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Passing Through by Bruce Pollock Full Screen On/Off Full Screen On/Off

Passing Throughby Bruce Pollock

Passing Through by Bruce Pollock Full Screen On/Off

It is not possible to be both traveler and photographer. One or the other must suffer. To make true images, the photographer requires time to see a place truly and time is something the traveler usually has little of. He is always moving, especially when traveling with others, and it becomes difficult to see. Thus, the traveler/photographer arrives home with the same banal snapshots as everyone else who visited the place before. On the other hand, the photographer/traveler who has complete control over his own movements and schedule will be more successful photographically. The risk here is that the photographer experiences the place only through the lens of the camera, and not directly.

A conundrum. Occasionally though, the traveler/photographer gets lucky and through a happy confluence of time, space and light, an image presents itself. Often this occurs if he looks behind while everyone else is looking ahead.

Generally, I have been a traveler with a camera, rather than a photographer in a distant location. This portfolio is a collection of those small confluences, rather than an in-depth view of a specific destination. Each image is accompanied by some descriptive commentary about the situation at the time of exposure. Together, they suggest an impression of places I have visited.

Passing Through


Afternoon, Sooke RiverGentle light falls with the rain from lead sky. Gore-tex protects but not feet in the mud. The river stops to rest in the deep green pool while ferns cling to rocks.


Dusk, Gondolier, VeneziaMercato Rialto, young woman waits by the gondola landing. Gondolier comes to the piazza and kisses the woman, they talk until tourists come. She waits. Dusk falling lights coming television playing apartment above the canal. She waits. Finally, he returns, passengers out and pay. She steps in, he fixes his oar in the oarlock and they move off down the Grande Canal.


Mid-day, Yellow Taxi, La Habana, Pedi-cabs dodge tourists running through waves over the Malecón. Out of Plaza de Armas and through Habana Vieja they swarm taxis yellow Ladas and ‘53 Chevys.


Morning , Caffè Florian, Piazza San MarcoWater creeps up the piazza and tourists start wading. City sinks under weight of tourists.


Summer Solstice, Arctic Circle Crossing Midnight sunlight blazing, emptiness for miles, not a soul for miles. How many miles? How many miles would you have to walk to meet another human being? Richardson Mountains swallow the Lost Patrol, the air black with mosquitos.


New Year’s Eve, Santiago de CubaAll over town, people are preparing for tonight’s party. Pigs everywhere - living and otherwise. Some are tied up in front yards. From the graveside of Compay Segunda in the Cementario Santa Ifigenia, squealing goes on and on and then stops.


Evening, Passeggiata, MontepulcianoHeat of day passes and day trippers leave the piazza in their van, aperitivo sips in cafes while a bottle of vino nobile rests on duomo steps. A young woman and an old man appear in the loggia of a building. She begins reciting poetry from a book, while he dons a mask, silently acting out a part with a marionette. The story goes on but no crowd gathers. One by one, three nonnas wander out of sidestreets and gather on a stone bench.


Afternoon, Pingos, TuktoyaktukPermafrost hills, Mackenzie River delta drains one-third of North America and carries drift-wood beyond the treeline. Arctic Ocean Canada’s third ocean ice clogs the harbour in twenty-four hour sunlight.


Afternoon, Calle Empedrado, Habana ViejaGhost of Hemingway in La Bodeguita del Medio. “Vas bien Fidel.” Crumbling history beautiful architecture and scams are everywhere. But so is the music - music on every corner.


Afternoon, Black Jesus, Puerto Morelos“Abe said ‘Where do you want this killing done?’ God said ‘Out on Highway 61’ ” Meanwhile, out on Highway 307 cops are pulling over rental cars just for the hell of it. Just for the fun of extorting cash from the gringos. They look for the rental cars with special plates. Taxi hurtles past flashing blue lights.


Evening, Harbour, VernazzaAcciughe al limone on the table overlooking the harbour. Two hundred stairs to the hotel and moonrise over the Cinque Terre.


Passing Through

by Bruce Pollock

Version 1.0 published August 2013.

All photographs and text © 2013 Bruce Pollock.

All rights reserved. No part of this PDF portfolio may be copied, extracted, reprinted or otherwise used without written permission.

Print Purchasing Information

I’m old fashioned enough to believe that a real photograph hangs on your wall and does not simply exist as binary bits in a computer. Prints of any of these images, approximately 11” x 14” in size, are available. They are printed using the finest pigment on paper digital technol-ogy. Please contact me at the email address below.

[email protected]

www3.telus.net/pollock/bruce

Biography

I got my first real camera in 1973 and have been thinking about photography more or less continuously ever since. This means I learned it the hard way: standing in a darkroom with my hands in the developer. I’ve taught myself pretty well everything I know from the basics of exposure to curves adjustment layers in Photoshop. The first time I tried making a black and white print, I tried to develop it using film developer because I didn’t know there was a differ-ence. (FYI - it doesn’t work.)

I spent a number of years in the commercial photography business, learning the basics of colour printing. The implications for digital printing are immediate. Colour balancing an im-age using Adobe Camera Raw came quite naturally.

I’ll admit that I resisted digital at first because it seemed unnatural. But it was obvious which way the world was moving. Beloved films were disappearing every day. Kodak is bank-rupt. Kodak! But when you take the time to compare digital to analogue approaches to pho-tography, there are more similarities than you might think. And of course, the principles are the same. It doesn’t really matter whether you’re exposing gelatin silver film or a digital sensor, the physics of light remain the same. There are things you can do with film that you can’t do with digital. And vice versa. It’s all good.

I live in Victoria, British Columbia on the west coast of Canada, and work in a variety of formats from 35mm and 4x5 analogue film formats to digital capture. I still maintain a wet darkroom for gelatin silver black and white images. The ghost of Ansel Adams still whispers in my ear - what I call the tyranny of Ansel - so I spent much of the last ten years unlearning his lessons, trying to move in the opposite direction. Now I’m becoming interested in abstract colour digital images which may or may not be in focus.

It’s the images that matter, not the technology used to complete them. On this, Ansel would agree.

mailto:[email protected]

http://www3.telus.net/pollock/bruce

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