Goodbye Kodak

20Jan12

Campo di Fiori: Rome

Many years ago, I ran a photography department in a major Montreal hospital. Twice a year we would get a visit from the local Kodak rep. He would arrogantly march in to my studio and sit himself down and for the next hour or so, extol the wonderful benefits of their latest color print film. I would always have to interrupt him and remind him that departments such as ours never used color print film. Although I had mentioned this to him on many occasions, he never remembered and in spite of my reminder, he would continue with his pitch. Every now and then, he would come in and talk about a new slide or black and white film (which interested us)  but his explanations of why they was superior to the previous films was always far too technical and utterly useless. Finally I would ask him to send us a few samples to try out. His response was always the same.

“Kodak does not supply free samples.”

That was that. We used Ilford black and white products. The rep would visit about every second month. He always has a box of 100 sheets of enlarging paper with him and he would talk about his products briefly, and then go into the darkroom with us to jointly test them out and compare the with the the older version. If there was ever a problem with any of their products, we would call him up and a replacement would be delivered the following day.

That was 30 years ago. I never remembered the name of the Kodak rep but I will never forget the name of the Ilford rep. Business is all about creating and maintaining relationships. Kodak never understood that.

The photograph above was shot on Kodak Tri-X—one of the best products they ever made. The reason I posted it is because it was shot on my last visit to Italy using a film camera. The following year I bought a digital camera and have been using one ever since. The other reason I posted this picture is because I was thinking about Italy and wondering what me next visit (in the fall) would be like.

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Tags: Black & White, Cameras, Italy, photography, Rome

Getting Married

27Dec11

Finding themes or projects for my photographs is not a difficult task. They just show up—just like cats. I had noticed when I travel or just hang around that I stumble on weddings. Everybody seems to get married. Being a guy with a camera hanging from my neck sometimes makes me seem to fit in so I just hang around. It’s not the bride and groom that interests me though—its the crowd, the guests, the kids,—the whole scene.

So here I was in Salzburg, in a garden and there is a wedding going on. I heard a lot of English so I assumed it was a British couple who had travelled all the way here to get married. As it turned out, the happy couple was visually boring, however I noticed these children hanging around a pond. They were absolutely bored with it all. Wherever they lived, they had been uprooted ands schlepped to Austria and they did not seem to be enjoying it one bit. Just like American kids on holiday with their parents, they probably would prefer staying in their hotel room watching TV. Odd; they did not seem to be enjoying each other’s company either. I am sure their parents either busy ignoring them or wanting to strangle them.

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Tags: Depression, Europe, Groups, Kids, THoughts, Wedding

Vitoria, Spain

23Dec11

Vitoria is the state capitol of the Basque region in Spain. We stumbled into this place on a wet, rainy morning and our first impressions were not good. Besides the weather, there was really nothing going on and we were about to leave.

“Lets just go to the end of the street” Sharon suggested.

We sullenly walked down this gloomy road. All that was going on were some Basque separatists hanging banners from a building. It was all very gloomy.

By the time we got to the end of the street, the rain had stopped and the sun was beginning to come out. to our left, was a staircase and we decided to go up and “Voila” there was this beautiful little city. We walked around for a few hours and then we got lucky a second time. We wandered into this charming little restaurant and had a great lunch. Persistence has its rewards.

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Tags: Europe, Food, Landscape, Spain, Street

Texting in Zagreb

21Dec11

Last October, we were in Croatia for a few days. Quite an interesting country. This young couple was in a restaurant having lunch and hardly spoke to each other. They seemed totally fixated on the screen on his smart phone. They were quite affectionate but they just did not speak. I think that is what is common in kids today. They type well but are totally verbally incoherent. On the other hand, its easy to make photographs of them since ether seemed to be in a far-off place. Ahhhh… passion!

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Tags: Bar, Europe, Food, Kids

Hassidic Guy Crossing St. Viateur

19Nov11

I love looking down at things. I guess it is the voyeur in me and when I am above it there is a feeling of being removed from what is really happening. The type of photograph that I like to make is one where the subject does not know he/she is being photographed and they are alone in their own thoughts. Hovering above them helps me achieve this. Of course every now and then some guy looks up and notices me but they never think that they are the subject of the photograph.

On the other hand, I also have a sort of “angelic” feeling when I am hovering above them. Alone…in my own thoughts… Silent.

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Tags: Montreal, People, photography, Street, THoughts

Kid Peeking Behind Tombstone: Central Vermont

17Nov11

I have noticed a few things as I get older. The first is that I think of mortality more often. The second Is that I find it easier to talk to strangers. They are not unconnected. This summer while driving through central Vermont, I noticed an old cemetery in this small village. lately I have been photographing these locations as one of my many ongoing projects so I stopped to see if there was anything happening (moving or otherwise). The tombstones were interesting, but not that interesting so I started heading back to my car. I passed a gravedigger who was working there maintaining the plots. He was with his three children and I said hi. He nodded back and we started to talk a bit and out of the corner off my eye, I noticed one of his kids staring at me from behind this grave marker. Naturally, I asked If he minded me taking a few shots and he nodded—not quite sure what I was up to. I got off 2 quick ones—one focussed on his eyes and the other on the tombstone.

As I said, these events are not unconnected. I guess all photographs (at least the ones I make) are personal and tell my story.

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Tags: Art, Dead, Kids, People, photography, THoughts, Vermont

New York City

08Nov11

I love New York! (as the jingle goes). I visited there twice this year. The second time I hung out below 26th street and wandered, ate, drank and made a few photographs. Since I am off to Florida on Saturday, my style will have to make an adjustment from northern cloudy light to southern Sunbelt bright. It’s really funny though because when i first started out, I only would shoot on cloudy overcast days. I hated the shadows and what they did to my pictures but alas, I grew up, had another got at it and discovered that it was not much different from what I had been doing all along. My attitude changed—that’s all

So chances are, my next posting will have lots of bright contrasty shadows.

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Tags: Dog, New York, Street, Travel

4 White Tee Shirts

27Oct11

New York has one of the most interesting parks that I have seen in a long time. The High Line was a railway line which ran from the docks at 35th street to the meat-packing district at 14th street. It was abandoned in the 30′s and resurrected as a park a few years ago. It makes for a very pleasant walk. A few weeks ago while visiting I looked up and saw these guys in their tee shirts hanging around smoking so I took a few shots. On the surface, it looks like a scene for West Side Story but alas, it is simply some models from a fashion show taking a break. Only in NYC can some models be mistaken for a bunch of juvenile delinquents. Maria… Maria… Maria

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Tags: Art, Groups, New York, park, photography

Wedding Crasher

25Oct11

“I always have themes running through my head.”

That’s what Renato told me in 2006. We were sitting in a bar in Brescia and I asked him where his ideas came from and that is what he answered. I never thought of it that way but it crept in and these days, I usually work with a number of concurrent themes. I don’t know always where they all come from but my most recent one is pretty clear.

When I am on holiday in Europe, we are always visiting churches and most of the time, there is a wedding going on. We just arrived in Porec, Croatia and were wandering around the small town. Sharon mentioned that there was a well-known little church in the village (at least that is what the guidebook said) and so we went off to see it. It was closed because there was a wedding going on so left. Unfortunately this being a small town, the street was crowded with family waiting for the bride and groom to exit so we were  stuck in the crowd. Not bad. I started shooting the family members as they waited for the grand arrival. It was what Weegee used to do in New York when he was photographing murder scenes. All the other photographers were shooting the body and he was shooting the crowd.

I loved the shots and so… voila— a theme was born.

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Tags: Europe, Groups, People, Street

Voulez vous une apertivo?

18Oct11

A few years ago, I had an exhibition in Brescia Italy. The owner of the gallery did not speak English, and my Italian is abysmal but we both spoke French so we could actually converse with each other. He was a very congenial host and for the 5 days that we spent in Brescia, he would suggest things for me to do during the day and suggest we meet up somewhere around 5:00PM. When we would meet, the first thing Renato would say was,

“Voulez vous un apertivo?”

That’s when I discovered the delightful custom of the European “happy hour”.

Sharon and I have just returned from a visit to Italy, Croatia, and Austria where we decided to be compulsive about this happy little ritual. So every evening between 5 and 6, we would sit ourselves down somewhere and order an Aperol for Sharon, and a “vino bianco” for myself. As the trip processed and we wearied of continuous drinking we switched to coffee and tea. each time I would get up and take a picture of the scene in a very methodical way. Actually, I find this type of photography where I establish a theme and then in a very deliberate manner, set up to follow it quite boring and anal. Its not the way I take pictures. I prefer to be more spontaneous but for the purpose of this little series it seemed to work.

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Tags: Drink, Food, Italy, Travel, Video