Here is my introduction. My name is David Youn. I’ve been practicing photography since 2013. I bought my first camera (my awesome Olympus OMD EM5) out of a particularly stressful period of my life. Quick context: I was a property field adjuster during the 2013 Calgary Flood. The camera was a survival gift to myself after the misery of that role!
Photography became an outlet and a direction. I could both put my negative energy into something creative and I could also focus and separate time for me in the act of photograph-ing itself. It was not the end of the dark days… sadly my life would continue to deteriorate until I hit my bottom in 2016 and started my road to recovery. The realization that my downward direction was from my own broken perspective was both difficult to comprehend (I’m still working on it on the daily!) but also itself creative and motivational.
It was around this time that I found myself putting my work into the public for the first time. I built this website. I started to search for both learning and paying opportunities. However, my ongoing personality development tempered this direction - it both inspired me to throw myself into incredible adventures while holding me back from committing to some of the compromises that seem inherent in making this a full time, life-supporting profession.
Hence, here in 2020, the birth of this project. I have shown and sold work and created opportunities for other artists to do so. I built Perspectives YYC which ran shows, published a magazine, organized events for local artists, and generally became a community-building exercise. It yielded my first podcast. But with the appearance of fucking epilepsy of all things in late 2018, my continued presence in that project started to wither. And with it, the return of existential thinking and reflection of the whole experience itself.
What is photography and what is its value? A personal and compelling question. One which I am drawn to and suspect there are overarching and general themes. But a question that I know I cannot answer on my own. Nor do I expect universal consensus… in fact, the personal-ness of the question will likely yield not only alternate perspectives but likely conflicting ones. Still… I believe through all of this there may develop interesting themes on the art form itself.
And so… my goal now is to pick at this. Through personal reflection and public discourse. You are reading this and I appreciate your attention. If this is your first post please comment or message me your initial impressions and opinions. If you’ve come here after some of the intended discussions or future posts, please contact me with your criticism! Haha. and your work! If there is anything that will make this experiment work it is audience participation. Let’s chat about photography, its power, and its personal relationship with you.