A Year in Photos - Bring It On 'Oh Sixteen'

Well, it's officially the last day of the year. And using conventional rounding rules, I'm now closer to age 40 than 30. But with my creaky bad back, I'm physically closer to 80 than 40. Anyways, I had intended to curate a more interesting selection of photos shot over the past year, but alas, time runneth short, so this is a quick set I slapped together. Here's wishing you all a happy new year, and all the best in "Oh Sixteen".


The above mosaic includes polaroids, toy cameras, film cameras, travel (Japan, Spain, Singapore), scrambles in the mountains, weddings, photobooths, student portraits, friend portraits, concerts, and of course, food. Which pretty much accurately describes my entire year.

Previous annual mosaics: 2014 | 2013 | 2012 | 2011 | 2010 | 2009

La Sagrada Familia Papercraft

I've squandered away this holiday weekend doing nothing productive. Fortunately, the internet memes remind me that there's only 363 days left till Christmas... my sole accomplishment thus far has been to arts and craft together a papercraft model of La Sagrada Familia, one of the architectural gems of Gaudi's Barcelona. While the actual Sagrada has been in construction for over a hundred years and counting, this Game of Thrones-ish papercraft model took a marginally shorter time (about 2 hours) to cut out and glue together. And I only crazy glued my fingers together once. Skill level: "Not Quite Ninja Master"


All the towers and spires remind me of the Game of Thrones opening sequence.


There's nothing to reference scale here, but the entire thing is only 1" x 2" x 1", so cutting out the detailed spires in each of the multiple layers was a tedious exercise in patience.









The architecture (inside and out) of this cathedral is incredibly modern and fantastical even today, despite the initial design dating back to the late 1800's. When Anita and I first saw it during our honeymoon 7 years ago, the interior was still largely hidden behind scaffolding and other construction material, so we were rather tickled that our second visit yielded a completed interior. It is spacious, bright, and unlike any church you've ever visited.










The beautiful stained glass aglow in the mid-afternoon sun.

Gift Idea for the Frugal Photographer - Phototransfers

With only thirteen beers left in your advent calendar to drink, it may have suddenly dawned on you that there are less than 2 weeks to Christmas. Queue the mass gift shopping panic! Fortunately, frugal photographer Mach has your back, and I've got a great little photo gift idea for you that is cheap, creative, and crafty. So sit back, grab a beer, and welcome to my little tutorial on Phototransfers.

The end result will be a unique (and likely aged looking) print of your photo on whatever surface you choose. In this case, I chose tin foil, although the technique will also work with many other waterproof materials such as wood, hardboard, or even tile.




The Materials


The materials list is what you see above, plus a sponge which I forgot to include in the photo.

- an exacto knife (or scissors)
- a ruler
- a print to transfer*
- cardboard
- tin foil
- scotch tape
- acrylic gel medium**
- small foam brush
- beer (optional)

*The Print to be transferred: Ideally, your print should be toner based, so something that came off of a laser printer, or a photocopier. An inkjet print doesn't work well. So if you have a photo you really like, get it printed and photocopy it, and that will serve as your print to transfer. If you can, you should also flip the image horizontally, or else you it will transfer backwards onto your surface. This is fine for most things, but any words or text will obviously be backwards.

**Acrylic Gel Medium: You can get this at Michael's or any local art store. I bought a small 8oz bottle of Liquitex Gloss Heavy Gel Medium. This would be sufficient easily for 50+ prints, by which time you will have bored of this technique. So no need to buy a huge bottle. Unless you want to huff it to get high. Then buy whatever size you require. Disclaimer: I don't condone this.


The Process

1) Use the exacto knife and ruler to cut your final print to the size you want. Doctor's note: cutting your fingers may be deleterious to your health.

2) Cut a piece of cardboard (flat, with no folds or bends) to the same size. Previous Doctor's note applies.

3) Wrap the carboard with tin foil, as if wrapping the most precious of X-mas gifts. You want as flat and smooth of a tin foiled surface as possible to work with. Tape down excess foil onto back side. Pretend you are trying to impress your significant other with your mad wrapping skillz.

4) Use the foam brush to apply an even layer of the gel medium to fully coat one side of the tin foiled cardboard as per photo below:


You don't want to be cheap here with the gel. Apply a healthy dose, and spread it as evenly as possible. Like you're icing a cake. Or mudding drywall. It should be fairly smooth. Too much coffee, or beer from your advent calendar, may be detrimental to this step.

5) Place your print (face side down) onto the tin foiled cardboard. Smooth out any air bubbles, and flatten the print to ensure complete contact between the print and the gel. Try to avoid getting any gel onto the back of your print. Or your hair, or all over your table. Your significant other will be impressed by your wrapping skillz, only to be irritated by the sticky mess you left behind.

6) Allow the print+gel surface to set for at least half an hour. Patience is a virtue. Grab a beer. Drink said beer. Who says patience doesn't have a pay off?

7) Once the print+gel has dried/ set onto the tinfoil, dampen a sponge, and begin gently soaking the back of the paper print. I start with a small area and allow the paper to soak up some of the water from the sponge. Then gently rub in circles (use your finger if you want to be more delicate and gentle) to wear away the moistened paper, to reveal the transferred print underneath, as per photos below:







Tips for success: the more even you spread your gel, the longer you allow your print to set, and the gentler you are with the sponge, the higher degree of success you will have. I did this tutorial hastily (only one beer was consumed in the drying stage), so the image did not transfer as well as I would have liked, but the gritty imperfect result sort of works with the image. You can see my previous attempts to transfer photos to other surfaces here - MDF and wood and foil.

Good luck, and here's hoping you have some fun while creating one of a kind prints to give away.

70mm Holga - Centre Street Bridge

While the Holga factory has ceased operations, many snobby photographers are scoffing and exclaiming good riddance. But to me, the closing of this iconic manufacturer of an admittedly crappy all plastic toy camera is rather sad. Because for all its inherent flaws and limitations, those very same limitations force you to think a bit more creatively when shooting photos, which is never a bad thing. The lo-fi results are hit and miss, but when you utilize it to its strengths, you can get some pretty interesting results.

These shots of the Centre Street Bridge (one of my favourite things to waste film on in Calgary), were captured yesterday with the Holga 120N, with 2 overlapping 35mm rolls of Fuji Neopan 400, spooled onto a 120 take up spool. Could I achieve similar results in Photoshop? Sure. Would it be nearly as interesting, challenging, or fun? Not even close.

Deliciously Hot, or a Hot Mess

I'm currently in the middle of baking some sriracha peanut butter cookies... and they're either going to be deliciously hot, or just like these photos, will end up being just a jumbled hot mess. I'm thinking the latter is more likely...

Update: The cookies turned out okay. But I'm so desensitized to heat that I can't tell if I put in enough Sriracha or not. The guinea pigs tomorrow could be in for a little surprise... photos of the cookies at bottom.

Photos taken in Berlin, Munich, and Salzburg using the Holga 120N on a combination of super expired Kodak Tri-X 400 and Fuji Neopan 400 films.


The old town hall in Munich.


Top: Munich. Mid: Berlin. Bottom: Salzburg.






The East Side Gallery: A mural featuring two Communist dudes (Leonid Brezhnev and Eric Honecher) making out.

The Great Cultural Appropriation Debate

You may have heard about the University of Ottawa cancelling yoga classes earlier this week because apparently, Starbucks loving white folks practicing yoga may be considered culturally insensitive. Now I’m not a Hindu, so I can’t speak for how they feel about this, but being a person of colour living in a predominantly western society that has incorporated so many great cultural practices into its fabric, this is my take:

White folks practicing yoga is as much cultural appropriation as those same said white folks ordering take out Chinese food. (ie: It’s not; pull that political correctness stick out of your ass and get over yourselves).

The argument that western folks practicing yoga is ‘cultural appropriation’ stems partly from the fact that many yogis are skinny white girls in overpriced Lululemon pants that don’t understand the historical and spiritual significance of Yoga as a practice. And of course, there are the broader historical issues of centuries of racist subjugation and western colonialism. Obviously, I’ve dumbed down the argument for brevity, but I do get it.

But if our expectation is that in order to enjoy something, one must always learn the history and cultural context of it, and kowtow for all the past transgressions of our forebears, then you’d better get yourself some “Confucius says” and “Chinese History for dummies” books and get learnt, before you go for your next fill of General Tao’s Chicken or Shang Tsung Kung Pao Fried Rice. Because I hate to break it to you - there is NO historical Asian General, surnamed Tao, that had some secret chicken recipe that has mysteriously been passed down from generation to generation, ending up in your local faux Chinese take out haunt. So if you're white, and enjoy General Tao’s Chicken (whatever the frick that is), YOU’RE being culturally insensitive, assuming you subscribe to this strange measuring stick for what cultural appropriation is. (Also, Shang Tsung Kung Pao Fried Rice doesn’t exist, unless they’ve made a Mortal Kombat Kookbook I haven’t heard of).

I’m not saying we shouldn’t be culturally aware when we adopt practices from others. I’m saying that in our quest to be culturally sensitive, we also need to be a little bit pragmatic in picking our battles. If you’re going to do something that stems from another culture, be respectful of it, and that’s good enough. I don't mind if you get a Chinese character tattooed on your back, just make sure it doesn’t say “I like Opium” or "Nice railroad".

Cancelling ‘white people yoga’ because you think it’s culturally insensitive, is in and of itself insensitive - you are appropriating precious airtime, when there are far bigger issues facing the world today than your ‘white privilege I’m offended by everything’ attitude. If you really want to demonstrate your cultural sensitivity, do something to stop the spread of Islamophobia and the vitriol coming out of so many here at home. Maybe tell those folks to chill out and take a yoga class or something. Just sayin'...

Alright, queue the hate mail. It’s Friday, I’m not at work, and I’m ready to fight.

Photographing the Pupils, part IX

The day after flying home, we went straight back to work (to conserve our precious vacation time), and then I was teaching classes that same evening. You know that saying about being so familiar with something that you could do it in your sleep? Yeah, that was literally me that first class, as the jet lag set in.

These are portraits of my latest three students who sat for me.
















And me, taken by one of my students.

All photos taken with the Hasselblad 500CM and Planar 80mm f/2.8 on Kodak Tri-X 400. Developed in rodinal 1+24 for 7:00min at 68 deg. F.