Criss-cross rhythms that explode with happiness.

That’s the translation of Osibisa, the name of a Ghanian music group that debuted in 1971. The phrase is the first ‘lyric’ heard on the first track, The Dawn, on their first album, Osibisa. It has stuck with me over the years and I often find myself involuntarily replaying the song in my mind and repeating that simple phrase: Criss-cross rhythms that explode with happiness. 

This, my newly minted blog, is similarly intent on exploring those criss-cross rhythms from the visual perspective of a photographer and designer. My translation of WalkClickMake is “exploring the unlikely intersections of walking, photographing and making”. These three activities may appear to be unrelated but, together, they seem to explode with happiness in my mind and body. 

Walk 3, 11:47:07Walking and clicking. Images taken during a walk along Omand's Creek in Winnipeg are shown here merged into one continuous sequence.

I love to walk, something I have done consistently for about 40 years. Short walks, long hikes, 38 day pilgrimages.  Even longer, I have been a photographer. Landscapes, architecture, travel. And finally, there is the making, the reason why I studied architecture, why I made my own darkroom prints, why I make handmade books, why I design public art projects.  Walk 3Making: Walk 3 consists of the above image and many more taken along my Omand's Creek walk, presented as a handmade accordion-folded book. The image is printed on a kozo (mulberry) Japanese paper, lightly coated for inkjet printing. The hardcover casing is a Japanese bookcloth.

In future blog posts, I will certainly be exploring each of these as independent avenues, approaching each from various, unique perspectives. But the real magic will be at the intersections, where walking meets photography, photography meets making and those rare, explosive moments where all three come together.