Almost Like Art | Warming Up For The Show

Posted on September 26, 2008 by Gabriel

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I took this with my Big Boy Camera using film which needed to be processed in a machine which spat out a thin but long strip of plastic holding the colour images. It took a whole hour to get the 4×6 prints from the nice people who took long lessons in order to control the massive machine… A. Whole. Hour. Can you imagine?

Technical Stuff: Digital photography has been a truly wondrous development which has enabled people, as a collective, to take more photos in a single year than have ever been taken before in the history of the medium. Thanks to dirt cheap digital online/offline storage and the zero-cost of taking digital images, I have an archival and retrieval system of unlimited size. Which is wonderful. Except the resolution quality of even the best digital photos suck and there’s zero guarantee the technology or format used to create those images will be around in five years, which means at some point I’ll have to convert all of my images into at least one, but probably several new formats over my lifetime.

This photo was taken in The Rivoli on Queen St. in Toronto just before my friends performed on Halloween Night. They had a punk band which actually did very well for a couple of years. I really want to crop the right side so the shirts aren’t showing, but I find the photo looks lopsided without that space. This was taken using a Minolta Maxxum 450si with a 50mm lens and 800ASA film. It was the first time I really shot them using ambient lighting. I really should have done that more often.

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Posted in Entertainment, Favourites, Friends, From My Wall, Photography, Pre 2004 | 5 Comments

Revenge Of The Itsy Bitsy Spider

Posted on September 17, 2008 by Gabriel

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It’s supposed to look like the spider killed me. Which it probably could have done… it was so still I thought it had died in mid-stride, so I tapped on it’s yellow ass and it scurried about three inches, then stopped. I was going to do a self-portrait with my head where my hand is, but I thought I was already pushing my luck with the tapping thing. Still… it does look like the spider is the one walking away from the fight.

Technical Stuff: Whoever had the stunning idea a digital camera should be produced without a fixed focus capability was, more likely than not, Satan… or Dan Carp, who has been the CEO of Kodak since 2000. If you look closely you’ll see a little orange stone… it’s actually not hard to miss, it’s the only fucking thing in sharp focus. My fingers and the spider are almost there, but the patch of ground around the fucking stone is what the camera focused on.

I’ve ranted about this before… but on another blog… which I shut down months ago. Which means it’s totally cool to be reusing its content. Here’s the basics… the old-school viewfinder on a pocket digital camera is useless. Like tits on a bull useless. So in order to get the focus right we have to use the screen on the back. But if the subject is a spider walking across the driveway, and you want a full frontal shot, how likely is it you’ll lay down in the dirt, hold the camera an inch off the ground and contort your neck so you can see the frigging screen? Plus, the freaking thing is moving… which means if you want to hold focus you have to hold the trigger half down and, as you’re moving the camera, blindly guess if the bugger is in the focal plane?!? Tits. On. A. Bull.

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Posted in Animals, Entertainment, Experiments, Favourites, Humor, Humour, Photography, Vankleek Hill Photos | 3 Comments

Concert Photos I Barely Remember Taking | The Kathedral

Posted on September 14, 2008 by Gabriel

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When I moved to Toronto I, totally by accident, moved within eight or ten blocks of a pack of people from my hometown. Most of us drank really, really heavily, so we had that in common… plus four of them had started a punk band, so we had that to bond over as well. I started chronicling their hijinks just as the band took off, so I’ve got shots from most of the downtown venues. Due to cost issues I only took photos of bands with my friends in them… like the pack of slacker weed addicts from Montreal in this shot.

Technical Stuff: If you want to shoot in a bar or club be very careful who you’re aiming the camera at, and be prepared to be kicked out if the management or bartender get any complaints. However, the law is clear that once you get managements permission to shoot on site you can do anything you want with your camera… oh yeah baby, even that.

I drank a lot of alcohol while I was chronicling my friends and their adventures, but never when I was shooting. So thank God I only shot one or two nights a week and then only for a couple of hours… once that was out of the way it was White Russians, Cuba Libra’s and Labatt’s Blue until I passed out. And, on the good nights, while I was passed out.

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Posted in Black And White, Concerts, Entertainment, Favourites, Humor, Humour, Photography, Pre 2004 | 1 Comment

Self Portraits I Can Barely Tolerate 001

Posted on September 10, 2008 by Gabriel

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I’ve noticed not many people smile in self-portraits… at least not in a true self-portrait. I think that’s because, deep deep down inside, none of us feel like we’re worth smiling for. Each of us are broken and when there’s no one around except ourselves holding a camera towards our Self it’s safe for us to express… wait… oh, that is me smiling. Oh.

Technical Stuff: There is actually some motion in this photo. I’m moving my body forward as I snap the shot, so that’s why I’m slightly out of focus. The reason there seems to be a significant chunk of my skull missing around my left eye is the shot is just slightly overexposed because my neighbour left his 100W bulb turned on and the tiny hallway is all white and reflective. Which was the point of me doing this… that and ‘the incident’.

As long as you aren’t taking them in public self portraits are the easiest photos to take, but they’re also the hardest to explain. And where are we supposed to put them once they’re developed? It’s not like we can fill our living room walls up with self portraits and not use the word “narcissist” when visitors ask “WTF’s up with the self loving?”… turns out that’s what walk-in closets are for.

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Posted in Entertainment, Experiments, Favourites, Humor, Humour, Photography, Self Portraits, Vankleek Hill Photos | 4 Comments

Almost Like Art | Yellow Flower Purple Ground

Posted on September 5, 2008 by Gabriel

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Occasionally I manage to take a photo with some artistic value… surely if the concept of “art” can be stretched to include paint thrown onto a canvass by an elephant, it can apply to some of my photography.

Technical Stuff: Mostly I looked down… at some point I must have moved my feet out of the way. I honestly do not remember the ground being that purple. I know it wasn’t a topsoil kind of black, but this off-colour thing is more accident than anything else. Which is totally cool, I think most of those elephant artists accomplish their work the same way and I’d definitely hang their stuff on my wall.

I like the little dash of red on the left hand side and the patterns in the purple soil. I think it’s actually that little purple half-smile swirl around the flower that gives the photo a little more energy than it otherwise would have had… look at me going on like I was an artistic elephant. I did do a pretty good job at centring the big fluffy yellow thing against the huge dark background. That’s a step up.

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Posted in Almost Like Art, Entertainment, Favourites, From My Wall, Humor, Humour, Nature, Photography | Leave a comment

Lilly The Robot Has A Huge Thumb

Posted on September 3, 2008 by Gabriel

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Mostly this picture is cool because her thumb is screwing up my light meter. She was following the beeping sound my camera makes when I have it set on multiple exposures. Either children are naturally attracted to electronic beeps or Lilly’s a robot looking for a friend. Sorry… that’s all I’ve got, it’s really hot and I’m messed up on Caffeine Free Diet Pepsi. I think it’s the sodium benzoate that makes my palms numb.

Technical Stuff: Lilly is actually the first baby I’ve ever had as a subject. I took semi-professional photos of Lilly and her parents a few months before I took this shot, one of which they used as a Christmas card… which they never sent me. Did you hear me sob right there? I think her name is spelled with two L’s… if they had sent me a card I’d have it in writing so I’d know for sure.

The worst type of photo is the shot of a kid not doing anything. Get them doing stuff, then take the photo and please, please, immediately store it away in a giant box with all the other photos that look exactly like it and never, ever, take that box out to show your friends or family.

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Posted in Entertainment, Favourites, Friends, From My Wall, Humor, Humour, Photography, Vankleek Hill Photos | 1 Comment