Back in the late eighties, I did some photo shoots with a "punk" band. I still occasionally bump into some of these people, and their lifestyle has changed. They still have the pictures I took as part of their own personal diaries. As I have spoken of before, it's about "quality". I did not photograph them in any way that was trendy, or "tribute" to their short lived cultural anomaly. I took the photographs according to standards of quality that are as old as photography itself. The master Ansel Adams quite literally “wrote the book” on what photographic quality is. The people who I have photographed all notice this, though they may not be able to articulate why exactly they have bothered to keep my work, when they have discarded that done by others. For thirty years I was a photographer and a darkroom technician. I always prided myself in being “quality”....this is not a realm where notions of equality get anything other than a dismissive chuckle.
One of my sternest coaches was a man named Wally Wood EFIAP. The letters after his name are one of the hardest to obtain honours in the world. Excélence Fédération Internationale des Arts Photographique headquartered in Brussels selects on an incredibly severe benchmark criteria no more than 150 living “Hall of Fame” photographers world wide based on a lifetime’s work. It is almost unheard of for any “professional” photographer to make this list. Only “amateurs” ever do. The effort that it takes, monetary reward could never provide you with a sustained motivation to do. You have to be passionately in love with the art form in order to persevere to that degree.
Wally and I were both members of the Montréal Camera Club. He saw my potential and rode me hard. He said that each and every day millions of photographic images were created. I knew that to be a fact because I was working in a professional photographic workplace. He said that if you wanted your work to stand out from the rest of the pile, it had to be extraordinary. He said : “Do not whine to me that perfection is impossible, I have seen it on more than a few occasions. Oh it is elusive I will grant you, but you can do it and I will accept nothing less.”
My proudest boast as a photographer is that one year in open competition at this world renowned group of lovers of the art of photography, I placed a very close second to Wally Wood.
I am sitting at my computer composing a sort of desk top publishing memoir. As I have been going through these old negatives and slides, I came across something that was very apropos to expanding on the rather nasty stuff I posted last entry.
Among the “punkers” I photographed as cultural anomalies during the “grunge” fad was a peculiar young man. He was a neo-nazi skinhead, but he was opposed to racism. His soft-spoken voice completely belied his appearance. He was enthralled with the regalia and the fashionable style of it. He loved the camaraderie and sense of belonging the group gave him. He and a renegade few tried to form a non-racist sectarian variant. It fizzled out of course.
If there is anything that the men who advocate for Men Going Their Own Way are weary of hearing it is “I am a feminist but that does not mean I hate men”. Andrea Dworkin used to make that same self serving denial and you can’t get more Catholic than the Pope. Each and every time that I have given a feminist the benefit of the doubt, I have regretted doing so, without so much as one exception. That even includes recent weeks. There is now no doubt in my mind whatsoever and therefore no benefit that I would be obliged to give.
To the manipulative strategy of “that was then/this is now” I say: “Kick the football Charley Brown”
To the manipulative strategy of “I am not one of those bad feminists, I am a good feminist, like me like my dog“, I say: “to Hell with you and your doberperson werebitch. Loose the man eating pooch or I will not associate with you in any way shape or form.”
This blog is not and was never intended to be a forum for men and feminists to work out any sort of common ground. There are numerous places on the internet where you can spin your four wheel drives in that bottomless mire.
Men Going There Own Way is about acknowledging that the political ideology called “feminism” is inherently toxic and sexist.
I have been trying to instil in men that they are not obliged to apologise to “women” when they bad mouth feminism. Feminism is not a gender, it is not a sentient being. “Feminist” and “woman” are not interchangeable synonyms as feminists would have you believe.
To the men out there who are working out of the bullshit of indoctrination, a relationship with a woman who fundamentally believes that men and women are inherently political adversaries cannot possibly be good for you.....go your own way.
