new photos on my site

Faulkner said you have to kill all your little darlings. He was talking about writing but I can see how the exact same principle applies to editing your photographs. And I’ve heard or read several photographers say that their favourite photographs almost never make it into the final edit.

I’ve finally updated the galleries on my site with an edit of my Drop-In Centre work. In selecting and sequencing the images, it really felt like killing my darlings. Except that in the end there were some darlings I just couldn’t kill. I discovered that I have no emotional distance from which to properly judge these images. In some ways I’m closer to this work than I am to my family work. Mostly because I know I can always shoot more with my family. But with the people from the Drop-In Centre, it doesn’t work that way. Some people I haven’t seen since I photographed them. I think others might think it’s weird for me to photograph them again.

Anyways, the bottom line is that the edit is loose and I have no idea at all whether these photographs are any good or of value to anyone else. When I started making these portraits, I wanted to make photographs of people, not people in distress or people dealing with a particular set of circumstances. I wanted to move away from photographs of poverty or homelessness or mental illness or addiction. At the same time, I didn’t want to romanticize or gloss over or turn away from those very real issues that real people are living with. I don’t know if I’ve been successful at any of that, especially since I have no control over what viewers will see in these photographs. I know what I see in them, but I also know these people outside of the context of the photographs.

So… why don’t you go have a look? I’d be very interested in any critiques you feel like sharing — although please keep it constructive.

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