300mph Getaway Machine

Posted on March 4, 2009 by Gabriel

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This is just further proof being a reporter is the coolest job in the universe. I took this shot at a press-only event at the National Capital Air Show, I could feel the heat from Les Shockley’s Shockwave Jet Truck wash over me like I was standing on a giant Zippo lighter. I also got to hang out next to the 60-feet tall Truckasaurus… while it ripped a car apart and set it on fire. Best. Job. Ever.

Technical Stuff: This was mostly an accident. We kind of knew what was going to happen when he started the truck… the three giant jet engines attached to the back of the truck were our first clue. So I aimed my Minolta, framed the shot and allowed the automatic settings to set. Then the flames shot out and up, and the light meter must have just spiked without resetting the f-stop and voilà… one underexposed print of what appears to be someone walking through the burning oilfields of Iraq at the end of the 1991 war. It’s my understanding this is also the technique James Nachtwey uses.

After college a bunch of my friends got jobs at the daily newspapers in Ottawa, while I went to a locally based small-n national technology monthly. After only six weeks just a handful were still working at the dailies, and only two of them were actually reporting. Meanwhile I was on Parliament Hill once a month meeting with Ministers; I hung out backstage when the Ottawa Landmine Ban Treaty was signed; then I got to hang out with the Jet Truck, Truckasauraus and watch the Stealth Bomber do a flyby. I also published ten times more copy than anyone else. Of course my friends made three to four times the money I did… so, yeah, basically I’d trade most of those experiences for a decent couch.

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Posted in Favourites, From My Wall, News, Photography, Pre 2004 | 1 Comment

Clint Eastwood

Posted on February 17, 2009 by Gabriel

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That’s the bookstore I used to to disappear into while waiting for my movie to start when I was living in Toronto. I think, in three years, I bought one book there… “Mockingbird” by Walter Tevis. It’s been my favourite book since high school. It’s an award winning novel, but for some reason it’s very rare. So when I found it in Toronto I was ecstatic… yes, it’s that good.

Technical Stuff: That’s not actually Clint. It’s a blog-friend of mine I hung out with for a day while I was in the city for my brothers wedding. The book thing was her idea, I also have one of her being Andy Warhol that’s not nearly as cool. It was fun having a willing subject for a few hours, I also have some great shots of her in front of the CN Tower and on an escalator… this was with the digital C533. I love the clarity of the background and the light on her jacket.

I think it was three or six months after I loaned Mockingbird out to someone when I remembered I had loaned my favourite book to someone and then forgotten who they were. Looking back I’m pretty sure it was to the exceptionally hot daughter of a really hot friend of mine. But you’d think I’d remember something like that. If anyone has a copy I’ll pay for shipping… and if you’re anyone’s hot daughter and interested in science fiction novels about the importance of a literate society I’ll totally pay for dinner*.

*Interest in science fiction is so not a prerequisite.

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Posted in Favourites, Friends, From My Wall, Photography | 5 Comments

Afternoon Delight

Posted on January 25, 2009 by Gabriel

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I think I was fourteen when my mother turned off the TV, turned to me and asked if I knew what sex was. Of course I did, I told her. And I did, by then I had been taking correspondence lessons from Larry Flynt and Bob Guccione for a couple of years. She actually used the phrase “birds and the bees”, as in “that’s why birds do it, bees do it… even educated fleas do it”. But I think she was being ironic. She’s cool like that… hey, check it out, so am I.

Technical Stuff: Taken with my Kodak C533 pocket digital. You can totally see the wings… fuck yeah. The people who designed my pocket digital gave it a viewfinder, even though just below it is a 1.8″ LCD screen, but they couldn’t set aside 30k of memory to allow my camera to hold focus without my finger on the trigger. I’ve said it before and I’ll keep saying it, creating a camera without a fixed focus option is the work of people who hate all life. I wouldn’t be surprised if their next generation of work skipped all the in between ‘almost evil’ stuff and just injects diabetes into people.

Cole Porter wrote his song about birds, bees and educated fleas having sex way back in 1928… and people like Barry White, Rod Stewart, Justin Timberlake and Prince have been ripping him off ever since. Cole’s song titles include “Love For Sale”, “After You, Who?”, “Anything Goes”, “My Heart Belongs to Daddy”, and “Mind if I Make Love to You?”. Check out his discography sometime, Cole was a bit of a pervert.

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Posted in Animals, Favourites, From My Wall, Nature, Photography, Vankleek Hill Photos | 1 Comment

Self Portraits I Can Barely Tolerate 005

Posted on January 7, 2009 by Gabriel

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No, I’m not asking for a date. This is me saying goodbye to one of my molars. I was supposed to have one pulled a few minutes from when I took this photo, the general concept was I’d take an after shot with a gaping, bloody hole in my mouth then put them together and… I don’t know, try and make people vomit I guess.

Technical Stuff: It’s the two-tone background that makes this photo cool. I’ve never really liked fluorescent lighting… but I don’t think I’ve taken the time to really shoot with it. Fluorescent light is actually green, standard bulbs are a nice warm yellow. Take a photo at an event where you can’t use flash, and have to rely on the standard high school issue lighting and your colour photos will come out with a sickly green tint. But for some reason, every once in a while, I take a shot using fluorescent lighting and it comes out with a very cool, very stark white look.

So, while I was in the dentist chair waiting for my gums to go numb, I decided I wanted to keep the tooth. It had been infected, and painful, but after a week of antibiotics the inflammation went away and the tooth settled back where it should have been. The dentist — who is spectacularly hot — was a little surprised but was cool with the decision. I had lost three already in 2007/08 and was fed up with the new holes in my face. It’ll have to come out eventually, but not yet… sigh, “that’s what he said”.

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Posted in Experiments, Photography, Self Portraits, Vankleek Hill Photos | 1 Comment

Merry Christmas From My Little Pussy

Posted on December 26, 2008 by Gabriel

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My favourite Christmas moments are mostly a collection of memories of having fantastic sex with my girlfriend on my parents’ living room floor, couch, kitchen counter and staircase while my family were at mass on Christmas Eve. But those photos are kind of blurry and the composition is a little hurried, so I don’t feel right about posting them here (I kid). So, instead, this is Maytag.

Technical Stuff: Taking naked photos of someone you love is never a good idea. The first time I/we did it was in the pre-digital age so I used colour film, which meant someone at the photo place got to see my naked girlfriend… the second time was with Polaroids, which were insanely expensive and the quality was limited. But my objections aren’t over quality, it’s about respect… unless you, like a friend of mine, are an artist using your girlfriend as a model, when you take these kind of shots you’re basically admitting to each other that, once your lover’s out of the room you’re going to sit there and do obscene things to their memory… but, the way I see it, sharing those kinds of photos might be okay. So you can email me yours if you’d like.

I still have those Christmas memories… not so much because of the few fully-clothed snapshots I have left of her in a shoebox in my closet, but mostly because my girlfriend was really into arts & crafts and she made a dozen white, knitted angel ornaments for my parents tree where, for the next dozen Christmases, they’d hang… like little ornamental reminders of Christmas orgasms past.

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Posted in Animals, Family Events, Occasional Events, Photography, Special Events, Vankleek Hill Photos | 4 Comments

Never Before Has Such A Thing Been Seen

Posted on December 8, 2008 by Gabriel

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Remember the day when someone handed you your first camera and you thought all those adventure dreams — the ones with you and James Nachtwey taking photos in war zones and famines and blown out husks of cities and towns during the day, and drinking into the late evening with locals — remember when you thought all those stories you dreamt about would finally have a shot at coming true? Remember how that first camera made you feel? Well I took this shot with my third camera.

Technical Stuff: In order to get a shot like this you first have to get some amino acids, nucleotides to somehow come together into macromolecules, it’s vital they find a way to replicate themselves. Now wait about two billion years. If the flowers come out blue just start again. It gets easier once you’ve done it once or twice.

I like these flowers so much this is the is the second time I’ve posted them. The last one [link] had a honey bee in the centre, while this one has a modestly interesting perspective. Neither one showcases the inhuman things man can do to man and his environment I could have shot in exotic places around the world with Nachtwey… but hey, on the upside, right after taking this shot I was able to go rent some movies and on the way home I did light some school kids on fire.

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Posted in Experiments, Nature, Photography, Vankleek Hill Photos | 3 Comments