Thursday, September 27, 2007

This is T U R N O R A M A

One of the photographers we enjoy looking at on the laptop spread out on the Bare Mattress of Love is a person we like him because he has our temperment. We had been begging him for an interview and he would throw massive rocks with notes tied to them through the Broken Windows of Love telling us what corner of the world he happened to be in and why he couldn't do it. Did he need his notes from HOME??

Who are you and why are you doing this to us?

I’m Bill Duffy – a 53 year-old geographer/cartographer/photographer who lives in Maine and travels frequently throughout the northeast US for my job. I have a degree in art (printmaking) and a masters degree in science (marine geology) Most of the things I do are just as clearly interrelated as my education.

I’ve taken photos since my art school days, lugging around various SLRs, and point and shoots over the years. I bought my first digital camera about five years ago and started posting photos on the Internet not long after that. I’m not sure why I do it. You all seem very nice and I want to show you my photographs.


Do you know Kerrin?

No, but I know Kirlin, a fellow Mainer.

What are you wearing?

Hiking shorts, sweaty t-shirt, wool socks. And you?

Where else can we see your photos? Do you have any side projects?

Well, I still have some photos online at my original site www.turnorama.org including a set of slides I scanned from a hiking trip back in 1974. I’ve also recently been resurrecting my Blogger page as well (http://turnorama.blogspot.com) where there’s a bit more of a story to go with the photos. I’ve had photos in a couple of exhibits and am planning to have a show in a local gallery sometime next year. I’ll invite you all to the opening.

What other hobbies do you enjoy or enjoy inflicting upon others?

I hike and canoe. Almost every winter, I spend a week in Baxter State Park with friends doing a cross-country ski trip through the Park. We stay in wood-heated cabins, so it’s not as brutal as it sounds, though some times there’s so much snow it’s tough to get from one cabin to the next.

What equipment do or have you used? Are there any manufacturers you'd like to praise or bad mouth here?

I haul around a Canon 5D with an assortment of lens, tripods and other geegaws. I tend to buy the best I can afford, since I often shoot in lousy conditions a long way from a camera store (that’s pretty much anywhere in Maine). My Canons have worked well for me, though I’m not fanatical about them.

What is the best photo that you missed?

Well there’ve been so many it’s hard to say. Recently, I was at a gas station in New York and there were these three motorcyclists in front of me zipping up their leather jackets, putting on their fingerless gloves, adjusting their bandana skullcaps and getting ready to leave after filling up. Just then, an ice cream truck pulled up. They ran over and bought fudgesicles. When they came back to their bikes, I told them they weren’t exactly reinforcing their image. They laughed (sort of) and I wanted to ask them if I could take their picture, but I thought I might be pushing my luck.

Tell us your worst habit.

Looking to my right while sitting here at my desk I see a stack of DVDs (backups of photos) five small notebooks strewn across a stack of postcards, instruction manuals and bank receipts, three harmonicas, a jar full of paintbrushes, two packages of Pec-Pads ( those are lens cleaning tissues! Nothing else.), a bottle of rubber cement, a set of headphones, stamps, paper clips, two lens, one extension tube, various pens and pencils and a stapler.

To my left is a stack of receipts, a circle template, 4 USB memory sticks, an electric bill, two small maps, a 20 page list of trees in my city, a spare laptop battery, a pair of 3-D glasses (the ones with one red and one blue lens) a box of Kleenex, another lens, a calculator, a stack of blank DVDs and a framed photo of my late, great dog, Nellie.


So, basically, I’m a slob.

Have you ever done anything heroic? (i.e. solved crimes, saved someone from a burning building or untied them from railroad tracks, fought injustice, donated organs) If not, why not? If so, please include press clippings.)

Well, what is really heroic is that I’m on my city’s conservation commission and volunteer a lot of time making maps for various natural resource protection organizations. But your question prompts the response that last fall, I helped search for three old guys who had become lost in the woods (they spent the night and walked out on their own in the morning). I should add that I was involved in their getting lost in the first place…its a long story.

If you weren't doing what you do now, what else WOULD you be doing? Photographer doesn't count.

Living in Newfoundland, probably. I’ve done a lot of different things over the years: worked in a fur coat vault and a donut factory, painted houses, built boats, made artificial legs, did land surveying, went to the bottom of the Gulf of Maine in a research submarine, and ran sonar equipment in the Sea of Galilee. I’m pretty satisfied with what I do now. I’m self-employed and have freedom to do what I like, for the most part.

Do you wear glasses? If so, describe them, if not, why not? Don't you like glasses?

I wear a pair of cheap reading glasses when, well, reading. I lose them constantly and they’re always in my way when I’m shooting. I use them to look at the little LCD panel on the top of the camera and the preview screen on the back. Then I forget I’m wearing them and mash them into my face when I try to look through the viewfinder.

What did you have for breakfast?

An omelet made with chicken-of-the-woods mushrooms, green peppers and tomatoes.

Anything else?

I think that about does it. Thanks for the opportunity!

2 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Have your show in late April/early May and I'll be there.
Cheers Kerrin

11:35 AM  
Blogger Turnbill said...

All right, I'll let you know!

Bill

10:40 AM  

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