The Bogus Bio Collection
Due to popular demand I have dug up bios from previous iterations of my web sites and posted them on here. Given that they tend to be a bit self referential this may help you figure out what the heck I am talking about. Once you have it sussed, do me a favour and let me know what the heck I am talking about because I think it’s important for me to know too.
From circa 2004:
Who
After meeting Fred some people are tempted think that he was born yesterday — but they’re off by a few days. Born during a rare tropical storm in Central Canada and washed away into Lake Ontario, Fred was raised by a pod of dolphins who were on a bender a long way from home. A kindly old dolphinette took Fred under her flipper and taught him the fine art of underwater basket weaving. It was these early aquatic experiences that led Fred into a career in photography — but that’s another story. He’s been shooting people (with a camera) and charging money for it since 1989. The baskets never sold.
What
Fred shoots just about everything (with a camera) but enjoys shooting people the most. He shoots people for corporate communications, ad campaigns, fashion spreads, catalogues and for getting in front of his lens. “I like shooting food as well”, he says, “It sits still and smells good … which is more than I can say for some of the people I have shot.” Nice. Anyway, shiny things on white seamless, shiny new buildings and shiny huge fascinating pieces of industrial machinery whose inner workings he is clueless about are also in his repertoire along with a great number of other things (some not shiny).
When
When?! Fred will shoot whenever the shoot needs to be shot (unless it’s dinner time and we’re having Shake ‘n’ Bake – we haven’t had Shake ‘n’ Bake for nearly two weeks!). Or maybe this is the section where the office hours are supposed to go, but nothing was mentioned concerning office hours so go ahead and call him right now (unless you are busy juggling camels – that wouldn’t be good).
Where
Anywhere! Really, he loves flying!
Ok … he’s based in Vancouver (but doesn’t live there*… it’s complicated. Let’s just say there’s a lot of drive thru’s involved and leave it at that). But, he will go wherever the job requires. That’s part of the thrill. And, he never forgets his toothbrush so there is nothing to fear from early morning shoots.
* This isn’t true anymore – I live close enough to downtown that I can hear the horn, the gun and that infernal clock (almost). The only thing that’s really complicated now is remembering which roads are closed for construction.
Why
Love and money! What else is there?
From circa 2006:
Fred began his career in commercial image craft many years ago by using berry juice to render his images on cave walls. After many successful years of this he found it necessary to change his business practices in view of a number of mitigating factors:
Berries are hard to come by in winter, and many of his clients, participating as they were in today’s fast paced marketplace, were not content to wait until fall to see their proofs. Also, couriers would not guarantee overnight delivery of caves. But most importantly, he found that most of the good caves had already been made use of some time ago, and there was therefore a shortage of good caves. Fred believes in nothing but the best for his clients so a new process had to be found.
Making good with some used twist ties, a plastic bottle and some hair spray Fred fashioned his first camera. He was 9 months old. Even though the apparatus worked incredibly well, the photos were quite sticky and Fred was forced to buy a more conventional camera of foreign manufacture. He has been using cameras of this kind in a professional capacity since 1989. Hardly a coincidence; he has been having much better relations with courier companies since then too.
When asked at parties how he earns his keep, Fred is fond of reporting that he shoots people for a living. Not everyone is taken in by this gag however, and so he is also hired to shoot other things as well. Dr. Seuss would have, no doubt, been thrilled to concoct a story in rhyme of all the places and situations that Fred is pleased to render photographically.
Call to action: Call Fred … now! (Unless you are busy saving the world, or juggling camels. It’s ok to call after you are done.)
Vancouver, BC … If you would like a mailing address to send Fred money, please request one via email. If you would like to know where Fred’s studio is … it’s a secret, but a secret that can be bought for the right price (by sending the right price in Canadian funds to the mailing address you can obtain by sending a request via email).
From circa 2009::
Fred was born near Geneva Switzerland a couple of weeks from now in a bizarre accident involving the world’s largest particle accelerator. During routine pre testing of the accelerator – before they actually starting slamming electrons together for fun and profit – Fred was unceremoniously hauled into existence from a point in the time space continuum in which, he reports, he was already quite comfortable, and hurled backwards in time to a period predating numerous modern electronic conveniences and nuisances – like Microsoft and any device with a small i as the first letter of its name.
His early history (if you can call it that because all this time travel business really messes up grammatical tenses) is sketchy at best, and much of it seems to revolve around dolphins and basket weaving. What is known, and has been reported elsewhere, is that Fred fashioned his first camera from a plastic bottle, twist ties and some hair spray purloined from his girlfriends side of the bathroom cupboard. Once again, owing to temporal issues he did this when he was “9 months” old.
Fred no longer claims to shoot people for a living (even at parties) because in this age of …. well, you know … photographers are on equal footing with terrorists as far as various government agencies are concerned and so he now describes himself as a Private Provider of Extremely Short Term Temporal Sampling Visual Translation Services. PPoESTTSVT for short (pronounced as it appears but with the accent on the last non syllable). Despite this, the fact remains that Fred has been engaged by people to make 2 dimensional renditions of other people of various kinds since just before Adobe invented layers for Photoshop. That’s a long time folks. It goes almost goes without saying, which is why it’s being said now, that Fred would be very, very, very happy to make some 2 dimensional renderings of people for you, especially if they are wearing nice clothes. Call him!
Vancouver, BC … If you would like a mailing address to send Fred money, please request one via email. If you would like to know where Fred’s studio is … it’s a secret, but a secret that can be bought for the right price (by sending the right price in Canadian funds to the mailing address you can obtain by sending a request via email).
Note: The whole business about the studio location being a secret has all changed. Now I am wearing the studio location right out on my sleeve. If you want to know where it is just visit either my Commercial Portrait web site, or my Fashion web site for the low down.