I think this will be the beginning of an ongoing & thrifty set of tricks & tips discovered in the field. Take note.
Field note, May 17, 2011: A dirty hiking sock makes an excellent windscreen in a pinch (like when your purpose-built foam windscreen inexplicably disappears mid-shoot). If you don’t have a dirty sock handy, a clean one will suffice. This British Columbia trade secret emerged, I believe, due to our fair coast’s abundance of a) hiking socks, and b) wind.
The purpose-built windscreen has since reappeared.
I touched down on Gabriola Island (well, on the water surrounding it, actually) this morning for a quick two-day assignment, the first instalment of an 18-month project I haven’t mentioned yet. Not to worry – I will be mentioning it in great detail when I get home.
Some great press from the folks at Torontoist.
http://torontoist.com/2011/05/torontoist_photographers_must-see_contact_shows.php
I’m incredibly blessed and tremendously excited to have been awarded one of two Portfolio Review Exhibition Awards by the Scotiabank CONTACT Photography Festival, and doubly so to have been bestowed with such an honour after being nominated by CONTACT staff to attend a day of reviews free of charge. It was an intense day of reviews – a speed-dating circuit of critique by editors, publishers and gallerists, of talking about myself, my motivations and my work non-stop (and note-taking with even more determination) – followed by a little beer-in-hand show-and-tell. The award consists of a solo exhibition in January 2012, hosted by either Toronto Image Works or the CONTACT Gallery, and a substantial gift certificate generously donated by Vistek. In January I will be using the award to exhibit a continuation of ‘Split Like A Crutch‘, my work with British Columbia’s In-SHUCK-ch Nation – more information on that in the coming months.
Many thanks to all of my reviewers and to the CONTACT Festival staff for a tremendous opportunity, and congratulations to fellow award recipient and new friend Jesse Louttit (and thanks to Brett Gundlock for the photo).
A National Post article on the Boreal Collective, published last Tuesday (May 3). Online version available here.
Text taken from the online article, available here.
–
It can be a lonely world out there for photojournalists. Between long stakeouts and solitary assignments, the profession is riddled with moments of isolation. But what happens when a group of photographers aims to break down those moments of professional seclusion?
“I’m just really excited to see the five of us [with] work all hanging together,” says Jonathan Taggart, a member of the Boreal Collective, a group of young, established photographers who will see their work exhibited at this month’s CONTACT Photography Festival in Toronto.
“I think it’s just going to really consolidate the feeling of the collective.”
Boreal members joined forces less than a year ago to share, through images, injustices both in Canada and around the world. The new CONTACT exhibit will present an in-progress series based in Canada from each photographer.
“We’re all kind of at the same level of the art world — say, emerging photographers,” says Brett Gundlock, a member from Toronto and staff photographer for the National Post.
“We decided that the market is so difficult right now … it would be easier for us to all join forces and help each other out instead of competing against each other for the same types of things.”
The other members of the collective are Ian Willms, Aaron Vincent Elkaim and Rafal Gerzsak. Both Willms and Elkaim’s photo series deal with harm done to the environment, while Gerzsak’s series centres on the theme of location, with images of a famous stretch of road in British Columbia where women have been murdered or gone missing.
Gundlock’s photos, meanwhile, focus on recent immigrants in Toronto. “I’m taking the photos I took and pairing them with photos from their homeland. It’s investigating the idea of home and what home is, the undocumented struggles of immigration.”
Taggart’s series developed out of a project he’s been working on for years with First Nations communities out West. “It follows one young First Nations family through the process, over the course of about six months, of getting their children out of temporary foster care,” he says.
Taggart says that being a member of the Boreal Collective has given him a sense of community he didn’t always have in the photography world. “It’s a very individualistic profession. It involves a lot of time out there by yourself,” the Vancouver-based photographer says. “[But] all of these things come together to better serve the five of us. It’s a pooling of resources.”
It’s a sentiment echoed by Gundlock: “As a group, we’re stronger, and we’re able to do bigger things that we wouldn’t be able to do on our own.”
The Boreal Collective’s CONTACT exhibit runs until May 13 at Toronto’s Bau-Xi Gallery. For more information, visit bau-xiphoto.com.
- Jordana Levine / National Post
