I Fucked Up a Photo

It was only until recently that I realized where my photographic style is heading / has always been. My father and I were laying on a beach in Florida last week. We'd taken a spontaneous road trip to Naples, FL for a week and found ourselves an afternoon to relax that wasn't actually spent inside a car. There we sat, beneath a 40 degree sun, facing the Gulf of Mexico. I think I was thirteen the last time I saw that water. There was, as there is every summer afternoon in Florida, an incredible storm system developing everywhere around us. Blue skies were turning into black and winds began to pick up. However, this didn't stop most of us from visiting the beach.

Directly next to me was my Mamiya 645 medium-format camera. I purchased it in early May and it hasn't left my side ever since. It literally changed the way I visualize, approach, and execute photographs. The decision to switch to medium-format simply stemmed for my current distaste for both 35mm film (in terms of it's grain seen upon printing) and digital (I don't know if I've ever put my heart into a digital photo my entire life). My Mamiya is fully, fully manual; some shots I'm not even sure will pan-out because I've tried to shoot them on the fly and each exposure requires careful attention to several aspects.

So there I am: dad, a storm, my camera, a beach, and myself. My dad suggested I take a photo of the oncoming storm. To his credit, my dad taught me composition at a very young age. "Get some of those ferns in the foreground, And" he has said to me at ages five, fifteen, and twenty-five. I agreed with him and pulled my camera out whilst being protective of swirling sand. I veered through the viewfinder and opted for a vertical composition (holy shit folks, this is like the punk rock version of photography). However, I noticed something very personally satisying that was creeping into the frame from below: my fathers tanned, hairy, sweating stomach. This balanced the photo perfectly. From top to bottom: the towering storm system that is contained by the frame, descending towards hoards of umbrellas, bodies and sand, only to be anchored in the lower-third portion of the photo by a glistening male stomach. I quickly made the correct exposure adjustments, cranked the advancement lever and took the photo.

For me, all I could think of was how much this photograph summed up "Florida": Sure, there's a view, but there's also a lot of tanned old people.

And that's exactly what attracts me when taking personal photographs. By "personal" I mean images that are intended for nothing other than advancing my own body of work. For lack of better wording, I enjoying aesthetically pleasing photographs with something fucked up about them. Something perhaps that is small in the frame, but just captivating enough to make you question why it's there. To continue the story, I wanted my dad to take a photo with my camera, in an effort to experience a sort of "passing-the-torch-full-circle" moment between the two of us. The only direction I gave was "shoot that way", to which I pointed towards the other end of the beach. As he walked away, I noticed a large family tearing down there beach gear to go home directly in his path. I thought it would have made a great photo to see an oncoming storm and a dissatisfied family heading for the hills. He walked right past them. Seeing as I wanted him to take the photo he wanted (which was not doubt a conventional landscape), I kept my mouth closed and watched him handle a camera older than any of his children.

I want to say this is a rather recent discovery, but not only have I been practicing photography in this fashion, I've been living it. For instance, whenever I put on an outfit, I make sure there's usually one fucked-up aspect to it ie. a nice collared shirt/sweater combination with some nice jeans and white shoes that have been painted black and have blown so far open you can see my socks. Like showing up to a well-dressed b.y.o.b. event and holding a 40 oz Olde English. So, to say that this recent "refining" of a photographic style is news to myself, it really isn't, because I live it every time I walk out my door.

cravings

Sometimes all I really feel like doing is watching Boyz in the Hood. I honestly get a craving to watch this once every two weeks, just below The Last Waltz and Citizen Kane.

I consider it a small masterpiece. A little slice of 90's Americana set in the South side of Los Angeles. Everyone's performances are unique and memorable, and there's just enough gritty storyline and character development that it keeps your eyes peeled to the screen from start to finish.

Additionally, it has easily the greatest movie dad in cinematic history. Furious Styles (played by Lawrence Fishburn), is a take-no-shit kind of dad that'll give you "rubbers", eat admiring neighbours' bbq'd ribs, fix your fade, and still pay the bills and love you by the end of the day. If I were up for adoption and Furious Styles walked into the room, I'd be like "Shit yeah, take me home daddyo". Even Rotten Tomatoes gave Furious the top honor in their Fathers Day Special called "Top 5 Movie Dads of All Time" click on it to watch.

Plus, everytime Ice Cube's character is on screen he has an Olde E in his hand (except for the flash back to when they were kids at the beginning). So gangster. In fact, I might host a forty party in my house in the future where we do nothing but drink OE and watch Boyz in Hood quietly and let Furious teach us about sex ed. Shit yeah.

similarryties

Today I realized that the apples truly don't fall far from the trees. 

My dad and I make this pilgrimage to Oakville every few months to pick up oversized canvas from the gigantic DeSerres outlet store. I'm pretty sure the prices are the same as the one here downtown, but it's kind of fun to make the journey and we get a chance to catch up. 

So today we made that same trip. It went pretty much exactly the same as it usually does: we drove through shit weather, talked about bad drivers/the economy/work/family/the weather/sports (I pretend and nod a lot at that), we drank tim hortons, got off at the wrong exits and laughed at each others stank farts. It was business as usual. 

Once we got back to my studio, we cracked down on some manly shit. To be more specific, we drilled holes in the walls and used ladders. At around this point, I quickly became aware of how similar my dad and I really are. Once my dad uttered "Hey And, you got anything I can piss into?", I laughed and handed him my usual piss bucket and left him to do his business. 

The funny thing about that instance is that every time I've ever mentioned to someone that I have a piss bucket, they cringe and make a stupid face. My dad? We both understand that taking a piss is simply taking a piss, and there's nothing around it. Who cares that there's a jug of warm piss in the room? I just dump it into the drain outside my door. Be a man and get dirty for once you over-sanitized, kleenex-havin' baby! 

The next similarity came when he noticed my wagon wheel. Yes, I have a single authentic wagon wheel downstairs which I swiped from a leather ranch that had gone out of business. It was a hasslehoff to carry home, but I knew I'd use it for something eventually. He replied,

" Aw, sweet wagon wheel! You could turn that into a coffee table!", and that was my exact intention on having it. Because, the fact is, my dad would have grabbed that wheel off the street even faster than I did. We just both have an eye for useful junk. 

We continued to drill more holes (which will be used for hanging wet canvas instead of leaning them against the wall), crack jokes, and jam out to The Temptations. I explained the motion sensor problems I have and he told me of a friend who could remedy that problem. Excuse me? Where has this person been for the past three years while I've been doing stupid fucking jumping jacks all afternoon to keep the lights on? Needless to say, this person is coming over one day to hook me up, figuratively speaking. 

And to top off this story, he gave me a brand new step ladder! I am officially a man now, because I have my own ladder. All I need now is a truck, some more plaid, a baby, and over $50 in Canadian Tire money and I'm in the club.