Working Close to Home

Ostrander Point

The world seems a little smaller these days. We are adjusting to our new reality. Sometimes limits can enhance creativity. Keith Richards once said about open G tuning on his 5-string Telecaster – “5 strings, 3 notes, 2 hands and 1 asshole”. One of the first songs he used this tuning on is the brilliant “Street Fighting Man” from Beggars Banquet. Limits sometimes create a box that forces you to work differently.

I love reducing images to black and white or at least monotone. About 7 years ago, I started using an aging process to “rough up” my images.

Old Shed

Vegetable Stand in the County

This process starts with a colour image. I convert it to black and white and add layers of texture and blur parts of the image. The result is a photo that looks damaged and worn.

Old Trucks

Nude in Nature

Sometimes I will leave a bit of colour.

Red Doors, Yellow Flowers

The resulting images become more of an illustration than photograph.

Tree in the Fog

Engine 1095, Kingston, ON

Steam Engine

With all that is going on in the world, I find I’m escaping into my own world of creativity. The world around us is as big as we make it, even if we are confined.

Projects

I have been putting off a few projects, letting them percolate and fester until the itch to finish them is too great to ignore. Often I put something off because I don't know where it is going yet. I don't know how to finish some projects or even if they can ever be complete. Recently I started playing with old images making them look even older. When I was trying to find a term for this process Lori suggested "Antiqued," the process of aging and weathering something to look old. That fit perfectly.

Old Trucks (antiqued) - Click for larger

Once I started this process I realized I could use it to complete two projects still on my back burner: Nudes in Nature and Abandoned.

Nude with Canoe (antiqued) - Click for larger

The "Antiqued" process made me think of a Dolly Parton quote, "It costs a lot money to look this cheap." I have spent my entire photographic career trying to make perfect images. That is the goal: sharp, well-exposed, clean and beautiful images. So the process of messing them up was a definite change of direction: perfect for a fine art project. But the project will not really be complete until I get the images out there somehow. I could do another gallery show but I don't think I'm up to that right now. It's so much work. Instead, I'm thinking of producing these series as posters. Let me know what you think.

Abandoned Poster - Click for larger

Nude with Canoe (antiqued) - Click for larger