2011-09-22. A chockfull of blogpost.
There's a few things I've wanted to mention over the last few days that they have piled up in the virtual laundry list in my head, so I decided better to post it all at one time:
1. First order of business, I'm cleaning up house. I'm removing some of the older posts on this blog, which are now irrelevant, as I want this blog to contain more longer-form posts — a combination of pictures and words and thoughts. Some of these older posts will live instead in another Tumblr blog dedicated to just pictures (and a little inspiration). Click here for a sneak peek. I'll make a more official announcement soon. In the meantime, you're welcome to follow me there too.
2. I never got to announce the winners for the Canadian Café Bar print giveaway last week! Mr noemontescars.tumblr.com is the lucky winner on the Tumblr portion, and Ms Paris Carter on the Facebook page portion. Thank you for participating and sharing.
3. Speaking of Canadian Café Bar, today is the last day of the show. And like that, the time flew by! I'm pleased with the feedback I've gotten, and sometimes amused too. I got the chance to meet photographer Tony Fouhse at the opening, whose portraits of heroin users on the streets of Ottawa I really like. In fact, he's exhibiting this body of work right after mine, at La Petite Mort Gallery in Ottawa. The opening reception is tomorrow evening. He also got to interview me for his awesome blog, Drool. Click here to read that interview, and also learn more about his work.
This is what the Peruvian Ambassador to Canada had to say about the show: " '[I felt it] was important that the embassy . . . show everything about Peruvian culture, no matter how controversial or explicit the art may be. We may not like it much,' he said referring to the subculture, 'but it’s real.' " Hmm... You can read the rest of the article where that quote came from here.
Lastly, kudos to Alison Zavos of Featureshoot for her reply to a comment left on her blog's post featuring this series. (Click here, and scroll down to read the comment and Alison's reply.) I actually don't mind if you agree with the comment. It's her words that are insightful. I grapple with a desire to be original in my work, all the time. I'm sure everybody else does too. Every time I come up with something new, I'm already wondering if I "failed."
What her comment brought home to me is that it's the intention of the work that is important... Why am I shooting this? The point is, read the statement. I learned, while writing this statement for the project, and writing my experiences shooting the series, that if you don't effectively explain what you're doing, and why you're doing it, the work falls apart. This series is true for me because I learned something new about myself in the process. Sometimes that's all that matters.
