Shawn Daly, Brampton
Member Since July 2010
Artist Statement My first camera was an old, very old, Kodak folding camera given to me by my grade six teacher. Lost it sometime somewhere but it was such a great thing, this pop-up bellows camera with it's 2 1/4" film and the lense mount shutter. I remember exposing the film, Kodak of course, following the box exposure recommendations exactly and the simple viewfinder with the parralax frame. This excellent teacher also mentored a camera club in addition to teaching. As summer break approached there was a photo contest in which the club members got to develop and print and show off our work in the school library. It was amazing to watch the black and white images appear on that 8X10 glossy paper and even more amazing to me was that I won a couple of prizes. What they were is lost in the mists of time but since that year it's been "hey, that's a picture there" everywhere I go, this shutter clicking in my mind even without a camera in hand.
Mainly natural things, the subject matter I seem to favour represents those little vignettes that in our blind rush we are forever walking past without actually noticing. However if we do notice we can sometimes look into a whole other world and I find that there are a hundred images in the few feet surrounding my tripod. These subjects are what I am seeing and attempting to capture when I finally release the shutter. I don't crop so frames are composed carefully and images are exposed so that there is minimal post processing consisting primarily of a slight saturation boost and sharpening. Little time is spent worrying about noise and I actually like a little bit of luminance noise to show up at full resolution where it gives me a sense of film grain. When I am out making pictures each digital capture is treated as if it were film and each frame is going to cost me, so I get to stay sharp technically and don't end up with 500 images to cull before I glean a few that are worth the cost of a print. Pretty basic overall. Ultimately, the fun is in the image making and it's creative process, letting my eyes defocus and my mind wander, usually ignoring everybody around me (sorry about that), with my lungs full of fresh air and my eyes full of natural light rather than at my desk in a dim room staring at pixels, trying to bring out shadows that want to remain shadows. Challenging the light and getting it right the first time, or not, is so much fun because the moment passes so quickly.
I hope you enjoy viewing these images as much as I enjoyed making them.
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