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.

heading to the village pt. 2

Well, it's Sunday, and that means it's time for another trip to the clothing donation bin.
Here's what else is hitting the racks today.

1. Black H&M jeans. I wore them almost every time I worked or played a show. And it shows. Blown-out crotch for days and faded beyond belief. Peace out.

2. Outrageous blue plaid shorts. I pulled them from the "Goofy Golf Shit" pile I have in my house. Did I ever wear them?

3. From the same pile, a blue cotton golf shirt from the London Hunt Club. Within my lifetime, they wouldn't allow black people to play there. Fuck them. I'd rather burn it.

4. Khakis. A truly full-circle thrift store moment.

5. A white t-shirt with headphones on it. Maybe three people will understand this when they read it.

6. Black pants with most of the buttons blown-out. If I were to go commando wearing these things my dick would swing all over the place.

7. Miscellaneous green t-shirt. Get out of my life.

8. Brown corduroy skate shorts that I bought off the internet for my 18th birthday. They're done.

9. Black t-shirt, because I have more of them than any other item of clothing.

10. White dress shirt with the flimsiest collar ever. It looks like sad dog ears.

11. Timber Creek flex khakis. No reason really.

12. Green Vivanno t-shirt. Too many memories of spoiled U of Toronto students with high demands.

That's all the room I have for now. I think I have room for one more trip. Until next time.

heading to the village

Today I ran out of hangers. I thought it was probably time I make room by donating some clothes that I never wear and have no use for. Here's the list of shirts I've decided to give away, in no particular order, that will fill my bag until the next stop.

1. The brown/white striped dress shirt with the brown paint stain on it.

2. TSA Brand black hoodie with no sleeves that probably cost me over $100 but does not belong on my body past grade 10.

3.Blue collared sweater that was left at my old Starbucks that I'm pretty sure is for girls.

4. New York t-shirt that I wore almost the entire Hue east coast tour. It's just not in good shape anymore. And it smells weird.

5. Absolutely asinine Marine dress shirt with the gold embossed boat on the back. I bought it as a joke and never wore it once.

6. Striped sweater that looks like it belongs to Ernie. Have been contemplating its demise for years.

7. Cream plaid shirt. It's actually pretty nice. Looks like a cottage vacation. Too small though.


8. Ribbed grey sweater I bought in grade 8. It looks amazing still but I'm not in 98 degrees.

9. Light blue dress shirt that was bought for me as a gift but it has these bands of shiny material woven throughout it. Not down with that.

10. A Penguin wool sweater from back when Penguin clothes weren't cool and the symbol was simpler and smaller. Shrunken beyond the point of no return.

11. Brown sweater vest that goes with nothing.

12. Brown dress shirt from when the Gap was obsessed with stretchy clothes. It's part Lycra, and Laura once told me it's like hugging a diaper.

13. Sand colored Stussy button up I bought in France in grade 6. Didn't fit me then, doesn't fit me now.

14.A brown shirt that should only be worn by people living in the NWT.

15. One of the very first Skate4Cancer shirts ever made. It has an owl on it. Should belong in a museum. It used to be white but I would have no problem calling it piss-yellow now.

16. A huge black t-shirt I got from playing a show at an iPhone app launch party. Outside of letting my girlfriend wear it to bed, I have no use for it.

That's all the space I have in my bag. Until next time.