1. I’ve done that route to Ottawa and I feel your pain. Some of the photos are actually, in my opinion, quite lovely. For example, ‘40Km’, ‘100Km’ (quite Egg-ish), ‘160Km’, and perhaps ‘260Km’. I’d be tempted to try a Due South on the return trip; there can be some quite breath taking (if more conventioonal) shots coming ‘down’ toward the lake.

   I can’t imagine you aren’t familiar with the work of William Eggleston, Steven Shore, Steven B. Smith and Adam Bartos. I hope I’m wrong but I think our neighbours to the south have done a better job as a class of artists than we in documenting the visitudes of urban and suburban blight.

   Nice work. Perhaps simply ‘Due X’ without the other oppressions could be justified.

   ...edN

   Posted by Ed Nixon  on  08/08  at  09:25 AM

2. Ed, I am very familiar with the work of the photographers you have mentioned. It was a Stephen Shore exhibition that I had seen back in 1978 that inspired me to pursue a career as a photographer. Oppressing myself creatively was an experiment that I have wanted to try for years. The idea of Due North seemed to be a good way of doing it. Photographically, it was what I had expected. A group of banal pictures, but the insight into to the landscape along the route was an eye opener. I came back feeling that sometime in the near future, there will be one continuous urban area from Toronto to Ottawa down to Montreal. That made me feel uneasy. Why? I can’t say. It could be that when communities grow into each other, the character of “place” is lost. Or a least hidden in the vast sameness.

   Posted by Chris Thomaidis  on  08/08  at  10:39 AM

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