This weekend I’m off to the northern tip of Vancouver Island to dive in the giant kelp forests with sea lions and octopus. I can’t wait! After a year of taking SCUBA courses and, forgive the pun, immersing myself in a hobby more bewildering than even photography, I am finally taking my cameras into the water and it feels like …
Four.
This is a short note to long-time readers. It’s unedited and is, simply, a reflection and a thank you. Four years ago on Easter weekend I fell off a wall in Italy and changed my life forever. That I lived at all is wonder enough, but that I now look back on the last 4 years as some of the …
Tend the Fire
Most of us have a fire in the belly, a passion or desire that burns brightest in us. It’s the heat and energy from this fire that moves us forward, gives momentum to our projects, and authenticity to our voice. It’s one of those things, sometimes the thing that makes us feel alive. Only you know what this thing is, and …
Hungry?
“When your hands are full of thorns but you can’t quit groping for the rose…” ~Bruce Cockburn. I feel myself getting hungry. Or perhaps I’m always hungry but only now recognizing that gnawing feeling for what it is. I get that way when I come out of a time of gorging myself creatively, as I have recently in Kenya. I …
Glory Days
Ethiopia, 2006 It might surprise some of you, and to others be a shocking reminder of how fast time flies, for me to tell you it was only 10 years ago I stepped off the stage as a comedian for the last time and returned to my dream of being a photographer. Comedy, which I did for twelve years …
Make It Now.
This moment, this light, in Cape Churchill last week: it didn’t last long. You can photograph it, or let it pass you by. But you may never see it again. Last week I was sitting in a tundra buggy not photographing polar bears. The bears, driven by a months-long hunger were out on the sea ice, hunting seals. If we’d …
The Hunger & The Hype
I spent this morning with my coffee and Instagram, Facebook turned off for the sake of my spirit. More and more I wrestle with leaving Facebook. I’m not sure (m)any of us are wired for such a constant stream of hyperbole and hysteria. I know I’m not. It’s become so, so noisy and then I open Instagram, a social media …
The Artist’s Journey
One of the great revelations of my life came when I discovered Joseph Campbell and his book, The Hero With a Thousand Faces. I read it while studying films and screenplays and trying to understand what makes a great story. And I read it while divorcing for the first time and not sure I was going to survive the trauma …
A Beautiful Anarchy
Colour outside the lines and make the best art of your life! To my core I believe that our lives can be lived boldly, intentionally, and as our truest work of art. I believe we are all capable of living extraordinary lives; that people like Gandhi, Picasso, or Mother Teresa, were ordinary people who chose to be fully themselves …
For Jennifer, Whomever You Are.
Jennifer is a composite of all the students who’ve asked me to look at their work online and offer some advice. My advice has changed over the years. Dear David, I’m a second-year photography student. Would you look at my work and offer me any advice? Dear Jennifer, Thank you for the invitation to spend some time with your work. …