A couple of my favourite photos after last Sunday’s Pride Parade. I didn’t actually take that many of the parade itself because we were initially waiting on Church Street and apparently the organisers had changed the route! By the time we got wind of that, the parade had already begun and we were unable to get to the front of the crowd. Plus, I am short!

(One saucy photo after the jump. The rest are still on my computer.)

Continue reading ‘Toronto Pride 2008′

On account of my knackered body and peeling face from Sunburn Sunday, the furthest I ventured away from home yesterday was 10 minutes’ walk to the beach to see if I could get some shots of the fireworks. I did make a separate trip to Vincent Sushi for a roll and miso soup, but it’s a couple of minutes closer than the beach.

Once I arrived at the beach with equipment in tow, I discovered that not only did I forget the mounting plate for Garry’s tripod at home, but also my spare batteries… GRRR! I got only a few shots before the batteries depleted for good, this being one of them.

Thankfully this mostly fruitless trip was a short one, with perfect weather and a pleasant lake shore ambience beside the Palais Royale.

Continue reading ‘Canada Day Fireworks’

I first heard Toronto’s Zaki Ibrahim perform this song on Q’s Canada Day broadcast yesterday from Canada House with Jian Ghomeshi in Trafalgar Square, London. I loved her voice and had to look her up!

Born in Vancouver to a South African father and Scottish/English/Welsh mother (very much a Canadian story right there), Zaki has a very interesting urban sound with African influences.

Website: http://www.zakiibrahim.com/
Last.FM profile: http://www.last.fm/music/Zaki+Ibrahim

The YouTube clip above is from a recent performance at HMV in Toronto to promote her newly released album, Eclectica (Episodes in Purple). There are more of Zaki’s songs available on YouTube from that set, plus video previews.

Check her out!

While I was digging around for the photo in the previous post, I came across this one that hadn’t been uploaded and was reminded of the dimple story, which I told recently.

It all started because Nadja complimented me on my dimple, and I told her it was fake. Fake as in artificial, as in I wasn’t born with it; however, I didn’t create it, either!

I’m not sure how old I was, maybe around 10, possibly younger. We were still living in Winnipeg, and we were often at our cousins’ house or across the street at another house of distant relatives. We looked forward to those visits — there were always lots of kids to play with.

Growing up with two brothers, I was used to playing rough. In those days the theatrics of the WWF* was relatively tame, and we’d try and mimic some of the moves. I recall being punched in the stomach and having the wind knocked out of me to the point where I didn’t want to play WWF anymore. It was about that time when we were goofing around in the kitchen of the distant relatives, and Allan wanted to show off to the rest of the cousins. He put his hands on my shoulders and shook me so hard my face slammed into a heavy wooden kitchen chair.

I remember it hurt like the dickens, even after icing and many horrified apologies. The bruising and bleeding healed over quickly, but the tissue stuck permanently to the bone, creating a dimple of sorts that remains to this day. I would’ve thought the lack of symmetry and a higher-than-average position on my face would twig people to ask if it were “real”, but no one has.

And although it makes my brother look like a meanie, it also makes for a good story, especially to my five nieces and nephews!

* When we were really young, my father even took the three of us to see the WWF live! My mother went ballistic. Thinking back, I don’t know how he got away with it.

[April 26, Passion Lounge, Toronto - The Exiled Party for JEAR]

I went to bed (relatively) early last night because I was still wiped out from the nonstop weekend, and as a result woke up (un)naturally early this morning. ‘Why not catch a couple more hours?’ I thought to myself, since I had the chance and didn’t know when I’d get this chance again.

OW! In those two hours of sleep, I somehow managed to do something to the right side of my neck and now I can barely move it, and a cramp attacked my right calf. When I slowly crawled out of bed I was hobbling like an elderly person making a lunge for her Zimmer frame, half wishing for a neck brace to magically appear out of the ether.

What happened?!?! Age, that’s what. I haven’t been 36 for two weeks and already the right side of my body is starting to fail me. I haven’t even mentioned yet the thumb joint problem I started having on my second day in Norway. I don’t understand it — all my work is on the computer and I can see developing problems after days of intensive mousing, but I was on holiday and spent very little time with a keyboard and mouse. It originally felt like a dislocation but the pain eventually subsided by the end of that week. The area where the thumb meets the palm doesn’t feel right yet and I’m beginning to wonder if it ever will. Is it all downhill from here???

During last Saturday’s engagement session I was shooting on my knees, on the ground, hanging from railings, and standing on a 7-ft ladder. Perhaps (more) insurance is in order.

Canada is 141 years old today, and going stronger than ever. At 36, hopefully these minor ailments won’t take over and I will be going strong again, too!

Yesterday’s lesson in umbrella-twirling motion blur:

I asked the lovely Erin to pose with her umbrella and twirl it so I could get the motion blur. I was trying to get the shutter speed down low enough for the blur and aperture high enough to expose her face properly, but I hadn’t manually set my ISO (it maxes out at 3200) which resulted in a whitewash… until Aubrey mentioned it. Also, I hadn’t stopped down far enough. So there you go, that’s why I like to shoot with other people — especially on a Sunday morning, when I’m operating on 54% brain power.

The other thing I would’ve done is moved her forward a bit to have only the brick wall in the background. If I were truly a perfectionist I would have directed her properly to lock the focus or used a tripod. I would also clone out that piece of wood in the corner. Thank goodness I’m not a perfectionist (when photowalking), I’d be terribly annoying and nobody would want to go shooting with me.

Another post on the fly…

My 2GB memory card saw some major action today: cows, pigs, turkeys, snails, ponds, flowers, a cemetery, scantily clad bodies, a helicopter, wings, crowd, a pug-beagle dog, transvestites, and all manner of things in between. Between last night and today (shooting from 9am to about 7pm), I took about half the number of photos I average in a month!

Picture above: the TD float guys putting on sunscreen before their turn in the annual Pride Parade. Reflection in Aubrey’s sunglasses has a bit of my arm and Jose as well.

I got a little sunburnt today.

I shot an engagement session on Saturday night, and while I was waiting for my couple to arrive, I observed another photo shoot going on right in front of me — a wedding that probably took place at St. James’ Cathedral.

Wedding season is in full summer swing!

The engagement session went really well, I think. I got to practice my directing skills, photography skills, and creativity with people I’d never met before, and the couple were playful and loving in front of the camera. All in all, everyone went home happy at 2am…

… and in a few hours I’m going to wake up early and shoot some more! (I don’t get out of bed this early on a weekend for anything but my biggest hobbies.) This time with a photographer I’d met while taking photos at the International Day of Dance.

It’s probably a good day to leave Toronto — all this humidity turned into summer downpour!

I saw Ruth, from Ireland, off at the train station this morning. I hosted Ruth for two days, and she’s making her way west to Vancouver and all around the U.S. by rail. She’s a lovely girl, I hope to see her in Ireland sometime! She’s also a fan of rail travel, and has inspired me to dig through my archives of Cuba and resurrect the videoclips of my journey on the Hershey Train from Matanzas to Havana — which I have never posted. If you’re a rail traveller, too, watch this space.