An Impending Revamp

I can tell that it's almost November, because I'm working on the fourth site design for matthewpiers.com. This blog has run for three years, which is pretty good for this domain, but it has become a challenge to keep it integrated with my photo host.

I have too many websites. I have an ongoing documentary project site that needs to be freestanding, as well as a review site that needs to be both independent and hosted through Blogger. That leaves this site, which I use for polished photos and general musing, and my nine-year-old photo blog that still gets regular updates of material that runs the quality gamut. Finally, there's my SmugMug account that provides the galleries that this blog links to as well as hosting the tens of thousands of photos that I've uploaded to it over the years.

My goal is to integrate my 'main' site, matthewpiers.com, with my SmugMug site. I would also like to integrate more of the rough-cut and work-in-progess material that currently lands on my photoblog, putting it into semi-retirement. I have been testing out SmugMug's abilities as a blogging platform, and although it's awkward it might just work.


Comments, questions, thoughts? You can find me on Twitter or via e-mail.

Sidewalk Chalk

Sidewalk chalk and fountain pens can both be used to write. One is coarse with exaggerated gestures, one is fine and refined, but each individual's handwriting style will still show through. The tool may change the details, but they don't change the underlying form.

And, most importantly, neither one inherently endows the user with anything worth saying.


Comments, questions, thoughts? You can find me on Twitter or via e-mail.

Raising Expectations

The question that I want to have answered – it will take time – is whether or not the Ricoh GR will change what people expect from digital cameras. It's just so well made, so well thought through, that using it makes other designs seem broken.

Looking back at my experience with the GR's immediate predecessor, the GRD-IV, I was disappointed that it couldn't do things that my $3000 Nikon D800 also can't do*. Ricoh's design really does set my expectations that high. But the GR-Digital series of small-sensored compacts sold for hundreds of dollars more than their competitors from other brands, muting Ricoh's influence.

The new Ricoh GR launch could not have had better timing. Nikon had announced their badly-named Coolpix A, generating both interest in the DX+28mm concept and skepticism at its $1100 price, just before Ricoh stepped in with a camera that's significantly cheaper. The excitement for the Coolpix mostly shifted to its rival, and people who would never otherwise been exposed to Ricoh now read its reviews and line up to try the camera.

Will it be enough to change what people expect a camera to be, and how they work? Will the era of manufacturers pushing poorly thought out iterations of good-enough cameras come to an end? Sadly, that almost certainly won't happen, but do I ever wish that it would.


* The new Ricoh GR can do what I wished the GRD4 could do – simultaneously displays its electronic level and grid screen – even though my D800 still can't show both at the same time.


Comments, questions, thoughts? You can find me on Twitter or via e-mail.

Verbs

One of the long-standing debates on the periphery of photography is whether a photograph is "taken" or "made". The connotations include the amount of intentionality in the act, whether it's passive or creative, and the role of authorship, among other issues, including a certain level of pretension. I cared about this for a while, before my concern about this kind of concern faded out.

So it's with a certain amount of surprise that I find my language choices changing after all these years. Increasingly I'm just skipping the word "photographed" completely. Instead I've shifted to saying "recorded" – it's device-agnostic, so it works whether I'm using a camera, scanner, or microphone. It emphasizes that the initial capture is a matter of selecting parts of the world that I want to work with later, and just the beginning of the creative process that doesn't really end until the work is finalized and published.

I haven't yet tried saying "recorded" instead of "photographed" in conversation with a photographer, but eventually I'll be brave enough.


Comments, questions, thoughts? You can find me on Twitter or via e-mail.

Worldizing

"Worldizing" is a useful audio concept.

Re-recording a sound as it's played back in an environment lets the unique acoustics and ambience of the space become a part of the new recording. It's the difference between a living sound and a sterile effect. Phones ringing in an empty classroom, a narrow hallway, or a crowded elevator all deserve their own nuance.

I think in words, so it makes sense that I see that way as well. Their meanings, combinations, placement, arrangement, style, design, and surrounding environment all fascinate me. Photographing signage is something that I've been passionate about for years – taking something utilitarian, designed for other purposes, and shaping it into something that I choose.

Using a camera as the answer to a graphic design question creates a powerful mix of limitations and options. The existing design is dramatically altered, new graphic elements are juxtaposed or overlaid, the meaning and structure of the words are subverted or removed. Shapes become prominent, dimensionality can be emphasized or flattened, and something that was once ubiquitous can be seen anew.

"Worldizing" is a useful photographic concept.


Comments, questions, thoughts? You can find me on Twitter or via e-mail.

Mechanism at the 2013 Patio Art Show

"They look like sound."

It's hard to be more public than having the images on a storefront in my own neighbourhood, and the Annex Patio Art Show was a huge success for me as I presented my most unconventional works. Last weekend was the first time I've shown the Mechanism series to a public audience, and largest body of work I've ever shown.

"I don't know what these are, but I like them."

While there's nothing in the world that looks like the Mechanism images, we have a natural desire to place things in context and name them. 'Every Crowd a Voice' was immediately identified as a sound wave; 'Progression and Process' and 'Continuation and Voice' strengthened the communication theme. Continuation and Projection and Continuation and Structure brought across the idea of urbanism, while the dynamism of Every Voice a Shout made it the show favourite.

"It's like DJ'ing with light. It gives me chills."

The Mechanism images are recordings of movement with light – while the capture itself is fundamentally photographic, each creation is a unique performance. Each has a goal and intention, but there's no feedback from the process until it is complete. And although the creation of the images is completely digital, they are typically no more a product of computer manipulation than a scanned film negative would be.

"I can almost hear them."

The ever-expanding Mechanism project is larger than the images themselves, and includes composited audio of the sounds of our city. A five-minute high definition video includes a small sample of these recordings, set into the sounds of the creation of the Mechanism images. Longer tracks, and higher-definition images, will be available at a later date.

A huge thanks to everyone who stopped to say hello at the Patio Art Show; I appreciate being a part of your neighbourhood and your weekend. I hope you stay tuned for more developments both with this series and with my other work.


Comments, questions, thoughts? You can find me on Twitter or via e-mail.

Mechanism – The Video

Now on Vimeo is a video presentation of selected images from the Mechanism series, with a soundtrack assembled from audio recorded as part of the process.

Mechanism from matthew robertson on Vimeo.

The audio track doesn't reward ambivalence. Played at a low to moderate volume it will simply be an annoying drone, but at a higher volume there's subtly and nuance that can be appreciated. The base track is a combination of recordings of the motor in the flatbed scanner that captured the Mechanism images, and they have been layered, shifted, and stretched to create interference and sounds that didn't previously exist. Also layered into the base is the underlying rattle from an industrial heater in a parking garage, which what what started me down the path that has brought me to here.

The sounds that are woven into the soundtrack include eastbound and westbound traffic recorded from between their respective express and collector lanes of Highway 401, subway trains, both curving between Spadina and St George stations and passing overhead on the Prince Edward (Bloor Street) Viaduct, the lunch crowd at a local food court, concrete pumpers building the foundations for the future One Bloor condo tower, the rattles of a 72A Pape TTC bus on an empty run downtown, and the late-night footsteps of people walking past in the long hallway of Spadina subway station. As with the images in the series, the sounds are an expression of the city that I live in.

It can also be found at vimeo.com/matthewrobertson/mechanism

The images used in the video are also in Mechanism – The Book, which can be ordered from Blurb either as an 8x10 softcover or as an electronic download.

A number of large prints will also be on display as part of the Annex Patio Art Show, this coming weekend of July 13 and 14, 2013.


Comments, questions, thoughts? You can find me on Twitter or via e-mail.

Found Material

While I enjoy music, it's not something that I aspire to. Musicians are tremendous creative artists, akin to painters or poets who can create something that didn't exist before. My approach to sound recording and production is inherently tied to my experience as a photographer.

A photographer will typically develop a skill in seeing things that others miss. Whether it's an object or a fleeting moment, the essence of a person or the tones of a shadow on the ground, a photographer finds things that that they can hold up and show to others in a different way. The creation of a photograph is an event that gives the subject, whether banal or beautiful, a certain gravitas. "This thing has been recorded and its presentation shaped in a way to bring out what I saw, so please look as well, and appreciate the possibilities of its meaning."

A painter will create art on a blank surface.

A photographer will find art within the incidental splatter on the drop cloth.

Recording sound, and even shaping it into something different, is also the act of observing and presenting something that others might miss or dismiss. It's embracing the incidental and unintentional around us, even if it means the rhythm and richness of a rattling fan. It's about finding these things and holding them up so that others might appreciate them as well. Sound is everywhere – there's a lot to be heard by listening.


Comments, questions, thoughts? You can find me on Twitter or via e-mail.

Annex Patio Art Show • July 13 & 14

The Mechanism series will be on display as part of the Annex Patio Art Show on the second weekend in July.

Over forty artists will be taking part in this event that puts art, and its creators, directly on the street in my own neighbourhood. I can't think of a better place to show this work, which is itself built on my experience of the city.


Comments, questions, thoughts? You can find me on Twitter or via e-mail.

Mechanism Forms

As an experimental and process-driven series, it makes sense that the Mechanism images are made with a scanner – which is, really, just a specialized kind of camera. It captures very high resolution images, but only one line and one colour of pixels at a time. Scanning clear plastic lets me choose different surfaces and shapes to image, and the way they're moved during the scan changes the line and form. Every result is unique.

The detail from 'Structure and Voice', above, shows only a fraction of the full image. At the moment the Mechanism series exists as display prints that are approximately 16x20", and their final format has yet to be decided.

Given their provenance and individuality, it's unlikely that one consistent physical form will suit all of these images. As a finished work some could be injet on paper, with others printed on acrylic or metal; I've always wanted to use vinyl and the 'Continuation' family might finally be my chance. Others might never have a physical form, and be projected or displayed electronically. Collaborations also interests me: creating the physical object specifically to suit the space it will exist in. And given how intertwined this series is with the sound of the city, some form of multimedia presentation seems inevitable.


Comments, questions, thoughts? You can find me on Twitter or via e-mail.

Things II

The thing itself is not the subject: there's no requirement for the physical thing that's photographed to also be the subject of the photograph. A photo of a plastic cup could be about that plastic cup, but it could also be about consumption, disposability, the shape of the city, or any number of other things that have absolutely nothing to do with plastic-cup-ness at all.

The subject of the Mechanism series, among other things, is loss, desire, sound, communication, hope, anxiety, discord, anger, stasis, collapse, and redemption. It's about feeling unheard and out of place in the environment of our own creation; it's the effort and striving of connecting and communicating across the din of our surroundings. It's about how the essence of sound lies within noise, and that to listen to noise – to pay attention even when there's no locus of interest – will reveal pattern and value.

The fact that all of the Mechanism images were created with disposable plastic cups might mean something, but it doesn't need to. The thing itself is not the subject.


Comments, questions, thoughts? You can find me on Twitter or via e-mail.

Mechanism: Background

"Mechanism is a series echoing our built and acoustical environment."

I've been thinking a lot about sound recently.

I've owned a decent hand-held audio recorder for some time, and since the start of this year I've integrated it into my creative life. Using it is all about process, not any end result: my goal is simply to pay attention and find new ways of experiencing my surroundings. This, incidentally, is exactly what drew me to photography, and then as now I have no idea what the practical application of my efforts and interests will be, should one even exist.

So I was immersed in exploring audio when I started using a very rudimentary process to capture experimental images. Specifically, I had spent a couple of hours in a parking garage, recording the motors and rattles of ventilation fans and space heaters. An industrial, gritty environment was foremost in my mind, along with the tremendous resources that we yield to cars even in Toronto's downtown core. This kind of thought, of urbanism and sound and the spaces it occupies, is the core of Mechanism.


Comments, questions, thoughts? You can find me on Twitter or via e-mail.

Mechanism: Artist's Statement

The longing of patterns, the outcry of voice against interference, steadfast endurance through inexorable collapse: Mechanism echos our built and acoustical environment as we communicate through the overwhelming surroundings of our own creation.

The Mechanism images are products of the tools of our age: disposable dollar-store plastics and commodity electronics that are cheaper to replace than repair. What we see is the movement of these trivial objects recorded with light across time; the diversity of shape, colour, and line are the artifacts of an imperfect process that itself reflects the transience of both our efforts and their results.


Comments, questions, thoughts? You can find me on Twitter or via e-mail.

Titles

Sometimes titles are very easy. Many of my favourite photos are ones that I knew the name of as soon as I took them; occasionally I'll know the title first and need to create the photo that goes with it. Usually the title and image evolve together, and in rare instances they defy reconciliation.

I'm primarily drawn to words. When I turn the page in a book of photography, I will have read the complete caption before I even see the photograph that accompanies it. I grew up reading the writing on the back of shampoo bottles; I can even read through most of an artists' statement or the first few paragraphs of new camera press releases. I think in words, not images.

Having the right title for a photo or series is very important to me. A title is a way of summarizing the content, highlighting what's important, directing attention, or guiding the viewer's interpretation. I recently did a quick series of photos of the structure and light of a vast space; calling the series "Cathedral" perfectly sums up my feeling about being in this place, despite it being the underside of a highway bridge. It may be something of a cliché, but it communicates what I want the viewer to know.

My most recent body of work is almost entirely abstract, and finding a name for it has had me stumped for two months. But that usually tells me that I don't understand the work well enough yet. Perhaps it's because the series itself isn't as finished as I'd like to think that it is, or it might be because I need more time to understand what draws me to it… but to be honest it's almost certainly a combination of both.

Time will tell, as always.


Comments, questions, thoughts? You can find me on Twitter or via e-mail.

Things

The idea that I've been working through recently is the relevance of the thing that's being photographed to the photograph itself.

Of course the photograph of a thing is not the thing itself – you can't drink from a photo of a glass of water. This is both obvious and easy to forget as we live surrounded by photos that represent products and places we can relate to or imagine existing. Even in the realm of art – Art – there's an inclination to look at the thing and assume that it's the subject of the photograph.

My current series, which remains nameless, has almost no connection between the thing that's creating the image and the image that results from it. There are times when the thing can almost be distinguished, but it's not ever important to the subject of the photos themselves. In fact, it may even be detrimental to the image, because it's tempting to reduce understanding and interpreting down to a technical problem-solving exercise.

And that's my dilemma now. Art shouldn't need to be clever to work, but sometimes the process can add to the message, if they're complimentary.


Comments, questions, thoughts? You can find me on Twitter or via e-mail.

Suitability II

Even though the D800 does a very good job with creating exactly the monochrome tones that I want, there's just something more satisfying about doing it properly. I know that only the results matter for the people who see the image, but the process itself is something that I enjoy and find value in. Black and white film – even the chromogenic stuff – has a certain integrity and dedication that the "oh, I wonder how this will look in monochrome with a Tri-X effects processing" fiddling about lacks.

But at the same time I have no patience for the "colour records how something looks, black and white photographs the soul" crowd. I have no desire to be a pretentious aesthete. Using film isn't a virtue, it's just a different way to do something.

One of the things that I've learned over the years is that something can be objectively better – a modern lens design, a newer-generation camera – without it being an improvement. Sometimes things just match up and create a synergy that leads to better creativity and, hopefully, art, even if the process isn't inherently visible in the results. This is why I own both the modern 50/1.4G and older 50/1.4D; matching the appropriate lens generation to my D800 and F5 creates cameras that I want to use, while crossing them leaves me feeling awkward and incorrect. The difference in the end result is negligible – or it would be, if I was ever willing to create something with such a mismatch, which I'm really not.

Process matters.


Comments, questions, thoughts? You can find me on Twitter or via e-mail.

Technical Paths

In a recent Lenswork blog entry, Brooks Jensen writes: "I find more and more that artmaking has become an attempt to answer the simple question: In order to achieve my desired result, which technical path is best?"

I have to say that my efforts can certainly be described that way.

My typical approach is to decide what sort of results I want and then work backwards – forwards? – to determine the best tools to create them. Focal length, digital or film, shift lens or standard, large sensor or small, tripod or not: it's a problem-solving exercise designed to achieve the results that I've already thought of. I'm quite happy with my success rate with this approach, but it limits my scope for experimentation and play.

My newest portfolio project breaks that pattern while conforming to it. I'm back to using time and motion to capture images of things that don't really exist, guiding a process that depends on a certain unpredictability. The creative process is playful and unpredictable, but the results are processed, curated, and collected to form a distinct body of work. I choose and guide the results to look the way I want them to, even though the idea started with spontaneous play.

I'm incredibly lucky to have a lot of creatively exciting things going on right now, to the point where I'm gathering media and material far more quickly than I absorb it. That's not a bad problem to have, even though it plays havoc on my blogging time.


Comments, questions, thoughts? You can find me on Twitter or via e-mail.

Suitability

Black and white film confounds me.

Despite being a very digital photographer and owning some great digital cameras, black and white film inexplicably accounts for many of my favourite photos. It's such an odd situation that I occasionally find myself tempted to prowl the early-morning city streets with my rangefinder and its 35mm lens, which is absolutely not what I'm suited for. No, I like sleeping in, through-the-lens 100% viewfinders, and autofocus. I'm not a practitioner of the prevailing street photography aesthetic and ethos; I just happen to really like some photos taken with monochrome film.

I spent a day at the auto show last weekend, and if there's a Disneyland for colour, that's it. I took over 250 photos with my D800, mostly using my long macro lens, and shot 35 frames of XP2 with my F5 as a lark. Sure enough, my early favourite is from the film camera.

I honestly don't know how much I should be reading into this. Film in general, and monochrome in particular, accounts for an improbably high percentage of my better images, and yet I'm only occasionally motivated to use it. I have to decide if I'm simply picking up my film cameras when I'm already at my best, because film has a tangible cost and therefore isn't something I'll use when I'm uninspired, or if there's something deeper that I should be paying more attention to.

One thing I do know is that I'll never give up digital and colour – if nothing else, long stretches of monochrome images in my lightroom catalog depress me with their unrelenting greyness. It's the photographic equivalent of a long winter. I'm just not cut out for that.


Comments, questions, thoughts? You can find me on Twitter or via e-mail.

Silence

I seem to be attracted to pursuits that involve amplifier noise.

Low-light imaging is one of the technical challenges of photography, as a small signal needs to be sensed, converted to electricity, and then amplified. It turns out that microphones and audio recorders do the exact same thing, and recording quiet sounds is fundamentally similar to low-light photography: expensive.

The good news is that silence isn't everything.


Comments, questions, thoughts? You can find me on Twitter or via e-mail.

Noise

"Wherever we are, what we hear is mostly noise. When we ignore it, it disturbs us. When we listen to it, we find it fascinating."
- John Cage, 1937

I've been thinking a lot about noise and sound, both auditory and visual. Noise is objectionable, unpleasant, erratic, incidental, or unwelcome; even when it's communicating important or useful information, it falls somewhere between blandly functional and outright objectionable. The reversing alarm on a truck and prolific social control signs are important but obnoxious; visual clutter and auditory cacophony is a fact of life in the city.

And yet Manhattan sounds distinctly different from downtown Toronto, where I live; the subways in New York and Toronto use similar fonts but their graphic designs look completely different. The incidental and accidental arrangements that inundate us can be as fascinating as a work of art, even though they are so overwhelmingly present and unpleasant that we generally ignore them.

My coping method, and my approach to enjoying and valuing this noise, is to impose isolation and control. Recording something and removing it from its surroundings lends itself to more detailed examination, and that lays the groundwork for appreciation. Listening to sounds from the inside of a subway train as a contemplative exercise, while comfortable and at home, is very different from being subjected to it during a daily commute. A sign that says what is or is not permitted is irrelevant until it applies to us, at which point it's typically a frustration, but with a camera it can be tamed and examined at length. And that, ultimately, is what I enjoy: being able to examine and find value in my surroundings.


Comments, questions, thoughts? You can find me on Twitter or via e-mail.