Hey guys! Let me tell you a little bit about myself ...
(Yes, it's 2am right now, but this is my prime time, aka. my lazy-to-seal-all-the-bathroom/darkroom-door-cracks time.)
I found out about APUG through a friend of mine, Bob Carnie ... hehe I'm sure that name is familiar to some of you out there ... Anyhow, I came by to check out this site and it's great. This is an awesome online resource and community - if only I knew about this earlier.
I started photography in 2001, and it all started when I broke my arm. Before that I had always been a big fan of photography and design, but was too dedicated to my other interests (guitar, rock-climbing, biking, martial arts) to find enough money and time to open yet another door. So in 2001 when this opportunity came along, I jumped at it and bought my first camera. A fully manual Nikon matched with the finest prime lenses. It was a simple choice for me, since from my childhood I had always been fascinated by my fathers own manual camera.
To learn, I never took any formal education. It is my belief that true art must come from within you, and that creativity cannot be taught only technique and history can. Photography, to me, should be about looking at a subject, filtering the emotions evoked through your personal life experiences, and pressing a button when that resulting image is in focus on the plane of your subconscious self. I suppose I am a Surrealist in the autonomous sense of the art. I didnt want to sit in a classroom and be stylistically molded by any teachers. As some who also share this belief will tell you, either you have it or you dont. So what I did to learn photography, was just to go out onto the streets, play around with the camera, and take photographs of whatever that moved me, then show it to all my friends and family. I looked at their reactions, and I knew if I was passing my own self-taught course which I would have named Making Images with Impact. As any street photographer will tell you, image sharpness is always secondary what mattered and continues to matter to me are the stories in my personal view of the world, and the moods and feelings evoked from those split seconds of time captured onto film. Black and white has been my main interest as it reduces reality down to simple tones, and it allows us to see purely into a subject without distraction.
I eventually built my own darkroom, read some books, and taught myself how to make B&W prints. I added even more primitive cameras to my toolset a Leica and a Hasselblad so that I could experience a different connection to the camera, and let the character of each become a part of the art-making process. I love my M6 TTL, my 35 cron, and my 50 lux as much as my wife (if anyone asks, you didn't hear that).
Over the years that have passed, my photographic passion has continued to be with street photography both as a form of documentary, and as an honest, spontaneous, sometimes abstract, sub-conscious flavour of visual art aesthetic.
And now, we're at today ... I'll be doing an exhibition as part of the 2006 CONTACT Toronto Photography Festival - May 17-31, opening Wedn May 17 from 6pm to 9pm. All of you APUG'ers who are in Toronto during that time are invited to my opening night ... I guarantee you will walk away knowing you have seen one of the more interesting shows in this festival. Ask around at the gallery to find me, and by all means let me know you're here - I haven't had much of a chance to chat with you here, so at my show is as good a time as any to start.
Please take a look at my flyer/invitation and my poster for the details of my exhibition. I've also posted an event entry in the APUG Calendar. My flyer will be available at the ElevatorGallery where the APUG Conference will be held.
Dead Link Removed (187 KB)
Dead Link Removed (143 KB)
Dead Link Removed (216 KB)
Dead Link Removed (6.6 MB hi-res printable)
You can read my artist statement for this show (or really, I prefer to call it an abstract) here:
Dead Link Removed
under the Streets of Cine section (all other sections are unfinished - entire site under construction/redesign, and it's all me for photo, design, and writing (goodbye sleep!)).
Hoping to chat with you APUG'ers soon in Toronto!
Sam
(Yes, it's 2am right now, but this is my prime time, aka. my lazy-to-seal-all-the-bathroom/darkroom-door-cracks time.)
I found out about APUG through a friend of mine, Bob Carnie ... hehe I'm sure that name is familiar to some of you out there ... Anyhow, I came by to check out this site and it's great. This is an awesome online resource and community - if only I knew about this earlier.
I started photography in 2001, and it all started when I broke my arm. Before that I had always been a big fan of photography and design, but was too dedicated to my other interests (guitar, rock-climbing, biking, martial arts) to find enough money and time to open yet another door. So in 2001 when this opportunity came along, I jumped at it and bought my first camera. A fully manual Nikon matched with the finest prime lenses. It was a simple choice for me, since from my childhood I had always been fascinated by my fathers own manual camera.
To learn, I never took any formal education. It is my belief that true art must come from within you, and that creativity cannot be taught only technique and history can. Photography, to me, should be about looking at a subject, filtering the emotions evoked through your personal life experiences, and pressing a button when that resulting image is in focus on the plane of your subconscious self. I suppose I am a Surrealist in the autonomous sense of the art. I didnt want to sit in a classroom and be stylistically molded by any teachers. As some who also share this belief will tell you, either you have it or you dont. So what I did to learn photography, was just to go out onto the streets, play around with the camera, and take photographs of whatever that moved me, then show it to all my friends and family. I looked at their reactions, and I knew if I was passing my own self-taught course which I would have named Making Images with Impact. As any street photographer will tell you, image sharpness is always secondary what mattered and continues to matter to me are the stories in my personal view of the world, and the moods and feelings evoked from those split seconds of time captured onto film. Black and white has been my main interest as it reduces reality down to simple tones, and it allows us to see purely into a subject without distraction.
I eventually built my own darkroom, read some books, and taught myself how to make B&W prints. I added even more primitive cameras to my toolset a Leica and a Hasselblad so that I could experience a different connection to the camera, and let the character of each become a part of the art-making process. I love my M6 TTL, my 35 cron, and my 50 lux as much as my wife (if anyone asks, you didn't hear that).
Over the years that have passed, my photographic passion has continued to be with street photography both as a form of documentary, and as an honest, spontaneous, sometimes abstract, sub-conscious flavour of visual art aesthetic.
And now, we're at today ... I'll be doing an exhibition as part of the 2006 CONTACT Toronto Photography Festival - May 17-31, opening Wedn May 17 from 6pm to 9pm. All of you APUG'ers who are in Toronto during that time are invited to my opening night ... I guarantee you will walk away knowing you have seen one of the more interesting shows in this festival. Ask around at the gallery to find me, and by all means let me know you're here - I haven't had much of a chance to chat with you here, so at my show is as good a time as any to start.
Please take a look at my flyer/invitation and my poster for the details of my exhibition. I've also posted an event entry in the APUG Calendar. My flyer will be available at the ElevatorGallery where the APUG Conference will be held.
Dead Link Removed (187 KB)
Dead Link Removed (143 KB)
Dead Link Removed (216 KB)
Dead Link Removed (6.6 MB hi-res printable)
You can read my artist statement for this show (or really, I prefer to call it an abstract) here:
Dead Link Removed
under the Streets of Cine section (all other sections are unfinished - entire site under construction/redesign, and it's all me for photo, design, and writing (goodbye sleep!)).
Hoping to chat with you APUG'ers soon in Toronto!
Sam
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from BC's north coast.