being there – before tomorrow…

This is an ongoing work; I intend to continue with this series, photographing artists, gallerists, curators and generally people in fine arts. I see it as a time capsule project, ideally culminating in publishing a book.

A selection of photographs from this set was presented at my solo exhibition at Koffler Arts in October 2025.

If I were to attempt to trace the genealogy of this series I would have to go back perhaps 12-15 years, to a conversation with my late mentor about “profound” in visual arts. His point was that to paint like Leonardo, one has to develop to the level of Leonardo, both as a person, a thinker and a creator; I agreed. Having few hopes in this regard I felt that perhaps my choice of subjects could provide this hard-to-define quality – hence my focus on people who mine their emotional depths for living, namely artists.

For some time then I felt that the image that exemplified the feeling I was striving for, was a photograph of Francis Bacon in his studio at Reece Mews. He was photographed a lot there, by various people… the one that jumped out to me was that of FB standing in a narrow corner of the studio, wearing black turtleneck and white pants. His outfit is immaculate; behind him is an abominable pile of the kind of detritus that can be found at any painter’s workplace – dried-out palettes and brushes, plates with caked-up gesso and pigments, squeezed out tubes and so on. He looks somewhat sheepish as if unsure of himself and his relationship to this space. I gazed at that photograph for quite some time. There was a certain quality to it that I can describe as it was feeling like a motion footage (with the subject standing still) rather than a photo…
Years later I happened upon a show in NYC that featured mostly video works; large scale projections of street scenes, city life, etc. – not super pertinent to this write-up, but there was a video there that had absolutely no motion in it for rather long stretches, maybe minutes at the time. I stood there transfixed, looking at it with some new understanding.
I wanted to try this. I wanted to try to record a video portrait of a subject being absolutely still in the footage and display it back as a video piece. I felt there was some sort of technological magic happening with this approach, a hint at the “numinous” that I was searching for. This work is still ongoing.

In parallel to the happenings described above I kept on searching for tools and equipment that got me closer to this idea of mine, my inner image of an ideal portrait. With years flicking by, I tried a variety of film and digital cameras and formats, lenses of every kind, novel film processing techniques, historical analog processes (platinum and salt printing in particular), and so on.
The unexpected breakthrough came when a friend and a mentor, and a photographer of some renown – Geoffrey James, bequeathed me his older Leica monochrom camera. It was a strange beast, a model that uses a type of sensor no longer used in modern cameras and generally delivers images that are half-cooked at best, and require extensive manipulation and processing to yield a useful photograph. I looked at Leicas before but mostly at newer digital models or, inversely, older film cameras – but as a platform it’s quite a commitment to start working with it, and I was not seeing the types of results I was looking for then.
Suddenly, things started to snap into place. The next few months were spent experimenting, until I managed to develop a reliable workflow that got me closer to where I wanted to go.

The first photo that I felt was approaching the kind of images I had in my mind was the shot of Joe & Grace (shown elsewhere on this site). At last, I knew what to do.

What have I learned thus far? I now believe that the “profound” feeling certain artworks possess, while others do not, cannot be consciously constructed or designed. It can only be intuited.
This feeling comes only from recognition (or pre-cognition, for that matter) – a recognition of something archetypal, something that lies outside the boundaries of the senses, in the domain of the collective unconscious.

*Claudine Crangle, at home studio, Dupont St.*

*Neoists (Monty & Linda), at the workshop, Crawford St.*

*Susan Hobbs, at the gallery entranceway, Tecumseh St.*

*Oluseye Ogunlesi, at home studio, Osler St.*

*Robert Birch, mid-reno at the gallery, Tecumseh St.*

*Cybèle Young, at the studio, Sousa Mendes St.*

*Clint Roenisch, at the gallery, St. Helen Ave.*

*Geoffrey Pugen, at home studio, Dundas St. West*

*Angela Milana, at the studio, Queen St. West*

*Laszlo & Kailin of Restorart Inc., at the workshop, Morrow Ave.*

*Sage Szkabarnicki-Stuart, at home studio, Ridelle Ave.*

*Shary Boyle, at the studio, Adrian Ave.*

*Julia Dault, at home studio, Dundas St. West*

*Mat Brown, at home studio, Dundas St. West*

*Steven Beckly, at the studio, Weston Rd.*

*William Fisk, at the studio, Ilford Rd.*

*Ben Woolfitt* and *Sandra Van Iderstine, at the studio, Queen St. West*

*Adina Sarig, at the workshop, Homewood Ave.*

*Margaux Smith, at the studio, Wiltshire Ave.*

*Shanna Van Maurik, at the studio, Wiltshire Ave.*

*Rajni Perera, at the studio, Carroll St.*

*Kristan Klimczak, at home studio, Pinewood Ave.*

*Christopher Cutts, at the gallery, Morrow Ave.*

*Sandra Brewster, at the studio, Symington Ave.*

*Margaux Williamson, at the studio, Gladstone Ave.*

*Greg Staats, at the studio, Adrian Ave.*

*Phil Bergerson, at home studio*, *Steeles Ave.*

*Ruth Kaplan, at home studio*, *Franklin Ave.*

*James Fowler, at the studio, Carlton St.*

*Daniel Lanois, at the studio, Dundas St. W.*

High-resolution images are available free to all participants of this project. For any inquiries please contact me at info@imagefoundry.ca