LIGHT TRAFFIC

Here’s a photo of the dog I wrote about here. (Focus on the pup, not the calf.) In retrospect, I’m super bummed I didn’t think of zipping it up inside my jacket and bringing it home.

Calling myself a photographer never was a huge deal. I called myself a photographer because I did photography. Because I started taking photos as a kid, with my mom’s clunky old Minolta with the hippied-out embroidered shoulder strap, and never stopped. I took photos, developed photos, attended every kind of photo workshop, landed jobs because I could take a decent photo and made coin selling photos. It was one of those obvious things, the way eating food makes you an eater.

These days, that statement no longer feels so self-evident. It is hard to say through which door doubt crept in, or through which it didn’t.

First there’s the internet giving us access to the (good/bad/ugly) portfolios of thousands and thousands of photographers; everything from super boring Gaussian Blur wedding stuff to uncensored photojournalism.

Then there’s everyone and their step-cousin now owning fancy DSLRs, and using them; pointing unnecessarily long lenses at anything that moves, or doesn’t, for that matter – babies, dogs, sunsets, totally hot tatted-up girlfriends wilding out at socially relevant pool parties, themselves, etc. (more…)

At home in Montreal, people love to tell me I look Scandinavian. You Swedish? After a few days in Norway, I can confirm that is the biggest fallacy since creationism. My suspicion this was the case arose in Heathrow’s Terminal 5 where my brother and I waited, jetlagged and vaguely bewildered for British Airways flight 0766 to Oslo. (more…)

On Monday I took the train home from New York. Yes. The train. People love to tell me I’m crazy for taking trains. Like, am I not aware there are other perfectly sensible transportation options out there. OPTIONS THAT DON’T DISAPPEAR 12 HOURS OF YOUR LIFE, FOR EXAMPLE. But hey you know what, I like trains. I love just sitting there, idle, watching things slide by. Trees, mountains, stations, fields, towns, lakes, whatever. Everything leaping at you and receding, as you snake forward and always forward, in whatever direction the men who laid down the tracks decided you’d be going. I’m down with trains. I’ve often told myself I’d like to live on one for a while. Writer in residence on the Orient Express or some nonsense. Meet me at the station.

My train was leaving Penn Station at 8:15 AM on Monday and I managed to almost miss it. I climbed up with all my crap, suitcases and snacks and found a free seat across the aisle from this couple of retirees from Philadelphia who were headed to Montreal for the first time.

“He doesn’t like to fly anymore,” the wife said with an eyebrow movement in the husband’s direction, “and we were just bored at home so we said why not take a little trip to Montreal.” She had the kind of eyeglasses that look like you’re wearing them upside down, where the temples attach to the lens real low and surprisingly rise back up to meet your ear, and a neat, bouffant hairdo. She told me she was German, a painter, and a “foodie,” and gave me her card, which featured a picture of watercolor irises and struck me as really cute because it had no email or website or anything like that on it. (more…)