Monday, January 08, 2007

While there are many pleasures in taking photographs for publication, one of the decided downers is that those photographs appear and are then swallowed into oblivion. It is only if you have any self-confidence to realize you are any good that you can survive the silence that invariably follows. But there are some rare exceptions. Here are two.

I photographed (1997) then video artist Paul Wong for Vancouver Magazine. A year later, since I was an Outreach instructor at Emily Carr I was invited to participate in a faculty art show. One of the pictures I exhibited was a b+w version of this one of Paul Wong. When he posed for me he told me, "I really want to look Chinese."

In 1999 I photographed photographic artist Kelly Wood for a review of her show Continuous Garbage Project for the Globe & Mail. In the photo here she is holding the last bag (March 14, 1999) of her March 15, 1988 to March 14, 1999 project. When I arrived at the Catriona Jeffries Gallery on Granville Street, Wood smiled at me and told me she was honoured to have a real (that's the word she used) photographer photograph her.



As for Paul Wong, his photograph disappeared the day after the opening of the show at Emily Carr. I have my suspicions.