Thursday, July 30, 2015

Portland 2015 - The Gang

I was hoping to do a thorough cull through of photos from LA and Portland tonight, but alas, I accomplished about as much as your average Canadian Senator does in a day. Which is to say, not much at all. But don't worry, Captain Steve isn't going to appoint anymore, what a hero*. But I digress... at least I was able to pick out a handful of shots of the gang that drove down to meet, eat, drink, and beach with us in PDX. I think we can all agree that Evelyn was the star of the show, the rest of us were just extras on her set. More photos to come... when I finally break out of this senator-ish torpor I've been trapped in for a couple weeks.

Taste of Portland-4

Taste of Portland-3

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Taste of Portland-2

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All photos taken inside Dan & Louis' Oyster Bar, where we went for happy hour oysters.

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A rather ugly plating job of oysters with a sort of DIY cocktail sauce (a dollop of ketchup dropped over some horseradish). But the oysters were dee-lish, so I guess I can't complaint too much.


*Captain Steve is not a hero, in case you missed the sarcasm. He's a "See You Next Tuesday". End sidebar.

Monday, July 27, 2015

The Tasty Taste of Edmonton

At some point, I will get around to posting photos from LA and Portland, wherein we ate and drank to excess. But until then, here are a handful of test shots fired through a new to me Pentax ME SLR this weekend at the Taste of Edmonton (acronym: TOE... mmmm mmmm, tasty TOE). Paired with a wide angle 28mm f/2.8 lens, I was getting all up in people's faces for these. The next time I see you dear readers, I'm sure I'll try to do the same with your mugs as well, and you'll probably want to punch me in the throat. Which is completely fair. An artist must be willing to sacrifice his face, for his art.

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I can't remember what animal this carpaccio dish was made of, but it was pretty good.

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As per regular protocol, she will not be pleased that I posted this. :)

All photos shot on Kodak Portra 400.

Tuesday, July 21, 2015

Unique Cultural Experiences: Sumo and クジラ (kujira)

It's only been six months since we were in Japan, but it feels like a much more distant memory. While in Tokyo, we partook in two unique cultural experiences there: a Sumo tournament, and a meal of クジラ (kujira). Without googling kujira, check out the photos of the meat below, and try to guess what animal it is from. Answers at the bottom.

We bought the cheapest Sumo tickets available (literally, the farthest row back in the nosebleeds), but it was still a blast. Your ticket entitles you to freely roam as you like for the duration of the day, and the drunken Aussies sitting next to us had clearly been there all day crushing bottles of Kirin and Asahi like water. Entertaining! And with the aid of Anita's binoculars, we were quite surprised to see some top tier sumo wrestlers competing that day were in fact caucasian.

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Typical match would last maybe a few seconds. The longest one we saw lasted just shy of a minute, but most averaged much shorter.

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The ceremony and tradition in between matches and tiers of Sumo wrestlers was much longer than each match, but also very interesting.

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Still unsure as to what animal? That was a meal of whale, served both cooked (bbq steak), and sashimi style (body, and tail). Yes, Anita and I fully understand the controversial nature of Japan's whaling exploits... if it offends you, then you'll be even more upset to know that it tasted absolutely delicious! While I don't agree with Japan's whaling practices, my interest in strange food trumped my environmental concerns. We're all hypocrites and walking contradictions to some degree.

And below are a few film shots from this same day. All taken with the Kiev 88CM on Kodak Tri-X 400, developed in Rodinal 1+24 for 7:00min @ 68 deg. F.

Sumo and Kujira adventures-1

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The Tokyo Skytree, as seen from a street in the Kappabashi area (kitchen town!) of Tokyo.

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Wednesday, July 15, 2015

A sucker for all things camera

And in another episode of "More proof that George is a SUCKER for all things camera", see exhibit 327: A vintage camera themed stationery holder. I don't actually need this, but that didn't stop me from spending 15 bucks on it (in USD too, so close to a million CDN at our current exchange rate). What do you think? Cool? Stupid? or maybe, 'where do I get me one of those?'...

A sucker for all things camera

In case you're a camera enslaved sheep like me, you can get your very own here.

Monday, July 13, 2015

Rob and Andrea's Wedding

It's been a while since I last posted anything. Mostly because I spent every waking hour frantically trying to finish processing this wedding before we went on vacation.

Here are some shots from Rob and Andrea's big day that Dean and I shot. I hadn't photographed a wedding for a couple years, and after doing this one, I was sharply reminded of why I avoid doing them - because they are stressful as frick, and I'm just crap at shooting them. While I do like how the images turned out from this day, it still resulted in a stressful couple weeks of self doubt and worry that I may have ruined my friends' wedding.

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Rob and Andrea - Wedding-1

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Notes on shooting this day - I managed to 1) piss off the wedding officiant, 2) accidentally toggle my full frame camera into 1.2x crop mode for the most important parts of the ceremony, and 3) run out of batteries in my speed light right as the bride and groom were kissing for the first time as newlyweds. *Amateur at work! But also some important lessons learned, so it's not all bad!

And because I have ZERO design skills, I thought I'd share my pathetic first attempts at Team Groom and Team Bride signs, chalkboard style.

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Rob and Andrea - Wedding-21