PPPInc. going strong two years later!

It has been awhile since I last posted but I'm happy to say that things are going great and PPPInc. (or P3 as friends fondly refer to me) is progressing very well.

Friends and colleagues in the newspaper industry have been feeling the sting of the decline of advertising, readership, and revenue, but thankfully there continues to be a demand for great photography in the editorial world, and elsewhere.

While I continue to do assignments for my editorial clients, I have been steadily increasing the client list for PPPInc. with valued companies in the corporate and commercial sectors. I have embraced this new work and am finding it a wonderful environment with new challenges and many opportunities to showcase photography and grow my business.

During the past year my work has ranged from writing a 5,500 word essay to accompany my images from a self-assignment in Natuashish, Labrador to working on a book of corporate location portraits.

I was very pleased to see my story, Hunting Demons in Labrador, given five pages in The Globe and Mail, and a wealth of space and promotion on-line.

Sharing such a wonderful experience with the people of Natuashish was a privilege I will never forget and it was an honour to be able to draw some attention back to the many challenges faced by the people who populate Canada's remote northern regions with a story that is both chilling and to a small degree, encouraging. My thoughts still go daily to the people I've met I'm my travels and wish them  continued success in their struggle to make their communities happy and healthy places for families to grow and prosper.

155th Queen's Plate - My 1st

You would think that after working in Toronto for two of the largest newspapers in Canada for a quarter of a century that I might have at least covered Canada's largest stakes race - the Queen's Plate - at least once. Well, I had never done so.

But that all changed yesterday, and it was a fantastic experience!

I joined a team of about eight photographers and editors, from various backgrounds to cover the race and the festivities surrounding it for Michael Burns. Michael and his father have been the track photographers in Toronto for decades. It was an opportunity I was very pleased to have, but covering an entire day of racing and all of its pageantry, demands many hours of work.

Hats of every kind adorned many of the racing fans who attended the 155th running of the Queen's Plate in Toronto, Ont. on July 6, 2014. (Photos by Peter Power)

The most colourful aspect of the day has to be the Hats and Horseshoes party that lives up to its name, and then some. There were hats of all kinds; most quite striking and beautiful, and some, just, well, not so much. But they were interesting all the same.

The race day culminated with the 155th running of this historic race. It's certainly an exciting couple of minutes, but everything visual depends on the horses, and the jockeys. Photographers, including myself, had remote cameras set up at various places around the track, some that provided good results, and some that did not. The winner, started in the back of the pack, so my remote stuff from the inside of turn one didn't even show him. But I was able to shoot the first turn from the outside and then get back to the finish in time to photograph Lexie Lou, ridden by jockey Patrick Husbands, cross the line first and celebrate.

Jockey Patrick Husbands reaches forward to rub the head Lexie Lou after crossing the finish line to win the 155th running of the Queen's Plate at Woodbine Racetrack in Toronto, Ontario on July 6, 2014.(Photo by Peter Power)

Like many sporting events, everything was very civilized until the big race. Then HBL - or hell breaks loose as Mike described it. But it was great to be in the mix, making pictures at a great, and historic Canadian event. I'm looking forward more horse racing, and certainly this event, in the future.

Incorporated!

Peter Power Photography Inc. is now a registered corporation! 

Now all I have to do is start earning a living with it. Well, not yet, but very soon. And thanks to a wealth of colleagues, friends and family who have been incredibly supportive through this transition I am feeling very confident about the future....most days.

There seems to be a never-ending list of minutia that needs to be dealt with before my business is up and running, and it's not easy getting things done while still working my scheduled shifts at the paper, waiting for that final day. April 2, 2014 will be my last official day as a staff photographer by the way. The fact that it's also the anniversary of my dad's passing doesn't help either. I'm sure it will be an emotional day.

But I'm discovering there's plenty of time to get things done as long as I whittle away at it in a steady, organized fashion. Plenty of time if I'm content to be up and running for April 3rd, but the problem is that in my head at least I've already moved on from being a staff photographer and I'm already running my business. Every day I wake up thinking I need to have my affairs in order TODAY.  I need to be getting assignments TODAY. I need to be invoicing people and depositing cheques TODAY. But then common sense prevails and I relax enough to deal with the challenges directly before me at a given time. This new phase of my career will evolve but I need to take it one step at a time, and allow time for everything else in my life. And that still includes making images for a newspaper, as it always has.

The thing about most people I know in this industry is this; We love what we do, and we take great pride in doing it exceptionally well. This includes photographers, writers, editors,....everyone! Regardless of work environment, politics, circumstance I know very few people who would ever "mail it in." Of course, employers know this, and count on it on a daily basis. 

But I don't just work out of personal pride, or professionalism, or because somebody expects it of me, or because my name might appear with an image, or a video. The most important reason I work hard to make the best images possible is because I owe it to the subjects of my images.

Whether its a simple portrait or a sensitive documentary story we owe our best to everyone we focus our lenses upon.

Pride, professionalism, respect, passion, patience, commitment, consistency, innovation, dedication, determination, duty, dependability, flexibility, compassion, sensitivity, honour, honesty, and humour are all things that I have tried to live by and base my career approach upon. I have always done the best possible job for everyone involved and this has always served me well.

So now, as I transition from being a staff photographer to working independently I have no intention of changing the way I work and the way I approach my life.

Peter Power Photography Inc. is my company, but my company is me. Everyone I know, meet, photograph or do business with will continue to get the absolute best I can offer, and they deserve nothing less. In this I will not compromise.

My Bittersweet Blue Period

This past couple of weeks has been like riding a roller coaster from hell.

It all began with planning meetings for The Globe and Mail's recent project on the North, and the excitement of being involved with something so large, and with so many resources being poured into it.

(Peter Power/The Globe and Mail)

Smoke from oil stoves heating temporary housing tents for workers at the Baffinland Iron Ore mine site at Mary River, Baffin Island, Nunavut. 

Then the proverbial shit hit the fan, and news came that three of the four staff photographers in Toronto would be getting layoff notices on Feb. 5th. Fawk!

There was no math to be done. No bumping. No uncomfortable union shit. Myself and two talented colleagues had essentially been shown the door. Another friend who has been working as a part-time photo editor is sadly gone as well, along with about 30 others. It was a sad, sad day.

Its a hard pill to swallow on the best of days, but to say it wasn't somehow expected would be a lie. I simply didn't think it would happen quite the way it did, and I didn't expect our department to be hit so hard. There will remain only two staff photographers for Canada's National Newspaper; one in Toronto and one in Vancouver.

"Oh well!" necessarily became my motto for the rest of the week.  There were only a few days left until publication of what would essentially be my last hurrah as a staffer at The Globe and Mail. I have been determined to accept the layoff for what it is and to maintain a positive outlook on the future. Thoughts beyond the coming days needed to be kept in the back of my mind, and if they did creep forward I didn't want them to compromise the work I still needed to do with a great team to make The North project as good as we possibly could.

(Peter Power/The Globe and Mail)

Walrus hunter Nuna Parr's footwear is made from sealskin, which when sewn with traditional methods is waterproof.

I spent 25 days in November and December north of The Arctic Circle with Ian Brown. (Ian is @BrownoftheGlobe on Twitter) This was my second trip to document life in Canada's North and it was a spectacular professional and personal experience. [I wrote about my first northern assignment here.] Not only is Ian one of Canada's best writers, but he's a funny, thoughtful, and gregarious travel partner. We had a blast! [We last paired up while working on The Boy in the Moon]

Everyone who touched this work gave a fantastic effort, and it will forever stand out in my memory as one of those assignments that was done right from its inception through to publication. In the office I spent a huge amount of time with our web team and our newspaper layout designers. The new web publishing tool rolled out for  The Magnetic North on the web is brilliant thanks to them, and the paper was no less so impressive. If you haven't opened this link on a computer with a large screen I suggest you do so. It is a model we are all very proud of.

We also elected to return to larger photography galleries for this series and two from my work were published in similar formats. A Kaleidoscopic Portrait of the North and Twilight in Canada's North are the two titles of these galleries. I've been joking that this has been the "blue period" of my career. The incredibly unique, and very cool blue light in the north is half of that equation. The rest you can figure out I'm sure.

(Peter Power/The Globe and Mail)

A young boy hides from the biting cold while his mother walks backward to protect her own face in Igloolik, Nunavut. 

In addition to the galleries there are also a number of videos that can be found here. These include a small compilation of the my first ever attempts at time-lapse photography. Feedback on the entire series has been extremely positive, and through it all I have received an incredible amount of moral support from friends and colleagues in Toronto, across Canada and throughout the globe. (That's the big blue ball in space I'm referring to, not the newspaper) For this experience I am forever grateful, and humbled by the generosity shown me in so many ways.

I doubt this will be the last of my work published in The Globe and Mail, but my career is about to take a dramatic turn. I am excited about the possibilities that lay before me and while I am determined to continue working on stories that matter to me, and to continue to work as a photojournalist, I will also be seeking out new challenges with photography, video and multimedia.

Journalism has always been my first love, and the reason I became a photojournalist. This will never change. But our evolving world has provided people in our profession with a wealth of opportunities in many, many areas and I would be a fool not to be excited about new challenges, new adventures, new techniques, and a new and varied group of people to work with.

Beginning in April I will be making images for which I will be the first copyright holder for the first time in my career. That is very exciting to me.

And so, I was laid off one week and published insanely well the next. Bittersweet indeed! But the sky is the limit from here on. Bring on the next 25 years!

Freedom of the Press

From Canada's Constitution Act of 1982 the Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees the rights and freedoms set out in it subject only to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society.

And according to section 2(b) of the Charter this includes freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication.

The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms is actually quite young. It was originally signed by Queen Elizabeth II and Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau in 1982, after several drafts and revisions to the original 1980 document.

It is important to note that these rights are not absolute. According to The Centre for Constitutional Studies, all rights listed in the Charter may be subject to limits where there are competing interests.There are two main components in their analysis of these limits. The first is that all limits must be “prescribed by law” and the second is that the limits must be “reasonable and demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society”

Section 2(b) which has been the subject of a large amount of case law is considered by many to be the most significant of the Charter rights in influencing Canadian society. Justice Peter Cory, who served with the Supreme Court of Canada from 1989-1999, once said "it is difficult to imagine a guaranteed right more important to a democratic society."

IMHO it is difficult to imagine a guaranteed right more important to a democratic society than 

freedom of the press.

While this is all very heady stuff it is important to understand that freedom of the press is not some catch phrase snatched from the movies. Freedom of the press is an absolute necessity if we are to hold governments and agencies accountable, inform and entertain our communities, expose inequity and injustice in all forms, document events for the historical record, and inspire thought and creativity for the betterment of society.

Freedom of the press?

In the twenty-four years that I have been working as a staff photographer in Canada I have witnessed the escalation of a troubling trend by people of authority to limit and/or impede the work of legitimate journalists and photojournalists with little or no legal justification.

There was a time when police tape was used at crime or accident scenes to control crowds, allow emergency responders space to do their jobs, and maintain public safety. These are all legitimate reasons for controlling a perimeter. However, many journalists you ask today will tell you that police lines(to use a general term not limited to police), have steadily moved further and further away from the scenes they are meant to protect. Many emergency services come under the scrutiny of media during the execution of their duties. It is no small wonder that over time authorities have discovered that by limiting media's access they are also able to avoid scrutiny of their own roles.

The dreaded yellow tape that marks off areas where emergency personnel are working is often used to define the point that media cannot cross. It is quite common for police to control media in this way while citizens stand, or walk well within the limits of the yellow tape. It begs the question as to which of reasons for placing yellow tape is being addressed. While civilians are free to wander within police lines then certainly the incident scene is not being protected, nor is public safety. In addition, most media understand all too well how to work in close proximity to emergency personnel without getting in the way. I'm not sure that most civilians can say the same.

When a neighbourhood barbecue turned violent and several people were shot in Toronto last year, there were hundreds of yards of police tape strung throughout the neighbourhood. Media did what they could to do their jobs from outside of the taped area, while some residents wandered around inside the tape within feet of where cones marked evidence found by investigators. When some media tried to access a part of the street (outside the tape) from which it was possible to view an area where police were visible conducting their investigating of one of the fatalities, officers quickly asked them to move away, and the tape was moved to prevent the effort from being repeated. Why would they do this?

It is no secret that many in society do not understand how or why we do our jobs as visual journalists, and it is often painfully obvious that many police officers and other emergency personnel do not approve of what we do. This is irrelevant when it comes to our rights as media representatives performing a legitimate role within the confines of the law. But it is the reason, this and self-preservation, that people of authority use their authority, lawful or not, to make it harder for us to work.

Only law can limit a Charter right. A police officer cannot limit a Charter right on his or her own initiative without any authority in law. Nobody can limit the rights of the media simply because they don't like or agree with what we are doing or how we are doing it. But police are not stupid by any means and it is this manipulation of the law that they use with great effectiveness.

Take for example the case of Toronto Star reporter Alex Consiglio who was arrested after taking photographs of an injured GO transit officer at Union Station in Toronto. Anne Marie Aikins, media relations manager with Metrolinx, was quoted in the story as saying that news photographers are not allowed to take photos at Union Station. “There are two issues here. If you’re taking pictures in the official capacity of your job (journalist) that’s where there is a liability issue. If people are using their cellphones and taking pictures or even using their cameras to take tourist shots there isn’t that kind of an issue because it’s not in an official capacity,” said Aikins.

If I'm understanding correctly then, the problem isn't the act of taking photos, but rather the idea that something unapproved by GO might end up in a media publication. So in practical terms, it's okay to take photos, unless you're an actual accredited, working journalist.

The moments that followed Consiglio being asked to stop taking photos are indicative of a tactic quite common with police. While we may not agree with an officer's reasons for asking us to move back from an area, and while the request may actually be difficult to justify legally, the bottom line is that once you disobey that request you are providing police with the opportunity to arrest you, which is pretty much what happened with Consiglio. In fact Consiglio says he did move away when directed to do so, but apparently didn't quite remove himself completely from the property.

It is very common today for police, security personnel, etc. to tell unwitting members of the public, and the media that they cannot take photos. The reality is that there is absolutely no law against taking photographs in Canada. There are trespass laws, and you can be quite lawfully asked to leave a property, but the act of making pictures is not illegal. You know you've struck a nerve when a police officer approaches you and tells you to move away because "you've taken enough pictures." It is neither their right, nor their place to determine when you may or may not photograph or videotape a scene. Their own personal sensibilities, fears or judgments are irrelevant to the situation and the rule of law. Wether lawful or not, the next step is that the officer will ask you to move back. At this point they are taking a perfectly lawful situation and placing you at the mercy of the law as they interpret it. If you resist at this point, media or not, you may be arrested. It is wrong, it likely won't stick in court, but it certainly solves the problem for the police officer at that moment.

Another situation we come up against regularly in Toronto is access to TTC property. The Toronto Transit Commission is paid for by the taxpayers of Toronto, is run by the government body in Toronto, and is largely a public space. Individuals take photographs and video regularly on TTC property, yet the TTC insists that the media need permission to work on TTC property. There is no legal justification that I have been able to find for this, yet Toronto's media for the most part tolerates it.

At Toronto City Hall I was recently told I could not take photographs from the public seating area. This, despite the fact that the area was mostly empty. The security guard, and the civil servant with him, were of the opinion that I needed to work from the media designated area.  The security guard actually admitted to me that if I was a member of the public I would be allowed to continue photographing from the public area, but because I was with the media I had to move. The thinking is so obtuse that I can hardly believe it happened to this day. It is convenient that an area is set aside for media to work in, but it is exactly that. It is not intended to be a place to sequester the media.

Situations like these have become all too common. Police tape and bogus rules have become a way to control media access, and media are increasingly being targeted. In a 2010 story by Lise Lareau, for the Canadian Media Guild she describes several cases of media carrying formal G20 media accreditation who were kept from doing their jobs, several of whom were beaten, arrested, and detained. What appears to be happening is that the messengers are being targeted by authorities rather than authorities concentrating on the events that are being covered.

In our small photographic community here in Canada we were all shocked at the 2010 G20 events, but personally I was even more dismayed that more was not done by media outlets, either individually, or collectively, to object to the actions by authorities. At the time the CAJ issued a statement to police, but little more was done publicly by other organizations beyond statements. In their release, the CAJ wrote, 

“This kind of behaviour by police toward the media is not acceptable in a democracy like Canada,” said Mary Agnes Welch, president of the Canadian Association of Journalists. “Police must understand that, like them, journalists have a job to do in the public interest. Lumping us in with protesters or blocking us from covering events is not consistent with the democratic principles that police are sworn to uphold. The CAJ has received word from professional journalists who say they have been threatened with arrest if they did not leave an area where they were covering peaceful protest, witnessed officers striking journalists and seen colleagues arrested."

I'm of the opinion that it doesn't matter what the nature of the protests were; peaceful or not. Media were doing their job, and were singled out because they had eyes on a scene that were unwelcome at the time. Police asked them to leave, and the minute they refused they became vulnerable to arrest. The post G20 fallout was minor, but was the most appropriate time in recent history for Canadian media to move en masse to change this rising tide of media crippling.

It has become increasingly obvious that there are those in positions of authority that have adopted a warped sense of the democratic principals that they have been sworn to uphold. We all take great pride in reporting and documenting with care, and publish our work with great consideration for every subject, victim, and reader.

Upon analysis, these situations and limitations of our rights and freedoms do not stand up to scrutiny. They are not “prescribed by law,” unless the law is loosely applied, and they are not “reasonable and demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society”

It is absolutely wrong for law enforcement, as individuals or collectively, to manipulate, or misrepresent the law, to strip Canadian citizens, media or not, of the rights that our lawmakers have guaranteed us in the spirit of a true democracy. This landslide of abuse needs to stop, and it will only stop when organizations, lawmakers, and citizens stand up together and say  "Enough!"

-30-

Photography's Dark(room) Days

I just read an interesting article by Peter Turnley about a printer to the greats in Paris named Voja Mitrovic and while it was enjoyable it also made me think about how our industry has changed through technology.

The art of print making may be slowly disappearing but we are also losing the great art of photo editing. Every photographer can benefit from the critical eye of a talented photo editor. Today's photographers rarely ever have another eye looking over their work, finding the frame within the frame, or the elusive moment missed by the first edit.

While I personally do miss spending time in the darkroom, like many I'm sure, I don't yearn for those days.

New technologies have helped the process of making images by photojournalists, and I guess specifically by those of us working for newspapers, but we are paying the price for speed and immediacy in other ways; good editing being the greatest of these IMHO.

While we are now able to shoot and deliver our images more quickly, our ability to do so means that editors want to see more, sooner, and more often; for the blog, the tweet, the web, the gallery, ....and of course to appease the query, "do you have any other good ones you could send?" We all need to be reminded that quality, not quantity should be our goal.

It's rush, rush, rush now for many of us, especially if you want to capture a few jerky seconds of video as well, and throw it together quickly back at the office, so it can be posted, clicked on, and clicked off just as quickly. We are in a reckless rush toward mediocrity that needs to be examined more critically.

While we are all expected to do more, in less time, staffing issues, expanded use of photos, and a broader field to search for photos in, means that most photo editors have much more demands on their time as well. It would be nice to say that we should all have a photo editor oversee our work more often, but could you imagine how many of them would react to a small staff of people sending them hard drives full of images to edit? This would sadly be an overwhelming situation in most cases, if possible to do at all.

The path our industry has taken through changes in technology has been an interesting one to say the least. There have been  many positives, but also many negatives - the loss of the negative certainly being one.

I don't wish for a moment to go back in time. I love what I do, and I love the immediacy of it now. But I also love that I have had many years to experience the process of developing negatives, and producing prints in the darkroom. There is a certain Zen quality to time spent working on a print that all photographers would enjoy I'm sure.

If you haven't yet had the darkroom printing experience I would encourage you to seek out the opportunity. Shooting on film, editing from a strip or a selection of square negatives, and painstakingly producing a print in a darkroom will give you an enriched appreciation for the art of what we do, and the value of the single, solitary, perfect moment that we all seek.

Portfolio Tips for Photojournalism Students

Yesterday I attended the Advisory Committee Meeting at Loyalist College Photojournalism program in Belleville, Ontario. Incidentally this is the same program I graduated from in 1989, in the second graduating class in the program.

As always it was great to meet with some old friends - fellow advisors and college staff - and it's a great opportunity to meet and speak with the current crop of enthusiastic (and scared stiff)  students. While a portion of the day is spent behind closed doors dealing with the business of running the program, its development, and its place in the changing landscape, the bulk of our time is spent meeting with the students, listening to their concerns, and providing them with feedback and critique on their portfolios. As always it was a long day, but worth the time, and the long drive in the fog.

There is plenty of good work being done by the students at Loyalist College.  (some published work in PDF format is available for viewing here.)

I don't think any of us were able to get to review every portfolio, but I'm certain that each student who showed enough interest to ask for critique went away with many helpful suggestions, encouragement, or motivation. While the level of ability demonstrated by the portfolios varies quite a bit a few general themes seem to arise from the bulk of the portfolios - the ones that I saw at least.

Many budding photojournalists are terrified to ask professionals to critique their portfolios. This is something you have to get over. Showing your work, and accepting critique will only assist in your development.

Here are a few thoughts for students when building their portfolios.

World Press Photo 2010 Results Announced

The much coveted World Press Photo Awards for images taken in 2010 were announced early this morning. The gallery of winning images is at

http://www.worldpressphoto.org/index.php?option=com_photogallery&task=blogsection&id=21&Itemid=292&bandwidth=high

Congrats to all the winners and especially to the winner of World Press Photo of the Year by Jodi Bieber, South Africa, Institute for Artist Management/Goodman Gallery for Time magazine for a portrait of Bibi Aisha, disfigured as punishment for fleeing her husband's house, Kabul, Afghanistan. Apparently she has previously won eight (8) World Press Photo awards!

As always, and like every contest in existence there is sure to be some discussion about the merits of the winners, but overall I'd say the winning images are very strong. I'm sure the overall winner will get some discussion. The NY Times Lens Blog is already on it, with a title on the blog that asks "Is this the Best News Picture in the World?"

http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/11/is-this-the-best-news-picture-in-the-world/

One Canadian photographer on the winner's list this year. Ed Ou, Reportage by Getty Images wins 1st prize stories: Contemporary Issues for Escape from Somalia.

http://www.worldpressphoto.org/index.php?option=com_photogallery&task=view&id=2056&type=byname&Itemid=293&bandwidth=high

I must be out of the loop but I didn't know Ed was Canadian until this week's story on The New Time's Lens Blog.

http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/07/a-safe-drug-injection-site-in-vancouver/

For the rest of us.....maybe next year.....

Pix between assignments

You know I just love this job for the variety.

I'm a newspaper photographer; photojournalist if you will. Many assignments we do can be routine or mundane, while others can be life altering.

I don't travel as much as I'd like perhaps, but just about as much as my family life can afford, and certainly more than some of my colleagues. I've been fortunate to have had many opportunities, and I've tried to make the best of them.

I'm not in Egypt right now, and yes, I'm somewhat disappointed about that. But since I'm not I try to please my masters here in Toronto with the best job I possibly can.

My job, over the past 24 hours, has included shooting Wynton Marsalis with the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra at Massey Hall, a frustrating effort over the span of two songs, in poor light while Mr. Marsalis himself, practically hid at the back of the 15-piece band! My favorite pic from the night was taken from the front seat of my car however, while waiting to meet the PR guy at the stage door.

Today, during my 3pm shift, I was shooting Pee Wee hockey, trying to get a good body checking photo for yet another study on the impact of body checking on minor hockey players. Seems body checking is like wine....good for you one year, ....not so much the next. I love hockey. But Pee Wee hockey doesn't always provide the best hit-action. Anyway, it was a snow day here, so before the first game I thought I try and catch up with the rest of the staff and find a weather pic, so off to a few tried and true feature holes, and lo and behold.....I got lucky.

Like I said, I love this job for the variety.

The "HIGHS" to "LOWS" & Inspiration where you can get it

Two days ago I was asked if I would travel to Cairo to cover the ongoing street demonstrations there and the peoples' calls for Mubarik to step down. I have rarely ever said no to any request and this was no exception. Conversation in the office suggested that management would likely give the story a few more hours to decide which direction it might take, and how we might best use our resources to cover it for  our Canadian audience. What is often lost in journalist's desire to cover big stories overseas is the question of what our readers might want from this story.

Needless to say, I spent that evening speaking with my family, answering concerns from my teenagers, who are both old enough now to understand the risks that are sometimes involved with my profession, and preparing for a phone call to tell me which flight I was on.

What transpired over the next twelve hours is not relevant to this conversation, but the result of it was that we would not be sending a photographer into the region.

Street Photography - Invisibility

Just to further the subject of street photography....thanks to the folks at duckrabbit for posting this video link with street photographer Matt Stuart.

His quote, "Invisibility would be my superpower," is excellent, but I think the key thing to learn here is the way he carries himself while photographing. His demeanour is unthreatening because he is confident that he is doing nothing wrong, and certainly no harm to anyone. I agree completely that people sense whether you can be trusted or not, and you have to project that they have nothing to fear from you.

I see so many young photographers trying to work, while being almost frozen with fear that someone might ask them what they are doing? Why are they photographing them? If you know in your heart that individuals have nothing to fear from what you are doing, it really isn't too difficult to explain yourself in a unthreatening manner.

I also can relate completely to his words about being among people on the street and sharing a moment with them, without them ever realizing it. We are very privileged in what we do because of all of the moments we get to experience - all of the emotions, both good and bad.

Street Photography-The Dance

I was just looking at a post by Rob Skeoch on the NPAC site that I found interesting about a documentary that has been done on street photographer Joel Meyerowitz. The video is shot by Cheryl Dunn and is part of documentary called "Everybody Street." The piece is here on the site of The New Yorker.com.

Two things that he mentions even in this short teaser struck a chord with me - things that I have tried to explain to people myself over the years.

The first is the way he speaks about moving with people in the street, even referring to Robert Frank being "balletic."

I've often described moving with people I'm photographing almost as if you are dancing with them, or around them. This helps me become a part of the flow of the situation, and somehow less intrusive. There are times when you want to stand back and remain apart from a moment, but more often than not, especially on the street, it is extremely productive to immerse yourself in the "flow" of what you are photographing.

This leads to the next point that Meyerowitz mentions which is the sensibility of the photographer. This is not just a sensibility of the people living life around you, but a sensibility for the energy, the life, the moments that are intertwining all about you.

In a related piece Mary Ellen Mark speaks about the subject "showing you what the picture is." Street photography, as challenging as it might be, is not about concepts, but about watching life. She goes on to speak about it being an advantage to be a woman because she is less threatening than a man, which, for the most part, I agree with, but as with any generalization, it doesn't hold true to all individuals. How threatening you are depends largely on your own personality and your approach to people.

A Yorkville, Toronto bicyclist sends pigeons scattering. (Photo by Peter Power)

Looking Back at 2010

It has been quite a year 2010. There were plenty of stories that have touched us all in different ways, images that we'll never forget, and likely personal moments that test or reward us.

I cherish my time with  my family, especially around Christmas. It's a time to reconnect, especially with my two teenagers, and recharge the batteries so to speak for the challenges that the New Year will bring.

As far as work is concerned it has been relatively busy, at least for a daily newspaper photographer working in Canada. Below is a collection of twelve images - one, unpublished photograph from each month of the year - a year that had me on the road for about 60 days working on the Haitian earthquake, the Olympics, the Dementia Series, and one other that will be published in February.

There are also more images posted on my website as a 2010 Year in Review slideshow.

A young girl heads home from her father's funeral in Port-au-Prince, Haiti.

Marsh Muckers

About three years ago, while I was driving south from an assignment in Barrie, I decided to stop and have a drive through the Holland Marsh. Like many commuters and cottagers that travel the busy Hwy 400, the fertile fields of the marsh had always caught my eye, but there never seemed a reason to venture in.


The light that fall day was magical, and everywhere I looked it seemed there were images to be had. I stopped several times to photograph and to speak with locals. Along with some photographs I was pleased with, I also learned that the people who worked and lived in the Holland Marsh were affectionately known as Marsh Muckers.

Lightning's Last Dance

While I haven't been overly vocal, at least publicly, in the ongoing debate about the merits of newspaper multimedia, and specifically video as a tool for photojournalists, I have been consistent about one point.

The opportunity for photojournalists to step up and accept a greater role in our newsrooms, as journalists - storytellers, has never been greater.

For years many of us have struggled to be accepted as journalists and have fought against the "just a photographer" label. Many newspapers today, more than ever, seem more willing to give photojournalists time to work on stories because the new potential home for our works - the web - has limitless space, and papers are motivated to fill that space with content. The discussion about the quality of work we provide, and/or papers demand, and in turn the resources they are willing to commit to these efforts I'll save for another day.

Enough said.

My latest story, which was shot primarily in video, with some stills - I also wrote the story - was posted yesterday on theglobeandmail.com and ran on the GlobeAuto front, and inside on page five.


Much of my work in recent years has tended to be documentaries about social issues, but I felt I needed a break from the norm and thought I would try my hand at something completely different. Perhaps not completely, since it still deals with overcoming challenges, but it is certainly a "lighter" story than most people are used to seeing from me lately.

The two parts of the multimedia story, each a little over five minutes long, tell the story of a low-budget stock car team competing in the Nascar Canadian Tire Series.

Finally, a word about luck. This entire story seemed to be lucky for me, despite being about a #13 car. Many aspects of the story just fell into place, and then there was simply the odd "lucky" moment.

I was once told, and I firmly believe, that photographers make our own luck. We anticipate something happening, prepare properly, and if our instincts are correct we are rewarded with the image we'd hoped for - or better. You'll see what I mean if you watch Part 2 to the end.