Ginny Fobert — Don’t Quit; Prove Him Wrong!

Ginny Fobert — Don’t Quit; Prove Him Wrong! - theHumm October 2020

By Sally Hansen

Art… and Soul

A disparaging remark by a fellow exhibitor spurred Ginny Fobert to expand her artistic horizons. In 2013, at only the second showing of her beautifully composed photographic prints, another exhibitor — a painter — confronted her angrily and asserted, “This hurts my eyes. I can’t look at it! You don’t belong here — photography isn’t art.” Proving him wrong has been an exciting and rewarding journey.

A glance at the back of her Trading Card (on the back of this page) shows just how successful she has become in developing (literally) a portfolio of innovative photographs. Fobert stretches traditional expectations of the medium. She experiments with a variety of techniques to achieve her exceptional images, from intentional camera movement to post-processing of multiple stacked images. The latter range anywhere from several images shot in rapid succession to hundreds of shots taken over a longer period. She then stacks and blends the individual shots together using computer software during her processing phase. From sunsets to marketplaces, her stacked images capture a unique view of the passage of time.

One of her most popular series relies on another process she calls “in-camera inverted double exposures.” After composing a shot of a carefully selected target scene, she then turns her camera upside down and takes a second shot. Her post-processing “involves removing colour and adjusting highlights and shadows to expose the ghostly shadows of the two exposures.”

In fairness to her hurtful critic, it is her painterly eye, combined with an innate artistic gift, that elevates her photographs to the realm of fine art. Her inverted double exposures reveal a true gift for composition. Fobert doesn’t just flip the two images; she plays with shapes and balance and colour and texture to create “canvases” of surreal reflections of exquisitely chosen landscapes and horizons. The “Impressionist” shots she achieves by intentionally moving her camera at varying shutter speeds provide further evidence of her ability to create “Fine Art Photographs.”

Another striking attribute this photographer brings to her chosen medium is aptly defined in her Artist Statement on her website at mynds-i.com — “Photography allows me to get outside the box, be a bit rebellious, break some rules and get away with it.” Her beautiful “Music in the Air” collection of stacked photos reflects this sentiment again — “Music is a universal language. It has no rules or boundaries and is enjoyed and understood by everyone.” That is her photographic goal.

Fobert’s list of juried exhibitions, shows and awards testifies that she is indeed getting away with it. Her works are available for sale from October 9–31 as part of the West Carleton Arts Society’s Expressions of Art online juried art exhibition and sale. Previewing is available now at wcasonlineshows.ca , and it is an excellent way to cope with pandemic isolation and enjoy the abundance of talent and creativity that enriches life in the Ottawa Valley.

Just Do It!

Ginny Fobert was born in Guelph, raised in Kingston, studied psychology and criminology at Western University, married a teacher and moved to Mississauga where she raised three daughters. Once the girls were in school, she embraced the Nike “Just Do It” slogan before Nike did, started a company and became an organizer and event planner as a contractor to government agencies like the Canadian Food Inspections Agency. When her position at the Canadian Society for International Health was downsized, she decided she had had enough of 80-hour work weeks. She made a list of all the possible things she could do, wanted to do, the kinds of bosses she did and did not want to work for, and based on previous experiences, decided to become an independent real estate consultant specialising in marketing, staging and photography. The only problem was that she didn’t own a camera and never had.

In April of 2011 she bought the most expensive camera she could afford (a Canon 60D), a wide-angle lens, a flash, camera bag, tripod and a Book for Dummies, and started learning about real estate photography. She realized she needed to distinguish herself from other real estate photographers, so she experimented and created “Twilight Photos” of homes lit up at dusk. She also applied for a government entrepreneurial grant (she characterizes it as a mini-Dragon’s Den), developed a business plan, and was accepted. She modestly attributes her success to the fact that she was old enough to help them meet their quota for candidates over 45. She started taking photos of babies, quickly outgrew her camera, replaced it with a full-frame Canon 5D Mark III camera, and signed up for evening Digital Photography courses at Algonquin College, finishing the four-year program in 19 months. (She now shoots with the much lighter mirrorless Fuji X-T2.)

Her penchant for doing it her way soon resulted in interesting dynamics with one of her instructors. Undaunted, she persisted and experimented with photographing glass orbs, water dripping into puddles, frozen flowers, using colour filters on her flash, moving and turning her lens out of focus — all to find new ways of seeing. She remembers his comment when she started blurring images through intentional camera movement; he said, “Ginny, you are presenting first. I want to get the craziness over at the beginning.” Eventually she earned his grudging admission that her work had merit — she learned he was using her highly original and experimental images in other classes as examples of “thinking outside of the box”.

What Is Art?

The definition of art has been debated from time immemorial. Your intrepid arts reporter recently spent an absorbing afternoon online seeking updated enlightenment. A common theme emerged — sensory engagement is not enough (e.g., can food be art?); aesthetics and emotional engagement are generally considered to be vital components. As far back as 1897, in his book What Is Art, Leo Tolstoy defined it as anything that communicates emotion. Philosopher Richard Wollheim declared the nature of art as “one of the most elusive of the traditional problems of human culture.” And to top that off, at lumenlearning.com it states: “The idea of defining art today is far more difficult than it has ever been. After the exhibition during the Pop Art movement of Andy Warhol’s Brillo Box and Campbell’s Soup Cans, the questions of “what is art?” and “who is an artist?” entered a more conceptual realm. Anything can, in fact, be art, and the term remains constantly evolving.” Conceptual art proves that to be (alarmingly in some cases) true.

Ginny Fobert’s photographic art is accessible and aesthetically and emotionally rewarding. Please refer to the back of her Artist’s Trading Card for additional routes to enjoying the creative results of her rebellious nature.

Dear Readers, - theHumm October 2020

By Sarah Kerr

Hi Humm Readers! Did you know that Kris and Rob Riendeau, owners of theHumm, have been behind the scenes championing, promoting and empowering artists in the Ottawa Valley for over two decades? And that Kris’s superstar mom, Sally Hansen, has done nearly 250 incredible in-depth interviews with local artists to share their work on theHumm’s cover each month? Not only that, theHumm has shared almost every event from Burnstown to Westport on their calendar, and is constantly promoting local makers, co......

Ginny Fobert — Don’t Quit; Prove Him Wrong! - theHumm October 2020