Burn out

I’ve gotten pretty burnt out with working 7 days a week and having no daylight to do the work that really feeds me, so I’m taking steps to change that.  I’m making time to do more shooting for Other People’s Clothes, even if it’s at odd hours or means I’ll need to rearrange my work schedule. I’m starting some new projects that I’m super excited about, some collaborative and long-term.  And I’ve also been thinking about how much I used to love making non-photographic art and have plans to get back into that.   Basically I’m excited to be making more art and feeling more full and alive.

In other news, I’ll be updating my website shortly with lots of new work.

And finally, a pic from the PRC’s flickr stream from the PhotoSLAM… go check out the rest!

PRC Goodness

I made it out to the Wonder Bar tonight, by myself, to my first ever PhotoSLAM.  I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I ended up at a table with a super-friendly PRC intern who I remembered from my interning days, her fiance, another chatty first-timer, and Leslie K. Brown herself.  I saw some amazing work and some stuff that really inspired me to work even harder and produce more.  And I was a winner!  I’m the proud recipient of a brand new sharpie marker (my prize as a winner)–ha!  If you’ve never been to one of these, I would definitely recommend going.  It’s free and full of food, drinks, art, and great people.

I’m also super excited to be taking a class on contemporary portraiture with Roswell Angier that the PRC is offering.  I’m brimming with art ideas and feelings of possibility lately and I’m hoping this class will give me the extra fuel I need to put some of them into motion.

I can’t believe I forgot…

Kate Hutchinson’s Irish Grandmother series!

There’s something about these images that really stick with me.

Inspiration and Image Crushes

Images and series I love as of late:

Flak Photo’s Jan 5th pick, by Charlie Simokaitis:

Untitled, Chicago, 2008
from the series Fade to White Photo
© Charlie Simokaitis featured in Photolucida’s Critical Mass 2008

These two by Jeff Bark, but really more than these two:

© Jeff Bark, Untitled #4, from the series Woodpicker, 2007

© Jeff Bark, Untitled #13, from the series Abandon, 2006

This one from Annabel Elgar:

© Annabel Elgar, Torch, 2006

Sarah Stolfa’s The Regulars:

© Sarah Stolfa

This picture by Shannon Taggart:

© Shannon Taggart

This photo by Simon Hoegsberg:

© Simon Hoegsberg
as well as his ‘We’re All Going To Die – 100 Meters of Existence’

A lot of what I see on the Dreamboats blog

The work of Adam Krause

Zoe Strauss’ America— my girlfriend gave me a signed copy for my birthday and I love it so much

and this image, which amazes me every time I see it, by Noah Kalina:

© Noah Kalina
Untitled (20080629), Brooklyn, New York, 2008

There are so many more, but these were the ones I could remember quickly. So much amazing work out there.

Inauguration Day

It feels fitting somehow that this is our 100th post— a quick shot of my co-workers watching President Obama’s (it feels great to finally be able to say that) speech:

In case you were wondering…

This is the first photo I ever took. I was 4 years old.

family tradition

It’s funny that Steph just posted about working on scanning her grandfather’s slides because I also finally started to scan some of the slides I found in my mother’s attic. I took nearly all the old photos and photo-related stuff when she died, knowing somehow that later they would become profoundly important to me. As the years pass these items do become more and more precious, connecting me not only to a family lineage and people I never got to know but also to photography’s history and an artistic approach to the world that I can see going back at least several generations (my grandmother drew and painted and was generally really amazing). What I love about the slides I’ve been scanning is how they often differ from traditional snapshots, how my grandparents (who are both/each the photographer of these images) made very intentional choices because they wanted to capture what they saw. It’s strange that these images I’ve never seen before can make me ache for people I don’t even remember.

Just a few from the 4 carousels of slides:

Through my grandfather’s lens

I recently began working on a side project I’ve been impatiently waiting to begin for about 2 years now. It’s not about my own work — it’s creating an archive of my grandfather’s 1000+ slides, and then figuring out how to share them with family members.

I have to credit my grandfather, Harvey S. Plourde (I called him Pepere), for introducing me to photography. He gave me my first camera around age 8 — a Kodak Pocket Instamatic. I was instantly hooked. I also spent many hours browsing with him through his enormous National Geographic collection and his own snapshots, which documented both our family and his time as a pilot.

When he died I was 16. I had not been able to take a photography class in school because I didn’t own an SLR camera, but was able to after I inherited his Cannon AE-1. Again, I was hooked. Having been a serious hobby photographer himself, I’m sure he would have been excited. I also acquired his notes on our family tree, and began my own project of adding to it and documenting what he wasn’t able to. I have since become fascinated with my family’s history and genealogy, and for years have been waiting for the free time to finally start scanning all of his slides, to add to the archive.

The best part — other than sending random goofy snapshots to family members — is that I now have the visual language to really look at his photos and see my family members how he saw them, through his own mixture of humor and pride, which I very clearly recognize. I’m loving every second of it.

Photos © Harvey S. Plourde, 1977

2009: bring it on

As 2008 ended, I continued to slack a bit with this blog. Thankfully it was because I was busy [one of my fears right now as a beginning photographer is not having enough to do]. But now I’m back and busting at the seams with a lot to say, as usual.

I’ve been thinking about future posts and am about to embark on some time highlighting the things in my life that influence and inform my work. I’ve found when talking to folks recently that this question comes up a lot, and increasingly I realize that my background and activities outside of creating my work, are actually a very large part of my work. Much more to come on that.

I had the pleasure of opening my first solo show this week, at the Almanac Gallery in Hoboken, NJ. Benedict and Siiri Fernandez, the owners, are fantastic people and have been warm,  supportive, and full of stories. I look forward to continuing a relationship with them and visiting the Almanac Gallery more often.

The show, What Survival Looks Like, is a series I created while documenting one family outside of La Antigua, Guatemala. I am interested in the more subtle stories that exist in the daily lives of people surviving seemingly-impossible or difficult situations. This was a tough project for me to do, and I feel so grateful for the opportunity that Ana and Julio gave me to spend time with their family, and also the opportunity to exhibit the images and talk about them at length.

Beard Party!!!

A project I’d been working on last year is finally live with its own website, beardparty.com. We had a blast making the images and will likely be making more in 2009.

[click to enter]

2009, here I come

I’ve read so many amazing posts and interviews lately that it’s nearly impossible for me to focus on one theme or thread— instead, I want to put some of my favorite parts here as a reference for myself later.  I feel like the strange combination of these quotes will tell you a little bit about where my head is these days: thinking about my place, looking for direction and inspiration, focusing on the potential of this new year.  I hope you find something that resonates with you, too.  And lest you think all I’m doing is more reading and thinking— I’ve had some great conversations with artists who have been at this much longer than I have and have gotten some great advice that has given me a lot of hope.  I’ve also made some really positive changes, most notably in my outlook.  I am ready to get more adventurous, to try, to fail this year.  I want to surprise myself with what I make and really enjoy the ride.

Amy Stein @ Two Way Lens:

“Today I find inspiration in everything. It could be a song, a painting or a parking lot in Queens. I feel very confident as an artist and want to explore everything. I am not interested in being pigeonholed by concept, format, subject or process. I will go wherever my curiosity and inspiration takes me. In some ways my photographic journey is like a bird building a nest. There are bits and strings and twigs everywhere and they all have stories. Through photography I collect and present these disparate pieces and gradually form them into a cohesive vision over my career.”

[...]

“I think it is important to make the distinction between beginning photographers and emerging photographers. Emerging photographers have already created an impressive body of work and received some level of recognition. Too many beginners consider themselves emerging and try to jump ahead before they are ready”

[...]

“There is no sure path to success in the art world and the only variable you control is the work. It’s vital that you believe in what you are doing and that you continue to passionately make work no matter what. After that, set very specific and realistic short and long term career goals for yourself and be like water running downhill in pursuit of them.”

Liz Kuball’s “Farewell, 2008″ Post:

“It just occurred to me that I had started the project because I’d been looking around and realizing that projects were where it was at, that nearly all the photographers I admired and respected were working on projects, and that I’d better get one fast. The problem, of course, is that I came at it in entirely the wrong way. I believe that projects have to be built on a solid foundation, and that the principal part of that foundation is the photographer’s passion for the subject. Without that, it’s really hard to carry something through to completion, and, more important, the lack of enthusiasm shows in the work.”

A Photo Editor points out some great things Ira Glass said about the creative process:

“by killing you will make something else even better live… not enough gets said about the importance of abandoning crap.”

[...]

“People get into creative work because they have great taste… but the first couple years that you’re making stuff what you’re making is not that good… but your taste is good enough that you can tell what you’re making is not good enough, it’s kind of a disappointment to you… a lot of people never get past that phase… they quit.”

Relatedly, Exposure Compensation post about the selection process:

“A key step leading to success in fine art [or photography in general] is selection, selection and selection.  The photographer has to eliminate from the portfolio all but the extraordinary images, and the galleries have to curate all but the extraordinary of the extraordinary. All you are left with, is an small percentage of the work that is being produced. So when we awe about the creativity of great photographers we indeed awe on their ability to eliminate the crap, put aside the good and only show the excellence.  The process of selection is indeed the process of creativity.”

And everything about Dawoud Bey’s “Advice to a Young Artist” is a good reminder.

Julia Staples @ PDN

Yay!!!  Julia Staples’ image on PDN’s Photo of the Day!  I’m so psyched for her.  Love this series so much.

© Julia Staples

Announcing my first solo show

What Survival Looks Like

Photographs by Steph Plourde-Simard

Almanac Gallery
1252 Garden Street
Hoboken, NJ 07030

OPENING RECEPTION:
Sunday, January 11, 2009
from 2-6 PM

——-

From the artist’s statement:
In the hills outside of Antigua, Guatemala – an area known for extreme poverty, violence and gang rule – I came to know Ana, Julio and their 5 young children. While documenting their home and family I was humbled by their hospitality and warmed by their incredible spirit. As much of the Guatemalan population lives in varying degrees of poverty, and many either wait for change or work tirelessly towards it, the lives and “everyday” stories of those surviving near-impossible situations are invisible, except to illustrate the occasional news bite or political campaign. My experiences and education in social justice work has taught me that often the simple act of “just surviving” is a powerful and revolutionary one. I am moved and heavily influenced by survival and the various forms it takes, particularly in how it manifests in daily life, whether it is obviously visible or not. This series began as a question to myself of what survival looks like, and time spent with a loving family who are waiting for their world to change. It has since grown into a much larger theme in my work and my life.

About the Almanac Gallery:
Internationally known photographer, Benedict J. Fernandez, founded the Almanac Gallery to give young and under-recognized photographers a forum to show their work. Almanac Gallery is located at 1252 Garden Street (corner of 13th Street), Hoboken, NJ 07030.

The Gallery is open by appointment only. Call 201-865-6997 or fax 201-865-6997 for more information.