1000 Words Ivy Lovell

DSLR cameras and party blogging may have stoked the culture of “everyone’s a photographer.” But if the glut of Facebook galleries, photo blogs, and watermarked shots proves anything, it’s how hard it is to do well. Toronto photographer Ivy Lovell has managed to distinguish herself in the past year as much on the strength of her photography as on how she’s disseminating it. “Around this time last year, I was really bummed out about the quality of work I was producing, and how everyone was seeing it on my website or on Facebook, or people grabbing images and reposting them,” Lovell says. “It wasn’t at all what I wanted to be doing. It kind of made me want to never take another picture in my life. The only way out, as I could see, was to put together a book. I wanted something bound and professional looking, to stand the test of time.” 

Lovell’s photo books, released (more or less) quarterly, gather shots from Toronto concerts as well as trips she’s taken, be it to a family cottage or a garage rock festival in the American South. There’s a vitality to the shots, which suitably capture many of the acts Lovell documents, which tend towards garage punk groups and noise bands, whose frantic energy might otherwise seem fleeting. (And, as she brags on her blog, all photos are 100-percent Photoshop-free.) Lovell is planning a self-published hard-cover photo book, which will be launched at Parts & Labour early next year. We’ll have all the details as soon as we get them. For the time being, you can find her smaller, softcover photo mags at record stores across the city. For free! But enough of our yakking, just check out the photos yourself.