The Sexy Donair Costume

All Hallows Eve is but a couple nights away… got ye thy sexy nurse or sexy janitor or sexy donair costume yet? There's nothing hotter than an overweight dude wearing a seductive shawarma costume, am I right? (Correct answer: NO)

I'm not sure who decided that adding 'sexy' in front of any random noun would be a good idea for costumes, but give him credit - he's spawned a pretty big (and ridiculous) industry. Which brings me to my point. STOP BUYING THESE STUPID "SEXY" COSTUMES. Show a little fricking originality and imagination in getting your costume together, instead of grabbing that 'Sexy Toaster' ensemble from MegaDollarmania Store. Toasters aren't sexy… unless you have some rare fetish. I'm looking at you, Jian Ghomeshi.

Okay, so quick story about Halloween Costumes. Last year, I dressed up as a meth cook, Breaking Bad style. So I was handing out candies to the Trick or Treaters, when these two kids who couldn't have been more than 8 years old came to the door. One of them looks at me and asks, "Did you spill some chemicals or something?" The other kid turns to him and says, "Duh, he's cooking meth." Hilarious. And also kind of scary that an 8 year old knew this.




Anyways, on to some more recent photos. First, my failed attempt to carve a nicely shaded pumpkin.




And then a bunch of photos taken in New York's Times Square last month.


Iron Man and Black-tain America (or maybe Captain Blackmerica?)


Sexy Alien, chillin' with his homie, Sexy Predator.




Sexy Predator, quenching his thirst with some Gatorade.


I guess these are 'Sexy Flag' costumes? They were also parading around beside a Jesus preaching dude, which I found a bit funny.

Photographing the Pupils - Part III

There's a big fat fingerprint on my laptop screen right now. Any guesses why? Because Anita can't tell the difference between a laptop and an iPad. It's rather amusing to watch someone futilely try to end a FaceTime call by pressing on an LCD that clearly is not a touch screen.

Anywho, this is another set in my personal portrait series, 'Photographing the Pupils,' whereby students of mine sit for an impromptu session. I particularly like how these ones turned out. Real, raw, and unretouched. While most would prefer to look perfectly made up and flawless, I find beauty in the slight imperfections and assymetrics of our faces.













While taking these portraits of my students, Olga was interested in my Kiev, so I gave her a chance to shoot me with it. She struggled with the manual focus and the inverted image in the WLF, but she clearly nailed it - focus is spot on, and she placed a pretty decent key triangle using the single key light. Well done!



And Mike gets a bonus shot because his shirt was awesome:


All photos shot with the Kiev88 CM, Arsat 80mm f/2.8 on Kodak Tri-X 400. Developed in Rodinol, 1:25 @ 68 deg. F for 6:00min.

Fire in the Skies

As a team building exercise, we headed out to Grasby Art Studio in the Bowness area to do some group painting. Even if you think you have zero skills in art, this is a super fun way to coax out your inner artist. You can choose to have an instructor provide you with a slight bit of guidance while working from a reference painting, and it is really interesting to see how your painting turns out so dramatically different than your neighbour's, purely from differences in your art style.

We chose a bright and fiery sky landscape as our reference painting, and these are some of the interpretations we generated in 2 hours. While I think all of the paintings my colleagues completed are pretty amazing considering few of them have ever painted before, the first one below is my favourite. It has these confident and assured strokes, bold and extremely bright colour, and a cohesiveness throughout in terms of style.













What do you guys think? Favourites?

Randomness: Judge Joe Brown vs. Judge Judy vs. Judge Dredd

I'm just going to spout off a bunch of random shiat tonight. First: The classic film 'Frankenhooker' (c. 1990) is screening this Friday at the Plaza, and they are giving away free condoms with the titular character on the packaging. See you there? Second: I recently thought of an awesome mashup movie - Judge Joe Brown vs. Judge Judy vs. Judge Dredd. Oh man, that would be a battle of the badassest - is that the proper superlative for 'badass'? - I AM THE LAW types! Third: When I try to text the word 'Cindy' on my phone, my fat fingers inevitably type 'Condy' which makes me laugh like a moron every time. What's wrong with me? Fourth: if a caucasian working husband is called a breadwinner, am I the 'rice winner'? Fifth: Is it wrong that I was kind of disappointed that the Oilers ended their chances for an 82 game losing streak by chalking up a win last night? Sixth: I asked Anita if she wanted to join me for a run tonight. Her response? "WHAAT?!! NOOOO!!" Ladies and Gents, meet my athlete wife.

Okay, enough of that. It's been a trying week for yours truly, and I can't string together anything more coherent than the above. Enjoy a couple random creepy weird photos I shot recently.

Hadouken-ing a Costco Bouncer

I spent an hour at Costco yesterday. Nothing unusual, right? Unless of course, you're spending that hour NOT buying 8kg tubs of Vaseline, but rather are angrily getting schooled by M. Bison, Sagat, et al on the Street Fighter II arcade console they have for sale. It was 4:30pm when I started playing (an hour before closing), and I had it in my mind that they were going to have to call security to remove me from the premises before I would give up on finishing the game. The bloodlust had taken hold of me, and I was NOT going to leave without seeing the end. Luckily it didn't come to blows, as I beat M. Bison with 5 minutes to spare, and the store was able to close without me getting arrested for Hadouken-ing a bouncer or two. They're lucky.

Anyways, check out some photos. These were shot in New York, with the Holga on Kodak Tri-X 400 film, developed in Rodinal 1:25. I was messing around with the Exposure 4 Lightroom Plugin, and added the faux wet plate border for fun. Purists will scoff, but I'll likely never actually get to shoot wet plates in real life, so this is as close to that effect as I'll get. The film borders are real, only the wet plate texture is simulated. Don't judge...






Single Exposure


Double Exposure



Speaking of Hadouken-ing people, at the top of my list right now are the folks at Rogers Wireless. BASTARDS. But that's a story for another night.

Rob and Andrea - October 2014

We had the pleasure of shooting some engagement shots out at Chester Lake last weekend. It was a perfect fall day to fool other hikers into thinking a famous couple was in the area being photographed. Thanks for having us as part of your shoot, Rob and Andrea, that was a really fun day!



















Enjoy your Thanksgiving weekend, folks! (US friends: replace 'Thanksgiving' with 'Columbus Day').

6 Years: _for all that you are_

The way you uncontrollably giggle at yourself after you do something silly. The way you sheepishly say 'oops' after you fart. That adorable way you stick your tongue out in guilt when you eat my portion of the ice cream. The way you run to me as if searching for your mom to hug you after doing something embarrassing. The way you struggle trying to say the word 'crisp', invariably uttering 'Crips' instead like a gang member. The way you get confused and flustered every time you are tasked with reading a map to find directions. The way you can't make the rolling R sound in words like "arrrrrriba", and end up sounding like you're clearing phlegm out of your throat.

After 6 years of marriage, these details about you have only gotten more adorable, and I look forward to seeing these play out across our adventures for the rest of our lives. Happy Anniversary Hun! I love you for all you that are.