A Year in Photos - Bring on Twenty-Fourteen

As we count down towards another New Year, I thought I'd spend a couple minutes reflecting on the adventures of the past 365. For us, 2013 was a year of firsts, milestones, travels, photography, mountains, and adventures in fooding. In no particular order, here are some highlights that come to mind:

-Learned to developed B&W film at home
-Ate a live squid
-Started my Strangers in the City personal photo project
-Celebrated 5 years of marital bliss
-Ate a Llama
-Got food poisoning
-Summited 7 mountains in the Rockies
-Sold a photo
-Bought a Leica
-Stepped temporarily over the armistice border into North Korea
-Didn't get shot!
-Hiked 77km over 5 days in Patagonia
-Discovered a real passion for teaching photography
-Continued to be a nerd

Wishing you folks all the best in 2014!

A Year in Photos 2013.

Previous annual mosaics: 2012 | 2011 | 2010 | 2009

If you want to see any of the full sized photos above, click on the links here (from the top, left to right).

1. The Girl with the Elephant Tattoo, 2. Strangers in the City - Gabriela, 3. The Grounds of Gyeongbokgung-2, 4. The Student, 5. Portlandia, Part 3-6, 6. Portlandia-15, 7. Portlandia, Part 3, 8. The Freight Transporter, 9. Tracy and Dave's Wedding, 10. The Post Summit Beer, 11. The Cham, 12. Strangers in the City - Aman, 13. Noriyangjin Fish Market, 14. The Dead Bird Diaries - Double Dose-4, 15. Scrambles - Mt. Lawrence Grassi-10, 16. Streetside Seating, 17. Scrambles - Mt. Edith-23, 18. Life on Two Wheels-2, 19. Pepsi-keh, 20. Life on Two Wheels-4, 21. Colour Protection Test Shots-7, 22. The Guildsman, 23. Tracy and Dave's Wedding-5, 24. This is Hanoi, 25. Cycles

A Very Breaking Bad Merry Christmas

I decided to paint something for Anita and I. Four 12x16" canvas boards with 1" black, grey and white squares painted on them? You're thinking, "TOTAL.CRAP." But scroll down to see it assembled as a 24x32" piece.













If the painting above still looks like an abstract greyscale mosaic, you need to step back a few feet and look again. Walter White wishes you a Methy Christmas.

And just in case you're one of the 2 people on the planet who don't recognize this iconic image of Heisenberg, here's the original.

Happy Holidays (and a bit of Film Fun)!

Three days to Christmas, and many of us are probably scrambling to finish our gift shopping. But as we frantically throw away boatloads of money on junk presents that will likely be re-gifted by the recipients, let's not forget those who are less fortunate that could do with a bit of your charity. Foregoing a couple of fancy holiday lattes during this season, and donating instead to a social agency or charity could very well mean the difference between someone getting frostbitten in the bitter cold, or having warm gloves to wear. As cliche as this sounds, every little bit counts. On my part, I was recently given a $50 gift card to an awesome brunch place - I'm donating it in the hopes that some family in need will enjoy a nice meal instead.

Wishing you folks a happy holiday season, filled with the love and laughter of family and friends! Cheers!

And because I'm really THAT big of a nerd, here are some film cannister Christmas Ornaments we made tonight to help liven up our otherwise pathetic little tree (there were a whopping 7 ornaments to hang before we started repurposing random trinkets into ornaments).

Valle de la Luna

So I learned something random and surprising today - the Energizer Bunny is a rip off of the Duracell Bunny. For real, Energizer created the bunny as a spoof of the Duracell Bunny, yet somehow it ended up being more successful at establishing itself as a marketing mascot in North America than the Duracell one. But apparently in Europe, the Duracell Bunny (also a pink bunny) is well known. Who knew?! Anyways...

There are many photos from Chile yet to come, but I wanted to leave you with one of my favourites from the trip. This was taken just prior to sunset in the Atacama Dessert. We had just finished an afternoon of sandboarding (it's like snowboarding in the stickiest, heaviest late spring snow you can get, times 10), and then drove to the Valle de la Luna (Valley of the Moon) to scramble up an interesting rock formation for a panoramic view of the valley. And because Chilenos love their Pisco (grape brandy), we were served some Pisco Sour cocktails to cap off an awesome day.

From Chile to Chilly!

We've returned from our month long adventure in South America (mostly Chile, with a brief stint in Argentina). And while we were dreading leaving the 30+ degree weather in Chile to return to the -30 degree cold of wintery Alberta, we were greeted instead with a mild and balmy +7 and sunny blue skies on our return yesterday. I'd like to think that we brought the warm weather back with us. You're welcome.

There are 18 rolls of film to be developed, and far more digital photos to sort through, so it may be a while before I start unloading a bunch here for you to see. In the meantime, here's a quick set I shot surreptitiously with my iPhone of a three piece band playing an impromptu show on the Subte (Metro) in Buenos Aires. I shot these clandestinely only because we were running low on Argentinian Pesos to give them when they finished their set and came with caps in hand. Street performers are probably used to people thoroughly enjoying their shows, only to have those same people conveniently have to take a phone call, or otherwise walk away when the time comes for donations/ collections. I'm not sure that me pretending to not be watching/ enjoying their show (while actually taking photos of it) was any better than pretending I had an incoming call when the show ended, but whatever...