Making me cRaZy.

Making me cRaZy

Sometimes self portraiture can be a wonderful way to redirect my negative feelings into creativity, and in the process, help disolve them. I took the above photo last week after a very stressful day where nothing seemed to be going right. It was very therapeutic to make faces at the camera, trying to convey what I’d been going through all day. I had to laugh at myself for getting so worked up. In the end I felt much better AND I created a diptych matching my funny expression with the tiny part that had been a source of much of my frustration.

Travis sent me this and for awhile now I’ve been meaning to post a link to the work of Chema Madoz. He does beautiful set ups of objects in clever and playful ways, all shot in black & white. There is a good selection of his photos on haha.nu that I’d recommend checking out first.

People and their things

Jess Marshall Ivan prefers paper Luke Closs

This weekend I’m attending Vancouver’s blogging conference, Northern Voice, and photographing the event on behalf of Foo Associates.

One of the projects I decided to work on during yesterday’s Moosecamp, was taking portraits of the attendees, photographing their equipment in a separate frame and then combining these two shots later into a diptych. The full set of the series so far can be found in the Foo Associates photo stream on Flickr. I’m hoping to do more of this today, depending on whether the conference schedule allows.

Hendrik was framed

For the past few days I had been spending the long weekend away at a rented cottage on Salt Spring Island with Hendrik. We had a wonderful time exploring, relaxing, and just hanging out. The weather was mostly good on Saturday, and our walks on Mount Maxwell and then later in Ruckle Park were well timed to be rain-free. Both places have stunning, wide-angle views – Mount Maxwell overlooking part of the island, and Ruckle Park along the water. I’m hoping to do another trip to Salt Spring, this time in the summer because I’d really love to visit artist studios and the famous Artist Market.

Prayer position

Kristi

Ten good things from this week:
1) Booking a getaway to somewhere I’ve been wanting to go for a long time. I’m very excited.
2) Seeing all the colourful leaves on the trees as we drove to and from the ferry on the island last weekend.
3) Catching up with Simone and Jacquie over dessert at Sweet Obsessions.
4) Wandering around at lunchtime with Christopher, freezing our behinds off as we searched for a hotdog vendor to feed us. The delicious Japadog was our reward.
5) Listening to the heavy rainfall outside my window as I lay in bed reading a good book.
6) Calling Hendrik at home and the humour of neither of us recognizing the other’s voice. The funniest part about it was that we’d talked as recently as that morning.
7) Going through my stuff and selecting all the photos, papers, and random bits and bobs I may use in the workshop I’m taking this evening.
8) Finding in my closet a brand new shirt I’d forgotten I had recently purchased, and wearing it with pleasure.
9) Fighting my Wednesday afternoon lethargy, with a long walk, a workout and then a twenty minute nap.
10) Enjoying (what seemed like) a bottomless bowl of thai yellow curry for dinner with Mandy.

Woodland elf

Woodland elf

This weekend I was away on the second annual Travis Smith birthday sleep-over extravaganza on Vancouver Island. As I reminisced about last year’s event I was reminded of this photo, featuring Noriko as a woodland elf with giant leaf. It was the first time I met her and Jason, and they have since relocated to Toronto. When I think about this and other more personal things, I am amazed by how much can happen and change in one year…

Thinking

Thinking

He may look like he was contemplating the meaning of life, but really he was staring out the car window at coal processing machinery of the Westshore terminals.

A touch of glamour

Yesterday I realized I’m much more comfortable shooting on film than with digital, which is funny because I know exactly what I’m getting when I shoot with a digital camera. Or at least that’s the way it’s supposed to be. I think what this is actually about is knowing the camera I’m shooting with and having confidence in getting the results I want because of that knowledge.

The above shot was taken in a home studio setting, with a Canon Powershot G6. It was one of those rare times that I took a portrait with the idea of giving it a certain look with photoshop post-processing.