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Monday, January 4, 2016

Vancouver

I have family across the border in Vancouver, BC. Recently, the immediate family took a trip up to visit the extended family, and Dad got sent up a day early to relax with his sister for 24 hours, kid-free.

I've been visiting Vancouver for 40 years, and even went to school there for a year in.. well, a very very long time ago indeed. I have a strong impression of the place, which isn't really what it is today, but it's an impression. The attached photos were shot mostly in an afternoon, with a few fill-ins over the next couple of days. The fact that this was done at speed is not an excuse. This portfolio is what it is, no excuses from me.

I'm posting these here because I haven't really got an endpoint in mind for this. There's probably going to be some sort of hardcopy. I might do a blurb thing, I will probably hand build a limited edition thing.

I've imbued this collection with a lot of meaning and ideas. Who knows what you'll get out, though. It's not a test, there's no reason you need to get anything out, or if you do that it be what I put in. This is for your enjoyment and entertainment. Comment however you like, but be advised that this is a completed project. If you think I should crop something or other differently, feel free to let me know, but it won't change that photo. I might learn something, though.

Repetitions and sizing are deliberate. Best viewed, I think, by clicking the first picture and using the pager that pops up. That was my intent with the giant white "mat" backgrounds, to give a book-like experience.

8 comments:

  1. Pretty good! As a native of the gray,wet, dreary Pacific Northwest, you've managed to hit opon a number of the persistent themes and the realities of this region: deciduous trees, ferns, rain, raindrops, and Vancouver's large Asian population and influence, in a region where "diversity" of the population is rare--except in small,localized pockets. For a portfolio shot in late December/early January, the lack of sun is especially accurate; here in this area, we had I believe it was 26 consecutive days with measurable rain at the airport in December, a new record. Even seen so small, these images do make a coherent statement, a coherent idea comes through.

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    1. Oddly enough, in my mind it's always fall/winter in Vancouver. I've been there in summer too, but when it's sunny and pleasant, it feels like another place.

      Thanks!

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  2. I like what you did there with the cadence of the horizontals and verticals. Nice!

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  3. Nice set of images, I especially like 2,5,6,14,16,18,30,35. Did you include the same image twice (24 & 25) on purpose? Thanks for sharing.
    Henk

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    1. Yep. They're intended to go on facing pages, if this makes it to book form.

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  4. Finally we see some photos! Yes I know you did actually post other photos here and there but still it comes a bit as a surprise or rather a gift. If I were to do the same I wouldnt care too much about the opinion of total strangers; I guess it's the same for you and I like what you wrote "say whatever you want but this is it and I'm not gonna change it". I usually do the same -- after sweating to complete something personal I will not debate it too much except maybe in person, with somebody who can motivate his reasons etc. (the total opposite of what I'd do at work).

    So... I like it but probably not too much -- as a set they didn't appear to me as cohesive as I would have expected, like for example mixing black/white and color, that's not what I'd do but it's ok as it is your thing after all.

    What I loved anyway is the explanation, i.e. the second post you wrote with a bit of a background; and that's strange because I usually go for instincts -- I either like something or not and there's no intellectual motivation that will change the fact that a particular photo for me it's just not working (it happens with so much of the so-called fine artsy photos, you know those bland boring flat colors of something banal but since they are 'artsy' then it all changes somehow?). So... usually any kind of explanation would not work for me but maybe this time I liked them, because they carried meaning, without pretense: they actually explained and made sense of the set! So I'll take it back what I wrote earlier, and will have to look again at the set before deciding if I do like them or not. Anyway, that's just my problem!

    Thanks for sharing as they say somewhere else.

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    1. My pleasure, and thank you!

      I felt fairly odd writing the explanatory post, because I think explaining it is silly. But one of my themes is artistic process, and my artistic process in particular. So this is partly a "look, I can so shoot!" and partly a "here is a worked example of my process" piece.

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  5. Ah ha! Now I see why you get so flustered with some of Thein's stuff.

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