It was a last minute idea as I was still editing it and it had yet to be sown the night before, in a fit of hyperactivity I finished it and was ready.
Driving up I was pretty pleased with myself – I still don’t know why this method of delivering work interests me so much – except for the fact that it may the antithesis of the artist mentality. As a so-called artist I am supposed to put my work up and stand back and allow the admiring public to shower me with accolades. It seems to me that the imaging what will happen is more interesting than what actually does so. Ding dong ditch.
After the wine fest, and back in the North-East, seeing the things being offered for the auction, there is was NEW FOUND LAND. While I was planning my book drop there was hers made at the same time of the same period bombing up and down The Great Northern. It was the pic-nic table in the Parks Canada house all over.
Raced out to the machine so that I could show her the coincidence and giving up the extreme ding dong ditch, handed her the book.
Mine was overly precious, large format, black and white, looking like an artist book, hers was more like note taking, colour, made with a camera she took up at the last minute, but more professional it looked professionally published although hand-made and bound by her.
It was funny to recognise the same places at treated differently in the two tomes. Some quite similar Linda’s Place where she was a bit further back than I was. Some while recognisable completely different images.
The talks of officially sanctioning the other’s method of making images – me approaching objects straight on, she preferring the diagonal – we made apparent. Except for Linda’s Place my images were usually further away from the subject than hers were. She was much more willing to experiment – images stitched together. Mine seemed like a series of facts in which the total would make the experience while hers were more going for broke within the particular image. I saw images of hers that I had edited out of mine and she saw the same.
What was elucidating was that both spoke of the underlying humanity of the place and both books seemed optimistic but they came from opposite approaches. I used to think that my snaps had the ambiguity of the sense of people – had they just left or is there an anticipation of their arrival. In comparison with hers though mine were decidedly more about things left. Hers were more first person – her hand in the images – more playful, the seemingly nekkid Hemingway of the Rock on the beach – and there were actual people - George at the Seabreeze. Hers were definitely more surreal in the quotidian. Mine were more ceremonial when dealing with the same. While my thesis was - and is - that while Gros Morne in particular and Newfoundland in general is incredibly beautiful, people live here, comparing the works hers is more "lives" while mine seems to be more past tense. Ironically the titles were just the opposite. Mine was simply JUST BECAUSE.
So here were the results of the month long supper chats and motoring rants. The theoretical made tangible and finally the proof that while having of more or less the same philosophy of life – experiencing it and seeing what happens - and being confronted with the same experiences, still something as mechanical and soulless as photographs still reflect the subtleties of those holding the camera.
colour images are kmack's and copyrighted ©2005-2007
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