3 posts tagged “photography”

Last Saturday, my husband and I went to Toronto for "Shadow Notes" to hang out for an hour with some famous photographers.  One of them happened to be Andy Summers.

The photography panel was made up of Andy, Danny Clinch, and Ralph Gibson (gently moderated by Robert Enright). It was held in the Jackman Hall at the Art Gallery of Ontario, a part of the huge Luminato festival, and it ended up being very intimate and jovial.  The theatre was cozy and dark, and there were maybe 100 of us in the audience.  The staff had prepared slides of each photographer's work and these were projected above their heads during the entire discussion. 

If you aren't into photography (or famous photographers) then you might expect the whole discussion to be completely dry and about boring stuff like f-stops and other slang you have to be a shutterbug to know about.  I adore photography and I had no idea what I was in for -- the topics ranged from celebrity photos to zen koans to why digital sucks and everything in between.  The three of them were great panel guests and would have been equally entertaining if the topic had been burritos.  I was impressed by their willingness to share tips (how to get into concerts to take photos) and what drives them to do what they do (if they don't, they'll go insane). 

Andy Summers told his "Every Breath You Take" story, defended digital photography, and explained how he made lists of things to take photos of when on tour with the Police so he wouldn't forget to record everything.  One of the audience members (Bruce, who happens to be a friend of mine) asked him about how he views the 'ordinary' now and they all discussed how they see things differently than most people.  Andy can take a photo of a bowl on a hotel bed and get art... the rest of us just think "housekeeping!".

Danny Clinch had the most amazing aura, he told some fabulous stories and after the event was over he walked out the front door with a clump of us, to catch his daughter's recital.  Ralph Gibson was definitely more traditional in his views and topics and gave a very interesting perspective on digital photography (comparing it, somehow, to using the phone).  The moderator participated only to direct questions and he was splendid, letting everyone talk and laughing along with the rest of us.

After the discussion there was, of course, books offered and my husband met all three photographers.  He managed to get all of their autographs as well -- neatly stored upside down on a back page of Andy's "One Train Later" book -- and I got an incredible shot of him meeting Andy Summers.  Andy's smile was so genuine.  And then they rushed Andy out the door, because he is after all Andy Summers, and we collected our coats and books and headed out into the sunshine.

The whole bunch of us (well, almost all of us) met across the street for pub fare.  One of the art installations started -- a very loud audio and video decent into hell and fear, apparently -- and was truly a disturbing backdrop to both digestion and discussion.   But it was great to hang out with nutter friends again, and dish about book covers and ex-girlfriends and why I embarrassingly can't remember that one guy's name.  And then my husband and I walked down to the open-air photo exhibit, giant photos from the panel mounted on freestanding structures among the throngs of people in Yonge and Dundas square, to take photos of the photos (and take photos of me with the photos of photos -- or something).

This weekend is the last of this year's Luminato festival, and if you can make it down to the Harborfront Centre you'll be treated to a free Cirque du Soleil concert.  We're going to go if the weather holds... if you're going to be there too, let me know :)

[ if you got here through one of my tags but didn't find what you were looking for... this is the explanation why ]

It's really very simple.

Being a writer is a shitty job.  People think that writers should just write for the pleasure of it, and therefore writing is a job they won't pay you for.  Not true.  People think they can just sit down and decide one day to be a writer.  Not bloody likely.  People also think they can control what other people write.  You can't.

I've always said that if you know a writer, you will eventually find yourself in one of Mork's reports back to Orson.

Does Mork care if you are in the report?  Nope.  Does Orson think it's wrong for people to interfere with Mork filing his report?  Hell, yes.

So I'm going to admit it.  I'm sick to death of the scrutiny.  Quite frankly, I'm embarrassed for you -- that you think you have the right to control the things I say, what I do, what I think, and what I write about.  I'm tired of feigning respect for, and continuing to smile and nod at, the people who just want to judge me.  Worse: when they communicate these judgments to me and then expect me to change to fit their ideas.

I'm taking my control back.  Here's what I've left for you:  your scrutiny, your judgments, and your ideas.  You can have them.  They are, after all, just yours.  I've never shared them.

This is not my first VOX blog post.  I've moved almost everything into "neighbourhood only" so that I can select who sees what, and when.   How's that for showing some lady balls?   I hope you aren't feeling threatened.  All I'm doing is living my own life.  Which is, like it or lump it, the life of a writer.

If you need access to one of my previous posts, whether through a Google search or a link that one of my friends has shared, just message or contact me, and I'll hook you up.

Okay.  I got home too late and screamed-out to write about seeing The Police on Monday night, and when I went to blog about it the next day Vox was down.  Huge bummer.  So I'm just getting to it now, which is fine, because it gave me a chance to pull the photos off of my phone (heretofore a process unknown to me).

Anyway... as they always said on the Great Space Coaster... "Off We Go!"

 

We got to the Air Canada Centre, and there were almost as many ticket scalpers as there were people flooding in to see the concert.  We found out later (from one of the people sitting next to us) that a tickets had been going for $800 a pair if you bought them in the street.  The crowd was mostly people over the age of 25, no surprise there, although I did see one mom- and one dad-type person each with a kid around 12 or so.  The opening band was showcasing a little nepo-tizz -- one of the members is Sting's son.  Still, they did a great job and had tons of energy, so they deserved to be where they were, namely on tour with one of the biggest names in the biz.

After getting to our seats, which were at stage left and on a vertigo-inducing angle, we made a quick exit back outside where I tried to stop shaking and make the room stop spinning.  It was NOT good, I was unable to sit in the seat without a panic attack for very long, and had to almost crawl back down and out of the theatre. 

Note to venue builders:  Don't build places where people feel they are going to fall straight down someone's parted hair and force them to look down at the show, you fools.  There's a reason why people who are up really high say to themselves, "Don't look down". 

My husband coaxed me down to talk to the seat show-er person, who directed us to customer service, who were incredible.  The young fellow there was like, "Oh, yeah... you have a problem with vertigo?"  And I'm just... exhaling... saying, "YES!" because he completely understood.  So the woman smiled and gave us new tickets, which were just about parallel to the stage, still at stage left, and very close to the floor.  I will be forever thankful to the customer service at the Air Canada Centre.

Once we were sitting down, the vertigo was still haunting me, because once it's kicked in it's very hard to find the deactivation sequence.  Soon our row filled up with people, which seemed to be people who had also been given tickets in exchange for what they'd had (one fellow, a very drunk fellow, was there with his sister and the seat he had was broken).  The lights dimmed.  Stewart Copeland was raised from the depths of the oval stage with a big gong, and then... baby... it was ON.

Even though the stadium was packed (about 15-20K people) the whole concert seemed very, very intimate.  More like a private bar sitting than a giant venue like this.  It was definitely Sting's attitude that made it this way.  He was very relaxed, and turned most of the songs into a huge karaoke event.  He seemed to be in this space that said, "Yes, we're all friends here... let's sing this together".  And we did.  We freakin' sang karaoke with Sting.

Now, I must say, Sting looked as hot as you might imagine... he was wearing this t-shirt with little cut out holes in it, tight black leggings, and Doc Marten boots.  But he had chicken-waddle arms and it made me feel like he was a little more human.  Andy Summers wore red shoes and had a "They Killed Kenny" guitar strap.  Stewart Copeland looked even better as an Aged P. than he ever did in his youth, gangly and energetic but white-haired and more intense now.

They did a few songs as orchestral versions, which was absolutely thrilling, but most of them were missing the harmonies (which really made me feel something HUGE was missing) so I just sang them myself and everything was copacetic.  Sting totally messed up some of the lyrics, and doing it repeatedly, and then when he realized it the camera had him BIG on the front screen and you could seem him blush a little, and shrug, like, "What the hell... I wrote the fucking thing, who cares?" And then he went over to Andy to laugh about it.  I might be one of a handful of people who even noticed, so if that's what he was thinking... he's right.  We were only all to happy to be basking in the songs of our youth, live, with other people who totally dug the music too.

Unlike the concerts of my youth, there were no lighters for the slow songs, just a lot of picture phones and backlit LCD displays; although my husband said he smelled pot I only smelled people who were unable to deal with their nic fit for the full two hours. 

The pictures we got were crappy, to say the least.  All we had were our cell phones because we were afraid we'd have our camera confiscated if we brought it in.  But really, we didn't need that camera.  Every moment of that concert will be in my mind forever, I don't need photos for a clearer memory of the time we spent there, singing with Sting and wondering when Andy will jump around and watching Stewart throw drumsticks up and very theatrically miss catching them.  It was a great show, one of the best I'd ever seen, and now I'll have to find a support group for my husband that deals with People Who Are Depressed The Police Concert Is Over, all while sighing heavily, and squinting over the grainy photos we took.