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Larry Monczka
Mentored by the eminent Canadian photographer and educator Freeman Patterson, Kathy and Larry have been engaged in photography since the late 70s.
Kathleen Pickard
One of my greatest pleasures in photography is uncovering the unfamiliar in the familiar. When I hear from a viewer that “I live here but I’ve never noticed that before!”, I smile in satisfaction. Beauty is often hiding in plain sight, but it takes practice to see it.
Michéla Griffith
In 2012 I paused by my local river and everything changed. I’ve moved away from what many expect photographs to be: my images deconstruct the literal and reimagine the subjective, reflecting the curiosity that water has inspired in my practice. Water has been my conduit: it has sharpened my vision, given me permission to experiment and continues to introduce me to new ways of seeing.
When we first spoke to Kathleen Pickard and Larry Monczka, their quietly contemplative photography quickly found new fans. I can’t help but wonder if they have been interested observers as intimate, abstract landscapes have grown in popularity. We wanted to find out what they have been up to in the intervening period, and as it happens, the timing of our request for a Revisited interview coincided with their own review of practice and images.
Kathleen Pickard
Larry Monczka
I pinched myself to find that it has been 10 years since we interviewed you both. Bring us up to speed - what have you been up to?
The timing of your invitation could not have been more fortuitous. In 2014, we had a hand in initiating a regional photographic discussion group, "Four Corners", in which we've participated since that time. The group, presently comprised of nine photographers, meets monthly (since Covid via Zoom) to discuss, i.e. dissect, five images from each of us. The free-wheeling critique, conversations, and laughter have kept us grounded and at the same time provided a constant source of inspiration.
In 2024, the group decided that a decade of viewing and commenting upon each others' work deserved to be celebrated in the form of a book. We were individually tasked with selecting a single image from each of those ten years that we felt best represented our approach at that particular moment in time. The choices weren't to be a string of 'greatest hits', but rather, images that held some significance in our personal photographic history.
That assignment required us to take the time to survey and consider a decade's worth of images. Though this consumed hours of time, it was an exercise well worth doing. It was essentially a visual diary, making each of us aware of how much our lives have been consumed and enriched by our mutual avocation. As it happens, it couldn't have been a more serendipitous preparation for writing this piece.