see . ruzz . org

The Living Breathing Street

ruzzdotorg — Sun, 05 Jun 2011 08:44:00 -0600

for those of you interested in what happens when i turn my attention to the street.

I won’t get out as often as I want to shoot street stuff, maybe once a week, but it’s something I’m interested in pursuing and learning. I had a pretty amazing experience that first day of focused street shooting and now I’m really eager to dig deep.

update: pooched the dog on the link. it’s right now.

for those of you who care...

ruzzdotorg — Tue, 17 May 2011 09:14:48 -0600

I’ve started a new photo blog called A Walk Through Bowness.

long time running

ruzzdotorg — Sat, 23 Apr 2011 10:21:02 -0600

okay. so here’s the thing. i’m encouraged by spring enthusiasm to try to make some changes and there’s been a confluence of things in my life lately which are all giving me tiny day-dreams about what those changes might look like. the picture becomes clearer for me every day but i still have to overcome inertia.

i’ve battled with inertia most of my adult life, i suppose. call it a character flaw, or a talent but I’m able to withstand and tolerate nearly anything for exceptionally long periods of time. a lot of times this is to my own detriment. take smoking for example, or staying here in this shithole because it’s safe, or staying in tech because it’s got earning power, or staying closed till my plum broke me open. the list is really long. I’m sure you have a list like that somewhere yourself.

I have a secondary motivator which is closing in on me much faster than I’m comfortable with. my 40th birthday approaches and with it comes some self-made line in the sand about life. when you get to here, maybe because of my brush with my own mortality a couple years ago, you start to be able to see your own end in a more tangible way. I can see that i have a window of health, and strength and energy that is going to close up over the next 20-25 years (if i’m lucky).

that seems sort of odd to think of 20-25 years as a short block of time when in fact it’s quite massive. What changes it is the ability to concretely know how much time that is. When you’re 25 you can’t really get your head around that timeframe because the timeframe is your entire life.

I feel i awakened into real consciousness when i was about 14. thats when I started seeing the world around me as a distinct thing rather than a subject in my story. that means I’ve been consciously awake for 25 years. I can sit here and recall that span of time and play with it in my head and comprehend what it is. It’s still a massive swath of time but I can comprehend it’s passing. which puts a fine point on the next 25 years, which are what separate me from being a senior citizen (which is not necessarily a dead part of your life—but given how I treat this heaving body I consider just making it to 65 alive a bit of a dream).

Having been afforded a view of a quarter century of change in modern life and myself, and the conscious weight the next 25 years, I feel like i’m in a unique position in my life to actively make some big changes and the last 6 months, particularly this winter, have given me at least one thing: clarity of purpose and a deep look at what matters to me.

i’ve got some large collections of fears that have accumulated over time and when they combine with the power of habit, and the complacency of comfort, the outcome is always very small gains over very long blocks of time. You couple that with all the ways in which we prop ourselves up through distraction, procrastination, and self-deception and you have a recipe for stasis.

there is only one thing i’ve learnt as an absolute truth about life over 39 years of living:

life is motion

the more like life you become the more life you live. the more agile and fluid, the more flowing and following, the more deeply exposed you become to areas of life that you can’t even conceive of sitting in your chair trying to guess what your life can hold. if you become motion, you become integrated to life. thats it. thats all i’ve learnt in nearly 40 years.

of course that one learning displaces it’s fair share of other ideas because it’s pretty huge. It displaces a need to be right (which is the modern blight), the need to be unique or special (because your life is unique and special in a real way), there’s a lot more but I don’t want to get sidetracked.

i feel like when I was starting out in photography, I learnt several things about life around photography and how to relate to it. I made deep habits about the entire photographic process that are seeded in those first couple years of learning. I built a core habit of shooting-editing-sharing which remains today. I learnt habits of collecting visual information en masse with only on the spot discrimination because thats all the powers of discrimination i had available to me.

so i developed the habit of going somewhere, walking around with a camera pushed up to my eye and firing off pictures as I saw interesting things (or more often interesting light) and then returning home, weeding out the ones that didn’t work, enhancing the ones that did, and then sharing through the various sites the results of all that then rinsing and repeating.

which is what you need to do when you’re learning new technology and new concepts. you need to build habits that keep things moving through from start to finish regularly to give your curiosity a wide berth, and give your eye a chance to learn the relationship between what it saw in real life, what it saw in the viewfinder/lcd, what it saw one the computer and what it sees at the final version (if you have the balls to have a final version).

when you’re learning a new language you don’t start by writing deeply complex poems that exploit the relationships of words. you have basic conversations as often as you can. when you’re starting woodworking you don’t start trying to craft fine detail in a delicate chess set. you make bookshelves and coffee tables. you do the simplest thing that you can to develop a comfort level with the tools, the materials, and to internalize the rote parts of that particular field of study.

as your understanding grows you can begin to introduce more refined tools and complexity to your work but that will only take you so far. there comes a time where you have to surrender what you’ve been doing and re-approach it entirely. you have to give up the habits you’ve made and the conceits you afford yourself and take what you’re doing from a trade to a craft.

thats what i want to do with the next 5 years. I want to revamp my entire relationship to photography and build a life and context that supports me in practicing a craft rather than going through my well established routines, with the hope I can spend the remaining 20 years of that quarter century producing what i hope will be my life’s work.

at this moment I’m refusing to imagine what that work will look like in any way. mostly because I don’t believe I’m able to imagine it. I don’t believe i have the mental tools available to predict that without a lot of conceit.

The truth is i spend some portion of every day in pain. Visceral, active pain that takes me away from myself. takes me away from the things I care about and it’s a certainty in my mind that even if i take every step I can now to improve that it’s unlikely i will get to my 65th birthday and be one of those spry, energetic seniors who make 65 look young. I’m consistently making 39 look old already and the reality of 25 years of sitting at a computer ensures crippling arthritis. the major health tramas of car accidents and life threatening infections, and the combined impact of being over-weight my entire life make it pretty clear 65 and healthy enough to do the work i want to do is a bit of a wistful dream on my part. maybe i’m wrong about that. maybe i can make changes that alter the outcome but thats how it looks right now and that underlines for me the point that the time to start this process of change is now.

so what’s that even mean?

step one is removing the crutches i use to hide from my own depth. finding and quashing the habits i’ve accumulated over the years that give support to the lie that what i’m living right now is what i want to be living.

this website is one of those things, i’m afraid.

step two is a purification by fire. I’m going to start a broad-fire in my physical world. burning up anything and everything that anchors rather than supports me. this means a huge move to minimalism in possessions, and financial requirements.

step three is addressing my health situation square on to find better ways to manage my pain and get in physical shape that will allow me to explore the world better. You can’t even imagine what doors in life are closed to you when you carry around a laundry list of special needs due to some ongoing health issue. those doors need to be open.

step four is refactoring my income and breaking away from tech somehow. thats going to be the hardest of all the parts but one that’s been following me around for several years. I have a few ideas how to start that process but it’s going to take a lot of creativity and finding ways to make photography make money for me without going the route of wedding photographer, or commercial photographer, which i know wouldn’t make me happy.

step five is to break the gravity of this city and use the things afforded by the first several steps to decide where i want to be in the world to do that work. Can you imagine Edward Weston’s work if he hadn’t been in the richness of the pacific coast? or Ansel Adams if he’d been in Toronto? Where you live matters.

this is going to be a massive challenge. I quite possibly will fail. i quite possibly will have to eat crow for daring to want this and being stupid enough to put it out there for the haters to use against me later, or worse to use it against myself later, but i know one thing for certain, this life i’m living is not giving me what i need, and not supporting the parts of me that i care about. If i fail, i fail. it’s just an outline of what i want right now based on right now. the key tenant is to be fluid. to be agile, light, and able to follow life as she moves and changes and meet whatever she offers up squarely.

some Q&A with my imaginary audience who made it this far without going, oh that ruzz. he needs help.

what’s going to become of this blog?

it dies. it dies today (and gets removed May 1). I’m going to be burning anything that was shot before today on to dvd and storing it out of my reach. purging all my previous work from my hands forcing me to make new work, but also making a symbolic break between then, and now.

i’m also going to be breaking the market induced cycle of shoot/edit/share. and this blog was built for sharing pictures.

so what the eff, ruzz?

yeah, i know. right? you folks have been so good to me. putting up with my mood swings and offering encouragement, and connecting to my work and i hate to lose this connection with you just because i want to step off the treadmill. I realize i will lose lots of you because many of you just want eye candy. For those of you who want more, but can live with less images, i’m going to provide you with two new websites.

more websites? how is that becoming more agile?

well, first off, I’m going to shutter any of my existing websites that aren’t in line with this process. so there will be less websites in total. but secondly, I’m going to clarify things a lot by giving strong direction to what those remaining two websites are for which i hope translates into less diddling around and wheel spinning and more focus.

so what are the websites then?

let me explain the roles they play first.

the first website will be geared towards photographers and people interested in photography. that is, people who are interested in the technical and the life of being a photographer. it will be links and essays and reviews and that sort of stuff.

the second website will be about this journey from the life i have now, to the life i want. there will be few pictures, there will be no comments, no likes, no interaction on your part but reading if you’re so inclined.

the links, which lead to nothing of value right now because i’ve been here writing you this damned blog are:

the photographic life

a manifest beauty

for those of you who want to stay in touch send your details to this email address (babydontleaveme@zedzed.biz) where i’ve set up a temporary email off my old company url. I will hit you back from my personal email address so we can stay in communication. I’ll be killing that email addy May 1 when I kill this site as well so act now! haha.

its been fun kids. thanks for putting up with me.

big rock / okotoks glacial erratic, alberta (2007) we love our...

ruzzdotorg — Fri, 22 Apr 2011 10:13:44 -0600

big rock / okotoks glacial erratic, alberta (2007)

we love our rocks here in alberta. especially when they are big (27ft tall), and randomly placed in the middle of the prairies by glaciers.

for scale you can see the two people on top of the rocks.

trivia for you, okotoks (the name of the nearby town) is blackfoot for Large Rock.

auto (2008) I think marla was requesting new self portraits but...

ruzzdotorg — Fri, 22 Apr 2011 07:14:49 -0600

auto (2008)

I think marla was requesting new self portraits but I don’t have much new and don’t have time to make any just now so we’ll call this a partial request fulfillment.

wtf.

ruzzdotorg — Fri, 22 Apr 2011 06:42:00 -0600

i’ve always been a night person. Today I woke up at 6am. normal lately is 7am. I’m consistently running on 5 hours sleep these days and still having energy. wtf?

I could say i’m up because of back pain. I could say it’s because of old age. or a bunch of things but I’m going to say it’s because i’m in training to become a wildlife photographer. haha.

you know one thing that’s sorely missing from my archives? sunrise. early morning. mid morning.

it turns out that if you get your ass up early enough you can power through your work for the day and still have time to work on photography, or go walkabout, or plot your hiring at National Geographic. or buy domain names and set up new websites. or lots of shit. really.

i feel like a european setting to sea in search of the spice islands. Morning is the last great unknown to my eye.

Since my windows face west, I can’t see the sunrise from here. But I see it’s reflection in the neighbours windows and it looks pretty red today. Once it warms up a bit, if this early riser thing continues I’m going to start hitting the streets first thing.

think of all that dewy summer grass. earth worms and burning back lit tree lines. summer is going to be amazing.

trix (2006) she hated this shot. I always loved it.

ruzzdotorg — Fri, 22 Apr 2011 06:26:38 -0600

trix (2006)

she hated this shot. I always loved it.

pigeon carcass (2011) your bad day is still quite a bit better...

ruzzdotorg — Thu, 21 Apr 2011 17:22:53 -0600

pigeon carcass (2011)

your bad day is still quite a bit better than this pigeon’s. however, he at least began the day able to fly. which probably kicks the shit out of your best day.

the country of miracles (2010)

ruzzdotorg — Thu, 21 Apr 2011 16:20:06 -0600

the country of miracles (2010)

in this quiet heart (2008)

ruzzdotorg — Thu, 21 Apr 2011 14:40:05 -0600

in this quiet heart (2008)

voyeur (2007) — montreal biodome

ruzzdotorg — Thu, 21 Apr 2011 13:00:06 -0600

voyeur (2007) — montreal biodome

olympic stadium, montreal, canada (2007)

ruzzdotorg — Thu, 21 Apr 2011 11:20:05 -0600

olympic stadium, montreal, canada (2007)

free-loaded.

ruzzdotorg — Thu, 21 Apr 2011 10:19:35 -0600

a while back i freeloaded with marla and her makeup. she had come from another shoot for an event and we shot this. even though that shot doesn’t really show how made up she was—we can finally see what she was made up for here.

generally i eschew shooting someone who has already shot that day. Models who come to town and stack photoshoots one on top of the other are always asking me. I say no because you get a glut of images of that model in exactly the same emotional space taken by 4 or 5 of the same photographers and often if you don’t get first in line they’ve already given their best energy to whomever came before you.

however.. i never employ a make-up artist, so this turned out to be a nice freebee.

in case you can’t tell i’m having trouble settling my mind into work today.. but theres 3-4 pictures queued up now for your viewing pleasure at least.

why does my largest push of enthusiasm to shoot always come during ugly calgary pre-spring, when the grounds are brown and rotting and the skies are grey and undefined?

prairie twilight (2006)

ruzzdotorg — Thu, 21 Apr 2011 09:31:08 -0600

prairie twilight (2006)

voyeurs + requests

ruzzdotorg — Thu, 21 Apr 2011 08:25:28 -0600

so you’re a bunch of good for nothing voyeurs. sitting there with your pants around your ankles waiting for the next moody bird picture. I get it. I see how it is. you want visual aides, not to aide me through feedback. I’m a voyeur myself. I relate.

I did however get a couple requests.

self portraits (marla)
spring (marla)
something outside my comfort zone (melky)

I can do that. sortof. This next ten days or so is set up to be nuts which is why you’re on the queue, and also why I have to feed you archival stuff rather than anything new; even though I’m trying to get out every day and shoot all the same.

So I will root through the archives for self, spring and something that maybe is a good picture but doesn’t feel like something I would normally post. it might seem odd, but this picture was way outside my comfort zone.

emotionally it’s a tone I never feel quite is substantial enough to share. though laughter, joy, energy and a more candid moment is something I really like seeing when i’m browsing.

last night right before bed I was searching through some of my folders and saw a lot of my older stuff. I didn’t think about it much but there was a particular energy to the work, a rawness, and an enthusiasm that sometimes gets smothered in the formal desire to make a great exposure, or light something well.

it almost feels like though my light has improved, and my technique has improved it’s come at a cost of being seduced by the pursuit of perfection (which i don’t claim i get anywhere near, btw). in some ways, starting out, and not seeing the technical flaws in my images was good. It let me focus on what was in the picture rather than what the light was doing, or if all the limbs made the frame, etc.

Next year is my 10th year since I really picked up a camera. 2002 is the first year I have ordered archives of my photos. 2003 is the first year I started shooting models. and I see there’s less variance in my work. I used to shoot everything and now I don’t. I’m thinking about that.

I’ve also been watching Vision Driven Photography. A three day web course by David DuChemin which has in turns been really profound, and really mundane. But seeded lots of thought which relates to the above idea about narrowing my range and helped me identify something about myself.

I’m very easily seduced by light and will often shoot something based purely on it’s light without consciously considering other things like composition, or depth, etc. those chickadees the other day were a perfect example. The light that day (though it never carried to the photo) was magical and I got entirely lost in it.

I see pretty clearly right now that light alone is not always a worth subject. that light is only one element of the story and my addiction to it has made me lazy.

When i first started out I think I was telling a story. The story was how amazed I was by the world around me and that sense of wonder often carried a picture that was technically weak.

With that in mind I had a thought that might help me break my fixation on light and bring me back a few steps towards story telling but I don’t have time to go into that right now. I don’t have time for what I’ve just wrote, actually.

so todays queue will be whatever is easiest to push out and tomorrow I will try to fill some of those requests and maybe if i’m really lucky I can drop a new idea on you at some point too.

dying red spruce (2011)

ruzzdotorg — Wed, 20 Apr 2011 14:40:05 -0600

dying red spruce (2011)

the queue

ruzzdotorg — Wed, 20 Apr 2011 14:14:44 -0600

btw, you’re still on the auto-spooling-tumblr-queue. I hope you’re enjoying the ride :P

since I’m throwing 20 mins at this at the start of the day to collect you some images. Feel free to chime in with any requests of what sort of stuff you’d like to see for the upcoming days.

well?

McDougall Centre, April snowstorm in Calgary (2011)

ruzzdotorg — Wed, 20 Apr 2011 13:00:05 -0600

McDougall Centre, April snowstorm in Calgary (2011)

April snowstorm in Calgary (2011)

ruzzdotorg — Wed, 20 Apr 2011 11:20:06 -0600

April snowstorm in Calgary (2011)

aura (2010) she looks so defiant.

ruzzdotorg — Wed, 20 Apr 2011 09:40:05 -0600

aura (2010)

she looks so defiant.