She Walks Away, The Sun Goes Down...

Lady Day Haunts My Dreams

It's Always Been That Way

New York State of Mind

The Venus of Sturgis

Baby's First Words

Hi-Ho, Hi-Ho...

Call Rolling

Dionysius and his Sword

Madmen

Homage

White Red Man Walking

Erika James via Rochelle Rubinstein

Detail of "Cowboys Are Dangerous" - Erika James, 2013     Photograph © Shane Tyler Adams, all rights reserved.

Looking for relationships between and combinations of visual elements comes with its own set of risks. One can drill down to the extent that in the reduction they miss the larger relationship or the larger context. As we seek the essential, we must remember to pull  our heads out of our asses, step back and take a look around to make sure that there isn't something subtle - or blatant - on the periphery, the significance of which we may have missed. Case in point: 

I often shoot through screens and frames looking for reflections and interesting juxtapositions. At the time I walked by what you see part of above, I was only conscious of the colours and text, the reflection of an urban environment, and, after a while, the effect of the cold temperature on my motivation to experiment. Believe me, I waited a long time for someone wearing a cowboy hat to walk by.

This is a detail of a piece by Erika James - shot through a window (duh). For part of the year I live in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by real cowboys (and cowgirls), open spaces, and animals. Perhaps because of that, I was relating directly to what I found in front of me, the colour, the text, and the possible irony (among many) presented by the reflections of an urban environment in the gallery window. What I didn't realize consciously at the time was that I was shooting another artist's work.  This may or may not have caused me pause at the time - for a comparison, or context, Look at Jay Maisel's shot of Tom Otterness's giant bronze mouse looking over the schoolboy's shoulder.

If you are in Toronto, go see the Mon Ton Gallery - 402 College Street. I mean it. Rochelle Rubinstein curates the exhibits there. Keep your eyes out for Erika James' work.

Elsie "Nan" Simmons 1917-2013

Retreat

Robindra "Ravi" Shankar Chowdhury 1920-2012

What they really mean...

Recently, the economist Mr. Paul Krugman, in an editorial published by the New York Times, points out a myth that is trumpeted as fact whenever the right discover a public service that they think should be privatized. In this case the service is health care. The associated myth is that a privatized health care system would result in reduced cost to the tax payer. But there is a problem: There is not one health care system anywhere in the world that went from public to private and cost the taxpayer less. Not one. In a related application of the same "get government out of business" (an insanity - as if the health of the nation's citizenry is a business), in food production in the USA and Canada, the real, direct cost to the taxpayer (especially the farmer/rancher) and the ancillary environmental cost have skyrocketed since Secretary Butz started to dismantle the New Deal.

That's just "wooden-headed" says one critic of Krugman's, claiming that a corporation can be "replaced" if it's not performing in the free marketplace. This, despite the fact that there is no "market" (i.e., no competition) to work its "magic". 

Not to mention that if this mythical "free marketplace" with its "level playing field" were to ever exist (and it never has), the socioeconomic landscape would look very different indeed.

History has shown us that when it comes to essential public services, costs have spiraled when they have been turned over to the private sector.  So this is the message: When the conservatives/republicans/right -- aw hell, politicians of any stripe -- say "free market/enterprise", reach for your wallet and don't let go. Those are code phrases that tell you that they are setting up for a run on your wallet. Everybody's wallet. Because while they say that it will cost less, it will really cost you more.  It always has. Or at least it has since the Phoenicians were selling grain to Rome.

They, the one percent, being reasonably well-educated, know full well that there is no such thing as a level playing field. How do they know this? Gosh, Virginia, 'cause they've been rigging the game since they started it. They even have clubs that their kids can join to learn how to carry on the tradition. However, they do know that they can get the less well-educated to believe in it. The belief-in-myth model has been well established by the right using superstition and church (insert denomination); If you believe in virgin birth and that children are born in sin, you probably can be taught to believe in the free market and the concurrent benefits of privatization of essential public services. All of it is a facade to disguise the movement of immense sums out of the public wallet into some very few private accounts. Offshore, that is. And, nearly 21 trillion USD at that.

The last part of the myth is the cruelest. This is the part where the 99 are duped into believing that they have just as good a chance as the 1 percent of ascending the ladder and joining the ranks of the obscenely rich. "Only in America!" Rags-to-riches tales are trotted out on a ritual basis to "prove" that anyone can become a "1%-er." With this bait, it is only too easy to cast aside scruples, values, and ethics, never mind independent thinking. Once that happens the masses support the myth and more lambs go to the slaughter.

It doesn't take a genius to ask the question: if everybody has the same shot, how come all the money is in even fewer hands these days?

The Tools. Amazing, Fantabulous, and otherwise...

L-R: Dan Levy, Roland Kirouac, Lucio Agostini, Shane Adams, Dave Taylor, Myles Dutton

I haven't posted anything since the 5th of March. Trying to outddo Jay's delay-in-posting... well, it ain't working, bro. And besides, I've been busy. Not that there is a lot to write about - Einstein's comments about "everyday" and "miraculous" apply here. So, everything is revealed as it should be: looking at the pictures is the key.

One of my first 'commissioned' photos. The negative is in parts unknown and this is an un-retouched  scan of an 8x10.

And thirty-some years later...we re-shot it. Just for fun.

The Tools in 2011

We should all be over the hill by now, but we're just hitting our prime. At least in the beauty department, that is. And, plenty of metaphor here. I'll leave it to you...

The End of Everything - collaboration with Gus Horn

The End of Everything is a small collection of photographs and the first in a projected series of collaborations with conceptual artist Gus Horn. The series was first presented as part of an installation accompanying Richard Heinberg's lecture in 100 Mile House, British Columbia, where he elaborated on some of the concepts in his latest book, "The End of Growth". The series explores themes such as commodification, fossil fuels, and agronomy. 

You can click here to go directly to the gallery on my website or click here to go to the www.ShaneTylerAdams.com homepage. 

Solo Exhibition in Toronto

My one-man show is up and running in Toronto. The Annex Live/Dooney's Cafe is graciously giving space to 38 prints - a sampling of some of the work that I've done over the last three years. Here is one of the posters advertising the show. I'm honoured to be exhibiting there. Dooney's has a long tradition of patronage of the arts and the proprietor, Graziano Marchese, has re-activated the name of the original cafe where he started it all. The show will run into the spring and I look forward to seeing you there.

The Annex Live/Dooney's Cafe - 296 Brunswick Avenue, Toronto

New Galleries - Humans 1 and Humans 2

Ursula

Over the years, I've been making portraits and of course, candid photographs. The difference between the two is essentially one of collaboration. Portraits require that complicity while candid photography generally does not. Currently sometimes referred to as "street photography" candids are a staple for the photographer interested in the daily human condition. As such, the process is often only known to one of the participants.

Joe & William

  In both can be found irony, poignancy, and sometimes just a simple documentation of the subject. But sometimes there can be found something else that, while superficially illuminating, also penetrates deeper into the subject matter.  In illuminating other faces, other minds, we perhaps learn something of our own.

I've selected some of these portraits and divided them into two groups. The portraits are in Humans 1 and the candids are in the gallery named Humans 2.  I hope you enjoy them both.

To navigate to my home page, go here: www.shane-adams.com

Polar Bears in Churchill

Polar Bear at the mouth of the Seal River. North of Churchill - 2011 © Shane Tyler Adams

All of the sudden the two dogs are going wild. Movement catches your eye, far away from the central specific vision that we use to read, examine detail, or work with small delicate things. Something out in the periphery, detected by the visual ranging system that we've used since the beginning of human survival: the distant early warning system central to the hunt, identifying prey, or in this case, perhaps a threat - a predator ready and able to change the dynamic a full 180 degrees. And then there he is. Relaxed in the flat grey water of the Arctic Ocean, a hunter-killer submarine-sort-of with nearly three-quarters of a ton of displacement - muscle, sinew, fat and fur, driven by what strikes me as a very keen intelligence. The world stops as one marvels at his grace in the water and the simple amazing-ness of it all. And then -wham - he's at the deck, looking in. I saw him get out of the water. I saw him shake his fur, spray water in all directions. I saw him take a few steps, but I didn't see him cross the distance to the observation area. Nor did I take my eyes off of him. Not for a second. 

I've got a new gallery up on my website. Yeah, polar bears. Beautiful, dangerous, fragile. Go figure. Click here if you want to go straight to the gallery and click here if you want to go to my home page and see what else is new. 

Metta,

Shane

New Gallery - The Water Cycle

From The Water Cycle  Shane Tyler Adams 2010

The Water Cycle, a new gallery of images is available for viewing on my website. These images were taken in various locales in North America over a period of three years or so. 

As a exhibit that revolves around a theme, there is no intended narrative per se; these images are culled from different periods and locations and inhabit a space within other investigations. Concentrated focus on a particular theme works for a limited period of time but a look back will show certain recurring subjects nestled in amongst other work. This is a partial collection of one recurring theme. I hope you enjoy.

Click here to go to The Water Cycle gallery, or click here to go to the website home page to view other exhibits.

New Gallery - CYLB Lac La Biche

From  Lac La Biche  Shane Tyler Adams 2011

Somebody lives here. I walked by the trailer maybe twenty times. I even knocked about half the time; nobody there. Separately, I saw the van in town a couple of times and chased it once; I wanted the red... The driver must have pulled into a garage or shed by the time I got my vehicle wheeled around the other way.  Gone. Then one evening, walking back from the lake, I found them all together. Red, green, blue and the summation of all light...

Lac La Biche is an installation-in-progress on my website. There is more to come, and as a collection it is in no way intended to be accurately representative of anything other than what caught my eye when I was there. If there is a narrative, it is supplied by the viewer and that is as it should be. The images trigger and elicit various responses in me, but those are my projections. Make of them what you will.

Enjoy,

Shane

The New Blog....

"Meet the new blog, not like the old blog, (krang!!)" - after Townsend. 

To all of you who followed the old blog, a big thank you. I was surprised by the number of people who emailed, called, and shouted from the cockpit (you know who you are) telling me they missed the blog after I took it down. It warmed my heart. Rates of Exchange may even make a re-appearance. Until that time comes, I beg your patience. 

I took the old blog down because it had become ungainly for the user.  Originally it was designed as an easy way to maintain content: mostly my photographs and the occasional written piece about whatever attracted my attention. The blog format worked, for a while. Eventually though, I wound up with a really long page that forced people to scroll forever to find the photographs that they liked. Access to collections of those photographs was not easy, and rather than continuously adjust, I decided to move to the gallery format. 

So www.shane-adams.com became more gallery-orientated but I always did feel that the blog was missed. There are few things in life that bring me as much pleasure as seeing and participating in wonderful things and taking pictures of them, only a few, mind you, and I'm not going to enumerate them here but, of those things, writing is certainly one of them. There are many ways to feel as alive, but writing is, for me, a pinnacle experience. With the blog there is also the opportunity to connect pictures and narrative in a way that a gallery presentation or pure prose cannot do in and of themselves.

So here we go. There are changes coming to the website proper as well. Mostly switching from Flash-based delivery to something that works on everybody's platforms, with faster-loading galleries and a more pleasant viewing experience. It is, after all, about getting to the images.

Speaking of images, there is some wonderful stuff in the pipeline. It'll be added bit by bit and, of course, announced here. Stay tuned.

Thanks again,

Shane