S M E L S E A

Chelsea N for Tony Chestnut SS15.
Nikon F2 / Fujicolor 400

Voigtlander Diaries

Portrait of 28 year old self in 100 year old apartment with 86 year old camera.

Double portrait of Niai in his Sunday best.

Current architectural muse. 

Young Atlas in the yard.

Farm brother I.

Farm brother C.

The photographs in the series above were shot on a Voigtlander Bessa in and around rural Manitoba. Made in Germany in 1929, this 86 year old medium format 6x9 collapsable camera is still in fine form to create great images (so long as the operator remembers to advance each frame). If I take good enough care of it, it will be passed along to the next generation in my family. Hopefully someone will take time to compose photographs in fifty years time. When I think too far into the future about the availability of film, chemistry and paper I get the shakes.

All we have is the here and now.
All we have is the here and now.
All we have is the here and now.

This roll is crying out to be worked with in the darkroom. The home process and professional scan do no favors to the film. This roll is alive. When I hold those double exposures of Iain at the table and young Atlas in the yard up to the light, I am reminded of my great grandpa's negatives shot around the same time the Voigtlander was released in the late 20s. There is a nice mix of sizes and formats in PJB's negative collection (from a variety of long-gone cameras I long to scrutinize), some of which that are doubly or triply exposed. Forgetfulness of the operator tells a great tale. These are the stories I want to explore. What else will I learn from the negative once it is enlarged? What narrative will emerge from the shadows if I sift the light on that heavily exposed right side of young Atlas? As far as I am concerned, these could very well have been shot in the 30s. I think this is the aesthetic I am constantly seeking. Perennial narratives.

As the last push of school looms in the horizon, the procrastinator in me has been taking time to really think about the direction I want to take my photo work once Montessori teacher training is behind me and time will be mine once more to invest in my passion for printmaking. I don't know where my next darkroom will be, but I look forward to finding a new rhythm. The time is near; I can nearly smell the stop bath.

Voigtlander B / Tmax 400

Twofold Hop

Early mornings with JJ / Chrismtas tree ready to burn.

JJ's first time in Shelly and he wasn't sure about it / Ollie finds the Melting Place.

My back lane and a favourite wagon / Lisa and O entertain my friend JJ.

Soft looks / Ollie makes a splash

Two souls I quite love: Olive in hearts / Jackson in fox fur

Two more great souls, Lisa and Owen / Olive really goes for it.

HAY / Lisa

Lover BOY / Lover boy

Looking a bit rough at 8am / Olive in bows at the window.

Ran out of film. Rewound. Reloaded. Forgot about it. Shot over it. Then came Spring.

Canon E0S 3 // 400 crapola color

Young Spring

First fruit from the Pentax 67. Springtime strolling with Uncle.

67 // very expired 220 something or other

13-4-7-West

Standing in patches of light spilling onto the floorboards from open windows and doors, I breathe in and out along with the house. Spring is in. Praise be. I have dug a hole in the basement and buried my winter coat for good and I'm never wearing socks again.

In 

Out 

In 

Out 

In and out. We move about in and out. 

When you took me for a Sunday drive and we stopped at a place I had never been before, I was filled with a sudden urge to spring from the truck and run into the landscape calling my name. You never seem surprised by this instinct and I have long lost the urge to apologize for it. We ran up Mount Nebo like two children and I laughed with pure delight, out of breath and windswept as we reached the summit. Elevation 392 meters. My camera lay forgotten on the bench seat. I was relieved to note you thought to grab yours before racing after me. I took coy photos of you with my minds eye, watching you watch the land you love, squatting on your haunches in appropriate footwear. Collar up. We traded places and I roamed around like a ram, seeking out the melting place to wade in just for the hell of it. I heard the mirror from your big camera slap the back of my neck. Collar up. The lines around your eyes settled into a sort of Sunday contentment that can only come from an easy afternoon of walking land with loved ones, drinking coffee from a thermos on the drive toward your favourite place and standing in the wind as it pelted the skin with kicked up dust. 

Spring energizes the soul me. I shot so many photographs on Sunday, inspired beyond belief by the bare landscape underfoot, finally revealed. The blanket ripped from the bed at last.

Ever glad to discover the trusty old Voigtlander deep in my bag, loaded with contrast. I fired the trigger without any sense of urgency or hesitation while watching you move easily alongside your brother through the hazy 90 year old viewfinder. Strapping sons at play in a barnyard. First Sunday of spring was good for the soul. Cows, dust, shit, sand, soil, runoff. I have lost count how many times I have scrambled up that Manitoban mountain once more in my head just to watch you watch that patchwork below. 

To close, here is a favourite poem by Anne Michaels titled Depth of Field plucked from her collection The Weight of Oranges / Miner's Pond.

We've retold the stories of our lives
by the time we reach Buffalo,
sun coming up diffuse and prehistoric
over the Falls.

A white morning,
sun like paint on the windshield.
You drive, smoke, wear sunglasses.

Rochester, Camera Capital of America.
Stubbing a cigar in the lid of a film cannister,
the Kodak watchman gives directions.

The museum's a wide-angle mansion.
You search the second storey from the lawn,
mentally converting bathrooms to darkrooms.

A thousand photos later,
exhausted by second-guessing
the mind which invisibly surrounds each image,
we nap in a high school parking lot,
sun leaning low as the trees
over the roof of the warm car.

Driving home. The moon's so big and close
I draw a moustache on it and smudge the windshield.
I stick my fingers in your collar to keep you awake.
I can't remember a thing about our lives before this morning.

We left our city at night and return at night.
We buy pineapple and float quietly through the neighbourhood,
thick trees washing themselves in lush darkness,
or in the intimate light of streetlamps.
In summer the planer's heavy with smells of us,
stung with the green odour of gardens.
Heat won't leave the pavement
until night is almost over.

I've loved you all day.
We take the old familiar Intertwine Freeway,
begin the long journey towards each other
as to our home town with all its lights on.

At Home with Tony

Tony HQ, Winnipeg, MB / February 2015

Hand work.

Every dot is painted by hand.

This is Jill in a funny hat and a Margaret Jane wool felted necklace.

Studio views at 11pm.

Just stumbled upon the latest podcast from Chad Hagen over at Take a Seat! Lucky find today considering I have been taking a much needed break from various social media platforms and the internet in general. It is crunch time for school! Thoughts of performance exams hang heavily overhead. Head down now, keep working.

Jill Sawatzky was recently interviewed by Chad for his podcast Take a Seat and their funny interview was a great background dialogue to take in while knee deep in the books this afternoon! How good it is to laugh aloud, alone in an empty room while the babe sleeps on down the hall. Shot these photos of Jill at work in her home studio a few weeks ago while she hustled to finish her mini collection for Hut K (which sold out in a nanosecond! Way to go woman). Have a listen to Jill and Chad talk shop HERE or cruise on over to iTunes to seek out this interview along with many, many others available for free under Take A Seat with Chad Hagen.

Kiev 60 / Tmax

Windmill blues

Babs smokes and Kit looks on in Paris, France // October 2007 

Seems like one hundred years ago we three ladies of the North were traipsing through Europe with bright eyes and bushy tails. We spent all our dollars at Zara and on french cigarettes and cheap wine which we drank straight from the bottle at all hours of the day. Thank goodness for the photographs. Lord help us. These made me laugh as it had been a while since I last took a stroll through the stacks.

Happy birthday Rebecca, you beauty.

Winter Vol. 100

Merle at the window. Elie, MB / Feb 2015

JJ visit's Justin & Brit's farmyard kitchen. Elie, MB / Feb 2015

From a farmyard to the Red River; Winnipeg, MB / Feb 2015

Snowsuit navigation of new space. Red River ski trail; Winnipeg, MB / Feb 2015

Natalie by winter

Natalie was kind enough to invite Iain and I along to capture an abandoned farmyard which she has been commissioned to photograph for the entirety of the year 2015. We roared off altogether one fine Sunday and these are some of the portraits I felt free to shoot of the photographer at work. I think this is such an incredibly well suited commission for Natalie.

The family of this land found and fell for her print, photo and film work on her website via Parlour coffee. The very landscape along with the odds and ends which dot the property become the workmanship which Nat is known for. She is a gentle, wry and clever woman. Her work embraces the small town mentality and for as long as I have known her, has upheld an offbeat edge to her feminine hand. I could pick her work out of a haystack, any day of the week. Looking forward to seeing this body of work surface as the year progressses. Nat will continue to shoot a combination of 35 and 120 film, digital and as far as I know, moving picture.

Natalie, you beauty.

Nat wipes out / January 2015 near Stonewall, MB.

Nat stands tall / January 2015 near Stonewall, MB.

Woman of great flair / January 2015 near Stonewall, MB.

Kiev 60 / Tmax 400

Parkabath

Winter frozen in time on a cold day in January, 2015.  

Sometimes a gal just needs to lighten up, ignore the mountain of homework and complete a project that has been sitting in solitude for ages. This evening I put my energy into processing a few rolls of film. Winnipeg winters lend themselves well to the darkroom process. My negatives dried in a such a damn hurry after pulling them out of the deep that I could scan them just a few hours later. First for everything. I am getting to know my new darkroom. It's airy and vast for a basement. Smells of stones, mice and wet earth. Need another safelight and so forth; the list is endless really. And yet. And yet. Is it really endless? Hardly. The equipment is nearly all there, ready to rock n roll. Picked up some monster trays off a courteous neighbor a few weeks ago. Excuses excuses. No excuses. How I long to invest my time down there these days, breaking in the space with attitude, an apron and a backwards cap.

Come to think of it, there has been plenty of longing going on of late. Longing for a sense of home even though I have a roof over my head. Longing for a darkroom even though I am sitting right on top of one. Longing for the winter to end even though this is the time to keep the head down and push toward the academic finish line. By the time spring unveils herself, I will be nearing completion. Sell the moped to pay for school. Take a trip on foot instead. Margot, time to snap out of it.

Life is good. School is heavy though life is rich.

Thank the stars above for that Poolboy of mine who keeps the bath hot and his lady laughing.

So. Trying hard to adjust my ball-and-chain attitude toward school. The scholar in me rattles the cage, restless for release. Winter has settled like a heavy blanket and all I want is to free my feet. Thankfully I have access to two of the most lovely bathtubs in warm homes with candles and whiskey service to help maneuver through the long dark. This too shall pass. Slicing up cardstock into 5x5cm cards for school is some people's ideal. I need to quit winging and apply the lesson once and for all.

Practice
Practice
Practice

Why is this so damn hard? Why do I fight student-hood tooth and nail?

The photo above was shot on an old farmyard near Stonewall, MB. When I held up the negative to the light for a good first look, my eyes went straight to it. It sums up well the way this winter feels for me.

To complete my evening of rebellion, I plan on slipping into bed to read something totally unrelated to Montessori. Student rascal.

Adios all.

Kiev 60 / Tmax 400