Patrick's Letter of Intent

Photo book fragment.

My life has never felt so small. I don’t say this to elicit pity, or to pull at anyone’s heartstrings because I know bloody well how insignificant this really is. And I know bloody well that I’ve written about it before, two, three times during Our Great Pandemic Era; my feelings. Ugh. Those intangibles that have now replaced experiences, and physicality, and matter and touch and smells, in our receding world. 

Some nights we’ll watch a documentary, Cynthia and I, and stare at those images of far away lands, on the bright, backlit screen/window/escape-hatch, like we’re gazing at outer planets, in another star system. Mouth agape. Ingesting. Passive. 

So yeah, enough already.

...

I’d love to tell you about spectacular plans, and how this project is about to re-ignite the fire, still hot and simmering underneath. But all I have right now is a promise—to our group and to myself. It’s a promise to show up, whatever the results may be. As you’ve probably read, we’re keeping the parameters wide-open on this one. In fact, there are none. We’re all free to set our own goals, to pursue what feels right. I’ve decided to go with a specific framework:

  • GFX 50S

  • An old Pentax 50 mm f/1.7 lens (so I’ll be using manual focus).

  • Portrait-orientation only.

  • 5:4 aspect ratio.

  • A piano improv to accompany each post.

  • Publish every Friday (in February).

Why portrait-orientation? Because holy crap, I almost NEVER shoot that way. I mean, seriously, I can probably count the pictures on my ten fingers—well, maybe I need to include toes but still. It’s something I’ve recently become very aware of, and it bugs me. It’s a massive gap I now wish to fill.

Beyond this, I don’t know. It’s the dead of winter here, full of wind and frostbite, and I don’t expect much to change in the next few weeks. Not just the weather…anything. But I will be here—for better or worse.
Circling the stars.

Patrick La Roque
January 26th, 2022

Kevin's Letter of Intent

If this lovely lady can run a marathon, I can pick up my camera again.

For the duration of the pandemic, I’ve been concentrating on keeping healthy, both from a physical point of view and a business point of view.

It hasn’t been easy. But here we are, almost forty years after the pandemic began…….time to hitch on those running shorts, take a deep breath and hit the road again.

 

Kevin Mullins
28th January 2022

Robert's Letter of Intent

Robert's Letter of Intent

It’s been a while.

To be honest, it’s been SO long, I had to look up my own essays on this very site to see when the last one was, and what it was about. (It was June 2021, actually.)

We’ve all been distracted, diverted, disturbed from our usual patterns. Work has started up, work has shut down, work has started up again only to be shut down again…

Vincent's Letter of Intent

20?? « Le possible, cette fenêtre du rêve ouverte sur le réel »

Rêvons donc de tous les possibles, chaque jour un pas, et qu’importe la destination. Construisons notre chemin comme on le désire. J’apprend à vivre le présent, et qu’est-ce que la photo si ce n’est l’instant présent ? Cette période est propice à tous les apprentissages, à tous les rêves. Une seconde d’hier, c’est une seconde d’aujourd’hui comme de demain. Seule celle-ci est vivante. Demain n’existe pas.

Comme pour chaque nouveau projet, pour chaque nouvelle image, tout est découverte. Je partagerai ce mois-ci en toute simplicité et au plus près du réel, mes coups de coeur pour des sujets sensibles, peut-être pas uniquement de nouvelles photos. Reportages, portraits, mini séries… Je sais que l’on y verra des femmes et hommes, je sais que l’on y découvrira des animaux, des natures plus vivantes que mortes aussi, je sais que couleur et noir et blanc alterneront, je sais que j’ai plus à montrer qu’à écrire…
« Scio me nihil scrire », je sais que je ne sais rien.

Vincent Baldensperger
January 31th, 2022

Dominique's Letter of Intent

January (typically something of a more relaxed wind-down point for us before gently floating down into a new wedding season) has this year launched like an absolute rocket. With February set to follow in much the same orbit I can only hope the rocket in question is a reusable model with precision landing capabilities. Currently the flight plan includes writing two new presentations for real-life conferences (remember those?) in Dublin and Barcelona, shooting some weddings, preparing a new website for launch, reviewing last year’s work, getting the studio back in order after a government-enforced hiatus and some exciting yet challenging projects that are already underway. So with the voyage exciting but boosters already preparing to jettison my first instinct about discussions of getting Kage creating again was “Houston we have a problem.”

I’ve never been one to shy away from a challenge though and I’m thrilled that we are “getting the band back together” after one of the strangest spells in international living memory. And with no rules set to this particular Kage project I’ve decided that the best solution to force me to be more creative with less time is to take a slightly different approach to things.

The black-hole that consumes much of my time in photography (and yes there is still always enough time to torture a metaphor) is the development stage. Selecting and processing images is far from where my passions lie so for this project I’ve decided to remove that particular obstacle and give myself permission to just shoot by only using my Instax Mini 90. I love that the instancy of the self-printing camera means I can’t over-think it - there’s no possibility of rescuing an image in the edit, not even the leniency of developing the film to my own tastes. It’s just my eye to the camera - my world through a tiny window.

To paraphrase Bowie “I hope my spaceship knows which way to go.”




Dominique Shaw
January 30th, 2022

Bert's Letter of Intent

I want to spend the month of February with a camera in my hands, shooting anything and everything. Big concepts are not for me, certainly not this time. I just want to experiment, create and have fun with photography again. I’ve been inspired by many things lately and I want to see what I can do with that inspiration. Most of my days are spent inside my home behind the computer but I don’t want to use it as an excuse. Either I just find something to shoot at home or force myself to go out and interact with the world again. Photography to me is much more than the resulting images. It’s a way to understand, interact and communicate.

The choice of the right gear for a project, or even a short trip to town has always been a huge, stressy decision making process that could take days of pondering. I’m well aware that that is just crazy and I was tired of myself making such a fuss about it. Therefor I decided at the end of 2021 to simplify my goto setup and stick to it.

For many years, the 50mm equivalent has been my preferred focal length. It’s simply the way that I look at the world. It’s not a spectacular lens but I feel it offers the most authentic view. I recently invested in not one but two 50mm equivalent lenses to have the absolute best tools for my use. For my portrait work, my main lens is the Mitakon 65mm F1.4 (used on the GFX50R). The new Fujinon 33mm F1.4 (on the X-Pro3 or X-T3) is my main lens for reportage and personal photography. The curve ball in my goto setup is the X100V. It’s slightly wider than my preferred focal lens but it’s close enough, small, handy and capable. That makes it the perfect camera to take with me when I’m out and about.

My simplified setup is not a dogma, it’s just my way to focus and not lose time and energy in pondering over what to shoot with. I will use other lenses when I have a good reason for it. But so far, the strategy has worked for me.  

The end results are of little importance to me, it’s about the creative process itself. If I have made some nice images by the 28th of February, that’s cool. But what’s important is that I’ll have learned something. I don’t just want to get myself fired up again, I really hope this project will light a fire under this wonderful group of photographers. The KAGE Collective is too valuable to just sit idle.

That said, I’m looking forward to shoot, write, look at the work of the group and discuss it on a regular bases. I don’t know what the project will look like but I’m convinced it’s going to be an interesting vignette of the lives of this bunch.

Bert Stephani
January 27th 2022

Jonas' Letter of Intent

I remember the day that I joined KAGE quite vividly. I was in awe. I was in awe that I got to join a group of like-minded people that I not only looked up to as a photographer, but that I actually idolized somewhat.

I still cannot believe that I get to interact with my KAGE brothers and sister(s) on a regular basis. To get feedback and inspiration from people that I truly admire is a gift that I’m very thankful for everyday.

But what happened over the course of these past years, is that the interaction grew to an almost halt. We each had way too much on our respective plates, dealing with living and staying clear from angst and depression during a very altered reality/world.

We tried to kick it into gear several times, but we were always on the backbeat. We were dragging. Not pushing.

But I think that the glow of KAGE never died. It just faded.

Now, more than ever I think the lot of us wants to see that glow spark into a burning fire. Like it once did.

I sure know I do.

At the end of 2021 I ended my ambassadorship with Fujifilm. It was a very hard decision that I simply had to make. It required me disappointing a lot of good friends in Tokyo and the rest of the world. But I have a profound belief that the friendships go deeper than my involvement in the ambassadors program.

So what I need to do with this project is a return to basics.
A return to a time when I made images for me. Just me. A time where I experimented with all sorts of brand, materials and nuances, not thinking about reviewing a piece of kit, or testing/giving feedback to developers.

I need to re-learn how to do storytelling that has my unique footprint.

How will I get there? I have absolutely no clue.

But I will wear my camera everyday - And I will chase the life around me looking for the story in the mundane.

Jonas Dyhr Rask
January 27th 2022

202202 - We are back!

202202 - We are back!

It’s been a while … no, it’s actually been f%$ng long.

The pandemic has made us lethargic, or as Pink Floyd would say: Comfortably Numb.
It’s not that we haven’t tried to start a new KAGE project, we just never could get off the Covid couch. Frameworks, limitations and themes floated around but what’s logical, obvious, and clever to one person, feels contrived and artificial to another. So we’re keeping it simple, getting our asses into gear, and photographing February 2022 to the best of our abilities.

No rules
No limitations
No mutual theme
No strict deadlines
Just the desire to create…

Nations, Lies & Acknowledgements

By Patrick La Roque

On September 30th, 2021, Canada celebrated the first National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, to honour the survivors of the residential school system. This is a tragedy most of us are still trying to process, a truth difficult to comprehend and even harder to accept; something Robert wrote about brilliantly in Broken Threads.

On a personal level, I’ve found myself assessing my relationship with First Nations, realizing how little I knew. We were taught a whitewashed history in school, some of it distorted or, even more damningly, omitted. In recent years, I often heard the term cultural genocide used to describe our treatment of Indigenous people and, I’m ashamed to say, it bothered me. I sympathized, but I mostly felt we were taking things too far, judging the past with present-day sensibilities. That our society’s dark side had existed, sure, but it was now long behind us, part of the sometimes cruel but inevitable birthing pains of any nation. That it was time to move on.

I didn’t know.

I didn’t know about parents losing their children; about adults, today, still living with the trauma of attempted assimilation and violence. I was a kid in the suburbs, probably riding a swing without a care in the world, on the day when a 6-year-old Phyllis Webstad's orange shirt was ripped from her. I didn’t know, but that’s no excuse.

I also never bothered to learn. 

I grew up with the Hunter sculpture and its (now illegal) ivory companions, souvenirs from our dad’s journey in the Arctic, years before my sister and I were born. As kids, the objects sparked our imaginations, unlocking far off lands full of wild adventures. They’re in a bookcase now, in our home. On the morning of September 30th, I picked them up, placed them on a table, took some pictures. I’d done this before, but this time was different. An added weight, pressing down. My father had a deep respect for First Nations, so these were never throwaway trinkets—they meant something to him that went much deeper, and he instilled this in us. But he was still a white man, seeing the white man’s truth through a white man’s eyes. A damaged, incomplete truth, most likely. Had he purchased them? Were they gifts from people he’d known, or just a young man’s trophies? I’ll never know.

I took pictures, almost reluctantly, unsure of myself, feeling like an invader or a soul-robber, fears of cultural appropriation in the back of my mind—the line isn’t always clear these days. But then I settled. The Hunter hides a story whose thread is forever lost, but its presence is an opportunity to look reality in the face. It’s a symbol I can at least acknowledge.

And change begins with acknowledgement.

Circumambulations

laROQUE-circumambulating-001.jpg

By Patrick La Roque

It was a return of sorts. To the city, on a more extensive shoot than anything I’d attempted in the past 18 months or so. But also a return to the 35 mm field of view, after mostly favouring 50 mm since the release of the X-Pro2, eons ago.

I wanted crowds, but found very few. I wanted the theatrical immersion I remembered, bodies moving in mock symmetry around me, like starlings, unaware of the sketches they paint. Instead, I saw lone figures, immobile or barely disruptive. Sculptures, stilled against a brutalist backdrop.

There is beauty in a city gone quiet—I can’t argue that. Life feels suspended, moments pulled away from the timeline, broken into separate objects, floating. And the truth is, I could easily get used to this; but it might not be healthy.

A social animal requires a society.
A stage needs performers.

Shot with the X-Pro3 and XF 23mm f/1.4 R LM WR