Lori Ryerson Episode #1: Escape Hatch To A Quiet Universe

Searching out the quiet spaces is what Lori Ryersons' photography is all about. Being a Fine Art Photographer, opportunistic Photographer, or whatever passes by her aperture she says candidly. Lori looks for the obscure and hard to find quiet. Places that are increasingly hard to find in Canada's biggest city Toronto; where she calls home is incredibly noisy. Finding these quiet places is often where humans are not.

When she manipulates, and distorts, using various tools that the camera has at it's disposal, Lori is able to create a myriad of images that the average person would be dismayed that a camera can accomplish. Using landscapes as one of her focuses she is also a generalist.

Generating her connections with these spaces that allow viewers when they see her work to breathe a sigh, almost as if the space created gives them space in themselves. A place within to really contemplate and well breathe. Ryerson creates spaces for people to contemplate, and really feel. A stunning moment that everyone needs to think and reflect.
 
Lori Ryerson Podcast Interview Credits:
Audio Links from https://freemusicarchive.org/
Podcast by Carolyn Botelho

Connect with Lori Ryerson:
www.loriryerson.ca

Transcript

Hey everyone, welcome back to the Creatively Thinking Podcast. Join Carolyn Botelho as she uncovers the inspirations behind some incredibly creative minds that are orbiting our local communities. Hi Lori Ryerson, how are you? Great to have you on the show.
 
 I discovered your work online and had to chat with you about your creative process. So let's dive in. Well, thank you Carolyn, appreciate it.
 
 I like to ask every artist, what made you choose this career path? Was it working with your hands, your emotional insights or something else? The only thing I do with my hands is type. I spent 30 years in the communications field. The camera was always there, but as I went through my business life, as my children grew up, as our travels increased, the camera became an extension of communicating.
 
 You know the saying, a picture is worth a thousand words. Well, I started to use images to speak for me. And those thousand words create a story.
 
 You are a Toronto-based fine art photographer, wordsmith and traveler, seeking to invoke mystery from the mundane, a space to listen to the silence. Can you delve a little deeper on this for our audience? How do you find the quiet space, the space for viewers of your work to find the silence? Is it in the finished work, the context of an exhibition, or while you are creating each piece? Generally, I travel to find the quiet spaces. I'm Toronto-born, the GTA has almost 6 million people in it, everything makes noise now.
 
 So I go looking for places with very few humans and bring a little piece of that back with me. That said, there's no place like home and the quiet spaces are where you look for them. Yes, and finding them becomes a treasure you are sharing.
 
 Browsing through your credentials, I saw you have seven different education credits from Humber, Halliburton, Niagara, Toronto, Vaughan and Death Valley. That's in California, right? Yes, it is. Some of that formal schooling at Humber College and Halliburton, some of them are workshops with experts in their field.
 
 One of the things I learned from all the CEOs I worked with was about surrounding yourself with experts, and I consider many of these people to be experts in their field. But when I go on workshops, it's not just the teachers, it's also about the other participants. Art is very much a continuously learning environment, not just about the hardware, but the techniques.
 
 And yes, as I say, Death Valley is in California. Great, there must be plenty of stories there. What I was curious about with your education was obviously you understand education is important.
 
 What did you find exploring all these different avenues of schooling brought to your creative practice? Was it a variety of completely different curriculum that intrigued you to take such a large number? Well, my biggest educator is the traveling that I do. Some of that is to get to the experts, and some of it is just surrounding myself with my tribe, i.e. not always being the only photographer in a room full of painter people, but actually hanging out with others who eat, drink, sleep photography. But as I say, when I go on the workshops, it's not just the teachers, it's the other participants.
 
 I would say I probably learn as much from them as I do from the teachers. I can only listen to the fine points of using resin coating so often before my eyes glaze over. But when you get a room full of togs together, you start learning new techniques, new ways to do things, places to go, et cetera, et cetera.
 
 Yes, that must be comforting and reassuring. You are a Toronto-based fine art photographer, wordsmith, and traveler, seeking to invoke mystery from the mundane, a space to listen to the silence. Can you delve a little deeper on this for our audience? How do you find the quiet space, the space for viewers of your work to find the silence? Is it in the finished work, the context of an exhibition, or while you are creating each piece? Well, I actually do very limited photography of other people's work, mainly friends who might need stuff for their websites or their portfolios or a show application.
 
 But if you're referring to what I think you're referring to, those are photographic abstracts and they are all mine. Not one drop of paint was harmed in the creation of those. I am a photographer.
 
 So yeah, that's just got me so intrigued as how you did that if no paint was involved. How is that done? It's just, that's, I guess, the mystery, right, of being a photographer? Part of it is, I mean, you know, some photographers, sorry, some artists use, you've seen it on YouTube, on Facebook, somebody uses a roll of paper towels and smushes paint around, somebody else pours it and then tilts the canvas. My camera is a tool.
 
 That's the tool that I use. I use various techniques in order to create those abstracts that you fell in love with. There's all kinds of stuff out there, specifically things like multiple exposures, intentional camera movement, just distortion.
 
 It's a tool. It's just a tool. So it's like keeping the aperture open and just manipulating how you move the camera and stuff like that with other.
 
 Yeah, that's intentional camera movement is using a long exposure and then deliberately moving the camera in order to create different really textures within a flat subject or flat substrate, you know, you're dealing with digital film, but it's just another tool. It's not a palette knife. It's not a brush.
 
 It's just the tool that I use to create art. Settings with cameras that I'm sure not the regular person even knows about, right? Well, if you leave it on automatic all the time, you're going to get a cell phone picture. It's taking it away from automatic and spending the time to get to know your camera and to really look around you and take, if you will, an inventory of what you're standing in and then start to work with that and then let, you know, it's always what if, what if I did this? What if I did that? How would it look? Yeah, there's so many opportunities with the camera.
 
 Being a Canadian photographer, do you find it to be challenging when exhibiting in groups or international shows? Do you find your perspective as a photographer has found its niche where your audience resonates with your work? Did you possibly notice a trend with where they were located? Not specifically where they were located. Generally, when I do group shows, and you've already heard me reference this a couple of times, I am the lone voice of photography in a room filled with paint. So, yes, doing group shows can be challenging in terms of different things that resonate with the audiences, different locales, bring different emotions to the buyers, different types of photography.
 
 I don't do anything, well, I almost never do anything figurative. Most of my work is landscape. I've spent this last year being heavily invested in abstract.
 
 So, like anything in art, it's what resonates with the individual who's looking at it. And then in terms of noticing a trend, again, depending on when the time of year the show is, you know, we've got the Toronto Outdoor Art Show coming up this weekend. I never show icebergs in July.
 
 They just, it just doesn't resonate with anybody. No, that wouldn't fit very well, would it? No, no. So, you're living the art of context for subject matter.
 
 But who says that's not a thing that you could, you could show icebergs, right? In the summer. Well, I do show them, but I usually show them once people are wearing coats. And then, yes, then it's familiar.
 
 It makes sense. As long as the group of artists has other contextual variety to center it, maybe. Having your photographic work being primarily focused on nature and animals.
 
 See, I just thought there was animals in there. So, see, it's like, I should have just, okay, let's just leave it. Having your photographic work being primarily focused on nature.
 
 Has this led any organizations or galleries to try and pigeonhole you, your technique or style? Can you share with our audience how your work is uniquely you, standing separate from others that work in this subject? Well, as you noted, I actually don't do a lot of animal work. That said, I mean, it is nature. And I was in Kenya in January.
 
 What do you see in Kenya? You see a lot of animals, so you shoot animals. But they're not my prime focus. I really like to shoot what appears in front of me.
 
 I refer to myself as an opportunistic photographer, like Joe McNally. I consider myself a generalist. And I really hate being tied to one genre.
 
 Because if all you ever do is the same thing over and over, it doesn't show growth. When I find, it's not so much that the gallerists do pigeonholing. But for instance, when you apply to a gallery or you apply to a show, and they say, well, you know, only show one thing.
 
 Only, you know, give me a cohesive portfolio. So if you do animals and landscapes, only show me animals or only show me landscapes. And I'm always dismayed by gallerists who insist that you not show the breadth of your work, but prefer a cohesive style.
 
 For me, that's just laziness on the part of the person, of the juror, who's looking at my work. You want to see that there's been growth. You want to see that there's been change.
 
 Let's look at the work of Picasso, for instance. There's a guy who never stuck to one style. And nobody seemed to have a problem with that now, did they? True, but Picasso knew how to play the gallery game.
 
 He gave them a piece of what his work, of his work that fit into that cubist style. The galleries just didn't see everything else he was doing, I guess. I guess you need to read minds of these gallerists.
 
 Because, yeah, they want to just, they just want you to fit the form that they're looking for at that specific time, right? I'm a business person, you know, even as an artist, every work that we create is, I always say it's like an entrepreneur, a serial entrepreneur. Every time we create a new piece of work, we have to come up with a concept. We have to develop it, provide a prototype, get out there and market it.
 
 And then we sell it to somebody and we start the process all over again. So I get that gallerists are looking for work that will sell. That said, are you only ever looking for the same thing over and over and over again? Sometimes, you know, it's not sometimes, always there are trends in art, just like there are in fashion or shoes or purses.
 
 So, you know, I'm not, sometimes I'm bucking the trend. Up that trend, yes. Or sometimes I'm, you know, I'm out there like with the abstract.
 
 So well, then you stand, then you stand separate, right? Then you're really, you're really noticed if you're, if you're. Well, that one hopes. I mean, you're always looking for, you're always looking for a piece of magic that somebody somewhere will say, aha, Laurie Ryerson, you're exactly what I've been looking for all these years.
 
 Perfect. Open your wallet. Would you say your photography has a narrative beyond the space within the silence? Does your work, although focusing on nature, does it have any socio or political leanings? Um, certainly as photographers, we, we record a lot of the changes, whether it's changes that have come about from political decisions, like the situation in Utah, removing certain protections in the national parks, or whether the changes result of climate change.
 
 For instance, you know, even from the time that I was in the Antarctic to now, which was, it's four years, there've been huge changes, changes in, you know, speaking of icebergs, the, the change in the water temperature and stuff like that. So we see a lot of that. When I speak to groups or at art or at shows or that kind of thing, I will often talk about over tourism, because obviously a lot of the places that I go to are big on tourist lists.
 
 And I think that we are, I always refer to it as we're loving places to death. And I think that the photography world has to take some ownership of that vis-a-vis things like selfies and influencers and location sharing. Just this week, for instance, Banff has been talking about limiting the number of people who will be allowed at Lake Louise at any one time.
 
 Venice is implementing a charge for people to go to St. Mark's Square. And you see people show up at these places, they do stupid things in order to get that shot, that selfie, and then they leave. They're not spending money in the place.
 
 They're not leaving anything behind for the people who live there. They're just, you know, getting in, getting that photograph and leaving, people leaving graffiti in sacred spaces, just so they can prove that they were there to leave their mark. Fogo Island, yeah, Fogo Island out in Newfoundland, when they first built the Fogo Island Inn, it was the darling of the province.
 
 And oh, so great, they were going to bring people in, wealthy people who would just drop great gobs of money all over Fogo Island. But the reality was that once the Inn started to achieve that worldwide popularity, the world's tourists came not to drop great gobs of money, but to get a picture of themselves in front of the Inn to prove they were there. The offshoot of that is, since the only way to get to Fogo is by ferry, this has now caused a situation where you have to be at the ferry for at least two hours in advance, if you want to ensure to get your car in, get your car on the ferry.
 
 And so what does that do to the locals who are using the same method of transportation? It means they have to come to the mainland, that if they have to come to the mainland for a doctor's appointment or something like that, they lose almost five hours of their day just waiting in line for that ferry. So you see how this all kind of, you know, rolls along how it gets. And photographers have to take some ownership of this, because we're the ones showing everybody these images.
 
 Mm-hmm. Yeah, that's insane how just people are traveling so much and they're not realizing what their impact is on these locations by just constantly being there and, you know, leaving their, as you say, their mark. Which is, yeah, it's the photograph, but then it's also like the, I forget the name of the cave now in France, where so many people have gone in there, the paintings that are on the walls are decaying almost because just the- Just the breath of the humans.
 
 The breath and the handprints, you know, that are making it deteriorate. And it's like, and that can also be seen with just in a different sense, I guess, but sort of the same with tourism. Well, for instance, you have a place like Iceland. 
 
 So Iceland has, what, 335,000 people in the population, but every year the visitors, you know, this was a case of a marketing program that became way too successful, the Iceland stopover, the Iceland Air stopover program that encouraged people to add a visit to Iceland if they were traveling to Europe. And so 335,000 people with a visitor group of two to three million. And we'll be right back.
 
 Realize they come, they come from other cultures and other areas where they don't know that there's no infrastructure to support those visitors. And many of the attractions, you know, this boss and that boss and the abandoned airplane and all of that stuff, those are on private property. It's actually owned by individual humans. 
 
 It's not a, it's not a- And those people are left to clean up after the two to three million visitors. Well, if you own that piece of property, what would you do? You'd privatize it and say the tourists can no longer come in. Exactly, exactly.
 
 Because, yeah, they're basically destroying it by- Loving these places to death. Yes, exactly. That's what it is.
 
 Yeah, and they must not be realizing that. I bet you if I was a tourist, I'd be like, I'm bringing travel and tourism and I'm helping their economy. And it's like, no, that is a positive, but there's also the consequence of just too many people.
 
 Yes, you saw this, you see this in Moab in Utah. They have so much tourism now that the problem, and same with Iceland, the folks there are complaining of the same thing. If so many people coming in, they have made it unaffordable for the people who actually live there. 
 
 So the cost of living for the people, they now have to go outside of their normal living, like especially in Moab, they've got to go to another state. They've got to cross a border in order to get goods that are cheaper because the tourism industry has just blown up. So it's, yes, you're bringing people, but there's that fine balance, that there's that fine line that you cross between bringing people in and sharing your space and showing people what an incredible environment you live in to loving it to death.
 
 Yeah, it's got consequences for sure. Yeah, because you were saying you're taking photographs of these places that are being loved to death. What kind of reactions do you get from the photographs you're taking of this? A lot of my work is, as we've discussed as the sort of basis for this interview, is about the silence. 
 
 And that's the thing, is when you have all of these, there are some places like there's a very well-known photograph, the horsetail at Yosemite. So every February, the way the light hits the falls at Yosemite, it's a photographer's dream, it's a stunning moment. And all the pictures show this breathtaking moment and everybody's like, ooh, ah, ooh, ah. 
 
 Then you pull back the camera and you see 600 photographers, some of who have been sitting there all day waiting for this 30 seconds of light. So how do people react to my work? I love to see, when I have a photograph that shows the silence, I love to see somebody, especially when I'm at a big show where it's all about the noise, you have the din of the crowd and people get in front of my work and you see a huge sigh, like you visibly see them sigh and you see their shoulders relax and you just see them breathe for a minute. And that's really, that's the whole idea behind the shooting the silence thing, is just to create a space for people to think, to just be quiet for a minute and to just have the time to think and reflect on whatever. 
 
 And to let their stress out by just doing that sigh, you just said like, ah, you know. Yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly. But finding those locations without the 600 photographers getting, it's not just people with the, you know, the big cameras, the grown-up version, it's the cell phone group, it's all of that. 
 
 Yeah, well and it's got to be just a good feeling to, yeah, see that, where people are reacting to the, to your photography, where they're just finally able to, you're saying that you work for the silence, but it's also a silence in people, I would think too, right? When they are reacting to your work, it's just, they can have that quiet moment for themselves. Yes. Yes. 
 
 While researching you, I found your areas of experience include the communication industry, where you were doing non-profit administrative work, to where you were involved with the circus, studying trapeze, to a trip to the Sahara. Could you expand on how these dramatically different fields became important to you? Oh, that. Oh, that. 
 
 It was the trip to the Sahara that started it all, really, and I wouldn't have likely done that if I hadn't been exposed to the circus world, and the way that folks travel. It's a, it's a very moving kind of group. The non-profits provided me with the travel coverage. 
 
 Funny, because when I decided to ditch the corporate world, I realized that all of my major life decisions had been based on, oh, hey, can I travel with that? And so, one of the, the trip to the Sahara, I went on that, came back from that, from that trip. I, I actually slept out for a night in the Sahara, in the western desert. I don't camp, okay? You have to understand that. 
 
 I am a princess. I don't camp, but it was like one night of my life, and it was like a once in a lifetime opportunity. Slept out in the Sahara. 
 
 I have precisely zero images to show you from that night. It was a full moon. I'm in the white desert. 
 
 You've got all the natural light you could possibly want, and I didn't know how to make a camera do what I needed it to in order to capture that moment, and so it was the trip to the Sahara that started all of me going down this road into becoming a professional photographer. Oh, that's, that's good criteria. It was a good kick in the shorts, you know? Yeah, well, did you, did you really actually, were you actually able to sleep in, in the Sahara? I think I may have ultimately gotten two or three hours. 
 
 There was a drumming group somewhere over there. There was a drum group out in the desert. It was a, it was a, I was traveling on my own. 
 
 I had guides, but I was a, a single white woman traveling on her own through Egypt. Yeah, not so much. That makes you a target for sure. 
 
 It was, yeah, yeah, it was an interesting moment. My mother was so glad when I came back alive. So yeah, but it was, it was an absolutely stunning, stunning area and, you know, I, I kicked myself. 
 
 I, I'm not sure that I would go back just for the sake of, of getting those photographs that I never got because, you know, my brain is a still fairly functioning organ and the memories of it are still pretty strong, but, you know, now knowing what I know now, I might have some better images from that night. Yeah, and then it wouldn't be the way your memory remembers it, right? Possibly not, possibly not. So maybe it's good it stays, it stays in, in your head for now, right? You also have an appreciation for Japanese culture and detailed work. 
 
 How did this come about? Have you visited Japan? Is there some other affiliation or were you simply drawn to the Japanese way of life? Well, yes, I have actually visited Japan. Speaking of a place that's being loved to death, Japan seems to be the place to be going this summer. I know so many people who are going over there. 
 
 For me, when I was in my early teens, my father began collecting a very esoteric form of Japanese art, ultimately becoming a world expert on that specific form of Japanese art, and so we were immersed in all things Japanese from, like I say, the time I was about 13. All of that led to my oldest sibling who is now, after 30 years of teaching, she is a a Grand Master Koto teacher. Koto is the Japanese floor harp and she's fluent in Japanese.
 
 She goes over there still fairly regularly. I've only been the one time, it was the first trip that we did with our children. They were five and nine and we had an opportunity. 
 
 Some friends were over there and we had an opportunity to go and stay with them. And so our very first trip with our children was a 14-hour flight. Oh, that's long.
 
 Yeah, they were, you know what, they were pretty good. They were pretty good, but yeah, that was the first trip we did with them. A fascinating place. 
 
 That was 2001. It was the spring before 9-11, so I have no idea what it would be like to travel there now with all of the restrictions that came in after that, but we had a wonderful visit. That's very nice. 
 
 That's a well-earned influence. Yes, yes. And any Japanese absorbs through osmosis? Oh, very scotchy. 
 
 Very, very little. You know, I leave that to my sister. I can eat really well, but and certainly, you know, I'm never going to turn down a warm sake or a cold one, but no, I leave that to my eldest sister. 
 
 What the influences that have been left from it is not so much the language, but some of the artistic sense, the sense of space, the negative space. You know, a lot of Japanese art involves simplicity. And so if you think of some of the pieces of mine that are dealing with silence, it's because it's very simple. 
 
 The compositions are simple, and they're open, and they're big, and so that's kind of a Japanese influence. That's good. That's a very nice influence, because as you were saying, there's so much noise everywhere now. 
 
 Being a travel and landscape photographer, how do you see your subject represented in the art world? Do you see photographers gaining or losing credibility, as nearly everyone with their phone claims to be a photographer? Do influencers, how we share photos and selfies change how we value photography? Well, absolutely, because hey, everyone is now a photographer. I mean, who actually uses their cell phones to talk to somebody? Did you know you could do that? I know, right? I used to say that all the time. Remember, we used to use these for communication, right? Yeah. 
 
 And it's unbelievably common for someone when I'm at a show for someone to pull out their phone and show me what they consider to be an image comparable to my own. I mean, like, honestly, nine times out of 10, it really isn't. But I'm a firm believer that everybody starts from the same beginner position. 
 
 So I don't point out the flaws, or the fact that the horizon isn't straight, or the sky is blown out, or whatever. I just, I look at them, and I say, you should print that. Do they not realize that you're basically laughing at them when you say that? No, I'm not laughing at them. 
 
 But it's just they're so proud of it. Yeah, no, that's good. Yeah.
 
 What good does it do either of us for me to be insulting them or to take insult from them sharing it? Obviously, something that they saw in my work spoke to them enough that they wanted to share something they're really proud of. Whether, you know, like I said, we all start from the same ground zero. So they're, you know, their crooked horizon today may be razor sharp in a few weeks, if they do a little more of it. 
 
 So I'm, I'm, I'm touched, actually, that they will share a moment that meant so much to them. And that's why I often say you should print that because they really should. It's something they're proud of. 
 
 Later on, they may take it down. But you know, for now, it's something that brings them joy. So why the hell not? Photography as an art form.
 
 Many galleries, many galleries won't even respond to photographers, even while they sell realist paintings by starting that conversation with, oh, can you believe this isn't a photograph? There's this age old argument about photography not being a fine art, because of our ability as photographers to 100% duplicate our work. And that reflects in the way that people buy art photography. There's not the same sense of urgency that's created when someone looks at a painting, oh my god, this is the only one of its kind in the world. 
 
 If I don't buy it right now, somebody else will come along and take it while I go home to measure and think about it. And photography, oh, this is number one of 10. I've got nine more in this limited edition before I have to make that decision. 
 
 Abstract photography, which is what I'm currently really heavily invested in, from a show and a promotion perspective, that's not an easy thing for people to grasp. You and I were talking about that earlier. Things like the ICM, the intentional camera movement, the impressionist photography, abstract, both natural abstracts, you know, from going in deep into a situation and pulling out a detail in water or trees or whatever, and manipulated images.
 
 That's sometimes difficult for people to work their heads around, because iPhone. Everyone thinks they're a photographer now and can't comprehend that the camera is just another tool with which to make art. It's, you know, like I was saying to you earlier, paper towels, people who whip branches of a tree against a canvas, those who use a palette knife, those who use encaustic, who use wax. 
 
 So they don't tend to think of the camera as being just another tool to make art. Sounds like people need to be taught to appreciate photography. And I'm working on it.
 
 It's all in the art of seeing it as art, correct? Yes, and seeing beyond the tool. And that's been something that I've really been pushing in this last year with the new series, with the boundaries reimagined thing, is that please see beyond the tool. Lose that bias that a camera is a cheat, because it can record something exactly as you see it. 
 
 If you put two photographers next to each other and make them photograph the same thing, you're not going to see the same end product, because each one of us brings our own histories, our own past, our own experiences that shape how we see what's in front of us. Why that can be acceptable for somebody with a brush in their hand, and it's not acceptable for somebody with a camera in their hand, I don't know. I think, I think.
 
 I don't know. I know. It sounds like it doesn't make sense, but I think I get it, that, you know, they need to see the work's intrinsic value, because they don't see, like they see, like you said, it's the iPhone or whatever smartphone you've got, it's just a click, right? That's how they see it. 
 
 And then they just, you know, you use the filters or whatever, but they don't understand that, you know, like the Pentax, what was that one? I used to have one, a Pentax K1000, that's a real old one, but like those cameras like that, and probably the ones you use, that there's just so many different settings and filters and different things that you can do to create these works that they don't know about, and that's, that's why they, they don't see that it's a tool. You know, the, what's called dodging and burning in photography, which is manipulating the light, either bringing light up or darkening, you know, shadows and highlights, depending on how you edit an image, you can change the emotion. And sometimes if you see, you know, a photographer has something in their head, we get to a scene, we take that inventory of all the things that are in the scene, and suddenly, something rings in our heart, and we think, aha, that's, that's the thing that I want to really capture now. 
 
 And, you know, even coming back to someone as famous as Ansel Adams, which is, Adams is probably one of the only photographers that if you ask anyone for a name that they could actually pull out of their hat, if you see one of his most famous ones, what is that Moonlight on Hernandez or something like that, and we'll be right back. If you see the original photograph, and then you see the process, the post processed image after he's had his hands in it. They're two separate, they're, they're completely different.
 
 This is the artistic input of the photographer into the scene. It's not just a matter of that the camera documents what's in front of you. It's not just what did I see? It's what did I feel? And we just need to get people beyond the tool.
 
 Yes, exactly. And get the galleries on board with it, because it sounds like they, they had, they have no clue. Well, it's not, you know, we, we, we put a lesser value, we put a lesser value on artists at the best of times. 
 
 But within that, within the art biases themselves, we put an even lesser light on photography than we do on somebody who paints. And frankly, I don't buy it. Yeah, no, it doesn't make any sense. 
 
 Because, because all the different things that you can do with with the camera now, it's, it's just the same as the paintbrush. But it's but it's way more advanced. Somebody who does graffiti, they use a spray painter. 
 
 It is the work that they're doing is the work that Banksy is doing any less or more art than the Mona Lisa, or Basquiat or any like any of that, right? It's just what is, what's the flavor of the month? What's your preference? Really? Yeah, exactly. This seems a bit of a loaded question. But do you feel women are represented in the photography field, specifically the landscape field? Do you think this is connected to how little we value the photographic image in today's market? Or are there other issues that cause this to be the case? Within within the landscape community? For sure, women are highly underrepresented.
 
 While women in photography is as a statistic is growing. You're seeing more of that in photo journalism rather than landscape. Traditionally, because, you know, to be blunt, the cost of being involved in photography is not cheap. 
 
 So it tends to be, you know, sort of older gents who got a history behind them of, you know, a CEO with a few extra shekels in their pocket, and they go out and they landscape, you know, they shoot the landscape. Women, as we are in so many fields, they just don't seem to accept that a woman can go out camping can go out, sleep out in the Western Desert and photograph and be out there in the landscape the same way that that guy can a lot of photography is, is still that old boys network. And I feel you know, this this plays into what we were just discussing, I feel strongly that society undervalues art, and the artists, we need to stop treating artists and creative as if they hold a lesser weight, for instance, than a CEO or an engineer, and we need to really look at the value that art brings to the world. 
 
 My best example that I think everyone can relate to is the experience the world went through with COVID. At the beginning of the pandemic. The one thing that helped everyone get through those closures, the restrictions, the fear of the unknown was, was art. 
 
 We watched movies, we read books, we listened to music, creators got online and created content. Museums suddenly were thinking outside the box and created virtual experiences based on their collections. People posted and reposted hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of hours of local artists singing on their balconies. 
 
 Actors found ways to communicate virtually and created meaningful content for people to watch that made them feel less alone, that brought them cultures from other places on the planet. You know, I could go on and on about that, but all of that to say we need to respect that the time and energy that artists and creatives bring to the world needs to be re-evaluated as a necessary component to keeping the world community thriving. We educate through art, we communicate through art, we need to prove to our artists and creatives that we place a high value on the work that they provide. 
 
 And so, you know, a lot of that coming back to the original question about the, the female representation, as in every field on the planet, women have, you know, once we, we get past that whole issue of the art value is the art, the value of male or female in the art business. And it's really weird because there are so many more women now in art than there are men, and yet still the men command more attention, higher prices, et cetera, et cetera, you know. So, there's sexism in the art world still.
 
 Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. You know, and just artists as a whole, you know, we, for some reason, we tend to think of artists as lesser beings with lesser needs than, say, a computer programmer or a restauranteur, like, you know, purchasers think nothing of negotiating with a random artist they've never met, trying to get the artist to reduce their, their price, you know. Oh, can you do better than that? Like, think about how that would translate if you went into the real world, like, go into your favorite clothing store, and immediately before you've even tried the shirt on, tell the retailer that you really just only wanted it 50%.
 
 Right, because you should have to pay that much. So, but we tend to, you know, again, we tend to make that divide. I, when I'm doing shows and things, I had a, I had a thing recently where, I mean, I've been doing shows now for over 10 years. 
 
 And I was part of an online forum, and somebody was saying, well, you know, we were talking about getting people giving up their emails. And I, you know, laid out some strategies that I've had. And, and, and a guy, funny enough, who used to be an engineer, he, he would, he, he got onto the discussion. 
 
 And he said, oh, well, you know, I ran out of cards. And so I just told people that they had to leave me their addresses. I mean, but you have to ask in a nice way. 
 
 And I'm like, Oh, I guess your nice way. is nicer than my way. And it's true, people will give, like the male artists can ask for that. 
 
 And people think nothing, the female artists, and immediately, there's like a full stop. No, I'll, I'll just, you know, I'll just monitor your website kind of thing. So yeah, there's very much still in the even in the art world, there's that gender bias.
 
 Yeah, that's, I can't believe that, you know, like, I thought, I thought we were so past that. No, no, we're not. That's no, we're not. 
 
 And I'm very noisy on that subject. There needs to be noise on it. Not not doesn't need to be accepted any longer. 
 
 I mean, come on. No, I don't think so. I and you know, bringing it all around full circle, look beyond the gender look beyond the tool. 
 
 Accept art as art. Don't go looking for all the nonsense. Don't attach all the crap to it. 
 
 Just art and what emotional response does it evoke in you the end, you know, just that. And way too many hits on do it for the exposure, right? Oh, yeah. Yeah, that's, that's just not. 
 
 Again, let's take that into the real world. Well, here, feed me. I'll give you great exposure. 
 
 You know, I want to be paid for the meal that you just ate. No, exposure doesn't pay the rent. Thank you very much. 
 
 I actually had somebody come to me a couple of years ago. I hadn't actually met the person I'm really good about remembering faces and discussions at art shows. And I got an email. 
 
 And the person started off by saying, first of all, they said, Was that a photographer? Was that a painting? So they didn't even know to whom they were writing or the subject matter. And then the second question was, can you do better on the price? Oh, this was this was right at Oh, yeah, this was right out of the gate. And so I wrote back and I said, You know what, you're absolutely right. 
 
 I could be doing better on the price. I should actually be charging it was 600. I said I should actually be charging 800 for that. 
 
 But I decided to hold it. And I know how they respond. Well, and I said, you'll have to excuse me, but that booth that you were standing in when you shot when you saw that piece, I said, This is the first time out of the gate for that image. 
 
 The booth you were standing in costs me $12,000. By the time I get through paying for my show fees, paying for all of the art to be printed, all of the publicity that I do that the you know, printing the whatever the business cards and the postcards and all I said you're standing in 12,000 of my dollars. Please do not take offense if I say do you know, I am not prepared to do better on that price at this time.
 
 And they ended up buying two pieces. Oh, yeah, you know what so much so many times I don't think just regular people realize how much it costs to do these big art fairs. Yeah, oh, it's Yeah, it is when I when I actually get down to brass tacks and, and start telling people exactly what we incur.
 
 They're horrified. Absolutely horrified. And the galleries too. 
 
 Right? They're not cheap. No, and the galleries take 50%. So if I you know, so I have to when I print something, it's not just about it's not just about my cost. 
 
 But if I end up putting that piece into a gallery, the gallery will take 50%. Understand, I do not in any way, shape or form resent that they do that they have a bricks and mortar location. They've got staff, they've got to pay, they're promoting my work, they are entitled to get paid for it reasonably, but 50% is 50%. 
 
 A lot of shuffles. Yeah, and I'm sure you eventually want to roll your eyes at all this stuff. You know, it's wanna just want to basically rip you off, you know, with the how they they think the amount of money your your work should should cost, you know, it's just, it's unbelievable. 
 
 Well, that's more the general public is because they, you know, they see they see, they go to IKEA, they go to HomeSense. They see a 48 inch, what appears to them to be a 48 inch canvas, and they can get it for, you know, $349. For me to do a piece of that size, and present it at a show. 
 
 Well, first of all, there's those show fees. And secondly, you know, it costs me to as a photographer, like I will, I, I have paid over. I've got some of them, some of my big pieces that I did the other year, I paid $1200 to have them, my cost was 1200 to bring them in from Germany, because that was the best lab for the process that I wanted. 
 
 And the look that I wanted for that show. You know, somebody comes in and says, Oh, you know, I'll give you $395 where it's like, yeah, I'm so sorry. But that doesn't even put a dent in the real price for it.
 
 Exactly. So So again, we discussed earlier about educating people. I'm, I'm very open.
 
 If somebody asks me, you know, what things cost, I'm, it's not up to me to keep it a secret. You know, the trip, I want you to understand that I put these numbers on my art for a reason. You know, the trip to the Antarctic, that was no cheap thing.
 
 And all of that is done before the first piece of art comes off the press. So all of that is my cost, sometimes years in advance of the actual artwork before it gets put out, you know, at an art show. So, yeah, there's a there's a lot. 
 
 There's a lot that's involved in that in that side of the art business. Yeah, people don't they just they just have no idea. No, no, they don't. 
 
 So I, as I say, it's my job to educate them. Occupied the title of a unique photo of yours I found while researching you in the category of quirky and offbeat. Can you describe for us, does this, does this category keep in line with your theme of finding the quiet space? What makes this category quirky and offbeat? Is it the subject or the different techniques you use? And this is where I thought you did the double negative for the tears of a peacock.
 
 Okay, yeah. And so so quirky was the category, you know, again, a lot of what you do as an artist is is essentially marketing your work. You know, I said to you earlier on, we're business people, we create a concept, we bring it to market, we sell it, we start all over again, each time we come out with a new piece. 
 
 So quirky was the category that I came up with. When there are things quirky and offbeat things that I see, you know, I said to you, I'm a kind of a generalist, whatever gets in front of my camera. And so when I don't have a category when I can't say, oh, this was Utah, or this is a quiet landscape, or this is a, you know, bird picture from Kenya or whatever. 
 
 It was just a place to put images that I really loved that had no bearing on anything else. They may still be quiet in nature, but they're just kind of out of key. And that brings us back to when I refer to the mystery in the mundane.
 
 I'll come back to Occupy in a minute, the tears of a peacock, and I promised you that I would tell you about that. That is so much mystery in the mundane. So my neighbor, I pull my car up every day in front of my house, beside a fence. 
 
 And she did a brand new fence a couple of years ago. And then she put a stain on it. And the stain really repelled when it was brand new, the stain really, really repelled water. 
 
 And I came home one day and I was about to get out of the car. And I was absolutely fascinated by the knothole in the fence beside the window of my car. So tears of a peacock, clever marketing name, is a picture of a knothole in a fence.
 
 And the reason the colors are what they are is because I really couldn't stand the color of the stain that she used. And so in a what if moment, remember I mentioned to you earlier that a lot of it is about what if I did this? What if I did that? I did a what if by just playing with the saturation and hue on that one. Unusual for me to play with the colors, but and then I suddenly ended up with something that looked like a peacock eye.
 
 And so that was out. Now where the hell would I put that on my website except under quirky and whatever, quirky and offbeat. Because there's no category for knotholes, right? You don't make a whole website page on knotholes.
 
 So as to Occupied, Occupied is actually, that was my first trip after COVID. And actually, I often pair Occupied with another piece called Running on Empty. And again, these are they're offbeat and quirky, because there's just something about those scenes that make you think twice, or maybe they give you a little shiver or something like that. 
 
 It was my first trip after all the COVID closures. Occupied was partially about the whole isolation thing that only one of so to describe that for our viewers. Occupied is a series of windows, it's got a kind of a greenish glow, it's taken at night, and only one of the windows is open, the rest of them, you can see that there's light behind them, but in front of the doors, and then one window is open. 
 
 So that's partially about the isolation thing. And partially about the night sky environment in Death Valley is a certified night sky environment. And that means that they keep the lights, if they have to have lights on anywhere, there are special color, that kind of greenish color is used in night sky places in order to keep you from walking into a pool, but giving you enough light to be able to see the pool before you drive into it. 
 
 And so the one that I always show with Occupied is called Running on Empty, and that is the lone gas station in Death Valley. And there was just something about it that night with the green glow above it and the dark, dark, dark sky. I mean, when it gets dark in the desert, it's seriously dark. 
 
 I love being in Death Valley. When my sister saw Running on Empty, I get this text from her saying, tell me you didn't get out of your car. That's the thing. 
 
 I love the atmosphere in both of those images. I love being in Death Valley. Honestly, I never feel so safe as a woman, as a photographer carrying around several thousand dollars worth of equipment. 
 
 I never feel so safe as I do when I'm down in Death Valley at night. Honestly. So yeah, that's Quirky and Offbeat. 
 
 Definitely Mystery in the Mundane. And thank you for mentioning that image, because it's one that I love. Those two images I just absolutely love. 
 
 And they've been big sellers for me. So kind of, obviously, they touch something in other people. Yeah, there's something in them that just resonates, right? It's like, it's that feeling of what those spaces capture, right? It's like, I guess, it's just like you said, it just touches everybody. 
 
 Yeah. And just, and again, it's just, there's something that just feels not quite right. Just a little out of key.
 
 Yeah. Well, like you said, a little quirky. It's like, little, yeah. 
 
 Well, yeah, that's, we're actually cut to the end of our questions. Surprising. Well, thank you. 
 
 I thank you very much, allowing me to just prattle on like that. I do appreciate it. Well, thank you for participating.
 
 Appreciate it. I appreciate the support. Canadian artists, always happy to get out there and strut our stuff. 
 
 So thank you. Thank you very much. Really appreciate it.
 
 Yeah, that's great. And is there anything else you'd like to share? Any additional information about your creative practice? Just, you know where to find me, an email if you're, if any of my images resonate with anyone. An email always gets that discussion started. 
 
 I'm not painful to deal with. And support Canadian artists. Buy some art. 
 
 That's all. Get out there and buy some art, damn it. Exactly. 
 
 Support the locals, right? Right. All right. And I'll get this interview to you as soon as possible. 
 
 So thanks again. Thank you. Thank you. 
 
 All right. All right. Take care. 
 
 Take care. Okay, bye. Bye.
 
 Join me next time as I go down another rabbit hole with another creative professional on their insights, their inspirations, and their engineering.