Description
German poet Bertolt Brecht wrote, “In the dark times, will there also be singing? Yes, there will also be singing, about the dark times.” Photographer Tony Fouhse is compelled by the edges of Ottawa - the peripheral regions of the city where he was raised. In this series, entitled After the Fact, he perceived 46 photographs as a photographic book. Fouhse believes that the camera is a device capable only of capturing the present, and that the viewer can nostalgically attribute images to his or her own individual history. This series does not consist of fact-based documentary photographs, nor are the images about any specific location or demographic. Instead, this series utilizes photography to plumb the liminal spaces that exist between fact and fiction. Fouhse combines portraits, tableaux and landscape into an open-ended narrative arc, one that evokes the feelings of anxiety lurking underneath the façade of the everyday. Fouhse’s images have been featured in international publications such as The New York Times, Esquire (Russia), Newsweek (Japan), LifeLounge (Australia), CV Photo (Canada) and the British Journal of Photography. Fouhse received the City of Ottawa Karsh Award in 2010. He lives and works in downtown Ottawa.