I was a first-time mother and inspired to create a series of narrative photographs. This was a shift in my methodology.
“nuanced narrative photography”
When digital photography became commercially accessible a lot changed in my industry. Taking photographs became less technical, and many people became photographers.
At the same time, I was a first-time mother and inspired to create a series of narrative photographs. This was a shift in my methodology. The shoots became more complex and included social commentary. It allowed me to take pictures but essentially to take photographs that gave me a voice.
Fallen Princesses-from fairy tales to reality
The series was inspired by my daughter Jordan, who discovered Disney princesses at daycare. Around the same time, my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer. Those two experiences began to overlap in my mind, and I started imagining these princesses as contemporary women, women who, like the rest of us, would have to face real-life challenges and difficulties.
The first piece I created was Rapunzel: Bald and defeated, she sits on a hospital bed beside her long blonde wig, confronting a reality very different from the fairy tale she came from.
Eventually Disney realized that their female characters were outdated and didn’t speak to young people. They shifted their narratives to include strong and independent female characters.
But, for me, the more interesting question…….how people perceive their gods.
Perceiving gods
Gods of Suburbia is more about the common imagination than religion itself. Yes, the question does matter; how can belief survive technology, history and knowledge? But, for me, the more interesting question is how people perceive their gods.
We tend to imagine divine figures through inherited imagery: powerful, idealized, distant and somehow removed from ordinary life.
In the series, I wanted to bring them down to earth and place them within contemporary environments, surrounded by the same pressures, contradictions and distractions that we live with every day.
Photographic ode to Vancouver?
This little pink notebook is included in a box set of books about cities throughout the world. It was published by a design house in Paris. The project was awarded to me after I was invited to exhibit Fallen Princesses in Paris. They offered me any city in the world, but I chose to feature Vancouver and its many beaches.
As an ‘ode’, not necessarily. Vancouver offers a lush green forest landscape framed by mountains. The weather is moderate. The people are friendly. In many ways it appears like an ideal city.
However, like any other place it has a dark underbelly. Drug addiction and institutional bigotry-I also document these elements.
It’s time to contemplate how digital photography will evolve, or will it become absorbed into the shlock machine?
Crossroads and that next inspiration
With AI on the horizon, I find myself at another crossroads.
It’s time to contemplate how digital photography will evolve, or will it become absorbed into the shlock machine?
My solution is to go back to basics. I just set up a darkroom in my studio bathroom. I am working with 4 X 5 negatives.
It is solitary work and I’m really enjoying it right now!
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