Onward in March
The Vanishing | Finding Toronto
It’s the not-so-merry month of March, and here in Toronto we march on, through the grey detritus of a winter that has hung about too long….
But, as I mentioned last month and mention again in this blog, we will soon be out of here, and on our way to sunnier climes - Cape Town, South Africa, with a homeward swing at the end of April and into the beginning of May through Amsterdam and Germany.
Also in this post, some thoughts on style in photography, a guest piece by Rob on her fabulous collages, and updates on exhibitions, my upcoming portfolios and, of course, our travel plans.
There’ll be no blog in April, as we’ll be on the road, but I will be posting some travel and family photos as we go, on my personal Instagram page @glenfisher_toronto. So do keep an eye out.
Style in Photography
View toward Bailieboro
One piece of advice you will come across often, if you are a photographer hoping to use Instagram, for instance, as a platform for sharing your work and connecting with others, is that you must develop your own, instantly recognisable ‘style’ in order to gain ‘followers’ and accumulate ‘likes.’
Now, I have nothing against style - quite the opposite, in fact. But the popular advice, that assumes that anchoring the creative process to an easily identifiable and replicable style - ooh! there’s an Instagram post by @glenfisherphoto - raises all kinds of questions, at least in my mind. What is this thing called style, anyway? When is style ‘style,’ and when is it just a lazy habit, a cliche? What is style in photography?
The question is prompted, not just in an abstract or theoretical way, but by what I see as a consequence - the endless series of Insta photographs by the same photographers, doing the same stuff, over and over. Yes, I recognise their photographs, but after ten of the same, the photographs bore me.
Examples:
Long-exposure photographs of moving water, the water turned to some kind of milky blur enveloping rocks, or cliffs, or harbour quays or whatever. Ditto for clouds and skies.
Minimalist images (minimalism seems to be a big thing nowadays) where a solitary fence forms a line of dots across a blameless arc of featureless snow, not once, but successively, image after image. I enjoy a well considered minimalist image as much as the next person, as my opening offering I hope makes clear, but as a photographer’s only take on the whole messy complex business of reality - I’m not so sure.
Images in which the same colour palette - often muted, pastel, sky-blue or earthy tones, but sometimes (and these tend to be much worse) over-saturated, with pumped-up colours which I can’t help thinking of as the visual equivalent of Donald Trump’s all-caps bullshit hyperbole - is relentlessly imposed, regardless of subject.
Sentimental, or moody, deeply dark and broody images that, over and over, mistake effect for feeling.
Posed, ‘cinematic’ images cooked up by software and served as a dish of lukewarm film noir.
Is this what photography, Instagram-style, is becoming? Is this how we must grovel, to accrue ‘followers’ and ‘likes’?
It's not style, itself, that is the problem. There are many great stylists - Richard Avedon, Bill Brandt, Edward Weston leap instantly to mind (ok, all long-dead white men, but you get my point) - it’s what’s sold to us as style.
Style, to my mind at least, in the hands of a good photographer, and certainly in the hands of those photographers whose work has lasted, is something that emerges and evolves, creatively and generatively, from their work and their experience - you might think of it as a flashlight, their particular flashlight - exploring boundaries, illuminating new and imaginative corners of the world.
In the hands of lesser artists and photographers, it seems to me, style is the opposite: sterile, repetitive, and formulaic. Rather than emerging from a process of inquiry or observation, it is the product of a template, bought at the supermarket, imposed on a reality whose actual presence remains out of reach.
The world, not so much seen as glossed over.
So, I’ve had my little rant. What do you think about style in photography? Drop me a line, if you’re in the mood for a chat….
Rob Pazdro Collages
In which Rob talks about her work
Why do I collage?
I collage because it is simply so much fun!
I love the process of finding, placing and re-arranging scraps of paper - playing to let the art in me become visible in a way that both pleases and challenges me. Flipping through magazines and old books, I turn a page and an image speaks to me. Instantly, I know I have to use it as a basis for a new collage. Being patient and letting the work come into being on its own is key. Forcing a piece always leads to disaster.
Strongly influenced by the Dadaists, I incorporate chance in my work whenever possible. My best compositions are aided by the Dada spirit when I accidentally bump a not-yet-glued composition creating a finer arrangement than I had ever thought. One of the most exciting discoveries when turning over a scrap is finding what was hiding on the flipside!
Rare | Analog Collage by Rob Pazdro
RARE is the first piece I ever exhibited publicly and it remains one of my favourites. I showed it at the juried show, Joburg Fringe, Johannesburg, South Africa, in 2020. I love it as a bold but simple design- one that strikes a particular chord with women: our love/hate relationship with stylish shoes. They look great while torturing us. The flamingo legs as the heel reference the genuinely creepy side of women’s fashion. Recent Oscar-award-winning filmmaker, Sarah Polley, summed it up best when she said, “I always wear flats.”
Limited edition prints of my work are available. Contact me via this blog.
Three Photographs in Glasgow Exhibitions
Some time ago, I mentioned that a photograph of mine had been selected for a Landscape Exhibition in March by The Glasgow Gallery of Photography. Well, as promised, here is a link to the online gallery, should you be interested - and here is the selected photograph.
Dunes, Namibia
Oh, and while we are at it, I should mention that two other images of mine have been selected by the Glasgow Gallery, the first, for a Winter Exhibition in April, and the second, for an Open Call Exhibition which will show in May. Here are the images - again, I will share the online links when the shows go live.
Travel and Updates
I mentioned in my February blog that Rob and I are off, in April, for a big family reunion and holiday in South Africa, and will stop off for a few days in Amsterdam on our way back, and then for a week or so with our friends Lisa and Klaus in Germany.
Well, we are in count-down mode now, and pretty soon will be climbing on the bus, as we jokingly call it, and taking off for sunnier and warmer climes - none too soon, I must say, after the snow-dumps we’ve been having here in Toronto, and temperatures below zero most of the time. Mind you, the snow can be rather lovely, as we saw recently on a visit to old friends in Bailieboro, in rural Ontario, about two hours’ drive from Toronto.
Yellow Barn, Bailieboro
With our departure drawing nigh, with things to do and people to see, I have been managing, more or less, to keep up with my Instagram posts and Flickr (yes, I do Instagram, much as I hate it sometimes), but I have not found the time to update my website. The photos are accumulating, however - a new series which I am calling ‘Finding Toronto’ and a black-and-white portfolio of images from our favourite game reserve, Madikwe.
Basketball and Barbecue | Finding Toronto
I will post the new portfolios when we are back from our trip in May. And, of course, there will be photographs from our travels to process and share with you - something else to look forward to.
There will not be a blog post in April, but I think you can expect a bumper report-back with plenty of photographs once we are home.
Cheek | Madikwe