Life Drawing - Harcourt House - Mar. 7/12

Life Drawing. Harcourt House. Edmonton. Nuff Said. Actually, no wait. The session was interesting in that the first half was filled was terrible country music in which every song but one was about drinking whiskey. And then after the break, they put on a folksy CD in which Dean and I quietly commented on the grade 7-ish lyrics. Then another dude declares aloud to the rest of the class "This music SUCKS." To which the session's organizer replies (after giving him the stink eye for a few seconds), "Well you're drawing the singer." Ooops.

Click to see Dean's sketches here.














Pentel Pocket Brush, Copic Markers, White Chalk Pastel, and Conte Crayons.

Kodak Discontinues Colour Reversal Film Stocks

So Kodak has discontinued production of their remaining 3 colour reversal (slide) films as of yesterday. Seems like every day, there is some announcement of the demise of yet another treasured film product. One could almost make a drinking game of it: pound back a scotch neat every time Kodak discontinues a film stock. At least you'd drown your sorrows from the news at the same time.

While the last remaining E6 (slide film) processing lab in Calgary shuttered that part of it's operations last year, this news still makes me sad knowing that I only have limited stocks of the E100 series of Kodak slides left that I could cross process. I had some fun results with these films over the past couple years. They will be missed.

And yes, you know you're an old luddite with no life when you're at home on a Friday night lamenting the death of analog.

The Elusive White Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 Lens

A few years back, Nikon decided that Canon had it all figured out - White was the new Black. And so they put out this beautiful limited edition white Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 lens. So naturally, I lost my mind and had to snap it up when I finally saw one for sale.









Except... mine's just a thermos.



Fooled ya! :)

Octopustew

Anita and I were surprised to find a whole frozen octopus at the local Walmart Supercentre (yes, I'm sorry, we actually went shopping at the evil empire). So off we went, in search of a recipe that would make use of this frozen tentacled beast. And while preparing the octopus was a slimy and slightly gross affair, the end result was a delicious stew of whiskey fired octopus and potatoes in a tomato and white wine base.














Octopus Stew

Ingredients

2 lbs Octopus
3 tbsp Olive Oil
1 Red Onion, chopped
3 Cloves Garlic - finely chopped
2 tbsp Whiskey
300ml White Wine
2 x 14 oz cans Chopped Tomatoes
1 Chilli Pepper, seeded and chopped
1/4 tsp Paprika
1 lb Nugget Potatoes
Thyme, Rosemary to taste
4 cups Chicken or Fish Stock
Salt and Pepper, to Taste

Method

-Cut Octopus into large chunks, cover with water in pot, and bring to boil. Lower heat and simmer for 45 minutes to tenderize Octopus. Drain and cut into bit sized chunks.
-Heat oil in large pan. Fry onion lightly, add garlic, then add octopus and fry for 2 minutes.
-Pour Whiskey over octopus and ignite. When flames die down, add wine and bring to boil. Simmer gently for 5 minutes.
-Stir in chopped tomatoes, chilli, paprika, potatoes, thyme and rosemary. Simmer another 5 minutes.
-Add chicken stock, season with salt and pepper, then simmer for 20-30 minutes, stirring occasionally.
-Serve with bread.

Bon Appetit!

Life Drawing at Sandy Hill

Another life drawing session at Sandy Hill Community Centre in Ottawa. I bought a set of conte crayons while we were in Asia, so broke those out for the first time. Hadn't played with conte in about 15 years, so was mildly surprised by how much fun they were to work with. The top 4 pages were 20 - 30 minute sketches, while the bottom 3 pages were 90 second gesture drawings.

Ottawa by night

Back from a couple days riding the not so fresh snow at Sunshine and Lake Louise. I'm sore, but not nearly as bad as I expected, considering I have the physical fitness of a 73 year old... I guess it was good to take it easy towards the end of our second day. You know, that time when your mind is saying "ONE MORE MOGULS RUN", but your legs are saying, "FUUUUCK YOU!!"

Currently, I'm in Ottawa, tickled pink by the fact that the Sheraton has finally joined the ranks of 2006 (ie: that time when every OTHER hotel chain offered complimentary in-room wifi). Went for a short stroll tonight and snapped a few shots with the iPhone (first time in years I'm not travelling with a real camera). Enjoy.

Published!

A couple years ago, I took part in a United Way affiliated project in which we were tasked with learning about, and examining, poverty within our community. And as a final output of that, we were to present what we learned through photos. This was a gratifying experience in terms of personal learning of an issue close to my heart. But today, when I was informed that one of my photos from that project was 'published' in the Calgary Journal, a local online paper with several printed editions a month, I was so excited in that smug, vainglorious, "I can't believe something of mine got chosen for inclusion in a publication" sort of way, that I almost crapped my pants. But I think the excessive consumption of granola cereal this morning might have had something to do with the latter as well. Damn you, fibre-licious cereal!!

Anyways, back to the point. If you're interested, you can read the entire article here. And if you don't feel like reading about poverty initiatives in Calgary, you can just scroll down the page to see the photo with the credit underneath that was partially the cause of my pants crapping near-miss!

Lastly, the photo itself was taken at 'Cash Corner', a local hangout for folks seeking to do short term manual labour for cash. These three fellows were all seeking cash jobs for the day (doing whatever labour was in demand), and were either currently homeless, and/ or had spent time in homeless shelters. It was an eye opening experience chatting with them to learn about the myriad issues they faced in a life often spent at the edge of poverty...

Adventures in Fooding - Taipei

Anita and I are proud of the fact that we can stomach (literally and figuratively) a much broader range of 'food' than our North American peers, and so we take photos of some of the more exotic or interesting fooling adventures we've been on. Here's a quick set from our adventures in Taiwan. Every once in a while, even we find something so unappetizing or appallingly unsanitary that we won't eat them. The first photo in this series is one of those cases. Really, who DOESN'T want to eat a yummy pork snout hanging a foot off the ground, unrefrigerated on a table in the street exposed to the splashing of puddles from passing vehicles. Did I mention this was literally on the street? There were no sidewalks. Yum.

A Certain Aesthetic

I noticed a certain theme tonight in many of my photographs - I am quite drawn to symmetry and the images of looking at the road ahead or the path forward. Images like these really speak to me both aesthetically, as well as symbolically in the sense that Anita and I are constantly looking towards the next adventure up ahead.

Back and Jetlagged

So we got in last night at 2am after a 3 week adventure in Taiwan and Hong Kong, where I had the opportunity to go on an evening photo walk with a group of amazing street photographers. Unfortunately, after having seen some of the mind-blowing results they got from that evening, I'm now dreading seeing my film once I get it developed, cause I know they'll be complete shite in comparison.

Anyways, I bought a couple of portable LED lamps on the cheap from somewhere in Sham Sui Bo in Hong Kong, and wanted to test them out. I rarely do self portraits cause I hate how vain they make me feel. But Anita isn't a willing model at the best of times, and she's jet lagged like a mofo, so you get two shots of me instead.

Set up: overhead soft lamp, dimmed. LED with barn doors to camera left. Second LED behind subject, elevated and to camera right. Shot with a Nikon D300 and Voigtlander 58mm f/1.4 Nokton lens.





Stay tuned for some vacay photos soon.