New talk for Mark Koegel's Workshop!

I am very pleased to announce that a few weeks ago, +Marc Koegel has approached me to do a presentation on my work on one of his workshops around Calgary.

Let me tell you I didn't even had to think twice to give him a 'you betcha' answer.

Now, if you don't know who +Marc Koegel is, let me introduce him to you. So you can see for yourself why I am so excited about this opportunity.

Marc Koegel is a Vancouver, B.C. based fine art photographer, educator, writer and director of Vancouver Photo Workshops LTD. His black and white long exposure landscapes, nudes and architecture photographs have been widely acclaimed and exhibited (and Marc has received multiple awards too) in Vancouver as well as internationally, in the US and in Europe.

I believe Marc is in my opinion one of Canada's leading long exposure photographers. His portfolios often revolve around singular objects and ooze out his signature moody dark atmosphere. You really have to check it out for yourself on his website http://www.silverlandscapes.com/

Marc and I share a common passion for photography, and film photography as well. I believe it's only natural our paths finally meet and I feel honoured, Marc asked me to do this presentation for him.
So this coming Sunday, I will be giving a little exclusive, 45 minute talk on what I do and why I do it for his students. Marc also told me that this workshop is now sold out. Which makes this even more awesome. 

I am very much looking forward to the opportunity at hand. And I am looking forward to making a new friend in Marc as well. 

Gallery Representation

Pretty crazy news actually.

Moving forward, my work will be represented by the Ian Tan Gallery out of Vancouver and that for Western Canada.

I KNOW! :)

When I got the initial request to show my portfolio to them, I was a little bit surprised. Wasn't this just a little error from their part? Ian and Julie told me they were looking to add a photographer to their artist roster and where thinking of me. I mean... Me?! But after a phone call and numerous emails back and forth, I knew it wasn't a mistake. They were dead serious about it.

Needless to say, I was going to grab this opportunity by the horns!

So for the last month I was keeping myself busy preparing a 16 photograph Prairie Portfolio. And – as usual – I learned a ton of lessons during the process that I want to share with you.

From the get go, I knew I wanted to present these photographs NOT as loose prints in a box, but as matted – finished – 16x20" works of art. 8ply mattes were a must. Problem with that was that 8ply is pretty thick. And by adding a decent backing to the photographs, that made every photograph about 3/8" thick. Which was initially causing me a lot of stress. Where in the heck would I find a box that was 6" high?!

All of the archival boxes I could find came as 3" or max 4" high. Not 6". Was I allowed to bring a 16x20" box with me on the airplane was another worry. I called Westjet. Who couldn't give me a definite answer. 'It is all up to the clerk at the desk, and if that person makes an exception for you'.

OK that wasn't going to work. I needed something sturdy (just in case I wasn't allowed bringing it on the plane in my carry on luggage). Something.... wait a minute. I needed.... a road case!

I found this awesome guy in Olds who build me a custom 16x20x6" (inner dimensions) road case from scratch and it fitted the prints perfectly. Now I could just check in, put the prints in the belly of the plane, and KNEW they were going to be alright. No need to worry. 

SO in the end, I prepared a 16 photograph matted portfolio, some extra pages for in the portfolio (like a title page, statement, bio and summary pages). And a leave behind package containing everything in print what I had showed them, including a few interviews and features I had in the past. I also prepared a DVD with the whole portfolio in low res files, the above mentioned leave behind as a pdf, bio, statement, basically everything in pdf form. And a slideshow (which you can see at the bottom of this post). Yup... I was prepared. :) I was going to knock this out of the ball park.

Meeting with both Julie and Ian from the gallery was like meeting good friends really. We had an awesome meeting last Monday and time simply flew by. Before I knew it, it was time to leave for the airport again. And then it hit me.

Holy cow! I have gallery representation! I had to pinch myself a few times to make sure I wasn't dreaming. Dreams really DO happen.

Ok to be completely honest, I feel like this is the accumulation of 2.5 years of hard work and determination/perseverance. Proof to myself that you always need to stay the course and stay true to what you believe in. Work away at your plans and dreams. Wait, and eventually good things will happen.

But I couldn't have done this without these people:

• Costas from Resolve Photo. For his ongoing expertise in printing B&W work and giving his honest opinion about my work. If it's not up to par, he always lets me know. Very much appreciated my friend.
• Hannah from Framed on Fifth. For her expertise when it comes to framing and matting my work. You make my stuff look good. Big huh!
• My friends Zoltan Kenwell, Paul Zizka, Jeremy Fokkens, for giving me their unsalted opinion on my initial selection. They helped me narrow it down from 24 to 16 images. Thank you guys so very much. I am lucky to have such great friends/peers like you.
• My colleague and copywriter master Noel Blix to help me out rewriting my bio and artist statement to better suit the portfolio presentation. You ROCK!
• My friend Kris Schofield for giving me his opinion on both the artist statement and the bio page.
• And of course Cliff from RoadCaseGuys for building the road case on such short notice.

I couldn't have done this without you guys! Thank you so very much!

Couple of talks coming up

Next week I will be giving a short talk on Storm Chasing in Alberta at the Outdoor and Adventure Show in Calgary.

The talk is crammed with local chasing tips, weather safety tips and of course photography tips.
I am in the final stages of preparation and all I can say is this:

If you are interested in using adverse weather to your advantage in your photography, this talk will feature it all. And best of all, if you have tickets for the Outdoor and Adventure Show, the talk is free!

So come on down next Saturday or Sunday (it's a 2 day thing) and say hi!
More info about this event can be found here.

On May 5th, I will be hosting another 2 hour seminar on Black and White fine art photography.
I will be talking about philosophies, insights and believes behind what I do. This will be an inspirational talk and not a gear related event (I don't care about gear, I care about vision and so should you).

I am really looking forward to this event. It's going to be good I can promise you that. And you will come out of this with a different mindset on who you are as a photographer, where you are in your career and what your work is all about.

More info about this event can be found here

Both events are sponsored by The Camera Store in Calgary.

How important is originality really?

Last week I got surprised by my wife with two, yes 2, books by Michael Kenna for Valentines Day. I can honestly say that that was the BEST Valentines Day ever.

Over the past week or so I've been absorbing Michael Kenna through these books. Wonderfully printed, probably like 3 colour process with a spot varnish. Fantastic work both on the photography (duh) as the printing process.

Another photographer I really like is Josef Hoflehner. His style is very closely related to Kenna's. Classic minimalistic photography. And amazingly deep portfolios. Check his work out if you don't know him.

But there is one photograph in Hoflehner's portfolios that, let's say, bothered me somehow. I can't help but think, this was deeply inspired by Kenna. There's a few more but this one was, in my opinion, too closely related to Kenna's one.

©1999, Michael Kenna

©2010, Josef Hoflehner

Both originals can be found here for Hoflehner's version and here for Kenna's version of Tsarskoe Selo, Russia.

Ok so there's a clear resemblance where the inspiration came from in my opinion. And that brings me to  the following questions. How important is 'originality of subject' in todays photography where 'everything has been done before'? Are you ok with photographing the 'classics' from the 'classic vantage points', like Inspiration Point in Yosemite, Zabriskie Point in Death Valley or even the lookout over Peyto Lake, just to name a few, or are you looking for subjects that haven't been photographed before?

Here are two versions of Peyto Lake photographed by me. Both photographs are made from almost the same spot. The top image is a photograph I made just a few weeks ago, standing on the edge of what is called 'The Boulder Field', the bottom photograph is one I made from the viewing platform (50 meters up from the first one) in July of 2007.

Well, we all have seen these photographs a million times before. Just do a Google search and see for yourself. Or click this link if you are lazy. So yes, me too, I am guilty of letting me 'inspire' by someone else's work.

I am a firm believer though that subject matter chooses YOU and not the other way around. Let me explain.

I am not a very outgoing person for instance. Heck I am an ISTJ (which basically means, I don't like to play with others). There is a reason why my work tends to lean towards minimalism. There's a reason why I seek out lonely trees for example. I would go even further and say I go look for them. I don't know why. 

Back home, I couldn't care less about nature. But coming to Canada, and calling Canada my home for the last 4 years now has had a profound effect on my personality. I admit, I am a very different person now than I was then. And that proves to me, that not only your personality but also your surroundings, play a huge role in who you are as an artist. Or what exactly photographically speaking 'attracts you' to photograph it. 

Maybe for me it's the lack of friends here that pushes me to photograph lone things. That's not a cry for self pity or anything, no I love the simpleness of my life here. Not having too many friends (but they are all close friends) cuts back on social priorities a lot. Also I think that photographing in the way you photograph is and should be a reflection of your inner self, not someone else's. But I think that also the subjects we tend to gravitate towards are reflections of our personality or states of mind/mood we are in.

Now I also believe in photographing what you love. And those interests are directly related with your personality. So as a result, I think, you will photograph the things you like to see, using a visual style that represents your personality. You see the viscous circle, us photographers are really in? 

But when it comes to photography I like to get as less influenced by other photographers as possible. I like to work by Cole Thomspon's 'Photographic Celibacy' rule. You can read what Cole means by that on his blog or click this link here.

But either way, not getting yourself inspired by others means that you have to shut yourself out of everything that is around you. And as people living in a very visual society that is also a very hard thing to do. We are constantly bombarded by images that it is very hard for us not to get influenced by anything. Even the smallest element can spur inspiration or influences the way you see a scene. It's dangerous but can be rewarding as well.

In the end we should aim to be original artists I think. I have copied other photographers work in my early days as well. I think that is a normal step to take. You will understand composition a bit better I think. Or even copy a processing style. Ultimately you will find your own way. But copying can be a valid exercise. But that's where it should stay at, an exercise, nothing more.

That's why I was a bit disappointed when I saw an almost straight copy of Kenna's photograph. It proved to me that one photographer was inspired by the other and was influenced by the previous composition.

Which leads us back to the question, how much does your personality influences your work?

I would love to hear your comments on this and hear your side of things in the comments below.