Thursday 9 August 2007

signing off











After all this site is YYT and while in the past there has been a broad expansion from the original idea – first things that happened on the Avalon, then the Rock, then anything associated with being in Newfoundland – Baltimore is the colony that took remember, then travel in general. Finally the “in general” took over.


I want to be less virtual and more actual.

Although this isn’t GIG, this started when returning to Rio and Niterói , I found terrible postcards. Ignorant of weblogs - in fact ignorant of just about everything, blind carbon copies, cutting and pasting text …- at the end of the day I would head over to the internet café and write the same thing six times to people. A particularly memorable moment was tripping on the power cord and erasing the entry as I was finishing.

The lack of post cards was the final straw added to me trying to get my handwriting under control. Things were no better on the Rock. There were attempts to make snaps without a lab so that I could continue what I try to do below the 49th – even took my mum’s hand me down Toshiba laptop and portable Canon printer that served her well on the world cruises – but the quality was lacking.

Hence YYT.

But I am not there now. Without the constraints of the post card, the entries were mutating to a length that would have made Dickens blush and more time and, while after this stay the finances will take time to recover, I want to reintroduce myself to the USPS and actually make things.

So I am regressing for the next semester at least, more “note taking” so back to the leiquinhas – to break this idea of pretension with larger formats - less digital, and more post cards to restrict the actual verbiage. Only nine people looked in at last check anyway.

I missed talking to Mary at the post office in Pouch Cove and while being a townie I liked the chats when I did post some books and left notes on the backs of envelops.
I found myself taking overly long at the post office in Swift Current and photographing the buildings.

So until I can upload at the Duke with a pint of 1892 – am becoming more nationalistic in my imbibing – this ends.


Well that is the intention.

Monday 6 August 2007

if only

I’d stop the machine, what I wanted to photograph wasn’t going anywhere so I’d take out ‘Bira, take an exposure reading and then make the exposure. This would happen any time that I was around the bay, I’d leave Zequinho in the machine and head out to photograph the cabins, roadside monuments etc with ‘Bira as there was no reason to rush.

I could have made them with Zequinho but it is more art like to make them with a camera that yells consideration.

If only. I started to develop the film to-day – 280 rolls - and found that Ubirajara has a light leak. Not everything is ruined it depends on how long I wandered with it and how long between exposures but the snaps that would have been categorised under
“…(dot dot dot)” for their isolation doesn’t look good. There is a fog over half of the negative I am guessing coming from the place where the dark slide is inserted in the magazine – halfway through the stay I wondered about this but since I had taken and ‘Bira in the winter and saw no problems and frankly I had other worries – general film abuse, exposure, security…- the rolls that went through Zequinho are fine.

I chalk this up to being “homeless” this time. In 2005 in Woody Point and this winter in Sullivan’s Loop when I had a place of my own, this wouldn’t have happened. As soon as I developed the film there, the camera would have been put away. I knew that I missed a place of my own – meaning where I feel like it is my own and for this I thank Martin and Gabrielle – for quiet time but I didn’t think about this.

If only.

I did bring developer in case there was a chance.

If only I didn’t try to act like an artist and stuck to Zequinho which suits what I do 99% of the time. In the images where ‘Bira was used where the edges fell wasn’t all that critical – in the barrens a couple of centimetres of extra empty space isn’t all that important.

In St. John’s I used Zequinho and thus the townie pictures should be fine.

The great irony is that it isn’t – or wouldn’t be a big deal – what I photographed wasn’t going anywhere, while it would be a hassle – bad pun – it could always go back and do them over.

Except now when I am thousands of kilometres away.

Now I worry, the trip down the Burin, the outing up Bonavista Bay, what did I used.

Again without this confession no one would know I made enough with Zequinho to have the time be useful. I do fear, however, that the tenuousness of habitation on the land was made with ‘Bira.

Developed a tenth of what I made, I am bracing myself for what is to come and think/hope that I can rectify the problem next time…

Saturday 4 August 2007

It was a day to finish off. To find a place to work I headed over to the school to cut and put together some books so that I could post something from here – didn’t know that Canada Post Pouch Cove was a cash only enterprise so no Pouch Cove cancellations. Said good-bye and happy retirement once again to Mary. That done one more time to Hava Java. The rains had ended so I could sit outside – the only one. I parked in Pleasant Street and walked down testing fate as Water Street was flooded.

Over to M. Francis Kelly to buy more cover stock – said good bye to Holly - back to the school to finish up and over to the Water Street Post Office.

For some reason, I thought at I would finally go and see Tors Cove – no real reason really. With Zequinho in tow I headed down Route 10 and with a dogged determination that I haven’t had, turned off to the cove.

It was a perfectly ordinary outing, spoke to buddy from Lancashire who said that he draws instead of photographs – this is what he was doing from his S.U.V. We chatted a bit and I went out looking – not for anything in particular.

What I found was some juxtapositions, boats with basketball hoops, abandoned bikes, very rich houses overpowering tolts. Made most of the snaps in the harbour and then again with the digital point and shoot on a beach. Remarked on the sheep – I hear brought down from the Goulds – on the island in the cove.

Some images of graffiti of someone declaring their love of the rock then a drive back through Petty Harbour – stopping in the Goulds at Bidgoods as I heard it was a place that I should see – it was closing.

Remembered that I wanted to photograph a section of Petty Harbour and made a note to do it the next day, as well as say good-bye to Peter.

It didn’t happen. This was the last outing. My last day was taken up hawking my work and having me leave on an optimistic note that the work may actually be seen by more than the dozen at the gallery.

Wednesday 1 August 2007

i'm r. clarke-davis and this is ideas...

Was up early hoping that to get to the Mary March Lounge before the cleaners would arrive. It didn’t matter there was a pick-up in front of it and I had to deal with. People in radio really don’t car but we visual types…


I had to be back by nine as that was when we were to meet Albert who was taking us out in the canoe to four points along Red Indian Lake, but Buchan’s Junction warranted a reconnoitre. Well not really – I have to stop this as I dissed Buchan’s yesterday as it was quite a shock and truthfully looked like a company town that the company gave up on. To-day I felt that I should go back and actually hang out long enough to find out why people are there and what they do. I found a disused ballpark and the river but spent most of the time making digital panoramas.


In fact this day Ziquinho got a rest as I didn’t want to see him hit the drink with my canoeing prowess.

The shock of the day came when the person at the bed and breakfast came back to say that we had a problem – the place doesn’t take master card.

I turn penniless as my last funds go to pay the bill.

Millertown – 150 people - is small enough that I see Bert load the canoe so we head across the street laden with the newest technologies – which seem to be more vulnerable to water, salt or sweet, than the older ones. I take the digital point and shoot, Paul takes a digital Walkman.

The plan is Bert and I play native paddling while Paul sits in the middle being John Peyton Jr. His spin was that he wanted to hold the microphone to Bert while we were on the lake.

Why I like Newfoundland – yet again – go to your atlas of choice, find Red Indian Lake, look at the size roughly 70km in length - and we were the only people on it. All of a sudden I was wondering why the sea is so special. Once in the middle of it – again a reason I love the smiling land again the licence to experience every and anything – scale changed.

My canoeing prowess came was manifest immediately when I didn’t know what the prow was. More doubts as I said that I couldn’t swim. I was the one in the life jacket up front.

We were to visit sites that are based on Mary March/Demasduwsit – where the Marines were killed, where she was captured and where her body was left. Bert was more intent to prove that the Beothuks were in the area by showing us potential sites – the last one quite convincing – of mamateeks and long houses.

Paul was interviewing him for Ideas, I was along to see Central Newfoundland but became more interested in a more recent history of the area – the growth and bust of industry in the area.

When the mike went off I would ask how he felt about the bias of the province toward the ocean, about the resettlement/abandonment of Millertown Junction. He seemed only a bit less eager to talk about this. the railway that went through, the steam engine that is in ruins on the shore – supposedly one of the biggest in the world made to power the mills, that Millertown was once a place of 500 souls and all the houses had picket fences.

Wondered if I could broker more time here – could I press my luck.

I also liked the paddling - I could barely hear the conversation as Paul was facing away from me and Bert was even farther – it became a lake meeting.

I was also made aware of my age not due to any pain but liking this and realising that I cannot put off things that require parts of the body as they are at the time when they tend to deteriorate due to lack of use. I felt a bit better than Bert was a decade older but he did this all the time.

I was also reminded of these people who are doing things that I don’t even dream of. Kennedy canoeing the MacKenzie as a lad, wanting now to do a series on rivers – similar to the oceans series of quite a few years ago where he will drive the ice roads and my big thrill is out on the Red Indian Lake with a life jacket.

The day was perfect warm enough to row, minimal black fly which I prefer over mosquitoes, at the first landing two loons in the distance.

While the canoe was used to get to the sites, I preferred being on the canoe than on land. It could have to do the with novelty of being mere centimetres above the water, it could be the fact that I could actually paddle, or it could be that it opened a new mode of transportation that was slow enough that one can think, on bodies empty enough that one can daydream.

In truth it became worse when there was a goal as it didn’t seem to get any closer after a sizeable amount of rowing.

Didn’t miss Ziquinho.

While Paul was finishing up the interview on land, I headed out along the shore to the wheel of the steam engine and the mill.

Everything was there, in ruins and all over the place but there. while some would be picking up shells and rocks I wanted to pick up the railway rails, spikes, gears etc.


Didn’t make many snaps but they seemed pretty good, I think that they dealt with the remnants of industry here in Newfoundland – the whole colonial aspect even when this is no longer a colony – Abitibi owns the lake and the water in it.

The return walk was in town but only seemed to make the normal – laundry lines, sheds and lawn ornamentation.

We headed out on the lake just before nine, we got off the lake at four. We hadn’t eaten or drunk but also the equipment was intact.

Stopped at the convenience in town for liquids – I went for fruit juice and Gatorade – which we inhaled. A stop to photograph a house with lawn ornaments out of control – which probably won’t be used – and then again in Badger for dinner at Kellies – which I knew from the man boots up in his coffee cup.

Another Chinese/Canadian Food establishment although we didn’t know it until we were already seated. This time a salad, and a fried egg sandwich.

Except for the mauze that once again enveloped the isthmus, the conversation was of things one wants to do what one has done – I was sorely deficient in this category – although by almost hitting it in Terra Nova Park Paul saw his first moose on the Rock - and general outlook on the world – i.e. as close to total engagement as possible.

After this experience, CBC presenter is out. After the work ethic instilled in me by the WGAS, it is way too much work.