Hello everyone, and happy new year! It is the end of January, and I feel like I can make an update on what will be going on for me in 2024 regarding photography.
I am excited to be working on two projects this year that represent for the first time my polar opposite views regarding using the camera as an artistic tool and social commentator.
Today's newsletter aims to provide information and some images from these two new projects, which will be developed throughout 2024. So, let's get into the details, shall we?
The Fading Of Incandescent Light.
Lenses, cameras and focal distances have changed in photography, as well as people and eyes. Today’s photos are about photography, while the old ones are about their subject.
Peter Esterhazy (Budapest 1900 - 2000)
The first project I want to talk about is titled “The Fading Of Incandescent Light,” and it is a multifaceted gaze at the landscape of my hometown through both a historical and contemporary lens.
The project's title comes from the city of Cornwall’s rich history that has often been neglected, forgotten or erased. Why incandescent light? Well, that is because, in April 1883, the weaving shed at the Canada Mill was the first industrial facility to be electrically lit in Canada by Thomas Edison himself. As the world turns to light its streets with LED lights and the incandescent light fades away, so does the history of my hometown; it has made me question the reason why North Americans are so nostalgic because in our short lifetimes, we can see landmarks of our lives erased and replaced over and over again without any thought or care, prefabricated memories bought and assembled like IKEA furniture.
The honour of turning on the power was reserved for Thomas Edison. A tense silence swept over the crowd (in attendance) as he waved his hand as a signal for the lowering of the gas lights. Little by little, the room was enveloped in darkness. Edison pulled the switch. A momentary pause, a breathless suspense, and then the gentle humming sound of machinery broke the silence as a myriad of tiny glass globes flicked into a golden glow, growing stronger and stronger – until brilliance. The gasping crowd stood back in awe, gazing in wonderment at the marvellous spectacle before them. Then, all at once, the din of the wild cheering shook the rafters of the enclosure.
“The lights were on!” M.J. Hitchcock, R. Hitchcock’s son, 1943 Standard-Freeholder.
Most of the Canada Mill has been torn down, and the historic weaving shed now houses local businesses, radio stations, and condominiums. It is one of the few historical structures that has been preserved, while many others have been left to rot and then eventually torn down by the city.
For this project, I am working with the Cornwall Community Museum to provide information and access to their archives and to organize an exhibition in the museum in January 2025.
I am honoured that Senior Curator Brent Whitford shared my enthusiasm for this project idea and that the museum will provide me with the space to exhibit the work next year.
The project takes a less "now vs. then” approach and instead seeks echoes and evidence of what once was at these former sites scattered across the city.
I use historical photographs for reference, but I often disregard them as source material for where to stand, how to frame the image, and more as a clue as to what energy might remain in these locations.
The project also examines land use during an unprecedented housing crisis in Canada, where rents and mortgages are astronomically high, and there is insufficient housing for our growing population.
Many former sites are vacant lots that have not been converted into affordable housing. If they are transformed into housing, it is usually by a wealthy developer turning the location into expensive condos, furthering the crisis for affordable living in Canada right now.
Some examples would be two former hockey rinks/community centers that were torn down and have been proposed sites for housing developments, but nothing has come to fruition yet.
As I aim to be as objective as possible with this project, my past and memories of my hometown and the changes it has undergone in my lifetime alone will bleed into the work from time to time. There will be things I find captivating that aren’t historically important or relevant, which is where having a second pair of eyes on the work from the museum staff will be an exciting opportunity to learn how to work and see my surroundings in a different way that I am sure to carry forward with me to future series.
I am only one month into doing the work, so there isn’t more to say. I will share more images from the project so far; I hope you enjoy it!
Abort, Retry, Fail?
The brain's frontal lobes, which are involved in ADHD, continue to mature until we reach age 35. In practical terms, this means that people with ADHD can expect some lessening of their symptoms over time. Many will not match the emotional maturity of a 21-year-old until their late 30s.
ADDitude Magazine
I was diagnosed with ADHD around age 11, and I turned 35 this past October. It wasn’t until radical and irrational choices I made that turned my life inside out in the worst way possible I decided there had to be a reason for the path of broken dreams, genuine attempts to succeed that was met with failure, my inability to plan and execute things for my future and that reason is my neuro divergency.
Learning about my brain deficiency has been both affirming and distressing. On the one hand, it is a relief to have a face to put to issues that I struggle with daily and understand that they are not my fault but rather a disability, and on the other hand, it is alarming to know that my brain is constantly working against me and doesn’t function in our “normal” society.
Things have come to a head in my personal life, and I can no longer ignore the far-reaching effects of my ADHD. I need to address them and find ways of working with my condition that will help me excel rather than feel like I am always making poor decisions and failing at everything I attempt.
I have started thinking of my brain as a computer lacking the processing power and memory needed to perform multiple tasks or carry out essential functions without glitching, overheating, or ultimately crashing and needing to be restarted.
It’s like having a top-of-the-line video card with 1GB of RAM.
Anonymous (a fellow ADHD friend)
I began to think about computer errors, which is where I got the title for this body of work. I feel it accurately describes the process of being a person with ADHD. Abort, Retry, Fail(?) is the sequence of events for most of us with the condition.
We always abort projects and plans, often seeming to be doing well in life by constantly being busy and involved in some new and exciting thing we excel at. In contrast, the reality is we will probably abandon that thing just as quickly as we came to it and feel like shit for never being able to follow through and complete anything successfully.
Often, we try to complete things that have been left unfinished, and maybe this is just my experience. Still, we end up retrying the same thing in different environments or scenarios, expecting different results and getting frustrated when the same issues arise that cause us to abort whatever we were doing in the first place, not understanding the root cause of the problem.
Fail(?)lure is a question and not an absolute. People with ADHD do succeed amidst all the failures, but it is a lot of lot more complicated for us to follow through on something and feel like we have achieved. Even when we succeed, we can not see that success as we are often already on to the next big idea we had five minutes ago on the walk over to meet our success.
I am not proficiently literate on abstract expressionism, but I am a big fan of the artists from that movement, especially Jackson Pollock. I am also greatly inspired by the painter Francis Bacon and the filmmaker David Lynch, whose works share a similar guttural and raw expression that I admire and have wanted to express in my work for some time now.
Experimental photography is something I adore and have been doing since I picked up a camera, but rarely have I shared it. This project was the perfect opportunity to apply what I had already learned from years of experimenting and the chance to try out new things and take inspiration from my collection of cheap and broken analog cameras that I would often use for their inherent “happy mistakes.”
Thinking about the brain as a computer and my camera as a paintbrush or a multimedia tool, I started crafting photographic experiences into images that I felt were representative of my condition and personal experience.
I have also suffered from chronic depression, anxiety, and poor memory most of my life, and these conditions are present in the work as well and also directly linked to having ADHD for a lot of people with it.
Nothing in these images is true to life, and often, I am drawn toward alarming and harsh edits of pure red and orange with crushed blacks.
The photographs are often spontaneous and made with full-bodied camera movements and flash photography.
Returning to the same bedroom I left 15 years ago was not on my agenda for 2024.
I am using this claustrophobic space that has been filled with the lives of others where all traces of this once being the room of teenage metal head are all but replaced by family pictures, children's toys and a doll collection of my much younger step-siblings of whom I am not close with.
Much like the project I am working on in collaboration with the local museum in Cornwall is my way of trying to make this time back home feel like it isn’t a complete failure and waste of my 35th year of life, my attempts to document, learn and verbalize my neuro divergency are a similar attempt to make waking up in my teenage bed starring at a room that is no longer my own somewhat bearable.
A third project is lingering in the wings, waiting to take shape about my relationship with my family, the family photo album, memory and trauma. Still, it isn’t quite ready to speak, though it has appeared in some photos already.
For now, my focus is to complete my project “The Fading Of Incandescent Light” by November, so I have time to print and prepare my exhibition for January 2025, develop my ADHD project, and see where it wants to take me by the end of the year.
This newsletter has undergone many changes throughout 2023, and you can thank ADHD for that. I have had to decide that there is no plan or specificness to this space and that I will share an update with all of you when I feel like there is something to share; otherwise, I won’t bother writing anything.
Take care, everyone. I have more test images from the ADHD project that I am happy to share with you today; bye for now.
Hey Matthew, I was just recalling your ADHD images and enjoyed stopping by to take another look. These really are so good! I'd love to see any more, should you have taken this further.
Two projects and two totally different styles and colors ! Congrats !