I am, happily, called upon to do a great variety of photography – sometimes all occurring on the same day! It is all (as we say) good – I love the constant change and being required to ‘bring myself’ to the type of image needed. At every moment (photographically speaking) I am called upon to be both my ‘personal’self – what would I want to ‘see’ in this image as a viewer?…and my photographer self (where is the light? what are the conventions for such an image? do I go – with convention or against it? …these are are ‘formal’ considerations when creating an image – the technical stuff, if you like.
At times, the clients’ desire for a specific image is clear – in those cases I attempt wherever possible to create a facsimile of what I am shown. I am delighted that my influence always -seeps- in…and inevitably a ‘new’ object is created…that lives within the history and practice, but is none the less a unique – never seen before- thing. Part of the beauty of being human.
This is not to say that every photographic moment is joyous…but only that it is a priviledge to have as my job the sensitive documentation of the human condition. Forgive me for getting, um, a little wet here…but my position as a photographer is one of acceptance and, ah, love. I do not think of myself as documenting a moment photographically (as I might have said in my university days)..rather, I am creating an object which speaks to our connections to one another…through a history of such images.
(this is my great Aunt Ruby and her husband Roy. Image from Russell Studio, Penticton. 1931
I love thinking that 80 years from now an image I created would be a treasured object in the hands of someone who had known and loved the people in the picture…
…Thanks for coming to Mueller…
Stuart August 4, 2010
