Internationally recognized and award-winning filmmaker and photographer from Toronto.
What I really do is write with my camera about those who give birth to stories in this world. In the process of writing them, my hunter’s gaze remains sharply alert toward their emotions. As they begin to reveal themselves, my confidence in that writing grows stronger.
What I actually do is construct a skeleton with my thoughts—then I go hunting with my camera and gather flesh onto it. Then I take a brief pause. After that, like every human being, I let the artist within me trim away as much of that excess flesh as possible.
It pains me to throw away the flesh that was gathered with such effort. But I know that if I am not ruthless at this stage, the creation will become rigid instead of artistic. Out of painful attachment, I often cannot bring myself to throw those extra pieces of flesh into the trash, so I store them somewhere instead. Over time, they begin to accumulate in massive amounts.
To carefully carve and refine something into art requires both skill and time. And time, of course, has a relationship with money. Then again, an excess of thoughts about time and money can cause the stories and the characters to disappear altogether.
So I tell myself I will think about that phase later—and I continue gathering skeletons and flesh. My archive is lined with countless such materials, arranged in rows.
Every now and then, I take a peek at them—standing there with my chin resting in my right hand for a while. And they seem to silently say to me, “No worries, take your time.”
