Give yourself a photo assignment. A bit of structure can be helpful when taking photos; it gives you a set purpose.
There is something to be said for wandering around aimlessly with a camera looking for whatever grabs your eye. This is the mode I’m frequently in; to me it represents the ultimate freedom. Some of my more memorable photos, however, have come about as the result of a specific assignment.
When attending Ryerson in Toronto I did a project on popular culture. My assignment was to go out on Yonge Street and record as many instances of popular culture as I could find. It was a fun task. I photographed record shops, posters, cars, televisions, fashions, and fast food stores. It led to some interesting photos; shots I normally would not have taken—like this photo in a pinball arcade, for instance. I almost never went to arcades (one of my classmates was addicted to Pac Man) but the assignment gave me reason to go there.
So, if you find yourself in a creative rut, or simply want to try something new, give yourself a photo assignment. It could be stop signs, people wearing hats, triangular shapes, or environmental degradation; the list is endless. You may be pleasantly surprised at the results.
Arcade Scene, Toronto, 1981, is from the Facebook series: Toronto Days
Stacy Blint creates art that captures experiences, possibilities, and instances of the human condition. Looking at Stacy’s work is a visual treat. I am reminded that art is a free-flowing, organic force that combines everything life has to offer.I like her multi-disciplinary approach and her use of humour. You can see a creative mind at work. To see more, check out her website.
I asked her eight questions about her work and her current projects.
Tell me a little about yourself. Where are you from, and where do you live now?
I was born and raised in Waukesha, Wisconsin. Birthplace of Les Paul, inventor of the electric guitar, and home to three Nike missile sites during the Cold War. Waukesha also has long held the distinction of being part of one of the most segregated metropolitan areas in the country.
My father was a pharmacist and owned his own pharmacy. When I was young my drawings covered the walls in his store. A woman with a turkey on her head in the shape of a bouffant hairdo. Lots of princesses and cubes. It was my grandmother who taught me to draw three-dimensional shapes. Hearts, stars, rectangles, triangles; with my special power I could make any of them contain space.
In 1988, I moved to New York City to study painting at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, situated between Fort Greene and Bedford-Stuyvesant. I arrived at the height of both the crack and AIDS epidemics. This is something I have written about extensively in a soon to be released manuscript.
Currently I live in Wisconsin and enjoy its rich and not so distant history of pioneers and settlers. Compared to other middle western states, Wisconsin itself is somewhat eccentric.
There are the serial killers; Jeffrey Dahmer, Ed Gein, Walter Ellis, David Spanbauer. The Green Bay Packers, beer, cheese, and proximity to Lake Michigan round out the offering. Family is also here. My father’s grandparents were the first generation in America, settling as dairy farmers in Wisconsin from Switzerland.
I also have an amazing and beautiful 16 year old daughter. My life partner is the brilliant poet Mike Hauser. Professionally I work as a creative director.
I have been impressed with your collages, photos, and poetry. What do you consider to be your primary medium?
Listening and being. For as long as I can remember there has been a dialog taking place within the work itself, often between the modalities of the written and the visual. There have been moments over the years that these forms have merged to become installation, video, or performance. For me it’s really about what the work requires independent of medium.
I attempt to create a dialog between the visual and the written, to capture experiences, possibilities, and instances of the human condition—its splendor, its vulgarity, and its weird and comic manner. I am interested in exploring the domestic, the daily, the mundane, the overlooked, dreams, family, love, death, and relationships in my work.
Currently I am in the process of documenting The Art Bunker, a site-specific environment that draws on a strong affinity with one of my earliest influences, the Wisconsin artist Mary Nohl.
Additionally, I cultivate a daily studio practice that includes writing, photography, and mixed media pieces. I like to make things with my hands and am fascinated by the hauntology present in the layering of these pieces.
Tell me a bit about your Disappearing Books project.
Based on the premise that with each breath we are erased a little, Disappearing Books is an ongoing multidisciplinary project that began about 7 years ago. A disappearing book is a one of a kind piece of art. As the reader ‘reads’ the book it’s original form is obliterated. It cannot be ‘read’ the same way twice.
There is a mail art component to these pieces. To date 19 books have been documented and shared with people in several countries, including Japan, Canada, England, Germany, Austria, South Africa, and America. As the concept evolves I find myself drawn to explore more performative aspects.
Nature inspires me, unexpected combinations or words and images inspire me, music inspires me. Inspiration can come from anywhere and is most powerful when informed by an acute awareness that time is short.
Many thanks to Stacy for doing this interview. I’m so appreciative of her thoughtful answers that provide insight into her work. Her art is always a source of inspiration.
Toronto photographer Michael Morissette is equally at home photographing in the solitude of nature, or in a busy urban environment. His use of colour, light, and graphic elements make his images memorable. A middle school art teacher, he finds time for creative projects with his students as well as those he does in his own time. I have known Michael since 1980 when we started studying photography at Ryerson in Toronto. His amiable and contemplative nature has always been visible in his work.
I asked him eight questions about his work and his current projects. (Our on-line conversation has been lightly edited for length and clarity.) Check out more of his wonderful work on Flickr, Facebook, and Instagram!
Elliot Erwitt sums up my thoughts on verbalizing my photography: “The whole point of taking pictures is so that you don’t have to explain things with words.”
Tell us a little about yourself. Where are you from, and where do you live now?
I was born and raised on the West Coast, until the call of photography study took me to Ryerson, in Toronto, in my early 20s. After a brief stint in the oil fields of Alberta to help pay for school, I loaded up my Chevy van and headed east. And aside from a five-year period of work and travel away, I’m still calling Toronto home after more than 30 years. It’s a city rich in culture, and a wellspring of photographic material. There is much I still miss about Vancouver, especially the natural beauty, but my roots have gone deep in Toronto.
What subject matter attracts you, and why?
It’s not easy to define myself as a photographer, as I’m attracted to such a wide range of subject matter, but I would say that I’m a documentarian more than a creator. Virtually all my work is as I saw it, with little manipulation. However, I do shoot RAW, and really enjoy the process of bringing my images to fruition in Lightroom. Like you, I cut my photographic teeth in black and white, hand processed and printed. The computer is a way of returning to the craft of image making.
Can you tell us about the projects you are working on these days?
I’ve recently self-published a book titled Water & Colour, which consists of a series of photographs documenting the effects of rust and decay on well-aged automobiles from a wrecking yard near Toronto. Reflecting the Japanese concept of wabi-sabi, the beauty in decay, the photographs display a varied palette, degrading from the original vivid vehicle colours to the oranges and yellows of years of corrosion.
And presently I’m working on a series titled “Dia y Noche,” from a carnival ground in Baja, Mexico, taken in the early morning light, and in the darkness of evening. The intense colours of the shrouds covering each booth at a time void of human activity contrasts interestingly with the artificial light of nighttime. The human presence also adds another important visual element.
How has your background in graphic arts shaped your vision?
Studying graphic design prior to photography instilled in me an instinctive recognition of elemental line, shape and form, which lends itself well to photography. It’s been a valuable aid in the growth of my photographic composition. And, interestingly, I’m still using the same tools and techniques from that experience in my art classroom today.
What’s your state of mind when you’re taking good photos? Do you think there’s any connection between your mood or mindset and the results you get?
I believe my mood is clearly enhanced as I photograph. Time passes quickly and I find, at certain times when everything’s right, that I’m immersed in a zone of creative pleasure. It can occur deep in a forest, in the urban grunge of a back alley, or on a busy downtown street. There’s really nothing else quite like it. Creativity, in any aspect, is very important to me. This is a belief that I try to instill in my students.
Your photos sometimes contain funny twists. Tell me about the role of humour in your photography.
Humour for me is both a defense mechanism and a survival tool, particularly in my day job, attempting to nurture creativity in overactive adolescents. Without humour, life, at times, can be pretty grim. Thus, if I can find something out there that brings a smile to my mind, or my face, I try to capture it.
One final question: Can you tell me briefly about a couple of photographers I may not be familiar with yet but you would recommend checking out?
There are a few people I’ve been following on Instagram that are well worth mentioning. Mustafa Seven does some remarkable street photography in Turkey. Sefa Yamak, also working in that region, does some compelling street portraits; and finally, Paul Brouns does some really great graphic architectural work in Northern Europe.
I’ll close with another quote from Elliot Erwitt: “To me, photography is an art of observation. It’s about finding something interesting in an ordinary place… I’ve found it has little to do with the things you see and everything to do with the way you see them.”
Many thanks to Michael for doing this interview. I’m so appreciative of his thoughtful answers that provide insight into his work. His images are always a source of inspiration.
I have always thought of black and white photography as an abstract medium and colour photography as a psychological medium. American photographer Elliott Erwitt said, “With colour you describe; with black and white you interpret.” If it’s true that colour appeals to our emotions and leaves less to our imagination, then it makes sense for us to be judicious in using it.
This can have a lot to do with how the photo is framed—how much of a particular colour, or colours to leave in or crop out. When I view a scene, then, I look for ways to combine colours–for me, it’s about balance. Sometimes a tiny splash of red is enough to counteract a sea of green, or a little orange goes well with a lot of blue. There are no hard and fast rules here, but the conscious combining of colour is something to keep in mind when you’re out taking photos.
On Instagram there are dozens of filters to choose from, each giving the image a certain look, but it seems the most-used Instagram filter is “normal”–that is, roughly the colours our eye sees. And that’s good news for an old-school guy (like me!) who believes that colour is something to be observed, not added with a filter.
Before Photoshop, the process of faking a photo was more complex, and could involve multiple exposures, airbrushing, hand retouching, and other composite photo techniques. This usually required a lot of work in the darkroom. Most early April Fool’s prank photos seem crude by today’s standards, but sometimes they were pretty slick–as in the 1926 German photo of a “Triple Decker City Bus.”
Some pranks are evergreen and may even become expected. U.S. political writer Andrew Sullivan, who now writes for New York magazine but for years had his own blog (the Dish), celebrated April Fool’s Day every year by RickRolling his readers. Yes: every single year. Andrew has a New York column scheduled to appear this Friday; check it out to see whether he’ll do it once again.
Where photos are concerned, digital technology immediately made it so much easier and faster to manipulate and retouch for effect. One of the best known of recent years is a photo spoof that appeared in the April edition of Popular Photography in 2005. Dorothea Lange’s famous picture of a migrant mother was given a digital makeover so that she would fit in better with magazine advertising. True, it was a clever commentary on the superficiality of retouching; but it hit a nerve and produced hundreds of comments, both positive and negative. (Many people found it more demeaning to the subject than funny.)
Do keep in mind that a prank is just that. Once a year we are allowed to take some liberties. If you’re the person doing the fooling, be sure you’re not stepping on anyone else’s dignity in a misguided attempt to be humourous.
And if you’re the one who gets fooled, remember to enjoy it. Of course you’re the smartest person in the room! Obviously! So if someone is able to put something over on you on April 1, appreciate their cleverness and laugh it off. You can always start planning right away for next year.
