Smoking Deals, Sooke, 2019

Today’s random photo takes us to Church Street in Sooke, BC, where “smoking deals” are found just down the road from the Knox Presbyterian Church, the Royal Mounted Police station, and right next to Jenny’s Pantry, home of fine English pies.

The composition (cropped slightly top and left) and subject, it occurs to me, arise from an idée fixe of sorts, lodged perhaps in my temporal lobe, that has recurred in my work over many years.

It might be said that I simply replicate the same impulsive image over and over, but for rearranging the furniture a little, a bit like houses the last few years.

Off the top of my head, or rather the ventral part of my temporal cortices, I can recall several images that adhere or respond to this emblematic theme almost exactly. Hint: browse my Eighties Vancouver 35mm work for one of them.