Now’s Contact Punch

Now Magazine is the free weekly entertainment rag along with Eye Weekly in Toronto. Now’s cover story featuring a bashed up Olympus OM3 body with wax blood is the type of smash contact photography that is designed to get readers inside. So of course there was a loss leader headline screaming IS DIGITAL KILLING the art of photography – and a really g debate within Now as lead article for coverage of the Contact Photo Festival. Unfortunately there was not much technical or even artistic substance in that debate. For really solid material go here for pro digital and here for the anti-digital points of view. But in the meantime, the story on the Contact Photo Festival was substantial, especially Now’s trademark voluminous listings of all the Contact events (200 places to go for photo shows in Toronto).

But the coverage and reviews of the photo shows was mixed – implying the Contact photo exhibits were of mixed quality. And Now should know because their photog corps constantly roller-coasters in quality of images delivered (or chosen??). Just take a look on the local stories inside Now. Sometimes it looks like a bunch of poorly paid coops and other times Now’s photos are truly a feast.

But if Now got you inside, it also got you to the essential business at hand – the Contact Photo Festival which is still a robust and agit-prop event. Given the explosion of digital camera precocity – photography is alive and well in Toronto. Just go to Fotki.com or Flickr.com and search on the tag Toronto – and you will see huge and diverse photo offerings. And Contact catches some of this vigour and activity as gallery-goers will see about 200 studios and boites putting photographers on display. If past Contact festivals are true to form there is a good show any time and any place.

However there is a disturbing trend – none of the Toronto area camera clubs like Beaches Camera Club, Don Mills Club, Etobicoke Camera Club, Toronto Camera Club, TGPA – all of which have splendidly talented members – none of which appear to be a part of the show. Obviously something has gone awry here. But I will let Eye Weekly’s David Balzer have the last word on the Contact Photo Festival –
“There is also a strong sense — in the work of Bert Teunissen, Luc Delahaye, Adi Nes, Alessandra Sanguinetti and Liss and Rubenstein’s coup, Nan Goldin (whose slide installation Heartbeat will be exhibited) — that the memorial and historical facets of the image might be reinvigorated through painterly composition.”