tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19470050287281317602024-03-10T05:04:25.626-04:00some old pictures I tookrick mcginnishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04238756880941710637noreply@blogger.comBlogger509125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1947005028728131760.post-10562557839847022502018-10-12T07:30:00.000-04:002019-07-24T10:12:14.190-04:00The End, and Books for Sale<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<b>AFTER NEARLY FOUR AND A HALF YEARS, THIS BLOG HAS COME TO AN END.</b> I could have stretched it out for another year, maybe two, and there might still be some interesting photos that remain undiscovered in my files. But the simple fact is that I'm tired of talking about old work, and want to devote myself completely to new work.<br />
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It was always my ambition to end the blog with something special - a souvenir I could make available to the people who've read my posts and followed me on this journey. Early this year I decided to publish a trio of photozines, and after a summer of editing and laying out, they're available for sale via <a href="http://www.blurb.ca/user/rickmcginnis" target="_blank">Blurb's online bookshop</a>, at the low price of CAN$14.99 per issue.<br />
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<a href="https://www.blurb.ca/user/store/rickmcginnis?utm_source=badge&utm_medium=banner&utm_content=125x125_check" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><img alt="Check out my books" src="https://assets.blurb.com/images/cms/en/badges/badge_125x125_check.png?1560386589" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" title="Check out my books" /></a>
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Going over my work for the last few years, I realized that the majority of my photos appeared in newsprint, a notoriously low quality, unforgiving, and impermanent product. I had always aspired to be a magazine photographer, so I felt obliged to present my work in the format I had always dreamed it would appear - high quality, semigloss magazine stock. Each book is 32 pages long, with a short introductory essay by yours truly, and devoted to one of three themes: Portraits of musicians, portraits of celebrities and movie stars, and a collection of landscapes, travel, street photography and still life work shot in my favorite aspect ratio - the square.<br />
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I'm not finished with blogging, however - I've <a href="http://rickmcginnisphotographs.wordpress.com/" target="_blank">launched a new blog</a> devoted to new work, and I hope that anyone who's enjoyed what I've done with <i>Some Old Pictures I Took</i> will join me there. Thank you for your interest in this project. It has been exhausting and dispiriting and surprising and sometimes even revelatory for me; hopefully I've been able to convey some of that to you.<br />
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rick mcginnishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04238756880941710637noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1947005028728131760.post-70427790830927848862018-10-11T07:30:00.000-04:002018-10-12T11:08:42.067-04:00Success<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSXVivj-jfPsyyx_2CaW9XVomZgWqWFcw_v4V4Jxd9Um5BNj7_KPQniHNkVcn3uyA6g5VVmqc1JpI4LFtslEEQY3BwMPvTnTN2MPjnNanMSasbLFGwykUuRmAy3BhH0dY-4CnGxl83W5U0/s1600/rick2_edit_BW.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="667" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSXVivj-jfPsyyx_2CaW9XVomZgWqWFcw_v4V4Jxd9Um5BNj7_KPQniHNkVcn3uyA6g5VVmqc1JpI4LFtslEEQY3BwMPvTnTN2MPjnNanMSasbLFGwykUuRmAy3BhH0dY-4CnGxl83W5U0/s1600/rick2_edit_BW.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Rick and camera, August 2018. Photo by <a href="https://www.rodorchardphotography.com/" target="_blank">Rod Orchard</a>.</td></tr>
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<b>I DON'T WANT TO END THIS BLOG TALKING ABOUT FAILURE</b> so this post is about the very positive - and unexpected - changes that have happened in the last four years. I'm not an optimist by nature; I didn't expect much to come out of this project when I opened my first box of contact sheets, or that the end of the blog, when it arrived, would come with such a mixture of relief and gratitude.<br />
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The first people I need to thank are my family, and especially my wife, Kathleen. It was her idea that I should start digging up my old work and posting it online, but I don't think even she thought it would have such an effect on our lives. She has supported and encouraged me all along the way, especially when I might have just dropped this thread and let my old work continue to languish.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiezNgXsyrb-bCxNn6Uc_Nd1ituKTfhkyxmWdf4A2uzB8erplcMGEbjqIcTv9KUVOKPaIyD9_HYVOJtHHpW0abWpCOE9yOMaqhERmGvUAjV8qOKqj7Os1fK1cwWAQ6FsGAF7b9j6eobNCGr/s1600/Kathleen.glamour.1998.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="817" data-original-width="800" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiezNgXsyrb-bCxNn6Uc_Nd1ituKTfhkyxmWdf4A2uzB8erplcMGEbjqIcTv9KUVOKPaIyD9_HYVOJtHHpW0abWpCOE9yOMaqhERmGvUAjV8qOKqj7Os1fK1cwWAQ6FsGAF7b9j6eobNCGr/s640/Kathleen.glamour.1998.jpg" width="626" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Kathleen McGinnis (née Hickey), 1998.</td></tr>
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I'd also like to thank my friends for their interest and encouragement. I have a truly varied and idiosyncratic circle of friends, a few of which I still have yet to meet outside the virtual world. Some, however, go back to college, or high school, or even to Mount Dennis, where we all grew up near the old Kodak plant. There are too many to name, of course, but I hope you know who you are if you're reading this; I've felt alone and isolated at many different times in my life, but this hasn't been one of them, and for that I'm grateful to you.<br />
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If I have to single out anyone whose support has been germane to the evolution of this project, it's my dear friends Kathy and Arnie, who generously - and very unexpectedly - gifted me the Fuji X30 camera I was planning to crowdfund over three years ago. I was becoming interested in shooting again and was looking for a small, light and high quality camera that approximated what my beloved Rolleiflex used to do, and with the X30 they gave me I found my way back to not just portrait work, but the landscapes and street photography I'd had in my mind's eye for years.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Taking pictures, July 2018. Photo by <a href="https://dropr.com/jonathancastellino/120429/thedarkroom/+?p=1882589" target="_blank">Jonathan Castellino</a>.</td></tr>
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I didn't imagine I was a photographer any more when I started this blog. Four and a half years later I'm able to call myself one again, partly thanks to a network of fellow photographers - the circle of peers I never really felt I had, even when I was shooting for a living, twenty years ago. There are old photographer friends like Paul Till and Rod Orchard, and new ones like Sean McCormick, Steve Stober, Vince Lupo, Gunar Roze, Franco Deleo, Mark Peavy and Stuart Forster. Jonathan Castellino has brought a sense of fellowship to the work, while my very old and dear friend Chris Buck - so often the subject of posts on this blog - has provided criticism and encouragement whenever it's been needed.<br />
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And then there are the people who commissioned so much of the work that's appeared on this blog. That list starts with Nancy Lanthier and Dave MacIntosh at <i>Nerve </i>magazine, who published my first, dark, dubiously focused photos. Irene Grainger, Edna Suarez, Jesse Marinoff Reyes, Peter Dako, Brad McIvor, Tim Powis, Elizabeth Grubaugh, Marianne Butler, Bob Newman, Tom McGovern, Steve Waxman, Barry Harvey, Jane Bunnett & Larry Cramer, Carol Moskot, Richard Bingham, Jodi Isenberg, Tina Costanza, Tim Shore, Derek Flack, W. Andrew Powell, Rikki Stein, Jennifer Bain, Joel Wasson, Ian Blurton, Don Pyle - some of these people are friends, some I haven't heard from since I sent them my last invoice, but they helped create the images here by giving me an assignment, and I'm grateful.<br />
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I am, of course, always looking for new names to add to that list, and I'm re-launching myself out into the business with a curious mixture of enthusiasm and trepidation. The specialty with which I made my reputation - editorial photography - seems to have declined almost to insignificance, but I remain cautiously optimistic.<br />
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This is, after all, the only thing I've ever been really good at, and it's rather pitiful to admit that it took me this long to discover the joy of shooting for the simple pleasure of creating images - something I try to do nearly every day now. It's shameful that it took me so long to realize that, in the end, the work is really its own reward, and I'm looking forward to doing as much work as I can with the time left to me.<br />
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But this isn't the end - there's one more post to come.<br />
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rick mcginnishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04238756880941710637noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1947005028728131760.post-10566271730249167272018-10-09T07:30:00.000-04:002018-10-09T08:59:11.537-04:00Failure<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfJG_agRBaN9LJA8jvzj-MFKdNsHgI6Ts_MuKlOCdcQkzJ0TvPOB7PBgXk3b7F02jnLXZFWuZSXv_JJkQCzvo7kwgIC3GuTkKleJn3FYGVjt-u9Q3gD-TP2uTFDj9tdSnXNxer6LdijIiw/s1600/Rick.self.portrait.1998.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1013" data-original-width="1000" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfJG_agRBaN9LJA8jvzj-MFKdNsHgI6Ts_MuKlOCdcQkzJ0TvPOB7PBgXk3b7F02jnLXZFWuZSXv_JJkQCzvo7kwgIC3GuTkKleJn3FYGVjt-u9Q3gD-TP2uTFDj9tdSnXNxer6LdijIiw/s640/Rick.self.portrait.1998.jpg" width="630" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Self-portrait for passport photo, 1998</td></tr>
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<b>I STARTED THIS BLOG OVER FOUR YEARS AGO.</b> Whatever I thought about the idea at the time - a make-work project to force me to go through my old pictures and post what looked interesting - it has turned out far better than I imagined it would. Which is to say that, as I began going through those first boxes of prints and contact sheets, I wasn't expecting much.<br />
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The good news was that I rediscovered photos that I'd either forgotten completely about - alarmingly, if you're the person who's relying on that memory - and gave a second, sometimes profitable life to images that would have been unseen, entombed forever in binders full of negatives or on hard drives. But I wasn't expecting that to happen when I made my first posts here.<br />
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What I was most afraid of was digging up photos that would remind me of the low points, in both my career and my life. And I knew there were a few of them. Ultimately they'd lead to writing a post that summed up thirty years of life and work, which would oblige me to be honest about my successes and failures, and especially the bad decisions I might have made. This is that post, at long last, and it hasn't been easy to write.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiu7_E67maOGQAbMJHJ1PkspJYTK7S1bUjwGq9X3wMnmoaYaUeFXEZAaYFMIWLFAkSHL7k5CqDIkjHy2ifgPPpe3tqzBU3IpRLMnMYeN5KwOr7Ne7cjlJhCvsn8g3CCrRER5PWnVu67lQ6I/s1600/L1180004.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="667" data-original-width="1000" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiu7_E67maOGQAbMJHJ1PkspJYTK7S1bUjwGq9X3wMnmoaYaUeFXEZAaYFMIWLFAkSHL7k5CqDIkjHy2ifgPPpe3tqzBU3IpRLMnMYeN5KwOr7Ne7cjlJhCvsn8g3CCrRER5PWnVu67lQ6I/s640/L1180004.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgMIK3lU-cKy7DMHiPk9gyyaY63I6L6PUBZDBSzCi7R6rQOopGvRyCBM0yPhFkzb7nMn2Y8rNTe_OhAulLW5QN_lZiV-VH8NAUgmzoSxwPmyLMDrtCeJJWbqG5J871MMPlFO7WzRLuVi2S/s1600/L1180087.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="667" data-original-width="1000" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgMIK3lU-cKy7DMHiPk9gyyaY63I6L6PUBZDBSzCi7R6rQOopGvRyCBM0yPhFkzb7nMn2Y8rNTe_OhAulLW5QN_lZiV-VH8NAUgmzoSxwPmyLMDrtCeJJWbqG5J871MMPlFO7WzRLuVi2S/s640/L1180087.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">At the analog wall, going through contact sheets, July 2018. Photos by <a href="http://dropr.com/jonathancastellino/120429/thedarkroom/+?p=1882589" target="_blank">Jonathan Castellino</a>.</td></tr>
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<br />
I had no idea I'd become a photographer when I bought that <a href="http://someoldpicturesitook.blogspot.com/2014/08/pentax.html" target="_blank">first camera</a> from a pawn shop on Church Street, and I'm still fuzzy about the precise point where I thought that I might make a career out of taking pictures. I didn't go to school for photography and I never had a clue about how you made a living from photos, but I blundered ahead regardless, fueled mostly by the energy of ascending a thrilling learning curve and making better photos all the time.<br />
<br />
I probably wouldn't have persevered as long as I did except for two financial factors - the incredibly low overhead I maintained by living cheaply (no car, no vacations) and the low, low rent I was paying on my <a href="http://someoldpicturesitook.blogspot.com/2016/05/studio.html" target="_blank">Parkdale studio space</a> through the whole of the '90s. There have been at least two times in my career when I wondered whether I could call myself a photographer any more. This blog forced me to confront both of those moments, and helped dredge up a lot of painful memories besides.<br />
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Many years ago, my (now-)wife and I appeared as an item in a gossip column in <i>Quill & Quire</i>, a magazine about the book trade in Canada. We had been seeing each other for a while; she had been an editor there once, which is what occasioned the item, while I was described as a "very successful photographer." Even more than appearing in a gossip column in a literary magazine, I was shocked to see myself described as "successful."<br />
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Never mind that my career was entering the first of those two major crisis points at the time; the fact is that I had never seen myself as "successful" as much as "struggling." I had an idea what a successful photographer looked like (though I didn't personally know any at the time) and I knew it wasn't me. Looking back, maybe having a little bit of notoriety, an established byline and no other visible means of support was what made you a "successful" photographer in Canada. If so, it set the bar pretty low. <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZ0gSN6Dx8YzajpUuIthnlHZq1oQFlCYezGGV-3KtuYJi9jQswPwGdSjmeaRKeI6icIkXLbSEnjQB6W5L_FOlqYXc47eTd75ftUR4jSUz8FoX6pBP-vJIwe7IPiw3ElJgTVhxSSfTHiy8i/s1600/L1180129.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="667" data-original-width="1000" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZ0gSN6Dx8YzajpUuIthnlHZq1oQFlCYezGGV-3KtuYJi9jQswPwGdSjmeaRKeI6icIkXLbSEnjQB6W5L_FOlqYXc47eTd75ftUR4jSUz8FoX6pBP-vJIwe7IPiw3ElJgTVhxSSfTHiy8i/s640/L1180129.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Scanning and retouching, July 2018. Photos by <a href="http://dropr.com/jonathancastellino/120429/thedarkroom/+?p=1882589" target="_blank">Jonathan Castellino</a>.</td></tr>
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For the longest time, staying in Canada was what I considered my first big mistake. I had always intended to move to New York and try to make it there - a move that was probably inspired by my brother, who went to New York in the '60s to work for Albert Grossman, manager of Bob Dylan, The Band and Janis Joplin and many others. It was the place to be a really successful photographer - a really successful <i>anything </i>- in ways that Toronto obviously wasn't.<br />
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But I didn't go to New York, for a lot of reasons. The first was that I never felt like I had enough of a financial cushion to take the risk, which might have just been an excuse. The other was that, just at the point when I should have made my move, I was in no sound emotional shape for it. A really bad break-up at the turn of the '90s put me in a tailspin for years, and looking back now, I was battling depression on and off for most of the decade.<br />
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Leaving Toronto would have meant a huge financial risk, to be sure, but it also would have deprived me of most of the network of friends and family I had here - not a great place if you're slipping in and out of black moods. The advantages of staying in Toronto - low rent, friends and family, work I could (mostly) rely on - outweighed the risks of potentially making a career in a place where being "successful" paid more considerable dividends, both in money and reputation.<br />
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Basically I was afraid, and my lack of the classic middle-class safety net - living parents, a home to go back to - made that fear more acute. Fear and depression - not emotions you associate with "success," but maybe I'm wrong about that.<br />
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After a while I stopped making regular trips to New York to look for work there. I'd still get the occasional job from friends like Edna Suarez at the <i>Times</i>, but as it became obvious that I probably wasn't going to make the big move, the beginnings of a network of friendly venues over the border fell away. And when I left both my studio and <i>NOW </i>magazine near the end of the '90s my freelance network here had shrunk as well. So by the time I was described as "very successful" I was struggling to make my rent.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipf_LCjBZQDG5TvfJOEtcLjVoETxuQLBGsoCZ0kw06qfd13QzBtRz6fwairUdGjp-wpnSZi2MR_00mh6g_H4dOqtRJBaXTYHU_bPHeZSL6-_y7mNFbx4N2bIJfzcpqaRumaJ6FcpmYk2CI/s1600/Rick.06.1990_01.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1007" data-original-width="1000" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipf_LCjBZQDG5TvfJOEtcLjVoETxuQLBGsoCZ0kw06qfd13QzBtRz6fwairUdGjp-wpnSZi2MR_00mh6g_H4dOqtRJBaXTYHU_bPHeZSL6-_y7mNFbx4N2bIJfzcpqaRumaJ6FcpmYk2CI/s640/Rick.06.1990_01.jpg" width="634" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Goofing around in Michael Vendruscolo's studio, 1990. Photographer unknown.</td></tr>
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I've been reading a lot of biographies of photographers, mostly to get some perspective on my own career in the business. In a recent book about the late Anglo-Irish photographer <a href="https://www.thelittleblackgallery.com/bob-carlos-clarke/" target="_blank">Bob Carlos Clarke</a>, his friend and fellow photographer <a href="https://www.crenawatson.photography/" target="_blank">Crena Watson</a> (born 1957) talks about the photo business as it was by the time Clarke died in 2006:<br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><i>"It changed so much even from when I started. You used to be respected and paid properly and appreciated for your skill and knowledge. And that just suddenly went. He (Clarke) was like a god, and that was just taken away. The big budgets didn't happen any more, there were all these younger art directors who didn't know who anyone was, or what was good and what was bad. It changed so quickly - it was shocking. Nothing to do with digital, actually. When people say, 'It was digital,' that's rubbish. That's just a tool."</i></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><i><br /></i></span></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><i>"It was in the early 1990s that things changed. They had the recession and stopped paying proper prices, and then they found that young people would do it. They could use someone who's not so good and then retouch after, so I suppose digital played a small part...Those changes frightened him enormously, and he could see that it would never change back. It frightened me too. I was on the cusp of the good times, but he had had the good times all his career, and then suddenly things drop, and no one knew who he was or wanted him much. Quite apart from the worry about money, you'd feel that everything you had worked for your whole life - all your skills and talent - is now nothing. And a lot of photographers commit suicide. It's quite common."</i></span></span></blockquote>
I used to think that, like Watson, I was there for the last of the "good times" in the business, but when I read this it occurred to me that, from her perspective, I was probably one of the "young people" who would "do it" for less money. What I do know is that my own specialty - editorial portraiture - was a notable part of the business when I started shooting in the '80s, that it was in steep decline by the end of the 1990s, and that when I reemerged as a freelancer in the late 2000s, it had effectively ceased to exist.<br />
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When I started this blog, I was resigned that I would end up telling a story about failure. The failure to get the work I really wanted, to create a career and a reputation, to make a living in the business. When I turned around and looked at my binders full of negatives - the "<a href="http://someoldpicturesitook.blogspot.com/2014/07/the-analog-wall.html" target="_blank">analog wall</a>" I talked about in the first post on this blog - it reminded me of this feeling of failure, and promised a long, slow opportunity to revisit and confront my own failure, which is something everyone wants to do, right?<br />
<br />
I could talk about bad luck, or the constantly declining state of publishing in Canada, or "digital" and the changes in how we consume media. That might do a lot to explain the context of my career in photography, but if I blamed them for my failure I'd just be making excuses. The simple fact is that I made decisions, and they led me to this point in my life.<br />
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The hardest part was separating all of this from the work. I'm the least objective critic of that work, but the pleasant surprise at the end of four and a half years of exhuming my old work is realizing that it stands up on its own, and might actually be on the way to being a <i>body of work</i>. I began this blog expecting to write a eulogy, and I'm finishing it with a sense of purpose I couldn't have imagined four and a half years ago.<br />
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And that renewed sense of purpose - I'm unwilling to call it a career by this point as much as a kind of vocation - will be the subject my penultimate post.<br />
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rick mcginnishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04238756880941710637noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1947005028728131760.post-39826221214268001802018-09-27T07:30:00.000-04:002018-09-27T18:11:43.516-04:00Hawaii<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilgV4ZA-XNceI1uO7W0Lh-5jp9ycaPvOk34F688TMQZkTjQMXFXNu4DQX-8rTjQJpc7vuN-OwV3VlGYr_u_3jBkmgabI3A4LmPlRgxlE0YeELukukvNMkjreJcuMlKFoHsvzFsygjf-D4A/s1600/Hawaii.2012_path.to.sea_websized.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="675" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilgV4ZA-XNceI1uO7W0Lh-5jp9ycaPvOk34F688TMQZkTjQMXFXNu4DQX-8rTjQJpc7vuN-OwV3VlGYr_u_3jBkmgabI3A4LmPlRgxlE0YeELukukvNMkjreJcuMlKFoHsvzFsygjf-D4A/s1600/Hawaii.2012_path.to.sea_websized.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Maui, looking west to Lanai Island, May 2012.</td></tr>
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<b>SO MY OLD HIGH SCHOOL BUDDY MIKE CALLS ME UP OUT OF THE BLUE </b>and asks if I'd like to go to Maui. Actually, I misheard him and thought he said "Mali" at first; that country was in the middle of a civil war at the time, and I thought this was awfully adventurous of Mike, but I was prepared to say yes anyway. It had been a long winter and I was desperate to go <i>somewhere </i>and do <i>anything</i>.<br />
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When Mike made it clear that he was talking about Hawaii, I was somewhat relieved and asked him for details. He'd won the trip as a prize at work for leading his team to some kind of record sales but his wife, a Montessori teacher, wasn't able to take off the time. I thanked him profusely for thinking of me and got the dates from him. I was going to Hawaii. Well, at least that means that Hawaii actually exists, I thought to myself.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiubYJBWG1E7NWVCZFxVztvmawKxIF0fcHhagfRuEwgECMjRPKsVv-hAVGMn1s-XYHeOhOjY-63NcWU00QIGQ2Gir1iQiJ2j0kpuU3sDKeDawrzoEIAXUF4On8jamXVhz-AXdLoUaaxfiEw/s1600/Hawaii.2012_flower.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="750" data-original-width="1000" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiubYJBWG1E7NWVCZFxVztvmawKxIF0fcHhagfRuEwgECMjRPKsVv-hAVGMn1s-XYHeOhOjY-63NcWU00QIGQ2Gir1iQiJ2j0kpuU3sDKeDawrzoEIAXUF4On8jamXVhz-AXdLoUaaxfiEw/s640/Hawaii.2012_flower.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Maui, May 2012.</td></tr>
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For years I'd joked that I didn't think Hawaii was a real place. How could anywhere that sounded so much like paradise - perfect climate, middle of the Pacific Ocean - actually be real? Even when I met people from there, I kept the joke up and chastised them for leading people on about this implausible place. And now I was going.<br />
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Actually, I'm still not sure Hawaii exists, even after going there. The weather was, in fact, absolutely perfect, especially on the leeward sides of the island, which are drier than the wet, humid windward sides. In any case, a Canadian like myself gets confused by a place with growing seasons all year round, and where every plant - literally everything from lush shrubbery to the meanest little weed - produces some sort of outlandish, vivid blossom.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Flamingo, Hyatt Regency Resort, Maui, May 2012.</td></tr>
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Mike's company put everyone up at the Hyatt Regency, one of a string of resorts on the leeward side of Maui. The Hyatt distinguishes itself by being home to an aviary; a collection of birds, including swans, penguins and flamingos, that live in the open air lobby areas and wander among the guests. Useful fact: Up close, flamingos don't look any more real than the pink plastic ones your tacky neighbour sticks all over their lawn.<br />
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The Hyatt is an excellent hotel, and I felt a little guilty when Mike set off every morning for some meeting or presentation or team-building exercise while I had the whole day to myself. I'd find a cabana or a lounger by the beach and settle in with a book. Or I'd take my camera - my Olympus E-620 with a single 25mm pancake lens on it - and go for a wander.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlJCD4GK1ADAQxJIrjMUCligBTw5XFs_eR_KIWlJUqqNfFHE7muEXTobOFpOtH093t_vV_3ENadUFoP2TKfgQjv5-UO9TBqyp6YnSMff_8lQBNA5NHXPhPILu-bhHjSB38Jn2vSgoYHWhp/s1600/Hawaii.2012_graveyard.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="750" data-original-width="1000" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlJCD4GK1ADAQxJIrjMUCligBTw5XFs_eR_KIWlJUqqNfFHE7muEXTobOFpOtH093t_vV_3ENadUFoP2TKfgQjv5-UO9TBqyp6YnSMff_8lQBNA5NHXPhPILu-bhHjSB38Jn2vSgoYHWhp/s640/Hawaii.2012_graveyard.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Hanakaoo Cemetery, Maui, May 2012.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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A short stroll up the beach from the hotel led me to an old cemetery just a few yards inland, where the headstones matched the colour of the iron-rich volcanic soil. It seemed to be full of Japanese and Filipino labourers who'd died before the Pearl Harbor attack, and while more than a little bleak, seemed well-tended for a rough little patch of graveyard just a few yards inland from the ocean.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCe8lFem10wQWlThbE5XVPJyBfYUjN30e9KxK-L9H6Lf39HuLrWIaCJwxuqU1E1BeEEsWTvJyz0-Tch2yED05ppErUQqks64QgPkKl-IEbhACKgX-rdHRgIjEe19jpqFdOf3mqnvin0D6i/s1600/Hawaii.2012_grass.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="750" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCe8lFem10wQWlThbE5XVPJyBfYUjN30e9KxK-L9H6Lf39HuLrWIaCJwxuqU1E1BeEEsWTvJyz0-Tch2yED05ppErUQqks64QgPkKl-IEbhACKgX-rdHRgIjEe19jpqFdOf3mqnvin0D6i/s640/Hawaii.2012_grass.jpg" width="480" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimyuGtdcpzgTOcur_yWyogSu_QPRBxY4A6KtZ_ZJfxyr-Drk1ytZAcLDliMfoCFeIqwcc3_TpoEr3PYYw695fFas6ZtD-R3LNzjCg02mAkMZCofGzjqyuJc1vX777xQ7ja3pK_UXpdWavv/s1600/Hawaii.2012_hillside.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="750" data-original-width="1000" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimyuGtdcpzgTOcur_yWyogSu_QPRBxY4A6KtZ_ZJfxyr-Drk1ytZAcLDliMfoCFeIqwcc3_TpoEr3PYYw695fFas6ZtD-R3LNzjCg02mAkMZCofGzjqyuJc1vX777xQ7ja3pK_UXpdWavv/s640/Hawaii.2012_hillside.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi975OM6xCt3OrBkvPd4JJ_vqV9Kl5X0ruRxl3EIDbLaJTOiHFjg31MYiEp71sir2Uzk7gBY2Y3pySpr-nniIMgS3DcDqxZjPwR8b3iGGnAuTCIyBUNtOw3jXIZKXY3tqHkRYyXNUmiXUaz/s1600/Hawaii.2012_hillside.BW.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="750" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi975OM6xCt3OrBkvPd4JJ_vqV9Kl5X0ruRxl3EIDbLaJTOiHFjg31MYiEp71sir2Uzk7gBY2Y3pySpr-nniIMgS3DcDqxZjPwR8b3iGGnAuTCIyBUNtOw3jXIZKXY3tqHkRYyXNUmiXUaz/s640/Hawaii.2012_hillside.BW.jpg" width="480" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Maui, May 2012.</td></tr>
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Mike signed us up for a hike and zipline adventure up in the hills above the resorts, where the exposed red soil would alternate with lush grass and trees covered in ochre and saffron coloured blooms. Our guides were typical of the sorts of off-islanders who ended up working there - surfer types who treated their job as a lark and probably smoked a fair amount of whatever they call Maui Wowie these days.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTCM5TaJ-Z8epN70wnm7_TS_dSWHK2oAcqQ00dwVTubH1FBSABxj_TD9ufKmGhpeQaDbcCYPVo4N9uZpMiFY9YbDrA4JfePlkXTg8wF2HxZPyUF_NhiGoRXq46hYswE2AtjT3Xzq-Yx8c3/s1600/Hawaii.2012_silversword.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="750" data-original-width="1000" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTCM5TaJ-Z8epN70wnm7_TS_dSWHK2oAcqQ00dwVTubH1FBSABxj_TD9ufKmGhpeQaDbcCYPVo4N9uZpMiFY9YbDrA4JfePlkXTg8wF2HxZPyUF_NhiGoRXq46hYswE2AtjT3Xzq-Yx8c3/s640/Hawaii.2012_silversword.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Silversword, Haleakala, Maui, May 2012.</td></tr>
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With the end of the trip in sight and the daily corporate activities over, Mike and I rented a jeep and decided to drive up to the peak of Haleakala, the (apparently) dormant volcano that formed the island 750,000 years ago. The roads all over Maui were full of late model Mustangs - convertibles mostly, and the V-6 powered jobs that end up in rental fleets. We didn't get one of those, which was a good thing, because the road to the top of the volcano was quite steep in spots and the temperature dropped steeply as you headed up and through the clouds.<br />
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Up at the top we found a wholly alien landscape, with little vegetation except for plants like the silversword, which only grows near Haleakala's peak. The red soil and rocks made it all look decidedly Martian. We wandered around for as long as we could, which was a bit of a test for Mike who made the mistake of wearing shorts and sandals that day.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgsTFATVFb-DD58ehgKoHoSi8WKcsjP3mY1m9eXpwav4f4jxJhcsSKTy8mgnj0HU04OUj0iGwsxAkjHUJRiVMvR1Da1eOwqAYchsAihojr3DPRJTOpVQXQZLqwRxsMuVlz3O3YUNeH4vuT/s1600/Hawaii.2012_volcano.path.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="750" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgsTFATVFb-DD58ehgKoHoSi8WKcsjP3mY1m9eXpwav4f4jxJhcsSKTy8mgnj0HU04OUj0iGwsxAkjHUJRiVMvR1Da1eOwqAYchsAihojr3DPRJTOpVQXQZLqwRxsMuVlz3O3YUNeH4vuT/s640/Hawaii.2012_volcano.path.jpg" width="480" /></a></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjyfA93YwY1LOxG5JLJ0mQZGn0x7Z0eEMcSNb5EL2v4lGO5Pb4TbU2h6B2yvXKS2n5wpgdpu5_VQgDLnRVmv2ZITP_wz6BtS5JhsFjx6ny18Pzr_mem3mqnk5hhib643UzL_yKiJi1Yxpq/s1600/Hawaii.2012_volcano.crater.BW.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="750" data-original-width="1000" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjyfA93YwY1LOxG5JLJ0mQZGn0x7Z0eEMcSNb5EL2v4lGO5Pb4TbU2h6B2yvXKS2n5wpgdpu5_VQgDLnRVmv2ZITP_wz6BtS5JhsFjx6ny18Pzr_mem3mqnk5hhib643UzL_yKiJi1Yxpq/s640/Hawaii.2012_volcano.crater.BW.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Haleakala volcano crater, Maui, May 2012.</td></tr>
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It was an altogether pleasant break from what was becoming a sobering and apparently jobless life for me back home. In a couple of years my wife would give me the idea that became this blog. But the unlikely prospect of having a newsroom job again had finally struck home, and I was being forced to look at new options for whatever I jokingly called my "career" at that point.<br />
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I did come back from Maui with a vague intimation that I liked taking photos in strange new places. That this was something other people called "travel photography" hadn't quite occurred to me yet, but an idea had been planted. Now I just had to wait for somebody who wasn't a generous old friend to hand me another plane ticket and send me somewhere. For that, I'd have to wait a little bit longer.<br />
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rick mcginnishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04238756880941710637noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1947005028728131760.post-67977493782076841122018-09-19T07:30:00.000-04:002018-09-19T07:30:02.073-04:00blogTO<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQl6pcizNYLGFpm7jHGzZej_J5lD1PVItRUucInup78EqKsRr6ScRihw8KOFqzSseQm40nCJBjNPoCz-DynRNuU74mKw_eobeNh-XDyiPnDKncxorJKIA2tJOQNu1Q4MpwfJYr45OyV9lK/s1600/Chris.Hadfield.2009_01_websized.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="675" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQl6pcizNYLGFpm7jHGzZej_J5lD1PVItRUucInup78EqKsRr6ScRihw8KOFqzSseQm40nCJBjNPoCz-DynRNuU74mKw_eobeNh-XDyiPnDKncxorJKIA2tJOQNu1Q4MpwfJYr45OyV9lK/s1600/Chris.Hadfield.2009_01_websized.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Chris Hadfield, Pearson International Airport, Toronto, August 2009</td></tr>
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<b>THE YEAR I WAS LAID OFF WAS A BAD ONE FOR NEWSPAPERS.</b> The <i>Rocky Mountain News</i>, which had published since 1859, closed for good, while the <i>Seattle Post-Intelligencer</i>. in business since 1863, ceased print publication and went online only. They were just the big names. According to <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/the-death-of-the-american-newspaper-2009-7#the-journal-register-company-4" target="_blank">this story</a>, 105 newspapers closed that year in the U.S. and 10,000 jobs in the industry were lost. <br />
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It was a bad time to be looking for a newsroom gig and while freelance opportunities were still available, word rates and assignment fees had either stagnated or declined severely. After the shock of the lay-off subsided, I realized I had to do something - anything - to keep myself writing and shooting, so I contacted the editors of <i>blogTO</i>, a city news and entertainment website that had been started five years earlier.<br />
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It was a practitioner of what was being called "<a href="https://www.thoughtco.com/what-is-hyperlocal-journalism-2073658" target="_blank">hyperlocal journalism</a>," which I'd been vocal about praising in my column at the free daily. Initially Tim and Derek, the editors, were skeptical about why I was approaching them for work - it was usually the sort of venue recent j-school grads and youthful urbanist types would work for to build a resume of work. I was - and would remain - the oldest person on their staff the whole time I worked there.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIvQmF3pK8kSeK0QxGdsVl3Ev2TxBGC-mycULTRRKqbhHGzxcREjtwYWxeg_1mSkO_4dwTKNKjqKFfbDQ73vCLWu3lsNMI8wpnki7YLlbn_9SGdnwZAv8PvWG4Y5NYYRqWGCwDyvoyWSEr/s1600/KODAK.Bldg9.interior_web.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="750" data-original-width="1000" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIvQmF3pK8kSeK0QxGdsVl3Ev2TxBGC-mycULTRRKqbhHGzxcREjtwYWxeg_1mSkO_4dwTKNKjqKFfbDQ73vCLWu3lsNMI8wpnki7YLlbn_9SGdnwZAv8PvWG4Y5NYYRqWGCwDyvoyWSEr/s640/KODAK.Bldg9.interior_web.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9kqOGTy8pzKT2MHHXAZekpYcsKDBB3R0ZPN9Ovi-0bENHvCVHVkORURv49Q_m8Kj1w-QbSiC77J_jEgQ3Zuj56yDEWI7isP_yDN_Z7j8t7andJcA0DoxXXczLQGC1nZvYWoBKM0Edr6N1/s1600/KODAK.Bldg9.floor_web.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="750" data-original-width="1000" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9kqOGTy8pzKT2MHHXAZekpYcsKDBB3R0ZPN9Ovi-0bENHvCVHVkORURv49Q_m8Kj1w-QbSiC77J_jEgQ3Zuj56yDEWI7isP_yDN_Z7j8t7andJcA0DoxXXczLQGC1nZvYWoBKM0Edr6N1/s640/KODAK.Bldg9.floor_web.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Building 9, Kodak lands, Toronto, June 2009</td></tr>
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It took me a while to get up to speed with my posts. It had been years since I had gone out several nights a week or knew what the best new places to eat or shop were. Working for the free daily and raising two small children, my world had shrunk to a few well-worn routes and a few square blocks of the city I once knew so well, and I had to make an effort to reacquaint myself with my own hometown.<br />
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My first really successful post was about Building 9, the last remaining part of the Kodak Canada plant where my family had worked since the '20s. The then-owners had left it unguarded and it was inevitably broken into, wide open for vandals, renegade club and event promoters and urbex types. I made my way in with my camera and recorded the damage, then <a href="https://www.blogto.com/city/2009/07/the_end_of_kodachrome_and_the_death_of_kodak_heights/" target="_blank">wrote a post</a> about my own history with Kodak and the neighbourhood. It was probably one of the most popular things I wrote for many years.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOnTykZAFmeV_osPFStf7YNqpEfIJ1ErJ5_2OHkrNyZmB3sJCpHsgPd8jsEA-msOff5FlSjox1pQK8KWbXWEWA0PL67FFXFiY_lNa9CmZkU03VOp5e3tlzRhKHb-0vySCIJQQjfuRqnxfw/s1600/Lakeshore.Motels.04.2011_02.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="750" data-original-width="1000" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOnTykZAFmeV_osPFStf7YNqpEfIJ1ErJ5_2OHkrNyZmB3sJCpHsgPd8jsEA-msOff5FlSjox1pQK8KWbXWEWA0PL67FFXFiY_lNa9CmZkU03VOp5e3tlzRhKHb-0vySCIJQQjfuRqnxfw/s640/Lakeshore.Motels.04.2011_02.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Beach Motel, Toronto, April 2011</td></tr>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYVbuouV4SCi9dN_g4DDVug6r0aidEhis3DDZ-lzjgRQYEMzYmkpz32LLbJivM51hM3T4n476HGS0Qs7wh8I60YfqLW0kAB1UMdBSAOfyFQI5FqJk6eCdmXwE2-TcbTairSVfcr5dqciDn/s1600/Lakeshore.Motels.11.2012_01.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="750" data-original-width="1000" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYVbuouV4SCi9dN_g4DDVug6r0aidEhis3DDZ-lzjgRQYEMzYmkpz32LLbJivM51hM3T4n476HGS0Qs7wh8I60YfqLW0kAB1UMdBSAOfyFQI5FqJk6eCdmXwE2-TcbTairSVfcr5dqciDn/s640/Lakeshore.Motels.11.2012_01.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpa9HTQyriKt-nKaPFkt-QIx4RgwszFbrI7NqdXDKGPdehnDxwvA0YT8kyeDYbZHpbuhw0zaFG3YRsLrRbQT-bpNPuzvKn8z1npb6MwVbE5UTXRau1Y4Da5141iePY_7l4jE1urjQqUNtA/s1600/Lakeshore.Motels.11.2012_02.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="750" data-original-width="1000" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpa9HTQyriKt-nKaPFkt-QIx4RgwszFbrI7NqdXDKGPdehnDxwvA0YT8kyeDYbZHpbuhw0zaFG3YRsLrRbQT-bpNPuzvKn8z1npb6MwVbE5UTXRau1Y4Da5141iePY_7l4jE1urjQqUNtA/s640/Lakeshore.Motels.11.2012_02.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Beach Motel, Toronto, Nov. 2012</td></tr>
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Another ongoing story I attached myself to was the final days of a strip of venerable but run-down motels on Lake Shore Boulevard that was being redeveloped into a thick cluster of condominium towers. I lurked around the area for about a year or two, interviewing the last people trying to make a living there before the inevitable. I was there on the morning the last motel was demolished, <a href="https://www.blogto.com/city/2012/11/the_end_of_the_lakeshore_motel_strip/" target="_blank">my post</a> just one of a bunch of elegaic stories about the city's relentless transformation.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDxcZpZbwicWmROf1jTaQjvx3BVa4_er-aC94ImzTaKOJPseWm2NGq_fvavF2Xghx8lpvngYMXScwbbnYgLoRuaUct-hQVGswhK8caD0hmZg6x9bArF1ap7VjPrMQUtEJefDN0EfdF22rZ/s1600/Canary.Restaurant.2010.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="750" data-original-width="1000" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDxcZpZbwicWmROf1jTaQjvx3BVa4_er-aC94ImzTaKOJPseWm2NGq_fvavF2Xghx8lpvngYMXScwbbnYgLoRuaUct-hQVGswhK8caD0hmZg6x9bArF1ap7VjPrMQUtEJefDN0EfdF22rZ/s640/Canary.Restaurant.2010.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Canary Restaurant, Toronto, 2010.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgY_Gn-GNQCDaJMA4AOIJsfzgKCxYAmr1qgKPScZG9rQU4ZPSp039rQZmF8eRrTRA5j-QSLeSYx0YbrB_8lUtM6Br27YZ8GfvG6L3TNPI-gk_BsCfI9WgJOt2eKy0ZQWYt3MNSo4MowKZlv/s1600/Evergreen.Brickworks.2009.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="750" data-original-width="1000" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgY_Gn-GNQCDaJMA4AOIJsfzgKCxYAmr1qgKPScZG9rQU4ZPSp039rQZmF8eRrTRA5j-QSLeSYx0YbrB_8lUtM6Br27YZ8GfvG6L3TNPI-gk_BsCfI9WgJOt2eKy0ZQWYt3MNSo4MowKZlv/s640/Evergreen.Brickworks.2009.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Evergreen Brickworks, Toronto, 2009.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<br />
There were a lot of stories like this, like the closing and gutting of the <a href="https://www.blogto.com/city/2010/01/the_gutting_of_the_canary_reveals_its_past_but_can_it_survive_the_wrath_of_the_pan_am_games/" target="_blank">Canary Restaurant</a>, a worn-out greasy spoon in an old industrial area in the east end that was being turned into an athlete's village for the Pan-Am Games. I also got a look at the <a href="https://www.blogto.com/city/2009/10/don_valleys_abandoned_brick_works_finally_coming_back_to_life/" target="_blank">Don Valley Brickworks</a> when it was being turned from an abandoned industrial relic into a eco/foodie destination.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhh5FSe_iYS46g36iexYXUy22F5VHblKWA5HCRuECU32rpldv1YmowBaBuHNQP9Gejk9WyOgbKUKL7fVjQi03YfnG4mAwBltvyyUhH-79stnoPBH_3fu0GR6FCSiOuCa6-Aa7u9Tq_QgqgX/s1600/Rotmans.Hats.2009_01.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="750" data-original-width="1000" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhh5FSe_iYS46g36iexYXUy22F5VHblKWA5HCRuECU32rpldv1YmowBaBuHNQP9Gejk9WyOgbKUKL7fVjQi03YfnG4mAwBltvyyUhH-79stnoPBH_3fu0GR6FCSiOuCa6-Aa7u9Tq_QgqgX/s640/Rotmans.Hats.2009_01.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Rotman's Hats final sale, Toronto, 2009.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAkbJ0tVKSrhTtHJWAZ-L5cuHyRVDww24TmaCVS1nMMd-Nq56KnIIJmGG-TmCVPSkWsjVIuRfuC4vOXnsShm0Rricnq-uqiPQedbjiiDlYEnhCupOqEiB5-TlxabZEgq33ydtpQh0z8Lt1/s1600/China.House.neon.04.2010_01.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="639" data-original-width="1000" height="408" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAkbJ0tVKSrhTtHJWAZ-L5cuHyRVDww24TmaCVS1nMMd-Nq56KnIIJmGG-TmCVPSkWsjVIuRfuC4vOXnsShm0Rricnq-uqiPQedbjiiDlYEnhCupOqEiB5-TlxabZEgq33ydtpQh0z8Lt1/s640/China.House.neon.04.2010_01.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">China House neon re-lighting ceremony, Toronto, 2010.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhe83Jp7JBwibFUqBhgzVWQ6cN5vGDtw4M4Mv56JcS9gwI2BH4xXBW4m8qXwzbdyzBu3pTCBoCU0pB9y4yroNwA_34Dk9HoCRmRbdqmD3e7cp3AV2UEn1IldFg2tXZlnDI8v14nM1cTNn5-/s1600/China.House.closes.07.2011_01.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="737" data-original-width="1000" height="470" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhe83Jp7JBwibFUqBhgzVWQ6cN5vGDtw4M4Mv56JcS9gwI2BH4xXBW4m8qXwzbdyzBu3pTCBoCU0pB9y4yroNwA_34Dk9HoCRmRbdqmD3e7cp3AV2UEn1IldFg2tXZlnDI8v14nM1cTNn5-/s640/China.House.closes.07.2011_01.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">China House contents auction, Toronto, 2011.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmBasGqGMZt2EzxeAGi7SIjkKCqLXE-UwqHlbS-TQO0JUCdSGAHIWXUe0wMXZJsmEJmdOaDRJECmjXXD7jvBf2HnoIvAbpqX2HL6e6XpzQDQo0rXeKhBnPVUxXJTHNkQt2DAjQ2hTNNWKw/s1600/Valhalla.Inn.Auction.2009_01.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="750" data-original-width="1000" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmBasGqGMZt2EzxeAGi7SIjkKCqLXE-UwqHlbS-TQO0JUCdSGAHIWXUe0wMXZJsmEJmdOaDRJECmjXXD7jvBf2HnoIvAbpqX2HL6e6XpzQDQo0rXeKhBnPVUxXJTHNkQt2DAjQ2hTNNWKw/s640/Valhalla.Inn.Auction.2009_01.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Valhalla Inn contents auction, Toronto, 2009.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgULCo_086o45XVzxP3P9oy9_6kwNf6tbb5ixuJ04DYcushFHGuqZ2LaTwNKROKSZtooPN-Cg3pbJa99bYEEjH-5tFbLWHPIsjc8tzQybLHv_SUayXLku9tGxZBrBYHnDpQvxuXTMhM51gf/s1600/Sutton.Place.Auction.2014_01.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="750" data-original-width="1000" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgULCo_086o45XVzxP3P9oy9_6kwNf6tbb5ixuJ04DYcushFHGuqZ2LaTwNKROKSZtooPN-Cg3pbJa99bYEEjH-5tFbLWHPIsjc8tzQybLHv_SUayXLku9tGxZBrBYHnDpQvxuXTMhM51gf/s640/Sutton.Place.Auction.2014_01.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sutton Place Hotel contents auction, Toronto, 2014.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
And there were more stories about the passing of an older Toronto, like the final sale week at <a href="https://www.blogto.com/deadpool/2009/07/its_deadpool_for_rotmans_hats_on_spadina/" target="_blank">Rotman's Hats</a>, one of the last remnants of Spadina Avenue's Jewish merchant history. I wrote several stories about <a href="https://www.blogto.com/eat_drink/2010/03/the_china_house_gets_a_makeover_and_the_house_of_chan_endures_on_eglinton/" target="_blank">China House</a>, an old-school Chinese food restaurant that seemed to get a <a href="https://www.blogto.com/city/2010/04/vintage_neon_sign_at_china_house_returns_to_life/" target="_blank">new lease of life</a> for about a year before it was inevitably <a href="https://www.blogto.com/deadpool/2011/07/everythings_for_sale_at_china_house_including_its_iconic_neon_sign/" target="_blank">closed</a> and demolished for more condos.<br />
<br />
I also covered the contents sales of two closed Toronto hotels. The <a href="https://www.blogto.com/city/2009/09/saying_goodbye_to_the_valhalla_inn/" target="_blank">Valhalla Inn</a> was one of the first really glamorous airport hotels, opened in 1963 and designed in a style that took Scandinavian contemporary to its roots with a Viking theme. The <a href="https://www.blogto.com/city/2014/03/whats_for_sale_at_the_sutton_place_auction/" target="_blank">Sutton Place</a> was another modernist high point, and a hotel I knew intimately from shooting musicians and movie stars there for nearly twenty years. I didn't have much history with the Valhalla Inn, but watching the Sutton Place disappear actually gave me a pang of loss I didn't expect.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwZHpuhbwVjkZvhNzwM0b1gEUFoWsEdzQNpMXhC5hwWG_nkIUM_ULAtiZA5Dq06jd0UZLbfGdAMhirT4j3cgL4Lrf2UwW4oJm1njyMRpC-vk4yr4gJuuE0j18hCkaA23IrcI6aB3-PUVu7/s1600/Imperial.Oil.Building.2011_sky.lobby.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="750" data-original-width="1000" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwZHpuhbwVjkZvhNzwM0b1gEUFoWsEdzQNpMXhC5hwWG_nkIUM_ULAtiZA5Dq06jd0UZLbfGdAMhirT4j3cgL4Lrf2UwW4oJm1njyMRpC-vk4yr4gJuuE0j18hCkaA23IrcI6aB3-PUVu7/s640/Imperial.Oil.Building.2011_sky.lobby.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiojrURyM9bc0lZcHLm0wZ00Ty6E5QvqOPFLx2zbLY0ZZ2axiBuq1xl1UsDTuCcs_zV_DJOXJS-WSNUIqlbDiaP0IwxJFRww9ToHpVTz-deHR8G4yniBhOf-LuJF4fjOg2ZZYFTTuDQyr-w/s1600/Imperial.Oil.Building.2011_boardroom.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="750" data-original-width="1000" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiojrURyM9bc0lZcHLm0wZ00Ty6E5QvqOPFLx2zbLY0ZZ2axiBuq1xl1UsDTuCcs_zV_DJOXJS-WSNUIqlbDiaP0IwxJFRww9ToHpVTz-deHR8G4yniBhOf-LuJF4fjOg2ZZYFTTuDQyr-w/s640/Imperial.Oil.Building.2011_boardroom.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Imperial Oil Building, Toronto, 2011.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
I also had an opportunity to tour the old <a href="https://www.blogto.com/city/2011/03/a_last_look_at_the_imperial_oil_building_pre-condos/" target="_blank">Imperial Oil headquarters</a> in midtown - an imposing tower built on the highest point in the city from plans reputedly rejected for Toronto's city hall. I had always wanted to get inside, and <i>blogTO</i>'s credentials were enough to allow me a guided tour as workmen stripped out the offices and boardrooms to make way for - yes, big surprise - more condos. I was particularly taken with the gold tiles on the walls of the sky lobby outside one of the big main boardrooms - an unusually luxurious expression of midcentury modernism, I thought.<br />
<br />
Looking back, I shot a lot of ruins and wreckage and demolition in my years at <i>blogTO</i>. It's not a surprise - my city was undergoing the latest in a series of radical transformations, with construction cranes all over the horizon and whole districts either being changed utterly or created out of parking lots and abandoned buildings. It's a boom that still hasn't wound up, and I'd be lying if I said I had unmixed feelings about watching - and documenting - the erasure of the city where I grew up.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoXdbuL86vtg7jUQl9KG5OqEfpnQIuze2gsrxHsbEgyYbwixeDjfI8PDr_e6-h1ZGxmzd4Hb4QsZkeGVtXN-qHgec60qUeSXnxes95YSagqmOrnnh_uWJupZ9tQDC3SaFsNn0SucN-tTsa/s1600/PortLands.03.2010_02.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="750" data-original-width="1000" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoXdbuL86vtg7jUQl9KG5OqEfpnQIuze2gsrxHsbEgyYbwixeDjfI8PDr_e6-h1ZGxmzd4Hb4QsZkeGVtXN-qHgec60qUeSXnxes95YSagqmOrnnh_uWJupZ9tQDC3SaFsNn0SucN-tTsa/s640/PortLands.03.2010_02.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIN1-teo7uxo8b_HldIX0dvo0rAazurtHC1A4Vb6-IzTK929Ghh5oT2YieBBpL4ZKJ5dkYg1NwNLjVtNodj6dtnvdse2pAaAvvXjUIJPh89FKdRNN4M4LBvX0jCfXc_UMntxGdncKy_vCF/s1600/PortLands.03.2010_01.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="750" data-original-width="1000" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIN1-teo7uxo8b_HldIX0dvo0rAazurtHC1A4Vb6-IzTK929Ghh5oT2YieBBpL4ZKJ5dkYg1NwNLjVtNodj6dtnvdse2pAaAvvXjUIJPh89FKdRNN4M4LBvX0jCfXc_UMntxGdncKy_vCF/s640/PortLands.03.2010_01.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Portlands, Toronto, 2010.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdmqsutrWNcL28k8_2CJf3S48-gOcLKt7-6ra7FmlMKuYHt92TPBaxDjFDJqY-znII0R52dVC6JVK_RfZRxe2pi8B7NoItmqOJZbTUnxQEfNfs4-EfaKliGhbMyeKH3a0fPkdE0qo-f8gk/s1600/Corso.Italia.Festival.2013_couple.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="750" data-original-width="1000" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdmqsutrWNcL28k8_2CJf3S48-gOcLKt7-6ra7FmlMKuYHt92TPBaxDjFDJqY-znII0R52dVC6JVK_RfZRxe2pi8B7NoItmqOJZbTUnxQEfNfs4-EfaKliGhbMyeKH3a0fPkdE0qo-f8gk/s640/Corso.Italia.Festival.2013_couple.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Corso Italia Festival, Toronto, 2013.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Working for <i>blogTO</i> forced me to concentrate on street photography, a style that I had never explored much in all my years of shooting portraits and news for <i>NOW, eye</i>, the<i> Globe & Mail</i>, the <i>National Post</i> or the free daily. Their posts featured photos as much, if not more, than words, and I had to learn to produce shots that could stand alone on a web page. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEDzIcxvVSrj8QwuSz8noVM1Eo7BkekkHqZdfC6RUoczrVtm1BbLgxIpsCShXqT6Pw6Kg2hg8Q0vnCVGrCwBSIHsXA-yRpw5Jh48MgB6gEjFCQy1DYbJ2p108QeT6gWHjPDd-w1QTBx0RG/s1600/Ripleys.Aquarium.opening.2013_01.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="750" data-original-width="1000" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEDzIcxvVSrj8QwuSz8noVM1Eo7BkekkHqZdfC6RUoczrVtm1BbLgxIpsCShXqT6Pw6Kg2hg8Q0vnCVGrCwBSIHsXA-yRpw5Jh48MgB6gEjFCQy1DYbJ2p108QeT6gWHjPDd-w1QTBx0RG/s640/Ripleys.Aquarium.opening.2013_01.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipo9QEt5s8zgPdluHLaU7EmwRS_wAGVTC-4TFiDBP_efQBxZdQuMOXDbn_BJXuswtouY2iewHCrGfHQhiW0IJR8aCS5UyB5cAgS1rC8uHsKT2Hi_z7K5YRFSom6mDejnURUp9exS202y73/s1600/Ripleys.Aquarium.opening.2013_02.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="750" data-original-width="1000" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipo9QEt5s8zgPdluHLaU7EmwRS_wAGVTC-4TFiDBP_efQBxZdQuMOXDbn_BJXuswtouY2iewHCrGfHQhiW0IJR8aCS5UyB5cAgS1rC8uHsKT2Hi_z7K5YRFSom6mDejnURUp9exS202y73/s640/Ripleys.Aquarium.opening.2013_02.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ripley's Aquarium opening, Toronto, 2013.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<i>BlogTO</i>'s credentials also got me into events like the media day before the <a href="https://www.blogto.com/city/2013/10/ripleys_aquarium_brings_watery_weirdness_to_toronto/" target="_blank">opening of Ripley's Aquarium</a>, a major tourist attraction right next to the CN Tower. I relished these opportunities, not only for the photos they allowed me to take, but for the sense that I was still part of the media, showing up and providing my coverage. Being laid off had felt like a sort of banishment from the profession I'd laboured in for so many years, so I was happy for any chance to hang a press pass around my neck and do my job.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKDnUoJ-JHkdoiRUjRdaO67Jc4ttklriFYzVPXepj81vjb5_cS-3xRsqkAYuF78QoyaiFoBC9htcaKr676cWWMuliXB6pt1NacXay6EiGLmSHpzyPLEK0X47wi0JZrfgC2op50EufpnVxJ/s1600/CNE.2009_01.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="750" data-original-width="1000" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKDnUoJ-JHkdoiRUjRdaO67Jc4ttklriFYzVPXepj81vjb5_cS-3xRsqkAYuF78QoyaiFoBC9htcaKr676cWWMuliXB6pt1NacXay6EiGLmSHpzyPLEK0X47wi0JZrfgC2op50EufpnVxJ/s640/CNE.2009_01.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Canadian National Exhibition, Toronto, 2009.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi79woQf-UNdt6_I9pPlX0VZXqhyBZvYNl31MPXTbsbXbe6Jfxl42X2qRH2t87i3BArTOhuV0yq1OMAaDHYD73z6Qd3xnu96FRYIncLugT9uA36av3jsLZ1a2BvqYq5QcDvN6h-drzM1S_g/s1600/CNE.2014_01.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="750" data-original-width="1000" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi79woQf-UNdt6_I9pPlX0VZXqhyBZvYNl31MPXTbsbXbe6Jfxl42X2qRH2t87i3BArTOhuV0yq1OMAaDHYD73z6Qd3xnu96FRYIncLugT9uA36av3jsLZ1a2BvqYq5QcDvN6h-drzM1S_g/s640/CNE.2014_01.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiI335iTBIh-ugZXoYM9-iW2my-lvQa7U6Q_bvM7RZK-0wQfXNinLnuNAZtGCg6zk0vS-YBY_i0Sh6nOvIFzlk3Z4SGqrQd4O90vCEjP8Fd0QDnWPuSOon30ZiD3EpQ7veb23X0xXsEM78Z/s1600/CNE.2014_02.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="750" data-original-width="1000" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiI335iTBIh-ugZXoYM9-iW2my-lvQa7U6Q_bvM7RZK-0wQfXNinLnuNAZtGCg6zk0vS-YBY_i0Sh6nOvIFzlk3Z4SGqrQd4O90vCEjP8Fd0QDnWPuSOon30ZiD3EpQ7veb23X0xXsEM78Z/s640/CNE.2014_02.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Canadian National Exhibition, Toronto, 2014.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
In many ways, working for <i>blogTO</i> wasn't terribly different from working for a daily newspaper. We'd still cover news events like the opening of the Canadian National Exhibition at the end of every summer, and I was given that assignment for several years running. I had never done those ritual news calls before, so ironically it was working for the all-digital "new media" - which was supposedly speeding the decline of print dailies - that saw me covering stories like the annual Air Show, or interviewing and photographing the mayor at press conferences.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-z2GtR9grSduj3H0kMqkTqo4cEZ9ekM4L0tVeKm9yRe3tnGB6KMxJ9mnSdwYb36imGXrRNK7bbcHyhmEcfahPQoxd79O8ZJxPOMr-tZHo4onOEzZclFRb35Ga6JSluUMi5OCMKAYPoWBN/s1600/Honda.Indy.2012_01.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="750" data-original-width="1000" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-z2GtR9grSduj3H0kMqkTqo4cEZ9ekM4L0tVeKm9yRe3tnGB6KMxJ9mnSdwYb36imGXrRNK7bbcHyhmEcfahPQoxd79O8ZJxPOMr-tZHo4onOEzZclFRb35Ga6JSluUMi5OCMKAYPoWBN/s640/Honda.Indy.2012_01.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Helio Castroneves, Honda Indy, Toronto, 2012.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUIO7sJuBmepuuyO12dj9eonK5G8HRYtlPeM49QAAIyOXRUnt_YSh2hKZpg9TSmeqPX2BZld42Iax7eLHwRpNPxRuHYIyCeuLUwM5elhUsnoE9J9G6ywYmX3evX6Ldw6ulMVHYnilhFDHO/s1600/Honda.Indy.2013_01.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="663" data-original-width="1000" height="424" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUIO7sJuBmepuuyO12dj9eonK5G8HRYtlPeM49QAAIyOXRUnt_YSh2hKZpg9TSmeqPX2BZld42Iax7eLHwRpNPxRuHYIyCeuLUwM5elhUsnoE9J9G6ywYmX3evX6Ldw6ulMVHYnilhFDHO/s640/Honda.Indy.2013_01.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Honda Indy, Toronto, 2013.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLhApKGfi1Ew2pd-tVsa9FY-u-YQgYtlXukzSyprvLXYRQRFnq5_5zQjvJHmyH71D67J8jELKmBFFQOHa5sbmtqIS1hpPgxOVpId2yV5SdCbNciH2tsy6OQhLJF7v8VJsVLcuxU-GW-0hU/s1600/Honda.Indy.2014_01.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="750" data-original-width="1000" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLhApKGfi1Ew2pd-tVsa9FY-u-YQgYtlXukzSyprvLXYRQRFnq5_5zQjvJHmyH71D67J8jELKmBFFQOHa5sbmtqIS1hpPgxOVpId2yV5SdCbNciH2tsy6OQhLJF7v8VJsVLcuxU-GW-0hU/s640/Honda.Indy.2014_01.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Pit crew, Honda Indy, Toronto, 2014.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSglnfvGmZjN-LwxHCh1_DCcB8DAZPuTtN8kOO5ogw0hkJ4GXOFicrX5Cvwnc7sCGAMxTqANsjOcA7LkYCg28uO9eom7vhuMv8WhHe0WLCpMyKkFH8UgMdPZjQeOdotX-3fnroWP3WB-tQ/s1600/Honda.Indy.2015_01.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="675" data-original-width="1000" height="432" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSglnfvGmZjN-LwxHCh1_DCcB8DAZPuTtN8kOO5ogw0hkJ4GXOFicrX5Cvwnc7sCGAMxTqANsjOcA7LkYCg28uO9eom7vhuMv8WhHe0WLCpMyKkFH8UgMdPZjQeOdotX-3fnroWP3WB-tQ/s640/Honda.Indy.2015_01.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Honda Indy, Toronto, 2015.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
One of those annual stories was the Honda Indy - the weekend long summer car race that takes over the CNE grounds. I'm a motorsport fan, but I had never shot a car race until <i>blogTO</i> gave me the credentials and I <a href="https://www.blogto.com/sports_play/2013/07/honda_indy_brings_loads_of_noise_drama_to_toronto/" target="_blank">began spending</a> a <a href="https://www.blogto.com/sports_play/2014/07/rain_makes_for_historic_racing_at_the_2014_honda_indy/" target="_blank">whole weekend</a> at the track <a href="https://www.blogto.com/sports_play/2015/06/honda_indy_a_wet_treat_for_toronto_race_car_fans/" target="_blank">with my cameras</a>. It was an <a href="https://www.blogto.com/sports_play/2016/07/6_people_you_never_hear_about_at_torontos_honda_indy/" target="_blank">opportunity I cherished</a>, and a chance to ascend yet another steep learning curve as a photographer, learning to execute all the standard shots required for car race coverage, and perhaps even try something new.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhM7XoZGARACMXVUr8XUK2T9d3CjfBAHQNpgBc6rqKWWkAV1IjRfxeLUHnGKB_5O4GZHacUmv7WbbOEdOzaQdoranGUekaXxu1GPAIoOSQMAgAlXeYSgpIajfukwRzYruoEPfhltmLSN2eK/s1600/World.Cup.Finale.2014_01.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="750" data-original-width="1000" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhM7XoZGARACMXVUr8XUK2T9d3CjfBAHQNpgBc6rqKWWkAV1IjRfxeLUHnGKB_5O4GZHacUmv7WbbOEdOzaQdoranGUekaXxu1GPAIoOSQMAgAlXeYSgpIajfukwRzYruoEPfhltmLSN2eK/s640/World.Cup.Finale.2014_01.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">World Cup celebrations, Etobicoke, 2014.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhquJJ81WJtmyZth4hlcxqZChD03H2eE38zDoD7-GNjqXHRvOTqFWkmjZK6DwMl4-sNtLkBVobHrsfCyJ3x1L6JpyY5fgc7TGo7fHifChVPTPuIx-iOOBBV0lTtIdwUX77MfrVTakuj5iR_/s1600/Rob.Ford.election.night.2014.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="675" data-original-width="900" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhquJJ81WJtmyZth4hlcxqZChD03H2eE38zDoD7-GNjqXHRvOTqFWkmjZK6DwMl4-sNtLkBVobHrsfCyJ3x1L6JpyY5fgc7TGo7fHifChVPTPuIx-iOOBBV0lTtIdwUX77MfrVTakuj5iR_/s640/Rob.Ford.election.night.2014.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Rob Ford, election nght, 2014.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
The funny thing was that <i>blogTO</i> made me more of a straight news photographer than I'd ever been before, assigning me to cover stories like fans reacting to <a href="https://www.blogto.com/city/2014/07/how_good_for_business_is_a_world_cup_win_in_toronto/" target="_blank">Germany's World Cup win</a>, or the end of the <a href="https://www.blogto.com/city/2014/10/ford_nation_down_but_not_out_in_toronto_politics/" target="_blank">Rob Ford era</a> in city politics. I even got the assignment of writing <a href="https://www.blogto.com/city/2016/03/former_toronto_mayor_rob_ford_has_died/" target="_blank">Ford's obituary</a> for the site - a post that I'm still proud of today as a relatively objective assessment of his legacy in a time and place where nobody (especially in my business) was anything other than rabidly partisan.<br />
<br />
Which reminds me of the worst thing about <i>blogTO</i>, at least in the early days: The comments thread on posts was famously vicious, a hangout for trolls and keyboard warriors who obviously thought they could do the job better than you could. I made the mistake of engaging in my first year or two posting there, and it was never a wise or prudent move. On the worst days, it was as ugly as the comments section on a YouTube clip, and eventually they found a way to make commenting less visible or encouraged. So much for the dream of "online communities" and reader engagement.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhyXfMEeyoQYitIf8F0y7B20wPYW1yDPaBB8eGcX7oAiBt7SG0cF_2b72h1N6UezVOnzIqT3rJ6U495CGL_DmIB6LjaPNj7jv9JFCnFBpc73yfyVLST0O8Yv0dWVVxpOdN2u6EzFw97Su2/s1600/Hotel.Bars.2010.collage.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="756" data-original-width="1000" height="482" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhyXfMEeyoQYitIf8F0y7B20wPYW1yDPaBB8eGcX7oAiBt7SG0cF_2b72h1N6UezVOnzIqT3rJ6U495CGL_DmIB6LjaPNj7jv9JFCnFBpc73yfyVLST0O8Yv0dWVVxpOdN2u6EzFw97Su2/s640/Hotel.Bars.2010.collage.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Hotel bartenders, Toronto, 2010.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyx2JTwKxy0fSN19Sl-ihAa-xmKK8Bh3WbOfvagyPECFE8x-8lXUmab36UqOkoRZqLh6zeZPigP34jn4_QeMhN5mSwxDUahaSdv_sjMxHB99wYoE6h76E-ElU8zbpumnKewRy7O-LIua7C/s1600/Crazy.Steve.2011.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="750" data-original-width="1000" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyx2JTwKxy0fSN19Sl-ihAa-xmKK8Bh3WbOfvagyPECFE8x-8lXUmab36UqOkoRZqLh6zeZPigP34jn4_QeMhN5mSwxDUahaSdv_sjMxHB99wYoE6h76E-ElU8zbpumnKewRy7O-LIua7C/s640/Crazy.Steve.2011.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Crazy Steve, Kensington, Toronto, 2011.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
The one thing I didn't do much of at <i>blogTO</i> was portraiture - my specialty as a professional photographer. I had been forced to strip down and reinvent my style at the free daily, and had just arrived at something intriguing when the lay-off made me drop that thread and, one more time, start all over again.<br />
<br />
I ended up doing something more like environmental portraiture, shooting people in a setting or context, like astronaut Chris Hadfield by the tail of the vintage F-86 Sabre he flew in the <a href="https://www.blogto.com/city/2009/09/canadian_international_air_show_2009/" target="_blank">2009 Air Show</a>, or <a href="https://www.blogto.com/music/2011/05/toronto_punk_squalor_immortalized_in_beautiful_book/" target="_blank">"Crazy Steve" Goof</a> of local punk rock legends Bunchofuckingoofs by the entrance of what was once Fort Goof, the band's stronghold in Kensington Market. Or the series of portraits I did for a story on the 12 best hotel bars in Toronto, where I photographed each bartender in the same position behind the bar - a time-consuming assignment that I conceived mostly as a challenge for myself.<br />
<br />
The pay at <i>blogTO</i> was ridiculously low, and I'm not sure that the time or effort I put into most of my stories ever made much economic sense. I'm not complaining - I definitely didn't do it for the money as much as a chance to keep working and publishing at a time when nobody seemed interested in hiring me, either in a newsroom or as a steady freelancer.<br />
<br />
<i>BlogTO</i> let me test myself and my capabilities as a photographer and journalist, and if what I earned per post was essentially a nominal fee or honorarium - there's no way that the $40 I got for covering a whole weekend at the Honda Indy covered even a fraction of my time - at least I was working, at a time when many of my peers were (quite sensibly) leaving the business.<br />
<br />
There was no definitive end to my time at <i>blogTO</i>. I had always felt like mutton dressed as lamb working there, and knew that the particular skill set and enthusiasms of an old journalist would sooner or later be superfluous to their needs. Eventually the assignments got as occasional as my story pitches and a redesign/revamp of the site moved away from long form stories to more lists and short pieces - exactly the sort of work that interested me the least. I knew it was probably time to go the year they said they weren't interested in covering either the auto show or the Honda Indy any more.<br />
<br />
I'm not bitter - <i>blogTO</i> was a flag of convenience for me at a time when I just needed to keep working and shooting until whatever next move I needed to make made itself apparent. I'm grateful for the chance to do as much as I did under the banner Tim and Derek provided for me, and for hitching a ride into the world of online media that seems more like the future now than it did when I was jettisoned from the world of newsprint.<br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
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rick mcginnishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04238756880941710637noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1947005028728131760.post-22280108888879224972018-09-12T07:30:00.000-04:002018-09-12T07:30:20.711-04:00Digital<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSZh9ng8a_apV78OHsCCrNOq2k1rg66hlFDdjGlCbSxbusoLQiaFL_SBogRnkeqQAFLnO6KP666bUjdIKwO1Swqim7azhfEXpGokNg6hxZK8Gzyq0dFQLq6d5-AnClE7-f8LhSNU4Qjo9F/s1600/Olympus.gear.09.2018_SQ.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="1000" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSZh9ng8a_apV78OHsCCrNOq2k1rg66hlFDdjGlCbSxbusoLQiaFL_SBogRnkeqQAFLnO6KP666bUjdIKwO1Swqim7azhfEXpGokNg6hxZK8Gzyq0dFQLq6d5-AnClE7-f8LhSNU4Qjo9F/s640/Olympus.gear.09.2018_SQ.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My Olympus gear</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<b>THE DIGITAL REVOLUTION WAS COMPLETE </b>by the time I was laid off by the free daily. It's not the most revolutionary thing that happened to photography in the last twenty years; it's close, but the wild changes that transformed the business (and the art) of photography happened alongside some other trends, some economic, some social, some aesthetic. All I know is that I had a ringside seat for it all.<br />
<br />
When I started my gig with the free daily as the interim photo editor I still used film and my desk featured a much-used (and occasionally cranky) Nikon Coolpix 35mm film scanner. When the paper sent me to <a href="http://someoldpicturesitook.blogspot.com/2018/05/peru.html" target="_blank">Peru</a> I went with the very nice Canon 35mm SLR that I'd just bought, assuming that it would hold me over for a few years until they'd ironed the bugs out of usable digital cameras. The bugs were ironed out in less than a year, and I <a href="http://someoldpicturesitook.blogspot.com/2018/07/the-end-of-film.html" target="_blank">barely ever used the camera again</a>.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEis9ghKVVhAuIXNC4Vm8M4KzG8pP06xlyqrSt1b5IoQXeb6tkHNdpNkpDGA6r94w4JQoY-PgaI4QTyGLl6mmf2KZqOYHFDokyVkjKSpBfr64-0fdJG24W-tu9Er5HvyoSaDUPaGyiG1g-Ws/s1600/Canon300D%252B30D.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="626" height="510" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEis9ghKVVhAuIXNC4Vm8M4KzG8pP06xlyqrSt1b5IoQXeb6tkHNdpNkpDGA6r94w4JQoY-PgaI4QTyGLl6mmf2KZqOYHFDokyVkjKSpBfr64-0fdJG24W-tu9Er5HvyoSaDUPaGyiG1g-Ws/s640/Canon300D%252B30D.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Canon cameras I used at the free daily</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
When Jodi, my editor at the free daily, put me back to work as the paper's photographer they bought a consumer level digital camera for me to use. In a couple of years it had become inadequate to the task and they replaced it with a much better Canon - a prosumer model that was in my hands for most of the time I began to start thinking (very quietly) about myself as a professional photographer again.<br />
<br />
One of my beats at the paper was writing a technology review column, which meant that I had new digital cameras in my hands all the time. I reviewed digital SLRs and point-and-shoots by all the major manufacturers, including Canon, Nikon, Kodak, Panasonic, Leica, Sony and Olympus. The churn was pretty fierce as every generation of camera added new features and nearly doubled the size of the image sensors. <br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjS4p3NsCFZph7e_gWB0J6o94mTqsRw-2lGk6qb8bAlvPWJrs0PFj81MNWNqP3Eolv_yAGHlcecrtEoVKYeWvsj2VK_pzdE8-OrggLNsAV3FiMQhhKhssiFevptfad2OxWEGU62MbenciU6/s1600/DigitalCameras.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="1000" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjS4p3NsCFZph7e_gWB0J6o94mTqsRw-2lGk6qb8bAlvPWJrs0PFj81MNWNqP3Eolv_yAGHlcecrtEoVKYeWvsj2VK_pzdE8-OrggLNsAV3FiMQhhKhssiFevptfad2OxWEGU62MbenciU6/s640/DigitalCameras.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Some of the cameras I reviewed for the free daily</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
There were some interesting experiments - I particularly liked the Olympus E-330, which did away with the hump of the viewfinder prism somehow - but the basic form of the DSLR didn't end up really changing, and digital cameras on the market today still ape either film SLRs or Leica-style rangefinders. <br />
<br />
It took me a lot longer to figure out how and why a digital image was different from a film negative. Some of the work I was processing as a photo editor at first was shot on film and scanned to digital, but while it very quickly became wholly digital, it was hard to concentrate on the difference in the heat of deadlines and the new speed and convenience of doing away with film processing and darkrooming. <br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRJbDGqo0CXEtL7oP1zB8NT2lXT67Eln31qXRW8nOThv58ZsDX3eTjYyLQShsxUxJMaUKuSBLxsRyJTCKjfkUun5uCNdQ8Iuv8Q0m2fGne__1vucSGF7JcmBv0crfyufiLbTh9uMoX0hq5/s1600/Harbourfront.Nov.2011.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="675" data-original-width="900" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRJbDGqo0CXEtL7oP1zB8NT2lXT67Eln31qXRW8nOThv58ZsDX3eTjYyLQShsxUxJMaUKuSBLxsRyJTCKjfkUun5uCNdQ8Iuv8Q0m2fGne__1vucSGF7JcmBv0crfyufiLbTh9uMoX0hq5/s640/Harbourfront.Nov.2011.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Harbourfront, Toronto, 2011</td></tr>
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It wasn't until a couple of years after I'd been laid off that I had time to think about how digital photography was visibly different from film. The catalyst was the shot above, taken while I was walking around the city's old harbour while on assignment for <a href="https://www.blogto.com/" target="_blank"><i>blogTO</i></a>. It was a shot I took when the view caught my eye - the sun barely burning through a midday haze and giving an eerie light on a bunch of upturned boats by a sailing school.<br />
<br />
There was a time when I might not have bothered taking the photo; I tried to keep my expenses as low as possible when I was a freelancer and, combined with my frugality, I might not have wanted to waste any frames when I had to save film for a job. That was the first thing that changed with digital photography.<br />
<br />
I had hoped that the shot would turn out well when I snapped the shutter. It helped to be able to preview it on the LCD screen on the back of the camera, which let me know that I had something to work with before I was at home and in front of a computer. Taken together, it's hard to deny that digital photography gave me a control and confidence from the moment I took the camera out of the bag that I don't think I ever had with film, and for that I was grateful.<br />
<br />
And finally there was something about the quality of the image - the lack of grain and a peculiar luminance that I began seeing in digital photographs as soon as the resolution passed a certain threshold and became competitive with higher ISO film at the very least. It's hard to explain, but I don't think that the shot above would have looked the same way even if I'd taken it on a roll of slide film. There's something about the way a digital photo arranges itself on the pixel level that it took me a long time to anticipate when I worked.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhP0jKmMDAKkBtut933iZ6L3KgCMkJLgraz3lJ0EGS7hQ-348PKlSZL8Q2ev2a46HeooLtpURXWmOJcuyQbd5YcYjHjYe-hG5MF6quMaHrvIX7q2hhXtVGyyjR_FbVkNU-ox5Xu8eF2L9vq/s1600/Olympus.gear.09.2018_HOR.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="667" data-original-width="1000" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhP0jKmMDAKkBtut933iZ6L3KgCMkJLgraz3lJ0EGS7hQ-348PKlSZL8Q2ev2a46HeooLtpURXWmOJcuyQbd5YcYjHjYe-hG5MF6quMaHrvIX7q2hhXtVGyyjR_FbVkNU-ox5Xu8eF2L9vq/s640/Olympus.gear.09.2018_HOR.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Olympus gear, 2018</td></tr>
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<br />
When I was laid off I had to return the Canon SLR to the paper. I had developed a nice relationship with the PR company that worked with Olympus while writing the tech review column - I really liked their cameras. After the lay-off I contacted them to say that I had a whole bunch of Olympus gear that I was either finished with or hadn't had a chance to write about yet, and asked them how I should return it to them.<br />
<br />
It goes without saying that I was pretty broke after being laid off, and both unwilling and unable to budget money for a new DSLR. That could have been the end of my photography career - again - but Olympus' PR told me not to worry. They said the gear had been written off anyway, that I should keep it, and thanks for all the good press I'd given them over the last few years. I think they might have felt sorry for me.<br />
<br />
It was, in any case, an incredible gift, and if I believed in such a thing, it was almost a sign that I shouldn't give up on photography, even if my circumstances had never really been worse. I have used these cameras happily and often over the last decade, and I still have a feeling of fondness and regret when I pull them out of their bag now, having just made the switch to Fuji mirrorless cameras.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhe5iLxqYj_k5SIKulDQQVwaTyzhpsZof_RMj61F-wQi6miiIRz12mKhAM9Iqs0ETreJPt654t09dDp6l8vnMPzCKymdXx9EQK87lKlc7bmOhXMRfXel7oB8re-wnkqlieTK5QYWOrwEpC6/s1600/CNE.2011_bee.man_square.BW.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="1000" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhe5iLxqYj_k5SIKulDQQVwaTyzhpsZof_RMj61F-wQi6miiIRz12mKhAM9Iqs0ETreJPt654t09dDp6l8vnMPzCKymdXx9EQK87lKlc7bmOhXMRfXel7oB8re-wnkqlieTK5QYWOrwEpC6/s640/CNE.2011_bee.man_square.BW.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Man covered in bees, Canadian National Exhibition, 2011</td></tr>
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<br />
The image above is perhaps my best argument for digital photography. I only rediscovered it in my files a couple of months ago, and the original didn't look much like this at all. Shot in harsh late morning sunlight with my Olympus E-30 at the media preview day at the CNE for <i>blogTO</i>, it was originally a horizontal 3/4 shot, in colour. The background was distracting and the light a bit harsh, but with a lot of work in Photoshop with the clone tool and serious manipulation of layers, I was able to produce something that looks like a studio shot.<br />
<br />
You could, of course, manipulate film images. It required hours of work and costs in paper and chemistry even if you didn't end up re-photographing the photo on the way to making a relatively seamless composite. It was the sort of work I tended to avoid then, but rarely shy away from now - the creative options available with a digital image are almost limitless, and it's made me a more technically competent photographer than I could ever have been with film.<br />
<br />
There have, of course, been major changes to photography that have nothing to with cameras and more to do with the way we produce and consume photographs. They have been, by and large, proof of the most extreme scenarios imagined by Joseph Schumpeter's "<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creative_destruction" target="_blank">Creative Destruction.</a>" The launch of Instagram was over a year away from the lay-off that changed the direction of my "career" once again, but that's a subject for another post.<br />
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rick mcginnishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04238756880941710637noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1947005028728131760.post-34866876383883233982018-09-06T07:30:00.000-04:002018-09-06T15:08:02.210-04:00Colm Feore and the Lay-Off<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJSXLjV6KwYCwiM7Uo7K0DHAZibF34AEgPqAsT_-Uco4pT3J6gQbEjX91VMt-diPzoX6Fj0L_TweNNWAcW4abgbyB12by83trvy9FGlVbUZTlsJ7WubM5k74_by9Y6rbExl-JbIx3a3Ifi/s1600/Colm.Feore.01.27.2009_03.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="675" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJSXLjV6KwYCwiM7Uo7K0DHAZibF34AEgPqAsT_-Uco4pT3J6gQbEjX91VMt-diPzoX6Fj0L_TweNNWAcW4abgbyB12by83trvy9FGlVbUZTlsJ7WubM5k74_by9Y6rbExl-JbIx3a3Ifi/s1600/Colm.Feore.01.27.2009_03.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Colm Feore, Toronto, Jan. 27, 2009</td></tr>
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<br />
<b>THESE WERE THE LAST PORTRAITS I DID FOR THE FREE DAILY.</b> I didn't know they were, but I must have had some idea that my days were numbered, because I had started looking around for a new job at the time. I didn't want to get surprised; other newsroom staffers had been planning or making exits at the time and it seemed the more dignified way of leaving. But that's not what happened.<br />
<br />
As I mentioned in an earlier post, fellow staff writer and photographer Chris Atchison had already left and I was taking up the slack, doing interviews and photo shoots. Colm Feore was in town promoting his role on the latest season of <i>24</i>, as the husband of the first (fictional) female U.S. president. We did a lot of coverage of <i>24 </i>back then - it was a monster hit and probably one of the last must-see series produced by a U.S. network.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDWaS2UzE2eUqs9ziGDevgJFWqB1kgoEaxlGk-_l4pdtMlPIVXjIs58UVsHPhEjeAHAUqS8beanJj3waG0G62Y203D93s6VN6MVUB2rKcjpS9fNYRgVur_66ROAhbvEMHC4_uk1oAaFody/s1600/Colm.Feore.01.27.2009_02.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="750" data-original-width="1000" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDWaS2UzE2eUqs9ziGDevgJFWqB1kgoEaxlGk-_l4pdtMlPIVXjIs58UVsHPhEjeAHAUqS8beanJj3waG0G62Y203D93s6VN6MVUB2rKcjpS9fNYRgVur_66ROAhbvEMHC4_uk1oAaFody/s640/Colm.Feore.01.27.2009_02.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Colm Feore, Toronto, Jan. 27, 2009</td></tr>
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<br />
What I remember most about the shoot was that Feore didn't seem terribly interested in talking about his role on <i>24</i>. Michael Ignatieff, an esteemed writer and academic, had recently been made interim leader of the Liberal Party of Canada - then the official opposition - and would soon be elected its leader. Feore was incredibly excited about him. He spent much of the interview and shoot talking about how fortunate Canada was to be able to vote for a real intellectual as its leader.<br />
<br />
Feore had made his reputation in Canada playing legendary figures like pianist Glenn Gould and Pierre Elliot Trudeau - longtime prime minister and father of our current PM - and I suppose he felt his opinion about who should lead the country was important. Mostly, though, he reminded me of another actor, Ted Danson, at a movie junket I'd been to in <a href="http://someoldpicturesitook.blogspot.com/2016/12/santa-monica-2008.html" target="_blank">Santa Monica</a> a year previous. Danson also didn't want to talk about the movie he was promoting as much as his friend, Hillary Clinton. If only we could sit down for a beer with Hillary, he told us - we'd know how great she was and why we needed to vote for her. That most of the table at the junket were foreign journalists didn't seem to register with Danson.<br />
<br />
In any case, Michael Ignatieff's only election as head of the Liberals didn't work out so well. In 2011 the party - unofficially known as "Canada's Natural Governing Party" - came third in the polls, losing its status as the official opposition. Ignatieff himself lost his seat in parliament. As subsequent events have proved, Canada does not want an intellectual for a leader.<br />
<br />
The Feore portraits are alright, I guess. They're stark and simple and part of the new direction my portrait work had started going since I'd been coaxed back into shooting by Jodi Isenberg at the free daily five years previous. It seems suitable that they were shot at the old Four Seasons in Yorkville; I'd done so much work in its rooms since the '90s, and I'd always appreciated the big, bright windows that looked north and west over the city. It wouldn't be long for the world - the hotel would close three years later and move two blocks east to a new building.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
________________________</div>
<br />
<b>I WAS LAID OFF BY THE FREE DAILY</b> on the morning of February 10, 2009, two weeks after I'd done the Colm Feore shoot. I had come in late that day - I had a job interview at the <i>Toronto Star</i> for the Queen's Park reporter position, though of course no one at the office knew that. Our new editor had insisted that I be in the office that day for a meeting, and I followed her all the way to the door of the publisher's office before I spotted Glen, our managing editor, out of the corner of my eye, being escorted out of the building with a box of his stuff. The shoe dropped just as she opened the door and I saw that the assistant publisher and our union rep were already waiting inside.<br />
<br />
I'd been sandbagged. The editor said something about a "new direction" for the paper - one that required laying off all the writers (plus the managing editor.) We have called a cab for you. Don't return to your desk - its contents will be packed up and sent to you. They were about to take away my cellphone when I pulled it out to call my wife and I had to remind them that the phone was mine.<br />
<br />
If I'm honest, once the anger and humiliation had passed I was grateful. The free daily hadn't been much fun to work for since Bill, the new publisher had taken over, and definitely since Jodi had been fired as editor-in-chief. Jodi was my friend, and almost anything positive that came from my time at the free daily had been because of her decisions and support. Even before she moved into the editor's chair, she had been a big supporter of making me the paper's senior writer after my contract as interim photo editor ended. It's hard to say definitively, but I might not have found my way back to photography today if Jodi hadn't asked me to go back to work nearly fifteen years ago.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJViMuWJhkIIX4BedxHMppi08muy7ceXQrIRaoOv15XV2PilrNE7IXJus8vUSxJbZfvFU2V9fBuRda8CSYIfMaO9pyA-1XkJ8CtgWPdhvOyNx1zWSig8Rh1S3yUUFh6Rgfuur19dedkWac/s1600/Rick.Avenue.Bar.Show.09.2007.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="667" data-original-width="1000" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJViMuWJhkIIX4BedxHMppi08muy7ceXQrIRaoOv15XV2PilrNE7IXJus8vUSxJbZfvFU2V9fBuRda8CSYIfMaO9pyA-1XkJ8CtgWPdhvOyNx1zWSig8Rh1S3yUUFh6Rgfuur19dedkWac/s640/Rick.Avenue.Bar.Show.09.2007.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">At the Four Seasons Yorkville Avenue Bar photo show, Sept. 2007. Photo by Chris Atchison.</td></tr>
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<br />
My first reaction when I realized what was coming in the publisher's office on that February morning was anger. I am not a team player by nature - another one of Jodi's great gifts was letting me work from home instead of holding down a desk in the office up in Don Mills, a 90-minute commute each way. (One of the first things the new editor did was to enforce an edict from the publisher ordering all the writers back to a desk in the office. I think he'd seen <i>All The President's Men</i> too many times and wanted to preside over a bustling newsroom. As anyone who's worked in one can tell you, newsrooms don't bustle.)<br />
<br />
But there was a sense of camaraderie among the staff at the free daily; it developed slowly under P.J., our first editor, and really flourished when Jodi took over. I had worked harder for the paper than I thought myself capable, writing daily and weekly columns, reviews, interviews and features in addition to taking pictures. I had turned a daily TV column that I was only supposed to write for a week when someone else was on vacation and made it something more than just rewritten press releases and gossip cribbed from entertainment websites. When Jodi gave me the job I told her up front that I didn't really watch much TV because I didn't like it that much. I ended up writing over 1,100 daily columns.<br />
<br />
I had invested more into working for the free daily than I had put into any job I'd had, and being laid off felt like a betrayal as much as a loss of income. (The wages at the paper were well below what any other paper in the city paid. I remember describing my workload to a friend who was an editor at the <i>Globe & Mail</i>; he told me that he had people who were paid twice as much to produce a third of my work.)<br />
<br />
Sometimes it didn't seem like management really wanted to acknowledge our successes. Before he left, Chris had talked to the people at the Four Seasons, who said they'd be interested in putting on a show of our movie star portraits in the hotel's Avenue Bar during the film festival. It was a really big deal - an opportunity I wouldn't have dreamed of when I was a freelancer. He took the proposal to the publisher, who turned it down before Jodi talked him into changing his mind. But they didn't want to spend any money, so Chris and I ran around trying to get deals on printing and framing with just a week or two before the show was supposed to open.<br />
<br />
The show happened, but the paper said they didn't want to spend any money on promotion or an opening reception, so it all came off like a wasted opportunity - a damp squib. No wonder I look so miserable in the photo Chris took for <a href="https://www.metro.us/news/picture-perfect/tmWgie---23Hp6rR81RxF2" target="_blank">the story the paper ran</a> - the only publicity our show ever got. Another reason why I have no enthusiasm for gallery shows any more.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgy8Rjbw8gqR-AUs2a-qsi0DqtqwDuG0sUEGCgV8CNmBrQwb31yJv2D4XNSQAPG-KnN2-3kBGSJMut8L4Z7uQH4huMs35Q4Jpgz8rPo1sauR8dSUGWONCLbmzQRkknfKtA1c6LKN0HdnlqD/s1600/Rick.AK47.10.2008.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="750" data-original-width="1000" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgy8Rjbw8gqR-AUs2a-qsi0DqtqwDuG0sUEGCgV8CNmBrQwb31yJv2D4XNSQAPG-KnN2-3kBGSJMut8L4Z7uQH4huMs35Q4Jpgz8rPo1sauR8dSUGWONCLbmzQRkknfKtA1c6LKN0HdnlqD/s640/Rick.AK47.10.2008.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Shooting an AK-47 for a James Bond story, Oct. 2008. Photo by Frank Monozlai.</td></tr>
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<br />
It took the paper quite a few months to find a replacement for Jodi after they forced her out. They ended up hiring exactly the sort of person I was afraid they would - the Respected Industry Professional, complete with J-School teaching gig and a network of fellow professionals at her fingertips. Exactly the sort of person who hadn't built up the free daily from a start-up run out of a hotel room into a national chain of free dailies.<br />
<br />
The free daily was no <i>New York Times</i>, and that was its great virtue. In an age of falling readership and failing confidence in the news media, Jodi had figured out that people wanted something light and entertaining to read on their commutes to work, and had delivered, filling the paper with TV and movie stories and unconventional personalities like Enza Anderson, a local trans celebrity who had run for mayor as Enza Supermodel and turned out to be one of the most professional writers I'd ever worked with.<br />
<br />
Jodi knew who our demographic was, and delivered content to them without pandering. So my heart sank when the new editor took over and drove up in what I've come to call the Annex Clown Car. First she began canceling all the features that readers liked - TV recaps, movie and celebrity coverage, shopping and gift guides and, ultimately, much of what we produced in-house. Then she enlisted friends of hers - more Respected Industry Professionals - to write editorials and introduce politics into the paper.<br />
<br />
It was an awful mistake. Politics - the hectoring, biased, often sneering op-ed political content that the news media has decided to favour since the budgets and staff that once researched features and covered beats were gutted from newsrooms. Jodi had made the free daily a success by avoiding it, and had made the paper grow as a result. It was one of the great errors of the passengers in the Annex Clown Car that their names and reputations attracted readers, and the new editor was intent on making the free daily resemble all the other failing papers and their op-ed shape-throwing. But falling readership at the big dailies was proof that the opposite was true, and nothing that's happened in the decade since I was laid off has reversed the trend.<br />
<br />
It was, in all likelihood, time for me to go anyway, but I'm not grateful for the push out the door. I wouldn't be the last to go; in the months that followed there was an exodus of staff, and almost exactly a year later the new editor was fired, followed by Bill, the publisher. The free daily still exists and its competitors are all gone, but the name has been changed and it barely resembles the paper I worked on with Jodi, Tina, Jonathan, Fermin, Chris, Nate, Liban, Jen, Brian, Sarah, Saleem, Kasia, Steph, Mike, Christine and everyone else who I annoyed constantly when they were forced to share a newsroom with me.<br />
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rick mcginnishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04238756880941710637noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1947005028728131760.post-44051416240482037242018-09-03T07:30:00.000-04:002018-09-03T07:30:00.177-04:00Village Voice<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOGmK-Ha2WpxnUbPJunZKduu9CGnKgucBN8r4qyhq9gr8qtY41N4bSPT5remr9PRibic372-GlvIqiRiNPc6F0eKgrhRsLW_fr6s99W8T35qN7KZjc-TDOxsXZrEgcZe92COreJuO9To4g/s1600/Voivod.1989.03.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="819" data-original-width="800" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOGmK-Ha2WpxnUbPJunZKduu9CGnKgucBN8r4qyhq9gr8qtY41N4bSPT5remr9PRibic372-GlvIqiRiNPc6F0eKgrhRsLW_fr6s99W8T35qN7KZjc-TDOxsXZrEgcZe92COreJuO9To4g/s640/Voivod.1989.03.jpg" width="624" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Voivod, Montreal, December 1989</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<b>THE <i>VILLAGE VOICE</i> IS DEAD.</b> If you've never read, or even heard of the <i>Village Voice</i>, I doubt that you care; <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/31/business/media/the-village-voice-closes.html" target="_blank">one more newspaper gone</a> in an age when newspapers go out of business every month. Even for people who care, it's hardly news - for fans or readers or former employees the paper essentially died last year when it ceased print publication and went completely online. <br />
<br />
My first proper assignment for the <i>Voice </i>was nearly thirty years ago, when photo editor Edna Suarez phoned me and asked if it would be too much trouble to hop up to Montreal to shoot the Quebec prog metal band <a href="http://someoldpicturesitook.blogspot.com/2014/12/voivod.html" target="_blank">Voivod</a> for the paper's next <i>Rock & Roll Quarterly</i> supplement. I'm not sure Edna was aware of the distances involved getting from place to place in Canada, and even before I did the math in my head I knew that whatever I made probably wouldn't cover the cost of a return ticket on the overnight train.<br />
<br />
But I didn't mention that and of course I said yes. This was my first real gig shooting for an American publication and I couldn't blow it, so I packed nearly my whole studio - my ProFoto strobe kid and light stands and two cameras - and hauled it all down to Union Station and onto the VIA Rail train. I arrived in Montreal the morning after a blizzard and went upstairs from the Gare Central to the Queen Elizabeth Hotel for breakfast, stowing all my gear by the wall next to my table in the fancy restaurant across from the Marie, Reine du Monde Cathedral, where I waited for the band's manager to meet me. The cost of breakfast ate up the last of whatever I'd make from the shoot.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxpmFcy40dHbCfJtaijnLbnKSu9B7i7GmqdEAuIBoAyxEaAqJXa9tX2Pdu5Y253dBI6VsF0GiEaH0BXQ03Os_38sRb7Foi8snc0Z0XugaKdjiN51Vsvk9sMSWHAdb6UmJyHYCmqxOxlz_P/s1600/Aki.Kaurismaki.09.1988_01.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="668" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxpmFcy40dHbCfJtaijnLbnKSu9B7i7GmqdEAuIBoAyxEaAqJXa9tX2Pdu5Y253dBI6VsF0GiEaH0BXQ03Os_38sRb7Foi8snc0Z0XugaKdjiN51Vsvk9sMSWHAdb6UmJyHYCmqxOxlz_P/s640/Aki.Kaurismaki.09.1988_01.jpg" width="426" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Aki Kaurismaki, Toronto, Sept. 1988</td></tr>
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<br />
I think I sold my first photo to the <i>Voice </i>nearly two years earlier. Preparing for his big move to New York, my friend Chris Buck had already started doing work for them, and he arranged for me to send the <i>Voice </i>a print of my shoot with Finnish director Aki Kaurismaki (a big deal at the time, at least in film fest circles) on spec. They might have used it, but I can't be sure; I've never been good at keeping tearsheets, so what got sent and what got printed is sometimes hard to match up.<br />
<br />
Another big assignment for the <i>Voice </i>was one of the only examples of sports photography I've ever done. Canadian sprinter <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Johnson_(sprinter)" target="_blank">Ben Johnson</a> had been a gold medalist at the 1988 Seoul Olympics, but had the medal taken away when he tested positive for performance enhancing drugs. He attempted a comeback three years later, which began at the Hamilton Indoor Games. Edna called me up and asked if I'd do the shoot. I had never shot a sporting event and knew I'd have to rent something like a 300mm/2.8 lens to pull it off, but of course I said yes.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDSlf8xeF2pP9-2vO2SWb2q6uA7j5k4oAtWBv-2y_yFljynK3pA4hIWmbxO4c6nT0B1Ch4AEAg_Hap6ymi6jNPpbS3abUptGmiK2DNXqo9Ygv7BN6CcaePnuHZqY815E53dTI-CQOkJrHg/s1600/Ben.Johnson.1991_01.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="674" data-original-width="1000" height="430" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDSlf8xeF2pP9-2vO2SWb2q6uA7j5k4oAtWBv-2y_yFljynK3pA4hIWmbxO4c6nT0B1Ch4AEAg_Hap6ymi6jNPpbS3abUptGmiK2DNXqo9Ygv7BN6CcaePnuHZqY815E53dTI-CQOkJrHg/s640/Ben.Johnson.1991_01.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1eLHqfio_mpeJlLla-DIDSjzYQ4V63pEdyjfYFc5vi4o3KNdHR2WcrGoYz2gha4IUNBWXR6BsDauFnwGcaqqoNNaXzwYa09-yY3aOs2mwXqFkXQQbSTJPqzKTozQCrGDDte-WtU60CQVG/s1600/Ben.Johnson.1991_02.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="667" data-original-width="1000" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1eLHqfio_mpeJlLla-DIDSjzYQ4V63pEdyjfYFc5vi4o3KNdHR2WcrGoYz2gha4IUNBWXR6BsDauFnwGcaqqoNNaXzwYa09-yY3aOs2mwXqFkXQQbSTJPqzKTozQCrGDDte-WtU60CQVG/s640/Ben.Johnson.1991_02.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ben Johnson, Hamilton, 1991</td></tr>
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<br />
I only remember a couple of things about the shoot. The first was Johnson's visible disappointment when he learned that he'd finished second, which I was lucky enough to capture in a few barely-sharp frames. (I actually think the slight camera shake enhances the shot of that heartbreaking moment, and in any case strict focus and sharpness is overrated.) The other was a phone call from Edna.<br />
<br />
I was working with a local writer on the gig - a friend I'd known for a few years. A few days before the Hamilton track meet Edna called me to firm up details, then said "I thought you said the writer was a friend of yours." I insisted that he was, but Edna told me that he'd been calling the paper trying to get me taken off the job so his sister could shoot Johnson.<br />
<br />
"Of course I said no," Edna told me.<br />
<br />
I never said anything about it to him, not in the car there and back to Hamilton, and not in the decades since, but I don't think I was ever able to trust him again. It was a sobering moment for me - the first time I realized that loyalty is situational for many people.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9J1BcsPGCoDgjRuFAGBPBn-0CJt6fOcEPjyyXWZg3_-SgqbGow09MgF-TNKuOyz6EMrOvqhpnHWrPmP3LOfivqvYjvIN0Qwc2Lunpz3UPyMDnfgntR49eS_kRO-KHnSs6MSKVbeOoVcav/s1600/James.Tenney.01.1989_02.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="665" data-original-width="1000" height="424" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9J1BcsPGCoDgjRuFAGBPBn-0CJt6fOcEPjyyXWZg3_-SgqbGow09MgF-TNKuOyz6EMrOvqhpnHWrPmP3LOfivqvYjvIN0Qwc2Lunpz3UPyMDnfgntR49eS_kRO-KHnSs6MSKVbeOoVcav/s640/James.Tenney.01.1989_02.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">James Tenney, Toronto, January 1989</td></tr>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBcBsQHHwVrnRRRhC8NM_Hd93UrX6X5XitSUZNAcnACzdicdH5BT5klrVSGnrDlVOQR5Dv1kiSpHtO3u_XXJBqSGSUoeIx3vfAdfZltfTHEMeyk9VbDknrLs7Nv2SKFwSTgNxIoe9eUXge/s1600/Ice.Cube.1990_01.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1010" data-original-width="1000" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBcBsQHHwVrnRRRhC8NM_Hd93UrX6X5XitSUZNAcnACzdicdH5BT5klrVSGnrDlVOQR5Dv1kiSpHtO3u_XXJBqSGSUoeIx3vfAdfZltfTHEMeyk9VbDknrLs7Nv2SKFwSTgNxIoe9eUXge/s640/Ice.Cube.1990_01.jpg" width="632" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ice Cube, Toronto, 1990</td></tr>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIx_lJPLrtSbdaVvcZWWbwGflY3aqIUTjDFNsL_6d6NkSWQ4uzVUkTWoHB00BQbhTgE9Ic_RGcg0_lyRQrj36j9WI3geXdZhcF380ZnSg1Ht6CdYB76_chXpBj-IZ5Q9QMasyh2P2zaunD/s1600/Sonic.Youth.02.1991_03.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="668" data-original-width="1000" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIx_lJPLrtSbdaVvcZWWbwGflY3aqIUTjDFNsL_6d6NkSWQ4uzVUkTWoHB00BQbhTgE9Ic_RGcg0_lyRQrj36j9WI3geXdZhcF380ZnSg1Ht6CdYB76_chXpBj-IZ5Q9QMasyh2P2zaunD/s640/Sonic.Youth.02.1991_03.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sonic Youth, Montreal, 1991</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_2SdlqU8ElEngKhOOBPnyGwpfh1J3FFUYi6_2ommh7_1gzwyTdmbZ5abbO8aXI-mvWPxDR8RA9QNaMpgV3gPLSmTqTlDx3flXj89kti1pURTRkTlN0Y1ckUiRFbVvHP_J3wyvDBgDlUr7/s1600/William.S.Burroughs.1991_01.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="675" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_2SdlqU8ElEngKhOOBPnyGwpfh1J3FFUYi6_2ommh7_1gzwyTdmbZ5abbO8aXI-mvWPxDR8RA9QNaMpgV3gPLSmTqTlDx3flXj89kti1pURTRkTlN0Y1ckUiRFbVvHP_J3wyvDBgDlUr7/s640/William.S.Burroughs.1991_01.jpg" width="432" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">William S. Burroughs, Toronto, 1991</td></tr>
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<br />
Much of the work I sold to the <i>Voice </i>was reprints - portraits from my files bought to illustrate stories. I could see why they might turn to me for a portrait of James Tenney - an American composer who lived in Toronto and taught at York University. What I never understood was why the <i>Village Voice</i> would have needed my pictures of a New York band like Sonic Youth, or someone like the writer William S. Burroughs, who must have been photographed by the <i>Voice </i>countless times since the paper was founded in 1955.<br />
<br />
I liked to think it was because my shots were good, but I was probably flattering myself. In retrospect, it might have been because they were different - nobody in New York or the U.S. had seen them since they'd appeared in whatever publication assigned them up here. Getting assignments to shoot for U.S. media like the <i>Voice </i>was difficult in Canada - almost anyone would either live or perform or do something in New York City before they'd show up in Toronto. But work done up here at least had the advantage in the pre-internet age of being obscure and unseen by art directors and photo editors in Manhattan.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh16e6uXcunE-26CQK1skrM_oR5O26W0OF_1VSO0hSf4A9kF3GRT16vh8uuCs0KZ0lzShRP0YwSvdDH0QpKXaJRjShba7ktIusr0KH3CLsXY7O6aZ_0Jzk5cfEqXATG7CMwhRhgzkABniXl/s1600/Joe.Kramer.03.1992.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="680" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh16e6uXcunE-26CQK1skrM_oR5O26W0OF_1VSO0hSf4A9kF3GRT16vh8uuCs0KZ0lzShRP0YwSvdDH0QpKXaJRjShba7ktIusr0KH3CLsXY7O6aZ_0Jzk5cfEqXATG7CMwhRhgzkABniXl/s640/Joe.Kramer.03.1992.jpg" width="434" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Joe Kramer, Toronto, 1991</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
This shoot with gay erotic massage therapist (and former Jesuit seminarian) Joe Kramer is a pretty good example of the sort of work I might get assigned by the <i>Voice</i>. It's really the kind of subject anyone who shot for an alternative weekly might find themselves shooting back in the '80s and '90s. I'd photographed people like Kramer for <i>NOW</i> - no surprise since the alternative weekly probably wouldn't exist if there was no <i>Village Voice</i>.<br />
<br />
I don't know when I started reading the <i>Voice </i>- probably since before I owned a camera. I know that I bought it religiously every week for over a decade, which is why this shot of Joe Kramer is of a piece with the kind of work the <i>Voice </i>printed. It's not too different from something <a href="http://thephotographicjournal.com/interviews/james-hamilton/" target="_blank">James Hamilton</a> might have shot at around the same time - a piece of mimicry, for a client I desperately wanted to impress.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimgj68rSrPTAc0zNpyovHHo-uykvDq38kNPhhy_6I-eFZVOejRS3W3X7IEa1mpA0OKn2zhBSsyQe4qvC7tYG1vT6tXa81ANlpT7GgzyzmST9GKyNrjzCyDUq7zWODn8AlctQ_B058WAKeB/s1600/Vikram.Seth.05.1993_02.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1004" data-original-width="1000" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimgj68rSrPTAc0zNpyovHHo-uykvDq38kNPhhy_6I-eFZVOejRS3W3X7IEa1mpA0OKn2zhBSsyQe4qvC7tYG1vT6tXa81ANlpT7GgzyzmST9GKyNrjzCyDUq7zWODn8AlctQ_B058WAKeB/s640/Vikram.Seth.05.1993_02.jpg" width="636" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Vikram Seth, Toronto, May 1993</td></tr>
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<br />
The last assignment I ever did for the <i>Voice </i>were portraits of the writer Vikram Seth. By this point Edna Suarez had moved on to the <i>New York Times</i> and Tom McDonough was photo editor. I don't know why I never got another shoot from the <i>Voice</i>, but it's not surprising - I was no longer making trips to New York City with my portfolio to push my work and I never had the same personal connection with Tom that I had with Edna.<br />
<br />
My <i>Voice </i>connection was probably the key to whatever success I had outside Canada; when Edna moved to the <i>Times </i>she assigned me whatever work she had that could be done here. It was through Edna that I met art directors Robert Newman and Jesse Reyes, who were responsible for assignments I got for outlets like <a href="http://someoldpicturesitook.blogspot.com/2015/11/guitar-world.html" target="_blank"><i>Guitar World</i></a> and <i>Entertainment Weekly</i>. The brutal truth is that, despite the size and competition, people in New York publishing were far more helpful and friendly than almost anyone in Toronto, which helped keep the illusion alive that I might one day have a career down there - at least for a while.<br />
<br />
Vikram Seth might have been my last <i>Voice </i>assignment, but he was not the last portrait of mine published by the <i>Voice</i>. Late last year, after the last print edition of the paper had hit the newsstands, the <i>Voice </i>website ran a story about the new Fela Kuti box set featuring my 1989 portrait of Fela from the cover of the booklet. They obviously got the shot as a handout, so I didn't see money for it (though I was, thankfully, credited.)<br />
<br />
Ironically, it was Chris Buck who told me about the photo being used, three decades after he got me my introduction to the paper. Ultimately, this is my only tearsheet from the <i>Voice</i>.<br />
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rick mcginnishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04238756880941710637noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1947005028728131760.post-25283121084300478572018-08-31T08:45:00.002-04:002018-08-31T08:45:14.646-04:00Kathryn Bigelow<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiloR25BhZEziHcd5FMDbi_OcqYLsO-rYTj9FtGXwG2UvtaHYgsX-i70EQUVP9vTIOhK15w2a-chrHW3gONKsM9FyiHDsJTKvMUWtyawC_rK-6bG0LCfsVqlseYuGxgBJJtNF130PspJ7ei/s1600/Kathryn.Bigelow.09.08.2008_01_websized.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="675" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiloR25BhZEziHcd5FMDbi_OcqYLsO-rYTj9FtGXwG2UvtaHYgsX-i70EQUVP9vTIOhK15w2a-chrHW3gONKsM9FyiHDsJTKvMUWtyawC_rK-6bG0LCfsVqlseYuGxgBJJtNF130PspJ7ei/s1600/Kathryn.Bigelow.09.08.2008_01_websized.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Kathryn Bigelow, Toronto, September 9, 2008</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<b>I WAS STILL IN HIGH SCHOOL WHEN I WENT TO MY FIRST FILM FESTIVAL.</b> I can't remember any other film I saw during that festival except one - a weird, almost campy biker film starring a then-unknown young actor named Willem Dafoe and the rockabilly singer Robert Gordon, who was probably the big draw of the film for me. (I was - and remain - a huge fan.) <i>The Loveless</i> was the sort of film where a character would say something like "We're goin' nowhere. Fast." with just enough irony to make it both hilarious and awesome. It remains one of my favorite films.<br />
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The film was co-directed by a recent Columbia University graduate named Kathryn Bigelow. I filed the name in my mind and was not surprised when, six years later, she made <i>Near Dark</i>, a really clever vampire film that didn't let its intelligence get in the way of being a vampire film. I felt very proud that I'd noticed her talent early on, and felt that strange pride and almost possessiveness that a fan feels when I watched her move from one project to another, working with bigger names on each film.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEgYElq_2tK3tZ7k6lDA31BqLMRXiBgC0025xTl7lnyqbsQZer4q-RQ5xcylK_Hxu0GMHZ-VyoUdGxWWHQkgWtFyyizTdD5-fZSAZ-ETFQW3gVoHvJrhx2BOUeU1Gd0Z-SKrNawPBZHk1S/s1600/Kathryn.Bigelow.09.08.2008_02.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="750" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEgYElq_2tK3tZ7k6lDA31BqLMRXiBgC0025xTl7lnyqbsQZer4q-RQ5xcylK_Hxu0GMHZ-VyoUdGxWWHQkgWtFyyizTdD5-fZSAZ-ETFQW3gVoHvJrhx2BOUeU1Gd0Z-SKrNawPBZHk1S/s640/Kathryn.Bigelow.09.08.2008_02.jpg" width="480" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Kathryn Bigelow, Toronto, September 9, 2008</td></tr>
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So I was thrilled when I was assigned to interview and photograph Bigelow by the free daily during the 2008 film festival. Bigelow had endured a bit of a career slump; it had been seven years since her last film, <i>K-19: The Widowmaker</i>, but there was a lot of buzz around her new film - an Iraq war film about a suicidal bomb disposal technician played by <a href="http://someoldpicturesitook.blogspot.com/2018/05/jeremy-renner.html" target="_blank">Jeremy Renner</a>. I was on my own at this festival because Chris Atchison had left the paper - part of a slow exodus of staff inspired by our almost universally unloved new editor. I didn't mind having the job of interviewing someone like Bigelow, though I missed being able to concentrate wholly on the portrait shoot. Still, I think I got decent quotes, like this one:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
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<![endif]--><span style="color: #999999;"><i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">"The war is, certainly
as I understand it through his eyes, searching for IEDs. That's the signature
of this conflict - it's like the jungle in Vietnam. And I think it's really
unique - that's the war. There's no air power or other engagements - you're
constantly seeking out this invisible threat, and it's insidious and it's
futile, and I think the futility of it is what kept coming across to me. And my
feeling is that if I could share that without polemics, or without being
dogmatic, if we could just somehow humanize the experience for an audience then
we've certainly done our job."</span></i></span></blockquote>
Still, I wish I'd had more time to think about the portrait. They're competent shots - I was certainly able to do something at least competent after four years of steady shooting at the free daily - but it wasn't inspired, and I wanted to do something inspired with Bigelow, a director whose work I knew well, and who had certainly inspired me with <i>The Loveless</i> all those years ago, back when I was looking for art that looked like something I imagined in my own head.<br />
<br />
In any case, this would be one of my last portrait shoots at the free daily, and my last film festival for almost a decade. For a while, it looked like it was my last one ever, which made my shoot with Kathryn Bigelow seem appropriate - a kind of closure.<br />
<br />
<br />
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rick mcginnishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04238756880941710637noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1947005028728131760.post-91707729174296165892018-08-29T12:24:00.001-04:002018-09-03T11:36:55.205-04:00Jay Baruchel<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZ2b5ljohxEWQx_2t9ch6e-kEFCb7vAA0wIbiFwXQp5tfl103iFVxp6mXOtTu71ko8eugS1rPqDzcWU7ESUNAN8LmyfHUxew66WaFtUWCahcVQ1Ib_1LH8vOftMmmNf534v7HsiRixdtQN/s1600/Jay.Baruchel.07.10.2008_02_websized.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="675" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZ2b5ljohxEWQx_2t9ch6e-kEFCb7vAA0wIbiFwXQp5tfl103iFVxp6mXOtTu71ko8eugS1rPqDzcWU7ESUNAN8LmyfHUxew66WaFtUWCahcVQ1Ib_1LH8vOftMmmNf534v7HsiRixdtQN/s1600/Jay.Baruchel.07.10.2008_02_websized.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Jay Baruchel, Toronto, July 10, 2008</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<b>JAY BARUCHEL WAS THE LOCAL BOY MADE GOOD WHEN I TOOK THESE PORTRAITS.</b> If by "local" you mean born in Ottawa and raised in Montreal and living in Toronto. In any case, he'd gone from Canadian television to a small part in <i>Almost Famous</i> to membership in the Judd Apatow comic universe, and my best guess was that I was photographing him as he was publicizing <i>Tropic Thunder</i>, which came out around this time.<br />
<br />
I didn't do a lot of portraits in my last year at the free daily - not as many as I'd done previously. So when I did get a decent portrait assignment, I wanted to make it count; I was no longer just pointing the camera and hoping for the best, as I'd done more often that I'd care to admit back at the beginning of my return to portrait work a few years' previous.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQZlGsh3KDp3-N4JTAaK37x3gDD2GXZuRckmM9iEc0nZNjrV9lMbpuHoImNx6Wwrb1APwjYxHY5-XcODP_l5mkVNG-nLycD7pBxf5LRK0tL64medPMO33gu8IvjHGDiTT9SpCxmVxpoCMn/s1600/Jay.Baruchel.07.10.2008_01.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="750" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQZlGsh3KDp3-N4JTAaK37x3gDD2GXZuRckmM9iEc0nZNjrV9lMbpuHoImNx6Wwrb1APwjYxHY5-XcODP_l5mkVNG-nLycD7pBxf5LRK0tL64medPMO33gu8IvjHGDiTT9SpCxmVxpoCMn/s640/Jay.Baruchel.07.10.2008_01.jpg" width="480" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Jay Baruchel, Toronto, July 10, 2008</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
I shot Baruchel at my usual stomping grounds - the Intercontinental on Bloor. We didn't have a room for the interview, so I shot this on a couch in the ground floor bar, which just happened to have some nice light and a dark grey wall just behind my subject, the product of a recent renovation of the hotel. I actually used to spend a lot of time in the same bar over a decade previous, when it had a decent piano player who favoured standards, and my own stubbornly single social life revolved around restaurants and hotel bars.<br />
<br />
Like my portraits of <a href="http://someoldpicturesitook.blogspot.com/2018/08/ben-stein.html" target="_blank">Ben Stein</a> a month earlier, these pictures are the result of four years of shooting, starting from a point where I didn't consider myself a photographer any more. I often refer to the work I did for the free daily as being a style with no style, mostly because I'd completely abandoned the look I'd developed and the working method I'd relied on in the '90s. After four years, a new style - simpler and cleaner than the one I'd had before - was emerging. I felt cautiously optimistic. Big mistake.<br />
<br />
<br />
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rick mcginnishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04238756880941710637noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1947005028728131760.post-78559413402892739632018-08-27T07:30:00.000-04:002018-08-27T07:30:06.361-04:00Ben Stein<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqoSSTHdKq-ayPiWopU0CHrbXxkZqsYgdkJf1hgE0m3vtLUt76YiEabiQOFlyzxSVykW92X6cqTaIJp9EEKX-cAYtSgd9GTWvL34ytLre-rs6dgnV71wZOXxUN9rQbP_D2pyuJtuBMF5l9/s1600/Ben.Stein.06.19.2008_01_websized.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="675" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqoSSTHdKq-ayPiWopU0CHrbXxkZqsYgdkJf1hgE0m3vtLUt76YiEabiQOFlyzxSVykW92X6cqTaIJp9EEKX-cAYtSgd9GTWvL34ytLre-rs6dgnV71wZOXxUN9rQbP_D2pyuJtuBMF5l9/s1600/Ben.Stein.06.19.2008_01_websized.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ben Stein, Toronto, June 19, 2008</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<br />
<b>I HAVE VERY NICE MEMORIES OF THIS SHOOT.</b> Which is worth noting, because I don't have a lot of good memories of my last year at the free daily. It was an anxious time; my editor (and friend) Jodi Isenberg had been pushed out by management and the direction of the paper was doubtful, so a few people who I'd worked with closely for years had left or were preparing to leave. I ended up having to cover a lot of bases, including more combined shooting/writing gigs - like this one, interviewing and photographing Ben Stein, who was in town promoting <i>Expelled</i>, a documentary he'd co-written and hosted.<br />
<br />
I didn't see <i>Ferris Bueller's Day Off</i> until a few years ago, so most of what I knew about Stein came either from his years in the Nixon and Ford administrations as a speechwriter (I have been fascinated by Nixon since the Watergate hearings preempted my favorite afternoon TV shows as a boy) or from <i>Win Ben Stein's Money</i>, which ran in syndication when I was watching a lot of TV while writing a daily column for the free daily. I mostly remember his thinly-concealed distaste for Arianna Huffington, one frequent guest, and a just as thinly concealed crush on Reagan speechwriter Peggy Noonan.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9Hb9lOpaEvl8i9gp5AX41w7huszD2dYDzcYx7XssLWc9NoplOZ1JtraReJVsIUvL2Pev2yt8UvXW2hNfaWEBrr7xGjNd7IaTrTnCGW86WXbYj-EBGxvfCkKdmJVeg3OdiS6dVdts2seG4/s1600/Ben.Stein.06.19.2008_02.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="750" data-original-width="1000" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9Hb9lOpaEvl8i9gp5AX41w7huszD2dYDzcYx7XssLWc9NoplOZ1JtraReJVsIUvL2Pev2yt8UvXW2hNfaWEBrr7xGjNd7IaTrTnCGW86WXbYj-EBGxvfCkKdmJVeg3OdiS6dVdts2seG4/s640/Ben.Stein.06.19.2008_02.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ben Stein, Toronto, June 19, 2008</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
It would be an understatement to say that <i>Expelled </i>was controversial. A documentary defending Intelligent Design and asserting that Darwinism was ideologically complicit in the rise of eugenics and the Holocaust was going to piss off a lot of people. I personally think Creationism is ridiculous but I was impressed by Stein's willingness to get behind the film and its thesis, even if I didn't agree with most of the message.<br />
<br />
(For the record, I consider the theory of evolution is broadly correct, but that it's going to see a lot of revisions in the decades to come, as more evidence is uncovered and research is done. A hundred years from now our current understanding of evolution will probably seem as basic and misconceived as public health was before germ theory and antibiotics. Which is why we shouldn't treat it as dogma.)<br />
<br />
I was open about my opinion, but told Stein that I supported what he was doing as a free speech issue, and we ended up agreeing that academia in particular (and the media in general) had become remarkably hostile to anyone challenging conventional wisdom and the status quo. We got along so well that Stein asked his publicist if he could just blow off the next few interviews and keep talking with me. Naturally, this made him a more pliable subject when it came time to take my photos.<br />
<br />
By 2008 it had been four years since Jodi had pushed me back into portrait photography. By then I had cautiously begun to imagine myself as a professional photographer again, and years of regular work had forced me to search for a new style. The portrait of Stein at the top was a stab at that, formed in the circumstances in which I'd been working for the last few years - hotel rooms like this one at the Royal York, where I had to look hard to find my light and my background and discover something usable, fast.<br />
<br />
The result was something a lot more artless than the work I'd been doing a decade earlier at <i>NOW</i> magazine - direct and symmetrical and somewhat clinical takes on the subject in front of my camera. I was shooting with something in mind beyond what would run in the paper a day or a week later, and the shots I'm posting now are probably a lot closer to what I had in mind on that day. Not necessarily flattering portraiture, but I'd finally let myself downplay that obligation, which felt a lot stronger when I started shooting again for the free daily. <br />
<br />
<br />
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rick mcginnishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04238756880941710637noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1947005028728131760.post-61772774258448534442018-08-24T07:30:00.000-04:002018-08-24T07:30:00.149-04:00Luton Hoo<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbkSL5zlLDe3vNCr8iAXQA_an3x4CSZ-GyT4sQd9iuafbDXfwuOSr2DY00Ae0QtxXmT_6KWxpZGyRnmZYCsJ0EyXQuEvXeuvQSsnHjIjxyU3jI_RhHcZy6LFZG6C54H_qoYqUbjQ7u2-FY/s1600/Luton.Hoo.2008_lion_websized.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="675" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbkSL5zlLDe3vNCr8iAXQA_an3x4CSZ-GyT4sQd9iuafbDXfwuOSr2DY00Ae0QtxXmT_6KWxpZGyRnmZYCsJ0EyXQuEvXeuvQSsnHjIjxyU3jI_RhHcZy6LFZG6C54H_qoYqUbjQ7u2-FY/s1600/Luton.Hoo.2008_lion_websized.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Luton Hoo, Bedfordshire, UK, March 2008</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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</div>
<br />
<b>I CAN THANK WALT DISNEY FOR THIS ONE.</b> My second trip to England after over ten years was a press junket organized by Disney to push the DVD release of <i>Enchanted </i>and <i>National Treasure: Book of Secrets</i>. This was, as far as I can tell, the last great golden moment for movie press junkets, which I'd been doing regularly for at least a couple of years at the free daily, though mostly to either New York or Los Angeles.<br />
<br />
I don't know how or why they chose this lovely 18th century manor house, designed by Robert Adam (with later additions) and landscaping by Capability Brown. It was being turned into a golf and spa resort and I think our group was part of the soft opening before they officially began taking guests. I suppose it fit the theme of <i>Enchanted </i>- sort of - though the connection to the latest Nicholas Cage film was tenuous. I wasn't complaining, in any case.<br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBckVtZiKb2Uqhn9lCokuwaGB1I4qq4SIBrw5DpLIYBwR0_PAKT0z98OK7xijXRYUpWZnRjMJBeGBKg6Oltx-keaM4fQfGF_JdcwcrScDXmLSDeSm3qZjhX8wUP4KLNwzC0gQbWRH0tO94/s1600/Luton.Hoo.2008_house.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="750" data-original-width="1000" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBckVtZiKb2Uqhn9lCokuwaGB1I4qq4SIBrw5DpLIYBwR0_PAKT0z98OK7xijXRYUpWZnRjMJBeGBKg6Oltx-keaM4fQfGF_JdcwcrScDXmLSDeSm3qZjhX8wUP4KLNwzC0gQbWRH0tO94/s640/Luton.Hoo.2008_house.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicexMsxykErMlzs1iNKF5Q1Da3Roea_ku-sBpoOVDMbywqSsmnJvk7RSJOt7vku13uPpOit4ROgy6DRj20ucUKgw3xrjrZb1mcjRF1YOkLNZFMZ8D0Lzmvjqsk35pSLDmUzz5Uk4Hvm_Qa/s1600/Luton.Hoo.2008_landscape.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="691" data-original-width="1000" height="442" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicexMsxykErMlzs1iNKF5Q1Da3Roea_ku-sBpoOVDMbywqSsmnJvk7RSJOt7vku13uPpOit4ROgy6DRj20ucUKgw3xrjrZb1mcjRF1YOkLNZFMZ8D0Lzmvjqsk35pSLDmUzz5Uk4Hvm_Qa/s640/Luton.Hoo.2008_landscape.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglwMsaKwhtYXqFyfsPftJZb31wZblNeqHOueDAtsWx0SeyiDx1EgMhu2erWi-tSmHBMWIEYLF9o-c0pJqiH9sXAsH6aq3Gti-PtcUr7vGoIpgI0r182f5JzxOR2LYRwWefwMaPYRUZLmUF/s1600/Luton.Hoo.2008_churchill.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="750" data-original-width="1000" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglwMsaKwhtYXqFyfsPftJZb31wZblNeqHOueDAtsWx0SeyiDx1EgMhu2erWi-tSmHBMWIEYLF9o-c0pJqiH9sXAsH6aq3Gti-PtcUr7vGoIpgI0r182f5JzxOR2LYRwWefwMaPYRUZLmUF/s640/Luton.Hoo.2008_churchill.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Luton Hoo, Bedfordshire, UK, March 2008</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
We were a large group of English-speaking international press, and within a day or so we'd sorted ourselves into little cliques. I ended up in a group of colonials - Canadians and Australians, who seemed to appreciate each other's sense of humour more than anything else. The unofficial ringleader was Sam de Brito, an Australian who ended up <a href="http://blogs.smh.com.au/lifestyle/allmenareliars/archives/2008/03/canadians.html" target="_blank">writing a column</a> about our little group. I was shocked to learn, from another Australian while on a travel junket two years ago, that Sam had <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/author-and-fairfax-columinist-sam-de-brito-found-dead-in-north-bondi-home-20151012-gk6qgy.html" target="_blank">died</a>.<br />
<br />
Our lodgings were, in a word, palatial. Sir Julius Wernher, who bought the house in 1903, had it redesigned by the architects of the Ritz, his favorite London hotel. My own room was in a new addition built for the new hotel, and was larger than my first two apartments put together. I had my first Full English breakfast at the hotel, which was a revelation, though I'm grateful it isn't a regular menu item here.<br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4hA5TuzOV9KH4MGxrLFgo3_50Qo0xhHRY7EVRFtzMGXnj19rKkJFnyaqJi3mlWO_5CLjeRKB_90zX1Vj3EEzSeGVhMPrUzIKPSRV2134q5UdCHCwJSOrrr0fGAwzK0eJ02w1-QDAzYDoC/s1600/Luton.Hoo.2008_staircase.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="750" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4hA5TuzOV9KH4MGxrLFgo3_50Qo0xhHRY7EVRFtzMGXnj19rKkJFnyaqJi3mlWO_5CLjeRKB_90zX1Vj3EEzSeGVhMPrUzIKPSRV2134q5UdCHCwJSOrrr0fGAwzK0eJ02w1-QDAzYDoC/s640/Luton.Hoo.2008_staircase.jpg" width="480" /></a></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEq07X0l6ICVf_c1a_Y49HP5wjJO_ZRZ21L-lly_IGFSy2RynvX08mrKJJ5LoFskyjy5ChHEHoFq1OnA_bVBPRivKhwvdr-scuL6Ge8Tcy207SxnSk7aYkg6A7kCTmByQYGfsxfUfRoBLz/s1600/Luton.Hoo.2008_room.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="750" data-original-width="1000" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEq07X0l6ICVf_c1a_Y49HP5wjJO_ZRZ21L-lly_IGFSy2RynvX08mrKJJ5LoFskyjy5ChHEHoFq1OnA_bVBPRivKhwvdr-scuL6Ge8Tcy207SxnSk7aYkg6A7kCTmByQYGfsxfUfRoBLz/s640/Luton.Hoo.2008_room.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Luton Hoo Resort, Bedfordshire, UK, March 2008</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
I don't remember much about the junket - there was an etiquette lesson, and a ride in a car driven down an obstacle course by a stunt driver. The real star of the trip was the house and the grounds, which gave me my first glimpse of the English Country House up close. I could have - and should have - spent hours wandering around; I'm amazed that I didn't follow that long lawn down to the view that Capability Brown obviously wanted me to take in, but I was still unsure about shooting landscapes back then.<br />
<br />
So I stuck close to the house and shot the ancient trees, the gazebo and its ceiling, and the ornaments and statuary placed around the gardens. It was my first glimpse of a really first class lodging, and I can say with authority after a few years of doing travel journalism that there are few things that give more pleasure than a really nice hotel - at least for me.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXIbQTfEtKb6aBXfpUAHTiwCNaNBD474-OjS9gqWs6tEamuQe7Hn-R9VtdI3GXPFzVoU-8COx_dFkPGkYP42wP4s5-KB8Z08jvT8lGpBqnwPPn0FZlCKVZWG6oFxK_nsMQyKLAHD3AERbV/s1600/Luton.Hoo.2008_tree.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="750" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXIbQTfEtKb6aBXfpUAHTiwCNaNBD474-OjS9gqWs6tEamuQe7Hn-R9VtdI3GXPFzVoU-8COx_dFkPGkYP42wP4s5-KB8Z08jvT8lGpBqnwPPn0FZlCKVZWG6oFxK_nsMQyKLAHD3AERbV/s640/Luton.Hoo.2008_tree.jpg" width="480" /></a></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Luton Hoo, Bedfordshire, UK, March 2008</td></tr>
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<br />
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rick mcginnishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04238756880941710637noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1947005028728131760.post-86411172891775020262018-08-22T07:30:00.000-04:002018-09-07T09:53:57.452-04:00Graeme Kirkland<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRm2Ry3kb6x2vW5gW3oALAhuBhuOhyZpHZwHGPYdMCBGSHeppAIyfm6CuJRL56IKXIE5bz-Tm0qfaIt-7PpDgdXlZ3FGADJ1eNDobK02ovfTeqLCaTG5RJsPQ3WyGwfgdrfMIiEILXuK9O/s1600/Graeme.Kirkland.03.1989_02.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="668" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRm2Ry3kb6x2vW5gW3oALAhuBhuOhyZpHZwHGPYdMCBGSHeppAIyfm6CuJRL56IKXIE5bz-Tm0qfaIt-7PpDgdXlZ3FGADJ1eNDobK02ovfTeqLCaTG5RJsPQ3WyGwfgdrfMIiEILXuK9O/s1600/Graeme.Kirkland.03.1989_02.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Graeme Kirkland, Parkdale, March 1989</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<b>THE PHONE RANG EARLY AND I DIDN'T WANT TO ANSWER IT BUT I DID.</b> It was Graeme Kirkland telling me he wanted to come over and do a photo shoot, right away. I tried to talk him out of it; it was early, I was tired, and I frankly wasn't feeling that inspired on that particular chilly morning caught between winter and spring.<br />
<br />
"No, I just got out of the hospital," Graeme insisted. "I got beat up pretty bad at Sneaky Dee's last night by a bunch of skinheads. I want to get a photo of myself like this."<br />
<br />
I don't think I thought about it much.<br />
<br />
"Come right on over, Graeme."<br />
<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUudm0N-GMD8BAyuZySv67y0SeG4K7duynbXoWpywC9PKQlGtwyfIu-PjS8mObczCUQ5A-kULPJvBx5o88dtZ7lXU9pX9vlFACEvPmNrYLQyKkxkj4M-mWpw8LB8m01h3W8yTg2VXMkQZB/s1600/Graeme.Kirkland.03.1989_01.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="667" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUudm0N-GMD8BAyuZySv67y0SeG4K7duynbXoWpywC9PKQlGtwyfIu-PjS8mObczCUQ5A-kULPJvBx5o88dtZ7lXU9pX9vlFACEvPmNrYLQyKkxkj4M-mWpw8LB8m01h3W8yTg2VXMkQZB/s640/Graeme.Kirkland.03.1989_01.jpg" width="426" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Graeme Kirkland, Parkdale, March 1989</td></tr>
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<br />
He was a mess. It's a shame I only shot these in black and white because Graeme's bruises were a really intriguing spectrum of purple and red and blue and yellow. (Colour film and processing cost money and I doubt if I had any sitting around the studio in those early, very penniless days.) I don't know how he saw through eyes that were swollen shut. He had a fat lip and stitches and tape holding his skin together and crusts of blood clinging to his face where the nurses in emergency hadn't cleaned it off.<br />
<br />
I set up the light - my only light, probably - to give a stark effect, like a police evidence photo. We shot for two or three rolls - long enough to have Graeme shed his bloodstained jacket and shirt and finally wrap the shirt around his head like a turban. I can't remember whose idea that was. I asked him how it happened and he said that he was drunk and hitting on girls and he probably said the wrong thing to the wrong one and that the skinheads waiting for him by the bathroom at Sneaky Dee's were definitely not drunk and knew what they were doing.<br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNusSsxIsirLaFgeMpsnr2fOu9Cv4EJ_vH6L94i8G_k72gWL3MTCvXb6LeFbh-W7ec6XYaMGMSGDbRVIBWnl6uxMZWj3nE5bRVfZ7ira7Sfqhyphenhyphen6EIP4gQ-7jShW4GNhrqm3qrANpuod3VV/s1600/Graeme.Kirkland.live.1990_01.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="670" data-original-width="1000" height="428" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNusSsxIsirLaFgeMpsnr2fOu9Cv4EJ_vH6L94i8G_k72gWL3MTCvXb6LeFbh-W7ec6XYaMGMSGDbRVIBWnl6uxMZWj3nE5bRVfZ7ira7Sfqhyphenhyphen6EIP4gQ-7jShW4GNhrqm3qrANpuod3VV/s640/Graeme.Kirkland.live.1990_01.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXdu7XutahGDCxgenehO4EOOek4hIk-M0ppROWkOP1ccPb4Q7yHNB3xUCTa-4tgGsIsv9Q7oW8zW8cR81eKJ-xT_Wi3MZ9wksjYQLJh8fSVwbsJoR3k8sWaHYZHDCAHRFqLMCuYt2D1nHq/s1600/Graeme.Kirkland.live.1990_02.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="673" data-original-width="1000" height="430" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXdu7XutahGDCxgenehO4EOOek4hIk-M0ppROWkOP1ccPb4Q7yHNB3xUCTa-4tgGsIsv9Q7oW8zW8cR81eKJ-xT_Wi3MZ9wksjYQLJh8fSVwbsJoR3k8sWaHYZHDCAHRFqLMCuYt2D1nHq/s640/Graeme.Kirkland.live.1990_02.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Graeme Kirkland, "Clock Destruction," 1990</td></tr>
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<br />
I photographed Graeme a lot back when he was the jazz drummer who knew how to get noticed in a city that didn't especially notice jazz musicians in general. He'd do shows like "Clock Destruction" - a performance piece as much as a show where he played in body paint and briefs and set about a big wooden clock with a chainsaw and a flame thrower. The inspiration, he recalls, was all the deadlines he had to deal with managing his own career. "What if I could be free of it?"<br />
<br />
Looking back, it's a miracle he didn't burn down a club.<br />
<br />
He also took to busking in a big way, and you'd find him out in the streets playing in all weather - like the snow storm where I photographed him in the shot below. Look closely and you'll see a copy of <i>Sleep Alone</i>, the record with a cover featuring my portraits of him after his skinhead encounter, taped to his tom. It wasn't the most audacious thing that Graeme did by a long shot, and those photos ended up being my own ticket to an encounter with the music industry legend that is <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_the_Fuck_Is_That_Guy%3F_The_Fabulous_Journey_of_Michael_Alago" target="_blank">Michael Alago</a>, but that's a story for another day.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHX0sodkzEkgdNSR1x8lDe-r8hdXakHKiy3rOPK0nbhKVIyITB9nDekUTBLkqigqUDcRpvuOvIiMs6X1u2Ywg1dpJ22dJ5HOGB4Mg7c4T56O2QTw9d2yx_cz_mvVP42EyOgpW_StROmpFz/s1600/Graeme.Kirkland.snowstorm.1992.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1009" data-original-width="1000" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHX0sodkzEkgdNSR1x8lDe-r8hdXakHKiy3rOPK0nbhKVIyITB9nDekUTBLkqigqUDcRpvuOvIiMs6X1u2Ywg1dpJ22dJ5HOGB4Mg7c4T56O2QTw9d2yx_cz_mvVP42EyOgpW_StROmpFz/s640/Graeme.Kirkland.snowstorm.1992.jpg" width="634" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Graeme Kirkland plays in a snowstorm, Toronto, Winter 1992</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTpj1Podu83-eB3RV0X7onINtk9eg7gn9YDc6piPwO1rtIcvZCc-QrKDmnwv8N76yK7M143YVg9comVV3Wgdicl17scqYwLLJAEtZKP-PWQV9Z7eblEzspl5pzql9aTHmJaYfAJo2LplM7/s1600/Graeme.Kirkland.08.2018_02.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="1000" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTpj1Podu83-eB3RV0X7onINtk9eg7gn9YDc6piPwO1rtIcvZCc-QrKDmnwv8N76yK7M143YVg9comVV3Wgdicl17scqYwLLJAEtZKP-PWQV9Z7eblEzspl5pzql9aTHmJaYfAJo2LplM7/s640/Graeme.Kirkland.08.2018_02.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Graeme Kirkland, Toronto, August 2018</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
By the late '90s Graeme felt that he was doing more work setting up shows - booking venues and getting grants and finding players and doing publicity - than actually playing music. "I didn't feel like a drummer any more," he told me. "This is marketing. I had become a businessman."<br />
<br />
So if playing music had turned him into a businessman, Graeme quietly decided to pursue that path, and got himself an entry-level job at a securities trading firm. Nearly twenty years later he's a <a href="https://argosykirkland.com/" target="_blank">senior investment advisor</a> who's been on teams that have managed over $850 million dollars at a variety of banks and firms. I visited him at his new office in a leafy and venerable west end neighbourhood and convinced him to sit for some new photos after over twenty-five years.<br />
<br />
"That was always my deepest goal," he recalled. "I wanted to live
something so intense that you wanted to die from it. I still have that
in me very deeply."<br />
<br />
"I had experiences nobody else has had," he told me. "Doing exactly what I wanted to do." The only thing he regretted, if only for a while, was that he'd never gotten an MBA like all the other struggling traders at that first securities job. He hasn't had a drum kit in years.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAGKAkFrd-CcGd5pAZjgf1CqBSUmPJj_G-Beo3BXQF9Ma1_qvJHAtfoisPGqpIGdG0qbP_tWaFWK28GSd33Yzg7-q2HaTq4DeqZhgt3q8VZe92gwhzZ24VBNfSY8yy5wpIFA7b-e6HEBuP/s1600/Graeme.Kirkland.08.2018_01.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="1000" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAGKAkFrd-CcGd5pAZjgf1CqBSUmPJj_G-Beo3BXQF9Ma1_qvJHAtfoisPGqpIGdG0qbP_tWaFWK28GSd33Yzg7-q2HaTq4DeqZhgt3q8VZe92gwhzZ24VBNfSY8yy5wpIFA7b-e6HEBuP/s640/Graeme.Kirkland.08.2018_01.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Graeme Kirkland, Toronto, August 2018</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
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rick mcginnishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04238756880941710637noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1947005028728131760.post-69224558019468716912018-08-20T09:01:00.000-04:002018-08-20T09:01:42.354-04:00Mark Ruffalo<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaUhP4b3HaqUoA7XvwjrS7rr0d5NToeFY66RvE1sTfs3adOCCY5P7xnDWuKfK35aX0v3HMzqSglapUyT25qQG7-eoa3l1cpdo4eukccrowHdBZl4vBc9iVNLrW2QS9w8J81CAp8kaHrJUc/s1600/Mark.Ruffalo.09.13.2007_01.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="667" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaUhP4b3HaqUoA7XvwjrS7rr0d5NToeFY66RvE1sTfs3adOCCY5P7xnDWuKfK35aX0v3HMzqSglapUyT25qQG7-eoa3l1cpdo4eukccrowHdBZl4vBc9iVNLrW2QS9w8J81CAp8kaHrJUc/s1600/Mark.Ruffalo.09.13.2007_01.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mark Ruffalo, Toronto, Sept. 13, 2007</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<b>MARK RUFFALO WAS STILL IN HIS ROMANTIC LEAD PERIOD </b>when I took these portraits - five years before his first appearance as Bruce Banner/The Hulk. This makes me wonder if I'd ever have a chance of taking his portrait today, as the Marvel Cinematic Universe has changed the ordering of the star system so completely.<br />
<br />
I'd been seeing Ruffalo in a lot of films while I was at the free daily, doing film and DVD reviewing among my many other duties. He was having a good career - his filmography is pretty thick, but I mostly remembered him for his role in the erotic thriller <i>In The Cut</i>, co-starring with Meg Ryan. It was notable for some somewhat graphic sex scenes, and in retrospect it was the moment when their career paths crossed - his on the way up, her on the way down from her peak as America's Sweetheart.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWlQxOYw-oi8nQbcxSKbTUJ9__aH2eWOlrFhA5ShVzrhnT0Z20ibD54-ZAGLMPbmcdni_EWEQ2KCj9Iou47OyeDBOtMX9SZosuViOiwbYR97ivgFtL0JGjCRG-_IdG7ko2VCn5DBeI1E10/s1600/Mark.Ruffalo.09.13.2007_02.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="667" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWlQxOYw-oi8nQbcxSKbTUJ9__aH2eWOlrFhA5ShVzrhnT0Z20ibD54-ZAGLMPbmcdni_EWEQ2KCj9Iou47OyeDBOtMX9SZosuViOiwbYR97ivgFtL0JGjCRG-_IdG7ko2VCn5DBeI1E10/s640/Mark.Ruffalo.09.13.2007_02.jpg" width="426" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mark Ruffalo, Toronto, Sept. 13, 2007</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />For his part, Ruffalo didn't seem to have settled on his "photo face" - the expression (or mask, if you will) that many actors and other personalities learn to put on after their first few dozen photo shoots. There's a nice range of expression - something it's always nice to be able to hand in to your editors at the end of the day. <br />
<br />
This was my final shoot of the 2007 film festival, as far
as I can tell. Another room at the Intercontinental on Bloor, another
warm spot of light by a wall; there was, if nothing else, a consistency
to the work I did at the time that might be mistaken for a style, if you
were feeling generous. I didn't know it at the time but this would be my last big festival for almost a decade, as some big changes were about to take place at the free daily.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_4VSVlIGMEggVGWWdzbZeMC3-NzX5TShjGOElU_MULnjbeMnhDS4WJK-YhOsc3t43BbMiqw8-S9m7IT_XIMSuaPLg1Wb3fu0fTNOkRdPAmaVic4Ez-_hwqpeHQcE2WbdYQ9qgU4G1HrYX/s1600/Mark.Ruffalo.09.13.2007_03.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="667" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_4VSVlIGMEggVGWWdzbZeMC3-NzX5TShjGOElU_MULnjbeMnhDS4WJK-YhOsc3t43BbMiqw8-S9m7IT_XIMSuaPLg1Wb3fu0fTNOkRdPAmaVic4Ez-_hwqpeHQcE2WbdYQ9qgU4G1HrYX/s640/Mark.Ruffalo.09.13.2007_03.jpg" width="426" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mark Ruffalo, Toronto, Sept. 13, 2007</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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rick mcginnishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04238756880941710637noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1947005028728131760.post-11819708829789003822018-08-17T07:30:00.000-04:002018-08-17T07:30:04.061-04:00Leelee Sobieski<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgH1v_ulYgQGT_uxLAYk8w_gx4oxggYcf4YtqaEVUrvZJS11GDjU0iYBDnHa0r8xMx_HP1OhPzoZJFYjhIBny0Pb1KaV1fgPXSr7Cun7GlVde8Y_Qo-gK_OMaWxdNi700-Ajz0gSJG2RYo/s1600/Leelee.Sobieski.09.12.2007_02.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="667" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgH1v_ulYgQGT_uxLAYk8w_gx4oxggYcf4YtqaEVUrvZJS11GDjU0iYBDnHa0r8xMx_HP1OhPzoZJFYjhIBny0Pb1KaV1fgPXSr7Cun7GlVde8Y_Qo-gK_OMaWxdNi700-Ajz0gSJG2RYo/s1600/Leelee.Sobieski.09.12.2007_02.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Leelee Sobieski, Toronto, Sept. 12, 2007</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<b>IT'S ALL ABOUT LIGHT.</b> And yes, about your subject and your bedside manner and your skill and perhaps a little bit of luck, but if you can't find - or create - the light, you'd might as well shoot everything in a bus station photo booth. (Do they even have photo booths in bus stations any more?) Which might actually work, in some situations, but real photographers spend their lives chasing the light.<br />
<br />
Like a moth.<br />
<br />
I actually felt a bit like a moth when I found this light in a hotel suite at the Intercontinental at the end of a long week of film fest shooting. It had taken me three years to find the elusive quality of light in that hotel after the luxury of shooting at the Four Seasons around the corner, so when this undistinguished suite of rooms managed to catch the late afternoon light and wrap it around my subjects, something in me went a bit weak and buzzy.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4yp7qkBcTYdvgoo9HnGmbV8cy7sP3ZmqfRdbHyRHdWmgU3f5N89fBOdH7QX048wLLO8VqX7lIAam3k35682gGsxLME_uPlj38a15tObfPhkvhRJhArmNalSDNmYiBVYycEvp7UMKa267g/s1600/Leelee.Sobieski.09.12.2007_03.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="667" data-original-width="1000" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4yp7qkBcTYdvgoo9HnGmbV8cy7sP3ZmqfRdbHyRHdWmgU3f5N89fBOdH7QX048wLLO8VqX7lIAam3k35682gGsxLME_uPlj38a15tObfPhkvhRJhArmNalSDNmYiBVYycEvp7UMKa267g/s640/Leelee.Sobieski.09.12.2007_03.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Leelee Sobieski, Toronto, Sept. 12, 2007</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
It helped, of course, to have a lovely subject. I know a lot of people who've never been sure if Leelee Sobieski was a really good actress or simply utterly beguiling to look upon. (And to be honest, major movie stars have built whole careers on little more than this.) Frankly, this sort of beauty can be something of a curse, since it will obscure talent, like anything backlit by the sun turns into a hazy shadow.<br />
<br />
I love these photos. I'll probably put them in my new portfolio as a way of selling myself as a glamour shooter. (Good luck with that.) But I can only take so much credit for them. Off the top of my head, I'd say 55% Sobieski, 35% light and 10% me. Maybe 40% light. Even at the time I remember thinking that I was just the guy lucky enough to be holding the camera in that room, at that time, and I haven't changed my mind.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjk2S6sbM-E2DMGDlWz2vyP98Vyeq2Kqu4VKAQQ8gTRGgKaLaF4CQirZLW1_rFie0kRKBWxoWZI0gL0INX2zOPW5oWdTh8gDaFpKaNrFzjMslIO_vlvE1A0FHjGG-7_bBQi_LKSqxET4cb2/s1600/Leelee.Sobieski.09.12.2007_01.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="667" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjk2S6sbM-E2DMGDlWz2vyP98Vyeq2Kqu4VKAQQ8gTRGgKaLaF4CQirZLW1_rFie0kRKBWxoWZI0gL0INX2zOPW5oWdTh8gDaFpKaNrFzjMslIO_vlvE1A0FHjGG-7_bBQi_LKSqxET4cb2/s640/Leelee.Sobieski.09.12.2007_01.jpg" width="426" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Leelee Sobieski, Toronto, Sept. 12, 2007</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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rick mcginnishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04238756880941710637noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1947005028728131760.post-69251102456087711442018-08-16T07:30:00.000-04:002018-08-16T07:30:00.178-04:00Tricia Helfer<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUK6BPkJEEeHjXrSj5yxKs0yenxnfvj0TXZhS_0ZfX9jf1i2_9HDJC5OC4N3KxPb9P_KAsWIwSX_ayp1_NVtTCAdDcnhBv50jnG5FSV00e_sr3vK3HkyErBfWaQRj_oFUy0gbVRGtNXFkr/s1600/Tricia.Helfer.09.12.2007_02.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="667" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUK6BPkJEEeHjXrSj5yxKs0yenxnfvj0TXZhS_0ZfX9jf1i2_9HDJC5OC4N3KxPb9P_KAsWIwSX_ayp1_NVtTCAdDcnhBv50jnG5FSV00e_sr3vK3HkyErBfWaQRj_oFUy0gbVRGtNXFkr/s1600/Tricia.Helfer.09.12.2007_02.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Tricia Helfer, Toronto, Sept. 12, 2007</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<b>I'M NOT SURE WHY 2007 WAS THE YEAR THAT MY FILM FESTIVAL </b>felt like I was shooting for a fashion magazine. Perhaps it was the direction our editor, Jodi, wanted to take the paper, in pursuit of the ideal young female reader demographic. Perhaps we'd simply accrued enough pull that we could ask for interviews and shoots with some of the more glamorous guests at the festival.<br />
<br />
In any case, I wasn't complaining. 2007 might have been my busiest festival ever, and while doing up to seven shoots a day can be taxing on your creative inspiration, it helps if a) your subject is physically attractive and b) they have some training in posing for cameras. As your classic farmgirl-turned-model-turned-actress, Tricia Helfer fit this bill perfectly, and while I might have pushed for her to provide me with something less than a model's repertoire of looks if I'd had more time, this shoot came at the end of a long day and I was frankly willing to coast.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqgz1g_mev4SoGqLnrmzWTlgornS4233E9PqBmtvmaxjwH_YhFeBcMQLBZawJVMrSPqe65YAwfroWwENLnF6_K_DzkwsTAViwQy1boDslDsVMdTupggxQw_sU-4C1AmioAiCYEAERSBSfn/s1600/Tricia.Helfer.09.12.2007_03.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="667" data-original-width="1000" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqgz1g_mev4SoGqLnrmzWTlgornS4233E9PqBmtvmaxjwH_YhFeBcMQLBZawJVMrSPqe65YAwfroWwENLnF6_K_DzkwsTAViwQy1boDslDsVMdTupggxQw_sU-4C1AmioAiCYEAERSBSfn/s640/Tricia.Helfer.09.12.2007_03.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Tricia Helfer, Toronto, Sept. 12, 2007</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Helfer was still in the middle of her run as the Cylon baddie Number Six on <i>Battlestar Galactica</i> when I took these photos - a cultural phenomenon that was part of the avalanche of shows that made premium cable the new Hollywood, and began shooting the kneecaps off of both cinematic features and prime time TV. As an ex-model-turned-actress she was perfect for the role of an unnaturally beautiful humanoid created by a machine race that achieved sentience, inasmuch as really beautiful people often embody what's called the "<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny_valley" target="_blank">uncanny valley</a>" effect - that trait of computer-generated actors that might look realistic but possess an ineffable but undeniably disturbing quality that doesn't seem quite human.<br />
<br />
But perhaps that was just the light. I photographed Helfer in a suite at the Intercontinental that, due to the time of day, was filled with the strangest but most flattering available light I'd ever encountered in a hotel room. The rooms at the Intercontinental were famously dim, so I could scarcely believe what I was seeing through my viewfinder when I had Helfer sit in what I'd just assumed was the brightest point in the room. I doubt that I could have duplicated that light with a kit full of strobes.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWQT7aZ6vdFB7KwlIFtYCD2wxBRBGa_kmAqETo4oKRT-T_pwBEzdELl-YM5tX4oup9RRsGpxrQSnkB8u8JlnrjFfTHbUx0oPakRzkevgTN9WNzCOkCC5vPtdPBk-IWnf27QNS19Y8Z1UMv/s1600/Tricia.Helfer.09.12.2007_01.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="667" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWQT7aZ6vdFB7KwlIFtYCD2wxBRBGa_kmAqETo4oKRT-T_pwBEzdELl-YM5tX4oup9RRsGpxrQSnkB8u8JlnrjFfTHbUx0oPakRzkevgTN9WNzCOkCC5vPtdPBk-IWnf27QNS19Y8Z1UMv/s640/Tricia.Helfer.09.12.2007_01.jpg" width="426" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Tricia Helfer, Toronto, Sept. 12, 2007</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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rick mcginnishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04238756880941710637noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1947005028728131760.post-34213321703560463982018-08-15T07:30:00.000-04:002018-08-15T07:30:06.353-04:00Emmanuelle Seigner<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikswXwHc-dws2CxyTDiKRoBNxMK_Ti21m5djzUkJ6oDBIrfp1VRPDrQUEcSLhdJlalvUgjtyyvLXf1aviPYHxt_9_RQQgCZiwL87sS4dETeDJxR8wZUlByrzfRhyphenhyphen0FtYRFCRyJVdZ0Hygp/s1600/Emmanuelle.Seigner.09.12.2007_01.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="667" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikswXwHc-dws2CxyTDiKRoBNxMK_Ti21m5djzUkJ6oDBIrfp1VRPDrQUEcSLhdJlalvUgjtyyvLXf1aviPYHxt_9_RQQgCZiwL87sS4dETeDJxR8wZUlByrzfRhyphenhyphen0FtYRFCRyJVdZ0Hygp/s1600/Emmanuelle.Seigner.09.12.2007_01.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Emmanuelle Seigner, Toronto, Sept. 12, 2007</td></tr>
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<br />
<b>I WON'T LIE - I REMEMBER SOME VERY STRANGE CHEMISTRY HAPPENING DURING THIS SHOOT.</b> Perhaps I imagined it; I might have been projecting my own very conflicted feelings about my subject and her circumstances into an otherwise normal situation. Perhaps. But as I'm someone who struggles to remember much about the thousands of shoots I've done, any memory at all has to be significant.<br />
<br />
Emmanuelle Seigner was at the film festival promoting her role in <i>The Diving Bell and the Butterfly</i>, a big critical success and directed by the painter Julian Schnabel. (Another shoot with some weird chemistry, but more about that <a href="http://someoldpicturesitook.blogspot.com/2018/01/flops.html" target="_blank">here</a>.) Seigner wasn't a household name here but she was a major one in France, where she'd probably have been a celebrity even if she wasn't married to the (in)famous Polish director Roman Polanski.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBWpN_W-dgdpRxuUvvnxRAD3BOVFUjP7qn8hVa_OR8aoP4XHAge9jymslyCg8eN71dbj5FRIkBaR4GsxU8FKtEJ_76nz6rggRlXPokc4dfVRNgNJ1Cfo8UTSA17nyS7tzRHJrarb_4ECUF/s1600/Emmanuelle.Seigner.09.12.2007_02.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="667" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBWpN_W-dgdpRxuUvvnxRAD3BOVFUjP7qn8hVa_OR8aoP4XHAge9jymslyCg8eN71dbj5FRIkBaR4GsxU8FKtEJ_76nz6rggRlXPokc4dfVRNgNJ1Cfo8UTSA17nyS7tzRHJrarb_4ECUF/s640/Emmanuelle.Seigner.09.12.2007_02.jpg" width="426" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Emmanuelle Seigner, Toronto, Sept. 12, 2007</td></tr>
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<br />
Perhaps it was because she was French. I'm not the first person to observe that cultural differences accelerate once English-speaking people cross eastward over the English Channel. But Seigner walked into the room acting both wary and wired at the same time, like she had some sort of agenda in mind for her photo shoots, though she wasn't going to let any photographer know what that might be. I honestly can't remember anyone who'd given off a similar vibe since my shoot with <a href="http://someoldpicturesitook.blogspot.com/2016/01/bjork-revisited.html" target="_blank">Bjork</a>, a decade previous.<br />
<br />
It's not like Seigner was flirting with me - though the broad wink she gave my camera might suggest otherwise. But she definitely had an image of herself - former models-turned-actors have that extra level self-possession that normal people never have enough practice to formulate - and it felt like she was seeing if I was able to catch it on the fly. It was a situation where her English and my French were probably never going to provide the common ground where we'd come to a mutual understanding. And whereas I often imagine that a little bit more time might have moved us toward that goal, I'm not sure if that would have been the case with this shoot.<br />
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rick mcginnishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04238756880941710637noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1947005028728131760.post-83872402227352075522018-08-14T07:30:00.000-04:002018-08-14T07:30:07.878-04:00Evan Rachel Wood<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieBMtqrqIbU2owVIh61UaSxujKCx6GpveagTB6OQzmuIhE38KEH_DtJj7EO2gB1mBZKT6lPfsHAqKqfnRcmAo7J5w8G7vLqY2XSKVTaJx_ya5dfQDcgIg7RgJGcktI0n0sQ-CiKQ13_3-D/s1600/Evan.Rachel.Wood.09.11.2007_03.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="667" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieBMtqrqIbU2owVIh61UaSxujKCx6GpveagTB6OQzmuIhE38KEH_DtJj7EO2gB1mBZKT6lPfsHAqKqfnRcmAo7J5w8G7vLqY2XSKVTaJx_ya5dfQDcgIg7RgJGcktI0n0sQ-CiKQ13_3-D/s1600/Evan.Rachel.Wood.09.11.2007_03.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Evan Rachel Wood, Toronto, Sept. 11, 2007</td></tr>
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<b>IT WOULD BE AN UNDERSTATEMENT TO SAY THAT EVAN RACHEL WOOD </b>was prepared to have her photo taken. At the film festival and elsewhere, most actresses will arrive for interviews and photo sessions with hair and makeup people on hand. Most of them seem to regard this as a somewhat regrettable necessity, and usually present themselves with a carefully put-together "natural" look.<br />
<br />
Wood, on the other hand, had clearly thought about how she wanted to be seen, and had collaborated with whoever did her hair and makeup on a look that wouldn't have been out of place in the studio of a portrait photographer working for one of the big studios in the '30s and '40s. As someone who'd spent a lot of time studying the work of people like George Hurrell and Clarence Sinclair Bull, I was both surprised and grateful when she walked through the door of the room at the Intercontinental.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEFEr_cMyR8PZqklA6TkI9wTXP6b5hLXs65otUL8Q8SwoD0ITgG2tJzZl7NBJDr7pSiSPR5eqy5E42FbI_xcJFZAmappk_gDOvRoJg8_vcFpYuWEVsF9GgVSdQyLZhwGsmgw9jh3unfCJM/s1600/Evan.Rachel.Wood.09.11.2007_04.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="667" data-original-width="1000" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEFEr_cMyR8PZqklA6TkI9wTXP6b5hLXs65otUL8Q8SwoD0ITgG2tJzZl7NBJDr7pSiSPR5eqy5E42FbI_xcJFZAmappk_gDOvRoJg8_vcFpYuWEVsF9GgVSdQyLZhwGsmgw9jh3unfCJM/s640/Evan.Rachel.Wood.09.11.2007_04.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Evan Rachel Wood, Toronto, Sept. 11, 2007</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
I didn't, of course, have the benefit of a barrage of fresnels with barn doors providing spot and kick lighting. All I had was whatever big, soft light made its way into the room through a window - an uncommonly large one for the Intercontinental, looking at these shots - and a big black curtain that had somehow made its way into the room.<br />
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Just as she had put a lot of thought into her look, Wood also knew how to pose without much direction from me, and I was pretty pleased with the results even as I was shooting. But just as with Hollywood glamour photography, I've done a lot of careful retouching in Photoshop after the fact to give Wood's skin an even more flawless finish. The free daily's Canon EOS 30D only put out an 8.2 megapixel image uncompressed, and I was shooting compressed jpeg at ISO 800, but the resolution was still remarkable, and needed to be smoothed out to achieve the look that I'm sure Wood wanted to deliver that day.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1gsBE7p6mjUaaROpdfzPZnIAaY0iKF8LG6rF7nFA4jG3Zm0xXydRYF3UYxEOPgqxqsZ2Sc_1KeSjP2llFkJTAlGsgJ8ml2w8VUotLzJmnInQSlZX5AR71v7VhKjSIMp6HgGJxNb4jjR7v/s1600/Evan.Rachel.Wood.09.11.2007_02.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="667" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1gsBE7p6mjUaaROpdfzPZnIAaY0iKF8LG6rF7nFA4jG3Zm0xXydRYF3UYxEOPgqxqsZ2Sc_1KeSjP2llFkJTAlGsgJ8ml2w8VUotLzJmnInQSlZX5AR71v7VhKjSIMp6HgGJxNb4jjR7v/s640/Evan.Rachel.Wood.09.11.2007_02.jpg" width="426" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Evan Rachel Wood, Toronto, Sept. 11, 2007</td></tr>
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rick mcginnishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04238756880941710637noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1947005028728131760.post-90679739086083051382018-08-13T07:30:00.000-04:002018-08-13T07:30:01.555-04:00Hayley Atwell<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgh2EwX-CMLdJZ1BzBt0jLFh146Px2IC8jA4gZzq1HZCwKakNqsYN_I5c3yXytihj_EpX6e9dC7bf_TeNPyV4Wf1fpFpkrnsgezrpgR4_XpUGsYSAjbYVJM_aQiWDo7pYMQvDz5fxZtKrU4/s1600/Hayley.Atwell.09.11.2007_01.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="667" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgh2EwX-CMLdJZ1BzBt0jLFh146Px2IC8jA4gZzq1HZCwKakNqsYN_I5c3yXytihj_EpX6e9dC7bf_TeNPyV4Wf1fpFpkrnsgezrpgR4_XpUGsYSAjbYVJM_aQiWDo7pYMQvDz5fxZtKrU4/s1600/Hayley.Atwell.09.11.2007_01.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Hayley Atwell, Toronto, Sept. 11, 2007</td></tr>
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<br />
<b>TOWARDS THE END OF EVERY FILM FESTIVAL </b>you find yourself in ever more unfriendly spaces to take photos. The spacious hotel suites with convenient windows give way to the patios of busy restaurants of the corners of windowless boardrooms. I'm not sure just where in the Intercontinental on Bloor I shot these photos of Hayley Atwell, but it was definitely a room without a view.<br />
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The original colour jpegs from this shoot were a mess - a mix of two different light sources with clashing colour temperatures that must have made providing a serviceable image or two to the free daily a nightmare. Thankfully I can revisit this shoot in black and white today, which lets me paper over the colour issues by pretending I was shooting for a newspaper at least a decade previous to the actual date these photos were taken, when spot colour was expensive and even the front pages of a paper might have featured a black and white shot.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMy8pFmLLZ-o2ckVEn2oiJvqhmfcvy7NNhUorP_PNrdYrmRzCVKAxd9mMh6GUJbTRG4a_oglfiH9_GCfHA_SaIae6pYwW7hqk5XfsVVfdzHkavvIkxxNcciFQlT5MrHM6prlxZUyLe3nV2/s1600/Hayley.Atwell.09.11.2007_02.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="667" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMy8pFmLLZ-o2ckVEn2oiJvqhmfcvy7NNhUorP_PNrdYrmRzCVKAxd9mMh6GUJbTRG4a_oglfiH9_GCfHA_SaIae6pYwW7hqk5XfsVVfdzHkavvIkxxNcciFQlT5MrHM6prlxZUyLe3nV2/s640/Hayley.Atwell.09.11.2007_02.jpg" width="426" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Hayley Atwell, Toronto, Sept. 11, 2007</td></tr>
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I have posted portraits of Atwell <a href="http://someoldpicturesitook.blogspot.com/2017/12/matthew-goode-hayley-atwell.html" target="_blank">here before</a> - a session I did at the film festival a year after these were taken, when she was in town promoting a film of <i>Brideshead Revisited</i> with Matthew Goode. In 2007 she was still fairly unknown - a young British actress whose credits had mostly been on television, but who had made a splash with a role in Woody Allen's latest film earlier that year. Now, of course, she has had become part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and play's the wife of the grown-up title character in Disney's <i>Christopher Robin</i> this summer.<br />
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The room where I took these must have been particularly unpromising - besides the lighting issues, there wasn't a wall or corner worth considering as a backdrop, so I went very, very close for these portraits. Atwell - just twenty-five at the time - was obviously able to handle the scrutiny, and met my camera with confidence admirable in someone whose career was really only just beginning.<br />
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rick mcginnishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04238756880941710637noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1947005028728131760.post-90712644389000311112018-08-10T07:30:00.000-04:002018-08-11T23:27:34.060-04:00Paul Haggis<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8UvahKFrHU6H84g8P2mylQCHNZ7AgFCCRyRA5vsnvzOUAjrZqcb5ix1Ar8hKrt9CjyYJQYxZxNUuBr36LLL6QPfM5MQ81k_PTcqD7MLKwV-OERJjcYuYc-eFmDjukW_A6u6DYbPLL43zo/s1600/Paul.Haggis.09.10.2007_01.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="667" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8UvahKFrHU6H84g8P2mylQCHNZ7AgFCCRyRA5vsnvzOUAjrZqcb5ix1Ar8hKrt9CjyYJQYxZxNUuBr36LLL6QPfM5MQ81k_PTcqD7MLKwV-OERJjcYuYc-eFmDjukW_A6u6DYbPLL43zo/s1600/Paul.Haggis.09.10.2007_01.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Paul Haggis, Toronto, Sept. 10, 2007</td></tr>
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<b>WHEN I SHOT THIS PORTRAIT OF PAUL HAGGIS, </b>it was confounding to me that the man was a Scientologist. He was accomplished and successful, to be sure, but that was in Hollywood, in an industry where L. Ron Hubbard's cult has it's highest profile followers, recruited and sustained within the cult <i>because </i>of their fame and success. But he was also clearly intelligent, and that was baffling: How could anyone possessed with some clarity of insight remain in a cult whose core cosmology could be parodied effortlessly in <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4EfhH_w48w" target="_blank">an episode of South Park</a>?<br />
<br />
The Oscar-winning writer and director became, ultimately, one of the highest profile defectors from Scientology - two years after I took these pictures. This made him a target of the harassment that famous ex-Scientologists inevitably endure, and which reinforces the organization's status as a cult - for anyone on the outside of the cult, at least.<br />
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A 2011 <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2011/02/14/the-apostate-lawrence-wright" target="_blank"><i>New Yorker</i> story</a> about defectors from Scientology ends with the Canadian-born Haggis wondering, as much to himself as to the interviewer: "I was in a cult for thirty-four years. Everyone else could see it. I don't know why I couldn't." In the decade-plus since I took these photos, I've learned how perfectly intelligent people can hold contradictory, untenable beliefs that they'll cling to despite - in fact, often <i>because of</i> - their intelligence, or more precisely because of their perception of themselves as more intelligent than most people.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjr3UV57wTaZiS4S27aGXQPZw-D0NYg3CuwhqR4fOYHXJnPFLOdHBAf2I0_JmWJ5Khyphenhyphen8Neuf2lzm8eSg-GtDfUj-p2EK-sNcqTGnJ95cJ0hDJB4jsfvmsv31MSt11IeHEhWWJVolqct-BhT/s1600/Paul.Haggis.09.10.2007_02.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="667" data-original-width="1000" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjr3UV57wTaZiS4S27aGXQPZw-D0NYg3CuwhqR4fOYHXJnPFLOdHBAf2I0_JmWJ5Khyphenhyphen8Neuf2lzm8eSg-GtDfUj-p2EK-sNcqTGnJ95cJ0hDJB4jsfvmsv31MSt11IeHEhWWJVolqct-BhT/s640/Paul.Haggis.09.10.2007_02.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Paul Haggis, Toronto, Sept. 10, 2007</td></tr>
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I know that my puzzlement at Haggis' position in a cult was on my mind when I took these photos, but I'm not sure how they affected my approach to him as a subject. I knew that, as a non-performer but a creative, it would be easier to get past any projection he might have of his public image; if there was one thing I'd learned in the previous two decades it was that photographing writers and directors was usually more rewarding for this reason.<br />
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I doubt if Haggis would remember this brief portrait session. I doubt if any of the people whose portraits I've taken in a minute or less in the middle of a press day in some hotel room have any memory of our meeting. But I asked him to hold the gaze of my camera lens precisely because I was hunting for some evidence of misgivings or doubt in his expression. And it's probably because of my bafflement at Haggis the Scientologist that I framed him askew in nearly every frame, and why I keep projecting some glimpse of that turmoil into these portraits. But that might just as well be my own self-flattery in action.<br />
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rick mcginnishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04238756880941710637noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1947005028728131760.post-33971806778576592202018-08-09T07:30:00.000-04:002018-08-09T11:36:55.143-04:00Simon Pegg<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Simon Pegg, Toronto, Sept. 10, 2007</td></tr>
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<b>COMEDIANS HAVE A STRANGE ENERGY.</b> More than any other performer I've photographed - actors, musicians, you name it - comedians (in general - there are, of course, exceptions) have a compulsion to be "on" all the time, to project something at the camera that has the curious effect of revealing very little about themselves.<br />
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I can't help but see that happening in this shoot with Simon Pegg, done at the film festival when he was in town promoting his role in <i>Run Fatboy Run</i>. On one hand, shots like the one above, despite its technical shortcomings (sharp focus is overrated, to be honest), telegraph the most basic facts about the subject, or at least those fact that they want known before anything else. He fast; he's funny; he's too much for the camera to capture.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhysz6qocmciiJjlSnJLaOdA0K1YsMkBTvBrdK8gkLermfEFpVTfFLgCM3bkpk27Bk-LdfDiv1JRCiiW3FEnJ0oecyApMPEa8WM1c52ymTYlOPbCh1AgVAxasS7y-d4_H1LhOlaFcAtTkE3/s1600/Simon.Pegg.09.10.2007_02.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="667" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhysz6qocmciiJjlSnJLaOdA0K1YsMkBTvBrdK8gkLermfEFpVTfFLgCM3bkpk27Bk-LdfDiv1JRCiiW3FEnJ0oecyApMPEa8WM1c52ymTYlOPbCh1AgVAxasS7y-d4_H1LhOlaFcAtTkE3/s640/Simon.Pegg.09.10.2007_02.jpg" width="426" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Simon Pegg, Toronto, Sept. 10, 2007</td></tr>
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Nearly every comedian I've shot has this "come out with guns blazing" attitude for a photo shoot, and I can see why some photographers would be happy to work with it, to simply treat the session as a kind of wildlife photography. This isn't very satisfying to me, so I tried to wait Pegg out as he sat in front of me with the window in the suite at the Intercontinental behind me, providing a direct, unbounced north light.<br />
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The result was a stand-off; eventually he got tired of making faces, but when he relaxed (sort of) and simply faced my camera, it was hard to push past that hint of defiance in his eyes that seemed to say either "I will not show you what you want to see" or "I have no idea what you expect to see." This stand-off is where most shoots with comics ends for me, unless I have a little more time to wear them out and maybe even boss them around. It's also the reason why I always let out a little inward groan when I learn that I've been assigned to photograph a comedian.<br />
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rick mcginnishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04238756880941710637noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1947005028728131760.post-67890915078505422852018-08-08T07:30:00.000-04:002018-08-08T07:30:16.464-04:00David Schwimmer<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieKFTnFc77D2gsc2DvKUHVtQWY7V9mxDX7JBAViwQbRTaTx5Pug1zRU727MuRA3wfhsyhMYQetYQGOY2W5Xt31P1QZkP4UZj9JYBqrPLFhPd7nrOlVDPY82PH8s3LD0esBrAKUO_wHzNCd/s1600/David.Schwimmer.09.10.2007_01.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="667" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieKFTnFc77D2gsc2DvKUHVtQWY7V9mxDX7JBAViwQbRTaTx5Pug1zRU727MuRA3wfhsyhMYQetYQGOY2W5Xt31P1QZkP4UZj9JYBqrPLFhPd7nrOlVDPY82PH8s3LD0esBrAKUO_wHzNCd/s1600/David.Schwimmer.09.10.2007_01.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">David Schwimmer, Toronto, Sept. 10, 2007</td></tr>
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<b>IT HAD BEEN JUST THREE YEARS SINCE <i>FRIENDS </i>AIRED ITS LAST EPISODE</b> when David Schwimmer arrived at the film festival with his debut film as a director. That would make him a big star, but he was strangely subdued when I photographed him - as low key and eager to please as a young actor here with his first feature.<br />
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I understood his reticence; typecasting ruins careers, and after ten years playing Ross Geller, Schwimmer had to manage his next moves carefully to avoid playing high-strung nerds for the rest of his working life. I thought he'd already been terribly brave taking a role on the HBO WW2 miniseries <i>Band of Brothers</i> as the martinet Lt. Sobel, a character likely hated by viewers more than Hitler.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">David Schwimmer, Toronto, Sept. 10, 2007</td></tr>
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All of this - Schwimmer's uneasy career moment, his unprepossessing attitude that day - made me feel more than usually sympathetic to him as a subject. I'm not saying that I approach every subject as an adversary (though it's not a bad tactic when circumstances demand it) but I had an empathy for Schwimmer at that moment which I rarely feel at a portrait session. Perhaps that was his tactic all along.<br />
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Looking over the photos I shot at the 2007 festival, I'm amazed at how much I'd relaxed into the initially difficult lighting I found in the rooms at the Intercontinental on Bloor. There's a flattering softness to the room light that I'd have a hard time replicating in a well-equipped studio. I didn't know it at the time but I was passing through another steep learning curve, a challenge that I neither sought nor imagined when I had a camera put back in my hands just three years earlier.<br />
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rick mcginnishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04238756880941710637noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1947005028728131760.post-3571800886763787942018-08-07T07:30:00.000-04:002018-08-07T07:30:04.014-04:00Thandie Newton<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Thandie Newton, Toronto, Sept. 10, 2007</td></tr>
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<b>ANOTHER DAY, ANOTHER BEAUTY.</b> I suppose I could rank my film festivals by the number of leading actresses I was able to photograph, since you can measure your access and status by how many movie stars you photograph who come with hair and makeup people to make sure they look their best. If you don't have a reputation for taking flattering portraits of these people, it's likely your access will be more restricted, even for shoots that barely last a minute. In retrospect, 2007 would be my biggest year.<br />
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Newton had made her reputation over a decade earlier with films like <i>Flirting</i>, <i>Interview with the Vampire</i> and <i>Jefferson in Paris</i>, where she played Sally Hemings to Nick Nolte's Thomas Jefferson. If she was typecast as anything, it was the "smart beauty" - the love interest as defined by her native intelligence as her looks. (She would play Condoleezza Rice in Oliver Stone's <i>W.</i> a year later.)<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Thandie Newton, Toronto, Sept. 10, 2007</td></tr>
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Newton was at the festival promoting <i>Run Fatboy Run</i>, a comedy co-starring Simon Pegg and directed by David Schwimmer of <i>Friends </i>fame - another smart beauty, whose love Pegg has to win back at the end of a story full of physical and emotional humiliation. Like many of the actors I photographed in my heyday, she has moved to premium cable for better roles, like the sentient robot Maeve on HBO's reboot of <i>Westworld</i>.<br />
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The combination of room and light at the Intercontinental on Bloor gave a monochrome effect to the portraits I shot there for the free daily, so I'm grateful to the makeup person who decided to put purple eye shadow on Newton. I've accentuated it in Photoshop to accent Newton's eyes - the sort of detail work I could only have dreamed about doing in the days of film photography, and as I said earlier, shoot like this are probably the peak of my portrait work for the free daily.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Thandie Newton, Toronto, Sept. 10, 2007</td></tr>
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rick mcginnishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04238756880941710637noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1947005028728131760.post-86866219637669018882018-08-06T07:30:00.000-04:002018-08-06T07:30:00.961-04:00Gen. Romeo Dallaire<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMPB8AkKUmrJxlbLsT9cwIpHU9ovItGxVLxQAp23Cp_TUL73srvxufDAxHSJ-OT-sA5083O2rycFrgACj_9CmZhOaL1Smsu9irNZoCVmL9PjpbnzirZWoWXm-PdgEvqZbHJX-Jbsc0krny/s1600/Romeo.Dallaire.09.10.2007_01.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="667" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMPB8AkKUmrJxlbLsT9cwIpHU9ovItGxVLxQAp23Cp_TUL73srvxufDAxHSJ-OT-sA5083O2rycFrgACj_9CmZhOaL1Smsu9irNZoCVmL9PjpbnzirZWoWXm-PdgEvqZbHJX-Jbsc0krny/s1600/Romeo.Dallaire.09.10.2007_01.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Romeo Dallaire, Toronto, Sept. 10, 2007</td></tr>
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<b>THE STORY OF ROMEO DALLAIRE IS ONE THAT'S WORTH RECALLING </b>whenever anyone parrots the phrase "Never Again" when it comes to genocide and crimes against humanity. Because there have been plenty of Agains since the Holocaust inspired this phrase, and Dallaire was a witness to one of them, in Rwanda, barely twenty-five years ago.<br />
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I photographed Dallaire with Roy Dupuis, the Quebecois actor who played him in <i>Shake Hands With The Devil</i>, a film about the tragic UN mission to Rwanda that Dallaire commanded, and which failed to prevent the murder of 800,000 Rwandans at the hands of their fellow countrymen. The film was based on Dallaire's own book, which had in turn already inspired a documentary film, and at this point in his life Dallaire was on a mission to explain just what had happened, in a (mostly vain, in my opinion) attempt to prevent such a thing from happening again.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgB0RGMhW5EfhiVOuAgRwiEaypIRtgYkjA-RrTOU0C3wtDw8tEhQ1bLwu0moQ5buu9awysJKZlp-nY0ay0jDkbXuhDuHpI-LVQp3fCaEEKG7ZCNO-rU5sdjQ3ZZ6ohOM9n52oI7sRhzoJom/s1600/Romeo.Dallaire.09.10.2007_02.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="667" data-original-width="1000" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgB0RGMhW5EfhiVOuAgRwiEaypIRtgYkjA-RrTOU0C3wtDw8tEhQ1bLwu0moQ5buu9awysJKZlp-nY0ay0jDkbXuhDuHpI-LVQp3fCaEEKG7ZCNO-rU5sdjQ3ZZ6ohOM9n52oI7sRhzoJom/s640/Romeo.Dallaire.09.10.2007_02.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Roy Dupuis & Romeo Dallaire, Toronto, Sept. 10, 2007</td></tr>
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The story isn't terribly complicated: Dallaire was sent to Central Africa to try to head off what everyone knew was a potential massacre of Rwanda's Tutsi minority by its Hutu majority, then in political control of the country. His mission was hamstrung by the usual rules of engagement by which most UN "peacekeeping" engagements are run, and ended miserably, though Dallaire and his staff were able to save at least 32,000 people from being slaughtered.<br />
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It was obvious that Dallaire was left with crushing regret in the wake of his command, and seven years before I photographed him he had attempted suicide with alcohol and an overdose of anti-depressant medication. I did my shoot with him and Dupuis in the courtyard restaurant of the Intercontinental on Bloor, and hoped that my shooting style - get up close, focus on the eyes, linger long enough within the subject's personal space - would capture some of the discipline and intensity that Dallaire projected. <br />
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rick mcginnishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04238756880941710637noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1947005028728131760.post-17624021757322812122018-08-02T07:30:00.000-04:002018-08-02T12:04:19.370-04:00Seth<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFB0Iaxd3jGvUCwNqDfCa6cKl7FVDHX1gEW79t7Zp5H5E-2Yg_HbW1oJ5qL_oZyzEH40i-9FX2gQvMMwU1hIjTWpzMf3jranOi0W4jPIbYFnrs57_0Hif_9Eg1LuV5i9PoU2Mwy2f2IeeS/s1600/Seth.07.2018_02.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="1000" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFB0Iaxd3jGvUCwNqDfCa6cKl7FVDHX1gEW79t7Zp5H5E-2Yg_HbW1oJ5qL_oZyzEH40i-9FX2gQvMMwU1hIjTWpzMf3jranOi0W4jPIbYFnrs57_0Hif_9Eg1LuV5i9PoU2Mwy2f2IeeS/s640/Seth.07.2018_02.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Seth, Guelph, July 2018</td></tr>
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<b>I WENT UP TO GUELPH A FEW WEEKS BACK TO TRADE SOME PHOTOS WITH MY FRIEND SETH </b>for a portrait he'd done of me and my family. It was a hand-off we'd been trying to make for the better part of a decade, and it gave me a chance to take some new portraits of Seth. I'd first photographed Seth over twenty-five years ago, but I'd been sitting on this post until I could make my visit and get the new shots.<br />
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I have known Seth for over thirty years, if you count our first meeting, when he was in the throes of his youthful Goth phase, complete with bleached hair and a cane topped with a silver skull. When we met again several years later he had changed his look - the same hat and suits that are his trademark today - and begun making his reputation as a cartoonist on what was a new, thriving and terribly exciting scene that included artists like his friend Chester Brown, Peter Bagge, Daniel Clowes, Chris Ware, Julie Doucet, Adrian Tomine, Joe Sacco and others.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_5VQBZKIHJN0Gc3mLzJknnR6CBMRnqi8nXV3TpbbEjmtRGQdd5w8T62VLBqdyMihLJSSuBIQKeGYIWrz_XFGa7D_Aop-Rv4z3hacvpI3ylVGT4k5fWbb0tXjsZb7hyWEjBfWey9VGs2yb/s1600/Seth.1992_01.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1019" data-original-width="1000" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_5VQBZKIHJN0Gc3mLzJknnR6CBMRnqi8nXV3TpbbEjmtRGQdd5w8T62VLBqdyMihLJSSuBIQKeGYIWrz_XFGa7D_Aop-Rv4z3hacvpI3ylVGT4k5fWbb0tXjsZb7hyWEjBfWey9VGs2yb/s640/Seth.1992_01.jpg" width="628" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Seth, Parkdale, 1992</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2GNxtVzrUZg5sRSzmNTME6v3m157iMhTZ_NjajU1zl3SOPSp4JkAqb0rigfb_X_vasnQGiRvwQW23qq4A7CmX3P58Lmk6AbFrsTY4dHRB4IA2ezwfaz-76n0aQS-kHH9Xi7ycnlHigzby/s1600/Joe.Matt.1992_01.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1013" data-original-width="1000" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2GNxtVzrUZg5sRSzmNTME6v3m157iMhTZ_NjajU1zl3SOPSp4JkAqb0rigfb_X_vasnQGiRvwQW23qq4A7CmX3P58Lmk6AbFrsTY4dHRB4IA2ezwfaz-76n0aQS-kHH9Xi7ycnlHigzby/s640/Joe.Matt.1992_01.jpg" width="630" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Joe Matt, Parkdale, 1992</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2VHdi9QTUR0gbRj3M3Ma1N6Y8V0wGY0SyDfEGgOzsSDtvU5DfAJUdaAiPxHKE5GS9FQgDkKXNnuNf6d_hkux4eUNiU-d_6Icn9ZwtWvv3-uMbBsvYcmizBmxNkMa7HF1kP0Aoq3Wq5z4n/s1600/Chester.Brown.1992_01.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1019" data-original-width="1000" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2VHdi9QTUR0gbRj3M3Ma1N6Y8V0wGY0SyDfEGgOzsSDtvU5DfAJUdaAiPxHKE5GS9FQgDkKXNnuNf6d_hkux4eUNiU-d_6Icn9ZwtWvv3-uMbBsvYcmizBmxNkMa7HF1kP0Aoq3Wq5z4n/s640/Chester.Brown.1992_01.jpg" width="628" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Chester Brown, Parkdale, 1992</td></tr>
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I had interviewed Chester as a young journalist, not long after meeting the Goth Seth, and around the time I dropped out of college. By the early '90s Seth and Chester were the linchpins of the Toronto graphic novel scene, and had become a trio when Joe Matt moved up here from the United States. I was a fan of all of them, and at some point renewed my acquaintance with Seth and Chet, somehow becoming part of their extended social circle.<br />
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It was around this time that I asked if I could do a portrait shoot with the three of them, together and individually. I was in the full throes of my <a href="http://someoldpicturesitook.blogspot.com/2014/10/penn.html" target="_blank">Irving Penn fixation</a>, and had in mind something along the lines of his portraits of <a href="https://curiator.com/art/irving-penn/george-jean-nathan-and-h-l-mencken-new-york" target="_blank">H.L. Mencken with George Jean Nathan</a>, or <a href="http://compassrosebooks.blogspot.com/2009/03/metaphysical-implications-of-de.html" target="_blank">Willem de Kooning with Frederick Kiesler</a>. I shot them in my Parkdale studio, asking them to sign the butcher paper covering the table top in front of them for their group portrait, and do drawings on the paper for their solo shots.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikYxQ5A7YEiOq6_gfrGLAfvVclkw11NuivGYgXGqQ8bi254Gla52oWhjym5znbPYOohNtt8bGq8ZyEbFCtAVi_HlkbBdVVeWFedjyXOdYzl5ygujFYAFq-xZWOI1PtoxdIFAzvLtlqSCS5/s1600/Seth.Chester.Brown.Joe.Matt.1992_01.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1013" data-original-width="1000" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikYxQ5A7YEiOq6_gfrGLAfvVclkw11NuivGYgXGqQ8bi254Gla52oWhjym5znbPYOohNtt8bGq8ZyEbFCtAVi_HlkbBdVVeWFedjyXOdYzl5ygujFYAFq-xZWOI1PtoxdIFAzvLtlqSCS5/s640/Seth.Chester.Brown.Joe.Matt.1992_01.jpg" width="630" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Seth, Chester Brown & Joe Matt, Parkdale, 1992</td></tr>
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I remember it being a fun shoot, and was thoroughly pleased with the results. It might not have been much more than a straining homage to my biggest influence, but I felt I was close enough to touching the master's cloak to get some sort of satisfaction. At that point, it seemed the best way to deal with the anxiety of influence was to give in to the urge to imitate completely.<br />
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Not long after I did this shoot, Seth asked me about doing a trade - a portrait for a portrait. I eagerly agreed and asked for a drawing of me, as I imagined myself at my best in the mid-'90s - in an old suit, playing guitar, with my cats at my feet. (I was never really much of a guitarist, so that was just so much fantasy, but I did wear the suits and I'm grateful to have my much-loved and dearly-missed cats, Keebler and Nato, immortalized in a Seth sketch.)<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7-LaE-YZ0-V6S3hHbeuNkCxLCX-vluViB0Y_nGZ5rT9Z_NbwBpyuN4uqaRtQP876h62v4bDK7kLBYPwy70vCGWvnPF1ivblkV2RIoq4f79xux4igDUawWO_y2NfAmsuvrRs4O1XTiy_vJ/s1600/Seth.Rick.portrait.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="516" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7-LaE-YZ0-V6S3hHbeuNkCxLCX-vluViB0Y_nGZ5rT9Z_NbwBpyuN4uqaRtQP876h62v4bDK7kLBYPwy70vCGWvnPF1ivblkV2RIoq4f79xux4igDUawWO_y2NfAmsuvrRs4O1XTiy_vJ/s640/Seth.Rick.portrait.jpg" width="412" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Portrait of Rick McGinnis by Seth, 1994</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiG7MUaK6rMbl-CrkLClbuOBaP4X-hOwe584ws7kvRLzHFCyXibXts3XNR3j14_9FpS0SpAg777vH5O2dCEzWWBHMecjU4Y2cpRWYls0cpsDynsQuLfy-95CqZ5j54yKuxo1A9Dia-v8bCX/s1600/Seth.McGinnis.family.2015.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="863" data-original-width="1000" height="552" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiG7MUaK6rMbl-CrkLClbuOBaP4X-hOwe584ws7kvRLzHFCyXibXts3XNR3j14_9FpS0SpAg777vH5O2dCEzWWBHMecjU4Y2cpRWYls0cpsDynsQuLfy-95CqZ5j54yKuxo1A9Dia-v8bCX/s640/Seth.McGinnis.family.2015.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">McGinnis family by Seth, 2015</td></tr>
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Time passes and life moves on, so when Seth asked for another portrait shoot with his then-fiancee (now wife) Tania in exchange for some more art, I asked him to make a sketch of my family. (Actually, I'm not sure we even had kids when Seth and I first talked about the trade, which gives you some idea of how long it took us to make this happen. Oh well - neither of us were obviously in any rush.)<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguODfMunqlQinFi6aywnMvm4scwTaU4Uc0DnMUWNqyFzU3HwauJoudisitsQVzbh8rUBH8M1LqSxRo02C2h6Ne2_c2EXk-hm0uJvqGT0APTIL-ng1b6w2nkwz5JiNrLAExtqQ9Q2YJ0mkE/s1600/Seth.07.2018_01.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="1000" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguODfMunqlQinFi6aywnMvm4scwTaU4Uc0DnMUWNqyFzU3HwauJoudisitsQVzbh8rUBH8M1LqSxRo02C2h6Ne2_c2EXk-hm0uJvqGT0APTIL-ng1b6w2nkwz5JiNrLAExtqQ9Q2YJ0mkE/s640/Seth.07.2018_01.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Seth, Guelph, July 2018</td></tr>
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I was curious to visit Seth in Guelph, where he's gone about creating a world around himself in the shelter of small town Ontario - the place where he was raised and where he seems to find much of his inspiration. We walked around and talked each other's ears off and compared notes on modern society (not favorable) and the peculiar experience of getting old (not without its difficulties, but still far better than youthful idiocy.)<br />
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Mostly it was nice to renew an old friendship. I've found that friendships are improved with the passage of time, with familiarity providing precious context. It's also nice to find a friend from those years of youthful struggle and unfocused ambition and find them still at work and creating. Seth in particular has increased his ability to mine his inspiration for new work over the years I've known him. I can't say that the world has caught up with him - that would oblige the world to go into full reverse - but he's made it slow down and acknowledge his insights on how the past calls to us, if we're even remotely sympathetic to what it says. <br />
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rick mcginnishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04238756880941710637noreply@blogger.com3