It takes a writer to catch a writer -- with a camera

barbara black

Terry Byrnes is a longtime creative writing teacher and a recent chair of the English Department, but he has a third career as an art photographer.

A show of his recent work will open at the Atwater Library under the title Montreal Writers: Close to Home. The show includes stunning portraits of such writers as Ann Carson, Louis Dudek, Catherine Kidd and Yann Martel. Many of the subjects will attend.

One subject with a Concordia connection is the poet Susan Gillis, an alumna who has taught in the English Department. Her collections, Swimming Among the Ruins and Volta, were published by Signature Editions, the poetry imprint of Véhicule Press.

Here is what Byrnes told us about the arresting photo above:

“Susan, who is a lovely person, is also a no-nonsense person. I asked her if she ever sat on that shapely couch in her apartment, and she lay on it exactly like that.

“I try not to burden my subjects with the responsibility of a ‘pose.’ From almost the first instant I meet with them, I start taking pictures and talking. Typically, we discuss writing and writers while I’m working.

“I ask people to show me where they live, work, or play. For most writers, that’s about a three-metre radius. That’s the prescriptive side of the process. The proscriptive side is no bricks, no books, no computer screens. Those three elements are so common to literary portraiture that they almost define the genre.

“I try, however clumsily and ineptly, to take my cues from portraitists like August Sander, Irving Penn and Richard Avedon.

“Working with writers and artists is great because they will generally let the best image represent them, though it may not be the most flattering.”

One woman “said I could photograph her desk/shoulder/hair, but could take only one picture of her face.” Byrnes added that “[poet] Louis Dudek told me he was ‘just sitting there waiting to die,’ and died a few weeks after.”

Byrnes has also been taking photos for 40 years of “the utterly ruined” American town of Springfield, Ohio.

Springfield used to be “the publishing centre of the world” until Collier’s moved to New York. It was a centre of farm machinery and small-motor manufacturing, too.

“It’s now a demolished downtown centre surrounded by a doughnut of poor whites, blacks and Hispanics. I’ve been shooting on the street there since 1966.

“Although I have a social laissez-passer, it can be dangerous. The record for one day: one death threat, three threats of ‘stompin’, one threat of genital mutilation, three screams from cars, and one thrown beer can.”

Byrnes’ remarkable document of the deterioration of this tough town was the subject of an American museum show. He is also working on a project called Fair Game, described as “grab shots at travelling (primarily Quebec) carnivals.”

The launch of Montreal Writers: Close to Home is Feb. 28 at 6. At the same time, the Quebec Writers Federation will launch a new online database featuring over 500 Quebec books in English that can be found in the QWF collection at the Atwater Library, 1200 Atwater Ave.