Category: Projects

Information and updates on projects

No Nipping, Tucking, or Airbrushing Here

As I delve deeper into the newly emerging and currently titled, Vintage Nude Project, I am confronted with many questions. Where is this project going? What is the project really about? Why am I doing it? Who is it for? 

On a most basic level, this evolving series of photographs reflects my longstanding interest in hands [as a subject] and merges it with a deliberately subtle approach to the female nude. It seemed a natural evolution – hands are part of our bodies after all. They are an extension of ourselves.

In creating and editing my images, I explore shape and composition while making no attempt to diminish or conceal signs of wear and tear on the aging body. In fact, evidence of age on the hands and skin is accentuated in some of the photos. My motives are clear.

The reality is that natural, physical characteristics such as wrinkles, age spots, veins, and silver hair have been consistently maligned [especially for women] since the advent of corporate advertising. Think Mad Men (Madison Avenue, NYC, 1950s and 1960s advertising) – targeting women with face creams, hair dyes, and other age-defying products. Mainstream popular culture, media, and the entertainment industry quickly followed, nipping, tucking, and airbrushing their way to the fountain of youth that is as elusive today as it ever was. Yet we are deeper in denial, more insecure, and more dysfunctional than ever as a society.

There is no shame in aging, nor in celebrating it, because the experience and wisdom that usually come along with age is a wondrous and beautiful thing. Beauty is not the exclusive domain of the young and outwardly flawless. Our cultural values have been skewed, and it’s high time that everyone stopped promoting and believing the lies. Besides, we are so much more than our outer shells. We are poetry in motion.

A Look Behind the Scenes:

As a reclusive “elder” and new grandmother, I am simply not ready to reject myself as a viable and suitable model for my own work. Au contraire! Aside from the fact that asking family or friends to pose stark naked for photos is rather daunting and awkward (although I’m still hoping for volunteers), I’m the perfect choice at this stage of the project. I am available 24/7, I’m of the requisite vintage, and I know exactly what the photographer is attempting to convey.

The “studio sessions” consist of a darkened bedroom, the SoftBox Pro app on the iPad as a single light source, an articulated LCD screen on the camera, a remote shutter release controller, bifocals, and a lot of stamina. (I initially experimented with SoftBox photographing a mini orchid in the dark several months ago. The results were quite impressive, but I’m done with flowers for now.) In any case, DYI methods can yield superior results with a little determination and perseverance. Stay tuned for updates on this project, and if you have any ideas for the perfect title, I’d love to hear it!

NOTE:  This post was written in September 2014. Click here to view the project in its current state.

Poetry vs. Smut

While I’ve been enjoying taking photos of bugs, flowers, and family with my new DSLR camera, the other night I returned to my Fine Arts roots. This yielded some interesting results and fresh ideas. Having spent six years in “art school” environments, life drawing and anatomy studies with nude models, art history, and feminist discourse surrounding the male gaze, etc., were everyday fare. Whether it be Michaelangelo’s David, or Manet’s brazen, and stark naked Olympia, we studied and wrote about it at length from a critical and academic point of view.

The human form has held fascination for artists for millennia, but the rupture, or disconnect for me occurred the first time that family saw my life drawings. The best way to describe it would be nervous giggles and incomprehension at my apparent obsession with “naked people” – naked women in particular. This inadvertently led to speculation about my sexual orientation, which still lingers to this day. Nevertheless, it became clear that although the nude is standard study in the art world, the average citizen (more cognizant of Playboy and pornography than of art history) has been seriously impacted by the overt sexualization [objectification] of women and girls in popular culture, media, and advertising. You could say that the nude is carrying around a lot of baggage. The territory is fraught with fear, loathing, embarrassment, misunderstanding, and sometimes censorship.

Still, I am drawn to the human form as subject, and despite my own acute awareness and sensitivity to the difficulties some viewers have with the nude in art, I proceed – delicately and attentively. To help clarify, I think it’s helpful to think in terms of poetry versus smut. A poem can evoke imagery that draws out emotion, sometimes even on a spiritual level, while smut is designed and intended to titillate the baser senses. To view a work of fine art as a visual poem, complete with meaningful narrative and symbolism, whatever that may be, can be an intensely personal and soulful experience if one is open to it.

In viewing the body (whatever body) at its barest and most honest, we are given a mirror with which to contemplate our own vulnerabilities, and ultimately the impermanence and mortality that we all share. My approach to the nude is considered and modest. It does not push the boundaries, nor does it demand to be “in your face.” It is quiet and meditative. It transcends the carnal and hints at other things.

Click here to view more images from this new series of work.

New Works in Photography

It’s been a while since I’ve updated my website with new work, but I’ve been on a roll this past week. Mostly what has inspired this creative burst was the long-awaited purchase of my first DSLR camera. Years ago I owned a used 1965 model SLR Canon FT film camera. I studied black and white photography and darkroom developing in Vancouver, but when digital came along, the equivalent to what I had was a bit out of reach. And because I considered myself primarily a painter and printmaker for such a long time, I held off making the investment.

My first digital was a Nikon Coolpix 880 (3.1 megapixel), with which I took the still impressive ONR train photo series. Then there was the excellent Panasonic Lumix DMC FZ28 (which I gave to my son last month because every soon-to-be dad needs a real camera), and finally, there’s the small but mighty Canon PowerShot SD780 IS (complete with underwater photography housing kit) that I’ll be taking to Detroit for some cool-in-the-pool fun shots at my uncle’s place this summer. Actually, my website banner is a still image from some experimental video I did while swimming in a lake up north. And now, finally, I have a Canon Rebel T3i 600D. I ABSOLUTELY LOVE IT!!!

While I’ve already taken a LOT of photos with my new camera, ironically the photos above were taken a few years ago with the Lumix. So why am I posting these now when I have a new DSLR??? Several reasons: 1) because they were lost in the bowels of my computer, 2) I didn’t have proper editing and work-flow software until now, 3) there are some truly wonderful travel pics that I had always intended to do something with, and 4) file folder housekeeping is seriously overdue so that I can get organized and make room for new stuff. Taking pictures is really really fun, but what happens to them afterward… well, you might call it the black hole of photography, where everything disappears into nowhere-land.

So these are just a few of the over 25,000 never-been-seen-by-anyone photos on my computer that I recently dug up. At the same time, I’ve seriously embraced Instagram during all this sorting and culling, excitedly sharing some gems to my Instagram Account, discovering great work by others in the process, and becoming enamoured with the square photo format. Interestingly, 3×3 inch photos were the norm back when I was a kid in the 60s (my mom had one of those old Kodaks with the large glass viewfinder on top). Most photographs need some cropping anyway, but the square lends itself well to composition and artistic considerations.

So… since moving to Windsor in April, my goal has been to get the paints and [square] canvases out, LOL, but I can’t seem to get away from the PHOTOGRAPHY… which in truth was one of my first loves, instilled in me by my late father, Ray. Interestingly, when I look at these photos I see colours and designs that would translate quite well on the painted surface. Life is good.

Image Info:  All photos are from a trip to Havana in 2009, where we stayed at the Hotel Kholy, a former 3-star Russian establishment nestled in a residential area of the city. The derelict hotel is located on the beach (right at the water’s edge) in the nearby town of Guanabo, where we were visiting friends who rent a Casa Particular every year to escape the harsh Canadian winter months.