BIO:
David Duchow: Born: October 1949, Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
Self-trained in traditional photographic practice, I began photographing
and exhibiting still images in 1969, continuing until the late nineteen-eighties
in Canada and internationally. Not known for one style in the beginning,
I worked with many subjects in black and white and in colour. I
struggled through a Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree (1972). I did one
and a half years of a Master of Fine Arts degree and dropped out.
Through my exhibitions I got to be known as a half-decent Cibachrome
colour printer and as a consequence procured a technician’s
job at a University, where I worked full time for 25 years.
There was always an interest in art and music, several family members
being artists/poets/musicians. My earliest musical influences were
my father, who was a musicologist, Haydn, Bach, Miles Davis and
the Byrds – especially The Byrds, among many others. In 1989
I heard Under The Milky Way, by The Church, in a cd shop - for the
first time – and I was hooked. My new heroes. The Byrds were
and are still fantastic, but no one comes close to The Church for
invention, ingenuity and jangle.
In the late 1990’s I found myself “going digital”,
visually. For my first project, with a Mac Performa computer and
Clarisworks (an old Mac program) I made a series of “word paintings”,
which layered coloured text over text over text. These images have
more recently become a word painting video, with soundtrack by me.
In the early 2000’s I was getting back into some photographic
work after a hiatus. It was late 2001 and I was doing some self
portrait stills. Then 9/11 happened and these self portraits took
on a different tone, as I worked them in Photoshop, revealing many
new faces. Around the same time I heard Steve Kilbey’s reading
of Rimbaud’s poem, Season in Hell. It didn’t take long
to figure out these images had to go with this recitation –
in “video” format. With Mac G3 computer and primitive
video program in hand I made the film “Season in Hell –
A Self-Portrait” – as a reaction to 9/11.
Subsequently, I made a number of videos, using various images (both
old and new), which were influenced by the self-portrait series,
in style, and which used Church and Steve Kilbey songs as a background.
I even did a couple to John Kilbey’s music. Steve commented
a couple of times (once just recently) that he likes my rendition
of “Summer”. I am kind of partial to Magician Among The
Spirits (MATS). These videos all got sent to Karmic Hit, where the
Kilbeys and others had unimaginable viewing parties. “Gobsmacked”
was one word John used to describe themselves, as they viewed the
vids. There was talk about doing an album cover for The Church.
The Australian-only EP, Song in Space, had an image of mine, altered
by the graphic designer. And if you look closely at the Box of Birds
CD (on the disc), that is my image of birds (severely altered by
the designers). In 2003 The Church started to use my images as backdrops
in concert. One of the early gigs done this way was at the Sydney
Opera House in July 2003.
In 2004 Steve asked me if I would do a video for “Sanskrit”,
by Isidore.
2005 was a rough year – with the sudden death of my mother
and loss of my partner of 22 years, but on a positive, artistic
note I finally got a new computer, an iMac. This changed everything,
creatively speaking. With it I can create music, video (with the
Ken Burns effect), and new series of self-portrait stills and videos,
using the computer’s built-in iSight camera – with soundtracks
by me. Since the fall of 2006 I have been experimenting with these
techniques as well as involving myself in a massive project –
of editing and scanning hundreds of old photographs, most never-before
seen by me - found among my mother’s belongings. These scanned
portraits got made into several documentary style videos, one of
which, The Mirrored Portraits, is a favourite. My “old black
and whites” blog showcases several images from this series.
Of the eight photo blogs I have, this is the only one where I was
not the photographer – though I have “worked” many
of the images in this group in Photoshop. I am the photographer/image-maker
of all the other still images here. In the video department I am
the photographer/videographer, editor, producer, director, and musician
(unless otherwise noted)
