin. Given who she is, Chelsea has a lot of these and at one point she said, "you know, I have SO many pictures of me with a fiddle, I'd like something different." So we did that. One of them came out of post-production, solarized, not quite showing the tom-boy fiddler most of us know.

As a photographer the first question you run into is "is the post-processing going too far?" I've thought about that quite a bit as I go through the editing stages. Sometimes an approach to photography seems to hinge on an idea of truth. People can have very strong views on whether editing and post-processing is legitimate or not. Epistemology is contested territory in any field but it seems particularly problematic with photography. In the end I think there is no falseness in photography - only in how the photographer presents it. Said another way there are no dishonest photographs - only dishonest photographers. It's a shift in emphasis on Richard Avedon's famous statement "Every photograph is accurate. None of them is the truth."

I'm not sure why there is a need to deny the editing and post-processing in order to make a photograph seem more "artistic" or spectacular. Surely, as with any media, all the decisions someone makes are part of the art. Perhaps photography seems so invisible, and brings the subject so close, that the genius of photography is going into the world to find an exact moment - not staging it or making it up after. Obviously as a photographer who works in the studio you can't avoid staging your photos - an this leads one to be more generous with acceptance of post-processing also.

Find Chelsea Sleep's work here.

Here is an index of portraits.

Giorgio Magnanensi

Giorgio Magnanensi. Conductor and Composer. Taken May 30, 2011.

The morning opened with torrential rain, and although it stopped by noon (when our shoot was scheduled) it was still grey and overcast. This shot was done right at the very end when we tried some very formal, very still shots. Giorgio had on a white shirt, the backdrop was white and his beard and hair were shades of grey - the whole thing came out flat and soft.

Initially I was very disappointed. In my head I wanted high-contrast. But each time I encountered this photo in my editing it jumped at me. I decided to emphasize it's natural character even more in the processing stage. The surprising result is better than I could have hoped. When I met Giorgio to give him his print for the sitting, I gave him the choice between this and another more high-contrast print in which he is speaking and looking very prophet-like. It was at a gallery opening. Nadina Tandy was also there. Everyone emphatically agreed on the image above.

I have since had this one enlarged to 2 x 3 feet and mounted on aluminum. It seems to emerge directly from the early history of photography.

Giorgio Magnanensi is the Artistic Director of the Vancouver New Music Society, and even though his work necessitates a certain fluidity with technology, he still writes all his compositions and scores by hand. He brought a CD of his recent work with Veda Hille titled Young Saint Marie. He was great to work with, full of ideas and new ways of thinking, affable and generous with his time. And yes, he does have a fantastic beard.

Find Giorgio Magnanensi's work here.

Here is an index of portraits.

Diego Samper

Diego Samper. Artist. Taken May 22, 2011.

Diego is a difficult man to describe. He has led me to some incredible photographers, the most influential being Hector Acebes, a Columbian who travelled alone through northern Africa in 1947. Diego himself is a gifted photographer who also paints, draws, constructs, assembles, makes films, and is an architect. The most general thing you could say about his work is that he never takes an idea half-way. Everything is developed until it reaches a kind of final organic, ecologic conclusion. I think this is why I enjoy his painting most - the abstract works seem to be, not an artist's explorations, but rather self-contained landscapes built from the very ideas of colour and texture.

He once made an entire book that followed the progress of a burnt hole through the pages. It is one of the most interesting objects I have ever seen.

Diego came to Canada from Columbia to avoid the frequent abductions and ransoms that were part of the drug wars. His family included two teenaged daughters when he arrived in British Columbia. Since settling on the Sunshine Coast he has been able to return to Columbia and re-establish his presence there. Here is a biography from his website.

See Diego Samper's work here.

Here is an index of portraits.

Buckman Coe

Buckman Coe. Musician and Composer. Taken April 13, 2011.

I first met Mr. Coe in 2009. He was singing at an event held in a furniture warehouse that had been converted to a gallery for an exhibit of Bengal textiles. His voice had an eerie floating quality that seemed to come from very far away - as if he were channeling the spirit of a Tibetian lama.

During the shoot he made a comment that let to the creation of this site. We were positioning some lights and getting ready. By a strange coincidence the shoot was taking place in the same warehouse were I first met him. He took some pictures of the set-up on his phone and said "What's your site? I can mention it if you like." My last site update was almost 10 years ago. How embarrassing. I mumbled some excuses and said that none of my work was really online yet.

But now it is.

The shoot went well, but was beset by a number of technical problems. Lights kept failing and there were some focus issues. This was my second indoor session and I was struggling without the wonderful soft-everywhere daylight of my outdoor studio. Buckman was patient throughout the whole thing, though, and we had a great conversation about songwriting and creativity. He tried some tricks, like the stand-up-hair-flick on the left.

I was leaving in a few days on a trip, and Buckman was putting the final touches on his latest CD. I sent him some comps in case they might be useful and one ran in a review by Mike Usinger in the Georgia Straight. The CD is called By the Mountain's Feet. Design was done by local photographer/designer Reine Mihtlaof Artpowerhouse. The full story of it's production can be found here. It is a beautiful piece of work.

See Buckman Coe's work here.

Here is an index of portraits.

Self Portrait

Self Portrait. Taken October 25, 2010

"Time passes. People grow old, fall out of love, go their separate ways. Charis and Weston met in 1934, married in 1939, in the fall of 1945 she wrote to tell him she was leaving him, and in 1946 they were divorced. Weston took his last picture in 1948. He died in 1958. These are the dates. Nothing has caused me more problems in writing this book than the interminable need to establish and verify dates. I hope they are all correct but in one sense dates are irrelevant. The value of a life cannot be assessed chronologically, sequentially. If that were the case then the only bit that matters – like the closing instants of a race – would be how you felt in the closing seconds before your death. (This is one of the questions posed by photographer Joel Sternfeld – 'Is what we are at the end ultimately what we are?' – in his book On this Site.) The moments or phases that make life worthwhile can come early or late. For atheletes, and women dependent solely on their beauty, they always come early. For writers, artists, and everyone else they can come at any time. If you are unlucky they do not come at all. Sometimes these moments are preserved in photographs. The acts – in the artist's (or model's) case, the works, and, in an atheletes, the results – that redeem a life can come in advance of everything requiring redemption. Chronology can, sometimes, obscure this."

Geoff Dyer – The Ongoing Moment

Nadina Tandy

Nadina Tandy. Painter. Taken October 25, 2010.

Nadina arrived early and soon we were earnestly talking about daughters, trading stories about hers and mine. She conversed fluidly and with emphatic gestures. We switched between white clothing and black background and black clothing and white background. I ended up with a number of good shots but I couldn't decide on one that could communicate the way I wanted. This is often the case. It took me over a month before I decided on the top image. Often I end up in the centre of a field of possibility and I can push my interpretation in a number of directions. I almost decided on this one.

She was just a little tired and paused to rub her eyes, but the gesture is one of deep fatigue or unconsolable grief. It's not a great portrait of Nadina but it is a portrait of something. 

Where is the truth in a gesture? Part of our fascination with photography is our fascination with the very idea of truth. We often have a strong emotional investment in the ontology of the image. Has it been changed? Is it trying to fool us or manipulate us? These questions are as old as photography itself.

From its beginnings, photography has lived in persistent conflict with the nature of its being and those elements which can define it. this conflict arises over whether it is the representation of truth or a mechanism for metaphors. Photography is the most painful reiteration of what we are and what we don't want to be. It is the truth constructed with pieces of truth and pieces of lies. It is what anyone wants it to be ... With photography, there is always a mystery, a veil which does not allow us to have the clarity we desire.

Jorge Gutiérrez. Director 1990 to 1994 Museo de Artes Visuales  Alejandro Otero, Cararas. Quoted in "Image and Memory: Photography from Latin America."

"a mechanism for metaphors" I love that. Images, what are they other that the workings of the old eternal metaphoric machinery.

SeeNadina's work here.
Here is an index of portraits.

Matthew Talbot-Kelly

Matthew Talbot-Kelly. Animator and Filmmaker. Taken October 23, 2010.

We did this shoot in Matthew's animation studios on Granville Island. He was working furiously (as he often does) on an animated story that takes full advantage of the iPad platform.

I've kept journals for years, and I have often wondered about the possibility of bringing the kind of collage that works so well on the page into film. Peter Greenaway has come very very close to this idea, but, as much as I admire his books and films, they don't quite capture the ... ummm ... something I can't quite name ... of the collaged page. Matthew's two short films, "Blind Man's Eye" and "The Trembling Veil of Bones" do.

I was hunting for subjects and Matthew needed some promo shots for a webpage and a magazine cover featuring him. We moved some desks and book cases out of the way and did a quick shoot against the white walls of his studio. Even though it was only nearing the end of October, I knew that these would be some of my last sessions of the year. When we would meet again in the spring, Matthew would give me some ideas about portraits that would open up very large and interesting doors. More on that ... later.

See Matthew's Moving Tales here.

Michelle Bruce

Michelle Bruce. Musician. Taken October 20, 2010.

Michelle Bruce. Musician. Taken October 20, 2010.

On the Sunshine Coast of British Columbia, where I live, there is a strong fiddle culture. Part of the reason for this is Michelle Bruce's love of music and equally strong love of teaching. She has inspired an entire generation who are now musicians and teachers themselves. Her influence can be still be felt in community halls and summer music festivals all over BC.

Some thoughts on framing.

One of my inspirations for this series is Richard Avedon's work "In the American West." For that project Avedon worked with an 8 x 10 view camera which gave him a large negative with a characteristic border. In his books the frame may or may not be included, depending on the aspect ratio of the book and the editor's preference, but in exhibits, it is always there. The frame provides a ground to balance and enclose the featureless white background and keep the composition intact.

I'm working with a digital camera and so there is no frame. And there is no negative. The camera yields an image in an 8 x 12 format which creates a problem when you want to make an 8 x 10 print. Unsatisfied with the rather drastic changes in composition when the image is cropped down, I created a "digital" frame for the subject to exist within. It is a variation on a view camera border with some playful additions. I particularly like the idea of a digital "safety image" - now digital photographers no longer need worry about their archive of data spontaneously bursting into flames the way the old nitrate negatives did.

The faux border is clearly a fake - but is it a fake in a good way? Opinions are welcome in the comments section.

Here is an index of portraits.

Ian MacLeod

Ian MacLeod. Painter. Taken on October 20, 2010.

I'd known when I started that I wanted to photograph Todd, Maurice, and Alan. There were others that I wanted to work with, but it was taking time to co-ordinate schedules. In the meantime, I didn't want to waste the good days before the rains set in and I had to stop using my outdoor studio for the winter. Todd offered to make the suggestion to some of his contacts and passed me Ian's name.

Ian was the first subject I had never met before. He is a calm man, easily moved to laughter and so my best shots of him were in a light mood. 

There is a lot to keep in touch with while working - the technical aspects of the photo, depth of field, composition, the camera, the lighting, the lens, and so on - and the interaction with the subject. I talk to the person the whole time. In some ways, there is so much going on that photography becomes almost like automatic writing. At least that is the impression it gives me. You want to be fluid enough with the camera to catch things, but not so premeditated that you lock out possibilities.

It is an interesting fact that almost no one can pose and converse at the same time - and so I use the conversation to keep the subject from stiffening up into a pose. The play of emotions that crosses someone's face even during a single sentence is amazing. But when a person poses they tend to become like cardboard. There is a dynamic between what people want to show and what they actually present. The subject is giving up control of how they are perceived and that involves quite a bit of trust. Or anxiety - depending on who you are.

Irving Penn has a great quote about that:

"Sensitive people faced with the prospect of a camera portrait put on a face they think is one they would like to show the world... very often what lies beyond the façade is rare and more wonderful that the subject knows or dares to believe."

Irving Penn - quoted in 'Portraits' at the National Portrait Gallery, London.

It's a great quote by a great photographer.

See Ian MacLeod's work here: http://www.ianmacleodpaintings.ca

Here is an index of portraits.

Todd Clark

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Todd Clark. Painter. Taken on September 22, 2010.

Todd works mainly in abstract landscapes. Every summer he has an open studio for a week at his place in the town of Gibsons, BC. It is a bit of a menagerie: two llamas, two emu, chickens, and a flock of peacocks. He has gained a certain notoriety in town - whenever someone spots a llama on the road his number is at hand. The studio and openings are great events. Blissful. In my mind it is always early summer there.

Todd is wearing the coveralls he uses when painting. It was a tough decision to stick with the black and white because the colour of the paint splotches was so good. He has had this set for a long time and the texture on the front is very compelling.

You can usually see some of his paintings on the Sunshine coast, especially if you stop somewhere for coffee. The works hang in a number of cafe's. Here is a link to his studio. As I'm posting this, his 2011 open studio hasn't happened yet - catch it if you can.
 http://www.toddclarkstudio.org/.

Here is an index of portraits.