In my last blog post I shared a few photographs from our trip to Greece and mentioned that I was planning to make some kind of photo book along with a magazine-format booklet for ourselves and our partners-in-crime, Lisa and Klaus, the latter with a more personal and ‘fun’ holiday focus.

Well, I can tell you now that the photo book (though not the magazine) is done: large format (13 x 11 inches) and 58 pages, including both colour images and black-and-white photographs. And I can tell you also that it has been a huge amount of work, working through an initial collection of around 1500 images, choosing which ones to edit, working on each of the selected images, one by one, before making a final, difficult choice of 48 colour and B&W photographs to include. And then - not done yet! - working through the layout of the book, choosing which photographs to pair, deciding on the overall sequencing of the images and the story they tell or impression they create.

The pairing and sequencing of the images was, in a way, the most challenging aspect of the project, and the most rewarding. Over the course of several days I tried this layout and that, played with different pairs on facing pages and different series of images on successive pages, thought about how they cohere (or not), what kind of story or mood or perception they create, how they work together aesthetically, tonally, in terms of subject, of light, in terms of colour or monochrome, and, of course, whether the overall sequence might keep a viewer interested enough both to pause sufficiently at each image and to keep turning the page.

Rob’s help here was great - with her artist’s eye (don’t forget to check out her fabulous collages on Instagram) and sense of design, her ideas and advice led to several reorganisations of the material and ultimately, I hope, to a stronger and more engaging book. Though the responsibility, ultimately, for better or worse, is necessarily mine.

The proof copy from Blurb should arrive toward the end of this month. If I am happy with it, I will have more copies made, and it will be available, for PDF download or sale, from the Blurb bookstore.

Here is a little taste.

Fall, Bailieboro

So, you fly back home, from the sunny Greek islands, to find it is Fall in Canada …. a bit of a change in the weather, eh?

Still, a visit to Chris and Paul’s farm, near Bailieboro, two hours from Toronto, made for a welcome photo opportunity, notwithstanding the scudding grey clouds and a nippy, snippy little wind (I took off in our car with the Leica and a tripod while Rob and Chris and Paul and the gang were busy carving Halloween pumpkins).

What I like about this image is the little pops of colour amidst all the monochromatic tones of the trees and the ploughed earth and the sullen sky-scape. Not your usual predictable wall of heavily saturated ‘fall colours.’

I was also quite pleased with the black-and-white images below, taken on the same day, exploring one little corner of the Bailieboro countryside from different perspectives.

Working the field, you might say….

Again, Toronto

On the No. 63 Ossington bus

Urban tales. Snatches of life. On the street. On the subway. On the bus. Pieces of a project I am putting together in my head.

A Word Worth a Thousand Pictures

I learned something the other day. I thought I should share it with you.

Earlier this year I entered a set of ten photographs from my Karoo series into the 2024 Lens Culture Black and White Photography Awards - not because I thought I might be placed in the competition, but in hopes of learning from the experience and constructive feedback.

As with most of these competitions, you pay to enter, but for a few dollars more (remember the movie?) Lens Culture also offers the opportunity to receive individual, professional feedback on your submission. So I paid my money, and this was the response, which I quote verbatim:

Well, my dear Glen, your work is indeed subtle and restrained. You do not force the subject nor try to steal the viewer's attention with dramatic gestures and elaborate compositions. Your approach is performed with poise and subtlety amid the emptiness and silence of the landscape. 
Many photographers chose to photograph black & white for stylistic purposes. The monochrome is by nature more abstract and emotive so it motivates photographers to use it to elevate the drama in their imagery. But this use of the monochrome is rather superficial as it does not exploit the medium in full. If used properly, opting for black & white can convey universality and timelessness, echoing the modernity and the enduring significance that transcends temporal bounds. These eclectic properties of the monochrome format seem to be active in these pictures. The portrayed subjects feel like being cut off from the timestream, inviting the viewer to contemplate the significance of those buildings, and their role in the history of human civilization. 

Well, I loved that part of the feedback, obviously - not because it was flattering, but because it was generous, considered, and seemed affirming of my approach and aesthetic.

And then there was this:

If there is something that does not let me enjoy this timeless perspective and the underlying feeling of the series is the considerable differences in the pictures' aspect ratio. The ten-year timeframe in which the project is developing explains why the frame proportion changes but I have to say that this change from one frame proportion to another disturbs the pace and jeopardizes the feeling produced by the subjects. 

Do not worry about the reflective quality of the approach; it remains untouched. As I look a the images regardless of the issue I find with the aspect ratio I can feel your irresistible draw to observe, admire, and therefore photograph these remarkable spaces, capturing the spirit of memory and history that comes along those structures.  

However, if you want to communicate your vision more effectively, I advise you to align the frame proportion of the photographs by cropping them purposively following a certain plan. In case you cannot avoid the differences in the frame proportion, at least think of how you could provide particular operations in the narrative. For instance, you could present the churches and chapels in a -let's say- 3:4 or 4:5 or even 1:1 aspect ratio, taking into consideration the need for those buildings to have space in both axes, horizontal and vertical. Other buildings, such as houses, stores, etc. could be presented in wider frame proportions. The point I am trying to make here is that any change in the frame proportion is better to connect with the narrative of the subject. If the changes happen for technical reasons (due to camera change or cropping the images to look better) they cause more issues that solve problems, with the most significant one disturbing and slowing down the pace of the narrative. Fix that issue and give your work the impression of a well-thought-out and mindful project.

You can see the problem instantly in the trio of photos to the left; compare this with the more balanced sequences, above, from the Greece photo book.

The funny thing is, I have had a sense of discomfort, for some time now, at the scrappy effect all this different framing, and these different aspect ratios, have had on the presentation of my work, here on my website and on Instagram, but I have suppressed it, in my desire to extract the most from each individual image, in terms of its visual and aesthetic and emotional qualities.

And in so doing, I have made the classic mistake, confusing the trees for the wood. Wilful blindness, you might call it - the not seeing, when you see it plainly.

The most important - and liberating - observation from the reviewer is this (I have paraphrased somewhat, to correct the minor infelicities of language) -

The point I am trying to make here is that any change in the frame proportion [should] connect with the narrative of the subject. If [changes are made] for technical reasons (due to camera change or cropping the images to look better) the [change will cause more problems than it will solve], with the most significant one disturbing and slowing down the pace of the narrative.

A picture may or may not be worth a thousand words; in this case, for me, a word is worth a thousand pictures. Plus a few dollars more.

Not that there are hard and fast rules here - photography, as one of my favourite photographers, Bill Brandt observed, has no rules. Nor, I believe, is this what the reviewer intended. Which means I will, where necessary, continue to crop and slash with the best of them.

But the lesson here - that the eye should trip, or dance, or skip, or stagger, in wonder or laughter or simple pleasure, from one image to another, like a road or a ladder, in a way that is considered, meaningful, perhaps even significant, is one that will stay with me.

Either your photographs hang together, I guess you could say, or they hang alone.

Glasgow Gallery of Photography

This image selected for the Glasgow Gallery of Photography’s Landscape exhibition, which will show in Glasgow from 5 - 29 March.

Happy Holidays Everyone!

Forget the creepy orange fellow - the marmalade mullah of Mar-a-Lago. Or Mar-a-Iago? Life goes on. This too shall pass. Though the world has changed, certainly, and with it the comforting post-Cold War illusion of liberal or left-of-centre ‘normality.’ We are entering upon more dangerous times, and I weep when I consider the world we are leaving our grandchildren.