There are so many fabulous American photographers out there, past + present, it's scary. And recently, I've been wondering why. Not that we don't have any, we're the land of Jeff Wall (one of my teachers at NSCAD) + Edward Burtnsky + Fred Herzog after all, but en masse, really the Americans have it all over us. Then I realized, duh-uh, maybe it's because they have America. They have the American flag. American presidents. American money. They have American movie stars. Hollywood. Florida and all those tanned old rich people. New York! They have Texans. Tony Lamas cowboy boots. Wacky religious cults. Millions of evangelists. Strange churches and banks. Hawaii + their shirts. Route 66. Gun stores. Cacti. Los Vegas. And all those highways + big cars. They have Coca-cola. Huge war monuments + military graveyards. New Orleans. We Canadians are truly disadvantaged.
Omigawd, Gordon. I can barely stand to look at your photographs. They make me so homesick for the west coast. I can smell the sea, hear the sea gulls + breaking waves, feel the wind along the water....you can take the girl out of the west coast but you can never take the west coast -- etc, etc. Well, we don't have all those American things Americans have but we do have our spectacular land.
Posted by: edith | 04/08/2009 at 10:43 PM
Our camera shutters must be frozen!
Posted by: Gordon Pritchard | 04/08/2009 at 10:29 PM
Yes, we do have amazing things to take pictures of in Canada but the US rules in terms of pop iconography, if you asked me. There is so much cultural baggage behind American symbols. I mean we have "Roots" symbols (it's a Canadian clothing company, started by 2 guys. At least one of them was an American, I believe.) They do "Canadiana". Moose, canoes, Mounties, birch trees, hockey, etc. That sort of thing. And that's probably Canada for much of the world.
Posted by: edith | 04/08/2009 at 06:55 PM
You have stuff just like us. Royal Canadian Mounties, I've been to see a Canadian doctor when I couldn't get treated in the USA, the best Chinese dinner I have ever had, not to mention fish and chips, I have come to purchase clay for making sculptures, to vacation in the exhilerating outdoors, I have seen better kept gardens, I have boarded planes in Vancouver because the flights were cheaper than in Seattle. I know there are many more wonderful things you have that we don't have as wonderful as you do.
Posted by: Diane Widler Wenzel | 04/08/2009 at 05:02 PM