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Very cool! You have to check this guys work out!

MUTO a wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.

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I find writing to be this double edged sword… I want to share so much and in fact writing is the only place that I can really express myself at times… I find it amusing how my mind works… I think that no one could possibly want to wade through the long winded pages of bullshit that I write. I mean I am really just writing for myself and I can’t even be bothered to read it, so come on why oh why are you reading this. I mean the one or two people that I really want to read this will likely not give it the time of day… sigh… oh well such is life…

 

Anyway the more I realize that people actually do read this drivel that I commit to screen the more I think that I had better have something worth saying. I mean if you are going to actually commit your valuable time to reading this I had better be worth your time…

 

It is kind of like being up on stage, sure you can dance your heart out and you may be very good, but as soon as there are people watching you and the light is on all of a student the little foibles that make you who you are and make watching you a pleasure are scrutinized. Was that a trip there?

Did he really miss spell four again?

 

Oh the joy of semantics. I have a love and hate of semantics. If you ever want to avoid a subject semantics is a wonderful way of avoiding the topic entirely.

 

“My god man you’re about to drive into that bush!”

“Oh come now dear, I believe that is a shrubbery”

“Are you sure? Pray tell what exactly is a shrubbery?”

 

Mean while the green living thing is squished…

 

anyway, I know I miss use and miss spell shit. don’t care. if it gets to the point that the idea is not getting across I care. but you know what.

I am beting I cna miss sepll everi wrod ni a sentase adn u wll stll uder sand me.

 

So I will endeavor to become a better smith with my words and shout semantics when someone says that the 5 sense don’t include hearing but sight twice. You got the idea yeah, so shut it! :)

LOL

 

yes yes yes words are powerful. I truly believe that, and ideas are what make words powerful with out the ideas behind those words the are all just a bunch of fluff. Empty promises that no one believes in… So I choose my words carefully and I do what I can to say only a little so that what I do say reveals more about you… 

 

I do what I can to write in a way that I do not gender anyone unless it is a specific and even then I will dance around the subject… Go look if you like.

 

I often use words and turns of phrase that have many meanings… I like to see who picks up on what… It is very revealing LOL

 

Anyway I am way off on a tangent here and I have no idea of any of that will make it into the final published work… but it is a little peek into who I am… if you really wanted to know…

 

 

 

So I have this pressure that I put on myself. I MUST strive to be the best, the best at something, anything… but I must be good at something…

 

Yes I deep down inside I am extremely competitive, yes I loose all the time but none the less I am always striving to be better. and on the out side people say that I am very humble… Trust me it is a struggle…

 

Anyway I feel like the more eyes that a reading this drivel the more I must have something worth saying. I mean really if I have your attention why not say something interesting rather then “wow it’s raining again here in Vancouver…” Fuck off already! we live in a rain forest on the coast it is going to rain all the time every month of every year. so say something new…

 

I don’t know that any of the bull shit that I spin here is any better than that but I feel closely too it and well I can only speak of what I know so there you have it.

 

Lately I have been feeling this imposing presence of time… What are you doing with your life, are you where you wanted to be by this age?

what are others doing that you grew up with?

are they married?

Do they have children?

have they traveled to the places you want to go?

are they living the life that you want to be living?

what is holding you back?

are you going in a direction that you want to be going in 5 years? questions that 5 years ago didn’t really mean anything to me all of a student feel like there is a ticking clock… maybe it is the subconscious female clock that is saying act now or your chance is gone forever… I have had this conversation with a number of my very close friends of late…

 

No longer are there dreams of taking over the world… Instead there are dreams of a nice house and a happy family… and I must admit that I find myself wondering maybe that is not such a bad dream to have. I mean it is something that is so very vital to our society and yet everywhere I look I wonder if finding a partner in crime or a partner in time is even a reality in our day in age…

 

I wonder to myself what am I doing wrong… of all the loves that I have had and truly loved all have broken my heart and gone their own ways… yes many of them will remain great friends and will always hold a special place in their hearts… but didn’t quite fit…

 

So I get cold and become cynical, maybe there is no hope for someone like myself, I think too much… great as an artist, wonderful as a lover, but too intense for a relationship… shitty deal…

 

but I hold to a hope that my parents are still together… they are very much in love with each other. they have a relationship that I would count myself as being very lucky if I have what they have.

 

And so I have less and less time for things that are not real, things that are just the motions of the passion. I refuse to settle for the dance without the passion!

 

It frustrates me so when I see things, see how they can be and yet in order to have a relationship you have to have commitment from both sides. all you have to do is commit. and commitment is something that you and only you will know the power of. and trust me it will be tested in so many ways. ways that you will not even see as tests until you have come threw them.

 

The human will is an amazing thing!

 

There are a number of people in my life that I admire and I really believe that they will go far and it gives me hope that maybe should things aline and the cards are play correctly that I to may be with someone that is the whole world to me and I to them… Maybe this is all just a pipe dream, but fuck it I am used to dreaming big ;)

 

 

A friend of mine sat me down the other night and told me that much of what I had been writing made her very sad. Sad that I would disregard Vancouver and all that is Vancouver just to chase something bigger and shinnier. It is not so much that I am running away from Vancouver, and I guess you can not be running to something with out running away from something else…

I am frustrated by the lack of passion that seams to be present in Vancouver… It feels like the pot culture’s second hand smoke is being inhaled by everyone on the west coast regardless of weather or not they can smell it…

 

How many emails and conversations have I had about doing something… and… here I am sitting… waiting for the phone to ring…

 

The other week was rather hard… I have been really really wanting to push myself out of where I am… somewhere anywhere… I had scheduled 5, count them five, like one for every weekday, just like fingers on your left hand… Five creative shoots… As of Friday noon I had taken 0 that would be a big fat ZERO photos… I am not sure why I feel so strongly attached to my photos… but when someone cancels, it is not just that they are canceling on a shoot. They are saying that what you are doing is less important than whatever else is going on in their life. And granted we all have lives that are chaotic and unplanned, somethings do need to be attended to.

I guess it is just hard as every creative that I participate in regardless of weather or not I show it. If I am doing it I am at some level quite excited to be doing that. and I always feel like a little kid being told that there is no field trip today because of rain… but I turned up with an umbrella, boots and a waterproof lunch box! why is there no field trip? :o

 

The shitty thing is that each of the shoots that were canceled were all for very good reasons… So I can’t just sluff it off as flakey people. Though I have had way way way more than my fair share of flakes. Sigh that is a whole nother story… 

 

Anyway my friend painted out that there are people that are just as driven as myself out there, even in Vancouver, you just have to find them…

 

And it is not easy… I myself am very guarded, why, why do you want to be my friend? why do you want me to come to your party? why are you talking to me? What’s in it for you? what are your motives? what about me and what I want? I really want to be part of something. I feel so much like I am alone. Partly that loneliness is part of my childhood. Party because it is a way to hide from everyone. Stay safe… If you don’t share any of your hopes and aspirations with anyone they don’t know when you fail.

If you don’t count on anyone but yourself you will never be let down by anyone but yourself. You take full accountability for yourself. Maybe that is not a great way to be part of a peer group… I really don’t know. I have never really been part of any group… I have always been on the outside… always known by everyone… able to move in and out of the group but not part of it…

 

I just don’t know. I am 30 now and they say that most of your true friendships are formed before this age… at this point there is just too many social references that “you just had to be there” to understand… that if you are not part of the group you will never be part of the group.

 

Sigh.

 

I really do want to feel like there is hope and that I fit in somewhere… I have just not found it yet… and though I feel like poo sometimes deep deep down inside I really am a positive kind of guy :)

 

I just take photos when I am happy and write when I am sad.

 

I will endeavor to write more when I am happy and take my camera out when I am sad as it is a sure way to see the light… ;)

 

- Q 

 

 

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Blow Up

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What is real?

 

Do you know? Do you care? Does it mater?

 

 

Real is what is real to you. If you believe it, it is true to you and it does not matter who or what someone may say to you. So if you don’t believe that you can or be something then you can’t. and if you believe that you can or are then the wold is your oyster.

 

So here is something that I have been wreasealing with in my mind…

What is offencive what is exploitive what is masogonastic?

 

Recently I have managed to offend many a folk, some that have taken me aside and spoken to me and others that have written to me. Now I want to publicly say that I respect and welcome constructive criticism and from some of these people their opinions I truly value and it makes me ponder… Perhaps what I am doing is not having the impact that I desire… Now I know that you can’t please everyone all the time. Maybe what I am doing is “Unequivocally, that a lot of the stuff that you do would be considered categorically, across-the-board offensive” and more to the point “misogynistic, exploitative and disturbing“

 

Offensive. I can deal with, I don’t expect everyone to love my work or even care for it. But if my mother and father think it is great, I can shrug off offensive.

Exploitive. Well as Richard Billingham put it “All photography is exploitive”

http://www.designboom.com/eng/funclub/billingham.html So I don’t quite get this… What is exploitive? I don’t understand this…

Misogynistic (Of or characterized by a hatred of women. Yeah I had to look it up too. Sigh). Wow that one stings. I am really sorry that someone feels that way when they look at my work, because I know that threw and threw that I am not. and maybe she is seeing something that everyone else sees too but no one else has the guts to tell me. 

 

And Disturbing. Again I am OK with that so long as it gets my point across… and my point is that you can be whoever the fuck you want to be and all you have to do to make this happen is start believing that you are and act accordingly.

 

Now I really respect her opinion and she may be very correct in her sentiment that what I am doing is hindering my career as a commercial and successful photographer… And I am stubborn to a fault and I want to be successful on my own terms… So yeah maybe I am taking the long way and the hard way, but I know that I am not following…

 

So I have been pondering something for some time. and I think I may have mentioned it before… Can you make an impact without using force (Now please don’t get hung up in semantics here, if another word would fit better for you like intensity or passion use it, but for the metaphor I am using force in the physics sense). So I would like to enrich the lives of those that I interact with, and with my work I want it to have the same intensity and passion that I have in real life… I don’t just want to make pretty pictures that are forgotten the moment the page is turned, I want to affect peoples lives. Maybe that is a grand dream for someone like myself but hey I can dream right. That’s not going to offend anyone is it? but I must warn you my dreams might not be for the faint of heart…  

 

And besides if you think what I am doing with a consenting adult, not breaking any laws, and calling it art is offensive then boy are you going to be in for a shocker when you open your eyes and see what’s going on these days!

 

I am sure by now you have heard about the Costa Rican artist Guillermo Vargas Jiménez (who is in his early 30s, goes by the name “Habacuc”) down in Nicaragua that as the story goes had some children that he paid go and find a starving dog from the streets that he tied up in an art gallery and just out of reach he put bowls of food and water. And in dog food he wrote the words  “Eres Lo Que Lees” (translates as “You Are What You Read”) 

 

http://www.theginblog.com/2007/10/artist-chains-up-dog-until-it-dies-is-this-art-or-animal-abuse/ 

 

How does that make you feel? Do you feel outraged? Do you feel like doing something? Do you feel like acting? Do you see how the intensity needs to be there in order for you to feel anything?

 

So I mean if that can pass as art, can’t I ruffle a few feathers, why hell I really need to really step it up if I am going to come anywhere close to calling myself an artist.

 

Now from his perspective he was just taking one dog that was already starving and on the street and saying look at the hypocrisy of this! You would chase this dog out of your yard and yet you will come downtown to see the very same dog starve to death in an art gallery.

 

He was making the point that there are all these animals around that no one cares about until you make it the center of attention. In his own mind he was doing a good thing by bringing awareness to the plight of all these strays. Doing a good thing right? So do the means justify the ends? The dog was pretty scrawny so it was not like it got that way over night in the gallery, I am sure it was in it’s last legs and died in a nice warm gallery surrounded by adoring fans… Right?

 

http://marielouiseplum.blogspot.com/2008/04/starving-dog-as-art-gallery-confirm.html 

 

http://www.snopes.com/critters/crusader/vargas.asp 

 

http://arthistory.about.com/b/2008/04/20/the-starving-dog-exhibition-controversy.htm 

 

So here was the true genius of what he did. The words on the wall. Think about what he chose to put on the wall “You Are What You Read”

Now neither you or I were there and we were not behind the scenes so we don’t really know what actually happened. You can choose to be outraged by some monster that kills dogs in the name of art and go on living in your comfortable bubble where you are spoon fed opinions and don’t have to think for yourself. or you can look around you and start asking questions…  

 

Don’t believe everything you read ;)

And remember the camera lies, just as much as the printed word!

 

 

So what next?

 

What’s real?

 

Who do I want to be and how am I going to succeed?

I have never been more unsure of myself and yet confident in myself that something will work out. Maybe I am being naive or maybe I am being cautiously optimistic but it does not really mater so long as I move forward.

 

The next big think that I am throwing myself into is a secret!

In fact it is a Super Secret!

So if you want to be involved you must prove that you are open minded and willing to do something that will push boundaries, it may, no scratch that will offend some and most certainly be loads of fun!

 

And there will be a test ;)

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Yeah I can see how this would really be offensive to someone… Wankers!

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I am not totally sure what it is that I need to be learning from this but I am thinking that I have not taken the lesson to heart or am missing something in translation…Over the past several months I have had a number of very important people in my life tell me that they needed some space and that they needed to figure out what it is that is important in their lives so that they may go on and do something that they will enjoy and can fulfil themselves…The first time this happened I was kind of heart broken because it came in the form of her hanging out with someone else… Oh well, and life goes on…Most recently when this has happened, I have wonder to myself if this is just some big inside joke… Psst “tell him you need to figure yourself out. and then you’ll be off the hook” that girls tell each other when they are off powdering their noses. ;)But in truth I think that maybe I ask too many questions and sometimes it takes a while for those questions to land or for them to be assimilated…And maybe I am just too intense… heh I find that rather amusing actually… But whatever.So here is the thing, I really do think that many folks out there are not really sure what it is that they want to do. and I am not going to say that I have any answers all I can do is tell you what I have done to come to the place where I am at now… Perhaps this is a place that you may enjoy perhaps not…Now as much as I have been sounding like I am all doom and gloom of late over this last year I have never felt more alive and more happy. Yes I have many ups and downs and that is all very much part of life. For I am a strong believer that one must experience the downs just as much as one must experience the ups, for with out one the other can not exist. When I was younger I used to try my very best to get over something or get un-depressed as quickly as I could as I wanted to be always happy and upbeat. I was once (and I find this very amusing to this very day) described as eternally happy! Apparently this was not a feature that was looked upon as a good thing… meh.Anyway where was I… oh yeah, of late I have come to enjoy whatever state that I am in and do my very best to be present in the moment. Sometimes this moment feels like crap, but sometimes this moment can be fantastic… Like the moment when you finally place your lips on someone that you have been longing to kiss for ages and you can feel their breath on your lips, you can smell their lip stick, you can feel the warmth of their lips just before they actually touch your lips. and when they do touch you can feel a slight shiver of energy rush through you whole body and you know in that very instant you are alive with out a shadow of a doubt. Those are moments I live for… When time stands still and everything in the world comes into focus… that there is no where else that you would rather be then right there where you are…I feel kind of odd always having to repeat myself, but what the fuck if you know this shit already you can skip to the next paragraph or two… but it make the story self contained so I am going to repeat myself as I see fit so there.I grew up with folks that were and are quite interesting… My mother was many things before she had children, a pilot, a school teacher, a nurse, an X-ray technician, a world traveller. My father was a boat builder, a hippy, a sailor, and a sea captain… and one of the things that they had in common is that there are some things in life that are important and you have to deal with them now. i.e. you have to tie down the sails and you have to set anchor while the tide is right and before the wind shifts. These are things that you have to deal with no mater how tired you are and no mater what else is going on you have to deal with these things. If you don’t bad things will happen. and I don’t mean bad things as in “gee wiz I dinged the car, mom is going to kill me” no no I mean bad things as in if you don’t do things right in a storm you are going to be swept overboard and that will be the end of you. buuu bye. My mother was very much the same way. Yeah she would get into all sorts of frantic states when we were travelling about how we were lost and were never going to get home again. When it came right down to it I never saw her loose her cool when it really mattered, she always told me it was her time in the hospitals…When I was 16 (well actually I was 15 it was a week before I was officially allowed to join) I joined the fire department. I had wanted to be a fire-fighter sense I was 5, I remember seeing some movie where there was these forest fires and these guys came in and put them out. I thought that was the coolest thing ever. I remember the next day going off to kindergarten and playing in the sand box with a shovel tossing sand from one place to another imagining there were fires popping up all over the place. It was great fun! So naturally as soon as I was able to do it for real I was all over it. I had tried out when I was 13 but alas there was some pesky WCB regulations about age and shit like that. Pifff what do they know about safety anyway ;)My time on the fire department really taught me that there are things that are important and there are things that are not. If it’s on fire or there is blood it is important. When that call comes in you drop whatever else you might have on the go and deal with that. It makes everything else that you deal with in your life so much easier to deal with. Because you know that even though you may have to put up with some hockey mom stressing because her little timmy is not registered in the correct category or that you don’t have enough cash to buy the girl you are sweet on night out on the town really it does not matter because little timmy will still get to ride his bike down the hill and that’s all he cares about and you will still get to spend time with the girl that you are sweet on and that’s all either of you care about and so life goes on.So the question that I have for you is do you know what is important to you in your life? What is it that you are passionate about? What is it that you would jump out of bed before your alarm clock rang and would have you dreaming of it all night… Do you know? Do you care? Why are you not doing that now? or if you are doing it now What got you to the point that you can do that now?For me I really want to be living my life in a way that I am passionate about it. I want to do things that make me want to push the limits of what I am capable of. I want to challenge myself, because I know that is the best way to grow… and I know that some people don’t like challenge cause that is just another word for work and well personal growth is just work that you’re not getting paid for so fuck it eh. I mean no disrespect by what I am about to say. To me this thought process is what makes for unions and makes for lazy minds and lazy people… Fuck it get a sweet job sit on your ass and make 27 bucks an hour while you do fuck all but watch someone else do something… and then you complain that your job got cut? But whatever, I’m a “creative” I can say whatever I feel like and you can’t do shit :)But as I am a “creative” I spend all my time thinking how I am going to make something new and unique and different knowing full well that it has all been done before and I am not really going to have anything all that new and unique that I am really going to add to the mix. Ha!Anyway I am getting way off track here. Some of the people that are near and dear to me have been saying that they need to figure out what they want to do with their lives… and I have been watching them and I want to say all you need to do is take a day. (I figure you should be able to do it in a day at least figuring out what you want… How you are going to get it, well that will take the rest of your life) and clear everything off your plate. If it is important to you that you figure out what to do with your life well act like it’s important. Your laundry can wait till tomorrow, that show on tv will be on the internet in a day or two and those phone calls that you feel you must take will still be there on your voice mail when you are ready to call them back. but what I am trying to say is that all these things that distract us every day. Pokes, text-messages, e-mails, IM’s, cell phones and any number of other things that get in the way of actually looking at yourself. They will all be there when you get back very few things are really that important that you can’t take a full day all to yourself without being interrupted.Now sit yourself down and let yourself think with a totally open mind… Be like a child that is totally self interested and wants the first piece of cake and wants it to be the biggest one as well! Cause who the fuck cares you are home alone and just thinking to yourself. Think about the emotional states that you want to live your life in and you want to experience in your life. When you have those in mind, think to yourself have you ever had those states? When was it that you felt them last? When was it that you felt them strongest? What was it that brought those states on?You might want to have a note pad so you can jot these things down.I mean if they are important to you and all… ;)Now think to yourself would your life be full and would you be happy if you could look back on your life when you are old and think that you had done everything you could to live your life in that way. If you can say yes to this then you now know what you are looking for in your life. Wow that was easy eh ;) LOLFor me I want to life my life with love, lust, passion, wonder, intrigue, adventure, and maybe just a hint of fame… I hear it is a great aphrodisiac ;)But above all I want to have fun with my life. I want to enjoy the few precious moments I have here on this blue marble and share them with the people I enjoy and respect.Ok Now here is where it gets a little harder… Now that you know what you want to feel, you have to figure out how you are going to get those feelings… For me Photography fills all but one of those feelings… Now if for you it is painting or art or music or whatever don’t say to yourself “Oh I could never do that it is so hard to make a living doing x… Q is so lucky he is just really good at what he does” That is a total cop out! Photography is ridiculously competitive and becoming more so every day, but you know what I don’t care. It is what I am passionate about and something I can be really good at if I am persistent at it and just keep moving forward. What you don’t see is that this is about my only focus… I spend all my money on food or photography books, gear, tools, props and whatever else I can to move myself forward. Why? Because there is not much else that I would rather be doing other then taking pictures… Writing… and spending time with those that I care about. What else is there?Yeah I have had to take day jobs from time to time… Yeah I have had to take pictures of things I didn’t want to so that I could afford to take photos of the things that I did want to. but none the less I was still taking pictures :)So if you really want to live your life with the feelings that you desire and you know what it is that brings on those feelings then all you have to do is figure out how to do that with most of your time. Simple.For me it meant that if I was going to be a professional photographer I had to act like a professional, I had to have the gear of a professional, and I had to be determined that I was going to make it doing what I loved. It has not been an easy road by any means, but I have enjoyed the struggle and I don’t think I will ever stop enjoying the struggle, because if and when I no longer strive for something better… I will be dead.So believe that you can be happy!Know it in your heart of hearts. Know that if you really want something and are willing to do whatever it takes to get that then you will very likely succeed.Also you must know that every step of the way is what’s called life. You can enjoy that for the challenges and rewards that come with each day or you can think to yourself that you will be happy when… but you need to be warned that “when” never happens because there is always something else that could be better or might have been different. Don’t spend your time wishing your life away. Live it like you would like to remember you had lived it…and call me for breakfast…Hopefully this has been useful to you…Ciao.- Q

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I wonder to myself…

 

Is there anyone out there that is a match for me… My folks found each other, but am I ever going to find someone that is going to care about me?

 

I wonder if I am in some way defective. Maybe I am just a nut ball that is destined to be alone for the duration.

 

Maybe all you have is friends and fuck buddies and the two should never be confused… hmmm sounds like a shitty way to look at the world.

 

I think I knew that Betty and I were never going to last, but none the less I hopped and wished and thought that maybe if I just played it cool it would work out… Apparently I suck at playing it cool. Damb.

 

So I would like to put it out there that I am looking for a few things… I guess I am looking for another lovely assistant. This time all work and no play.

 

And most importantly I am looking for a partner in crime, a companion, a lover, a girl friend, an ally, a critic, a co-conspiritor, a teacher and a student, someone that wants to share their life with someone and is ready to be part of someone’s life.

 

I want someone that has passion in their life, someone that has focus and drive. Someone that can take care of her own shit and can ask for help when she needs it and can lend a hand if need be.

 

I want someone that is social and can be in a crowd and not feel awkward and can be alone.

 

I want someone that I can dance with and that likes to move and is in tune with her body.

 

I want someone that wants to feel alive, someone that wants to live a life of adventure even if it is just going for a walk down the street or a trek across the globe.

 

I want someone that is artistic, and I don’t mean artistic as in “played with the 16 back of crayons” I mean like “I want to change the world through my art”

 

I want someone that knows she is beautiful.

 

I want someone that is self-confident but is not bitchy.

 

I want someone that has some life experience and can share a trick or two.

 

I want someone to watch a movie with and someone to make movies with.

 

I want someone that is as cheeky as I am and has the same contempt for the world as I do.

 

I want someone that is going to be happy to take me home to the folks and someone that I will be happy to take home with me as well.

 

maybe I am asking for too much, but I refuse to settle.

 

If you think you fit the bill let me know and I will have my people make arrangements with your people and we will see how the the blood tests come back…

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So last night I showed 6 of my photos at the Snap Gallery down on W 3rd at Columbia.

It was a very interesting day for myself…

 

I shot the last piece for the show the night before at 2 in the morning… ahhh nothing like striving for perfection and cutting it right down to the wire! I know that if I get the photos uploaded before the place that I get them printed opens then it means that they will be ready by 12 noon, however if I wait till they open then it is next day by 12… so I managed to get home and do what I needed and get all my sellects for the show ready and uploaded by 4 am! Yeay me :)

 

However when is life ever so easy?

 

I got a phone call from the store that I sent my photos to be printed at, and the fellow told me that they were not going to print my photos as they might be offensive to someone. Huh what?

So I ask to speak to the management as that is kind of not so cool with me as I needed to have my prints ready to go and be hung by 4…

He tells me that the manager is in a meeting and that he will get him to call me… A few hours later I get an email saying that the photos had been printed. Cool I think it was resolved and I can go pick them up…

 

I head off to pick them up and when I get there they tell me that they are not going to release my photos to me. Again I say I would like to speak to the store manager as time is now slipping away on me and I really don’t have time to go to some other place when I know they have the prints already done for me.

 

The photo manager comes down and tells me that the store has a policy that states that they will not print anything that might be deemed offensive… Well I don’t know about you but I find babies offensive! I mean aside from the fact that they are ugly. You just know that even though in this day in age of In vitro fertilisation and test tube babies, most every mountain you see a photo of is the direct result of coitus. So the next time you see a cutsie picture of a drooling baby don’t just see what is there in the photo think a little further about what is being implied by such a photo. But apparently someone’s knees and feet are far more offensive even though you can’t tell if indeed there is in fact a sexual act going on… Who knew!

 

But get this, he had no problems if I were to take a photo of someone totally nude and exposed, so long as it was artistic… Eh what? so if I light you with a soft light and have you look at your feet and print it in black and white that is artistic and all good. but if I show a fully clothed guy on his knees in a parkade beside a car with a girls legs sticking out of it that is very offensive and as he put it “has no artistic merit”

 

Wow!

 

So after much arguing and doing my best to educate someone on the artistic merits of making someone think rather just showing them something they have already seen before. My lovely assistant (who is also working at an art gallery) put on her distressed face and convinced him that we would not do this again and that yes in fact she had taken all the photos and they were all staged and that he could rest comfortably knowing that it was going into a real gallery and that he would not have to see any other such offensive material…

 

Sigh

 

Anyway, it really was good to see the works up in a gallery and being viewed by many folks that were willing to ponder what it was that I was trying to show… 

 

I found if very interesting watching people look at my work and whisper to each other and point and try and figure out if it was real or not… Who these people might be and so forth. I would have really liked to have approached some of these people and asked them what they though and I don’t know I felt kind of shy about it. I am not really sure why. Maybe because I was just so dead tired from going all day and shooting all afternoon that I didn’t really have the energy to put on the bull shit face and pretend like I didn’t know what was going on and ask them what they thought was going on and see what they said. Sigh. I really wish I had now… It was fun to watch as some of the girls would whisper to each other and then measure and line up head distance and try and guess if the head was in the right place or not… and make little observations like the shoes being the same in more then one photo, does that mean it was the same guy in these two? or her belly and her belly look similar, is this the same girl?

 

I ended up leaving the show at around 1 ish as I was just to drained to be enjoying it and I really didn’t want to be a drag to those around me so that was that :)

 

So I would like to hear what you thought of the show if you were there and if you have an opinion that you would like to express :)

 

Next time I will do my best to be more sociable and less reclusive…

 

Cheers,

 

- Q

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