Posts in category "Photos"

Good Times For A Change

Before you start read­ing, play this song. It’s a Deftones cov­er of The Smiths’ song Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want. There have been a few oth­er artists who have done cov­ers too, includ­ing Muse, but only Chino has the kind of raw emo­tion in his voice that match­es Morrisey.

This song was writ­ten for right now.

Orchid bouquet

I’ve moved main­ly to video. Getting a lit­tle tired of the still pho­to­graph medi­um. I had my first com­mis­sion this week­end at the NAC, record­ing a jazz trio con­cert in exchange for a few tick­ets for my friends.

If you could­n’t tell, I’ve been obsessed with colour tones and vignetting late­ly. Making my pho­tos look like old mem­o­ries. Maybe this is a way for me to go back; revert­ing to past expe­ri­ences, draw­ing inward as an intro­vert, regress­ing to a dif­fer­ent time, when all I had was inno­cence but that was enough.

Me in a tie

I’ve been strange­ly serene. Sleeping well. When things get com­pli­cat­ed I’ve been less sto­ic, and more light-heart­ed.

Dolly eating chicken

Maybe it’s the house being clean. Maybe I’m sat­is­fied with the the new dec­o­ra­tions. Maybe it was the last week­end, get­ting caught up on errands and tasks, final­ly feel­ing like my head is above water.

Maybe it’s the weath­er. The rain. The wind. The warmth of the sun. The tem­per­a­ture drop. The way I can leave my win­dow open at night.

Civic logo in rain

Maybe it’s feel­ing social­ly ful­filled. Seeing friends, laugh­ing hard, trips out of town, trips on my own.

Star fingers

Maybe it’s the nights spent hold­ing her, caress­ing every inch of her skin. Maybe it’s the way she held me too.

Chopped vegetables

Maybe it’s the accep­tance. A way I’ve let go where I’ve found myself final­ly free, and liv­ing. Something I always think I’ve been able to do, only to real­ize a day lat­er that I did­n’t before, but I have now, hon­est­ly.

School bus

Maybe it’s all the movies I’ve been watch­ing in the time between, see­ing myself in every char­ac­ter, every sit­u­a­tion. Going back to high school, being back at uni­ver­si­ty.

Potting plant

I’m not sure what it is, but I know this feel­ing won’t last for­ev­er. It nev­er has. It’s the flux between storm and seren­i­ty that moves me.

Been writ­ing this entry over the last week.

In a cou­ple days, this blog turns six.

Maybe I just had a few good weeks.

Agnes and Sophia

Agnes face

Thumbnail: Sophia from front
Thumbnail: Agnes from above
Thumbnail: Sophia from above
Thumbnail: Agnes profile
Thumbnail: Sophia profile
Thumbnail: Agnes side bust
Thumbnail: Sophia side bust
 

Still play­ing around with black-and-white tones. This time, I went with less con­trast, so more of a low-key feel, not just in the over­all scene but in the fig­ures them­selves. In doing so, the tex­ture isn’t so blown-out as in my pre­vi­ous black-and-whites.

I love the dreamy look of high-key, but for more focus on facial fea­tures, I’m start­ing to turn to a greater range of light.

Agnes and Sophia being silly

Thumbnail: Agnes and Sophia faces
Thumbnail: Agnes and Sophia back-to-back
Thumbnail: Agnes and Sophia faces
Thumbnail: Agnes and Sophia being silly
Thumbnail: Agnes and Sophia piggy back
 

In return for mod­el­ing for some of my oth­er projects, I agreed to give Agnes and Soph some por­traits. Siblings are gen­er­al­ly easy to work with. There’s a com­fort­ing famil­iar­i­ty that lets them act nat­u­ral­ly togeth­er. To tell them apart, one sim­ply has to observe how dif­fer­ent­ly each acts in front of a cam­era.

Trolley and Steph's Wedding

Changing groomsmen

Not only the day that Trolley got hitched, but a chance to see Adam and Tomasini and Eric and Nick and Alison; the peo­ple I only get to hang out with when camp­ing or par­ty­ing at the farm. I missed Adam and his ever ebul­lient atti­tude most of all, some­thing that nev­er fails to buoy the spir­its. Even though we did­n’t get a chance to talk much through all the prepa­ra­tion, it was enough to hear his voice and laugh­ter.

Handshake

Thumbnail: Wedding handshake
Thumbnail: Wedding handshake
Thumbnail: Taking cell phone photos
Thumbnail: Walking to the aisle
Thumbnail: Just married
 

It was back to Stanley’s Maple Farm1 for the out­door wed­ding. The rain con­tin­ued up to half an hour before the cer­e­mo­ny then stopped com­plete­ly, as if god him­self had a hand in ordain­ment.

You just need to look at the smile on Trolley’s face to under­stand how hap­py he is.

The recep­tion was open bar, with prime rib and a dessert buf­fet at the end. I had been wait­ing over a year to have the prime rib din­ner, as I was going through an undi­ag­nosed case of IBS at Aaron’s wed­ding and was left eat­ing bread. Even Pat, my gour­mand friend, said that it was cooked to per­fec­tion, and found out that the venue has a deal with the farm up the road to get the best cuts of meat.

We sur­prised the new­ly wed­ded cou­ple with the shoe game, where they answer a series of ques­tions with­out know­ing how the oth­er one will answer. They sur­prised us with how many they answered in sync. A good sign for the new­ly wed.

Thumbnail: Wedding guestbook
Thumbnail: Center piece
Thumbnail: Photographer sticks his tongue out
Thumbnail: Aaron drinks
Thumbnail: Wedding favour
 

Nick humourous­ly not­ed that there weren’t many sin­gle girls around, but being able to hang out with Aaron in the MC booth made me feel much less awk­ward and aban­doned than the last wed­ding I went to.

At one point, Trolley came up to me and asked me _____ __ _________ ____ _____. It was his wed­ding, but he was con­cerned about me. I could­n’t believe it even entered his mind with every­thing going on around him, and it was cer­tain­ly the part I’ll remem­ber most about that night.

  1. The same place Aaron got mar­ried. [↩]