Archive for ◊ January, 2007 ◊

31 Jan 2007 she wasn’t kidding when she said she had nothing to wear
 |  Category: Other Photogs  | 2 Comments

she wasn't kidding when she said she had nothing to wear
she wasn’t kidding when she said she had nothing to wear by jamelah

I love the whimsy in this photo by Jamelah. The picture was first blogged by fellow Flickreeno Liz over at her new site (check it out) Abstract the Day, and I liked it so much I’m showing it off here.

I like the shoes, too, which would send my friend The Crazy Shoe Lady Eliza all a’twitter. The height of these heels would probably make me wobble and trip on the sidewalk and launch into oncoming traffic, but they look great in the photo.

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30 Jan 2007 Pfffffftttt!
 |  Category: Randomage  | Leave a Comment

pffffffffffttttt

A beluga sprays on command during a show at the Vancouver Aquarium, Saturday, January 23.

That’s how I felt this morning!

Yesterday I said “Roll on Tuesday!” but somehow that message must’ve gotten mixed up in the cosmos because this morning I woke up to a bunch of blinking numbers after eight o’clock instead of an alarm! Like some others, I scrambled to get to work on time.

According to this online article in the Globe and Mail it wasn’t officially a power outage but a drop in voltage levels caused by a fire at a Toronto fire (oops) power station. But it still reset every electric-powered time device in my home including the microwave, stove, and it knocked out my modem. The router and my VoIP gateway are back up and running after a reboot.

Roll on… er, go incident-free Wednesday!

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30 Jan 2007 Timing
 |  Category: Cuba, Photography  | 3 Comments

timing

December 28, 2006
Havana, Cuba

I love this photo, but I had to take it in a hurry if I wanted it to be natural. It illustrates the choice you have to make sometimes between timing and the desire to make a technically better photograph. If I had stopped to change the settings or composition they would’ve noticed me, but I wanted to take the picture as they were at that moment. Timing won out.

Best viewed larger.

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29 Jan 2007 Hello Monday!
 |  Category: Working Life  | 2 Comments

hazard season

No, I didn’t get beaned in the head with an icicle walking home (now THAT would be an Emergency Room story I’d rather not have to tell…) — I was wearing my wool coat with the hood up, as per usual.

Monday reared its mischievous head by causing me to lose a button to my trousers this morning on the way to work, and of course it had to be a pair that has no belt loops, thus left to hang precariously by a flimsy hook.

A colleague came to my rescue with a little sewing kit, the kind you would find in a hotel room next to the shampoo and shower cap, and I shimmied off to the washrooms to tackle my little repair job in the privacy of a stall. Because I wasn’t about to sit scrunched in my office chair with my pants around my knees, speed-sewing a button. Helma could probably do it, she’s Speedy Gonzales with a needle and thread. Me, I’d probably stick myself in the eye in my haste.

Roll on Tuesday!

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28 Jan 2007 You Get What You Pay For
 |  Category: Consumer, Cuba, film photography  | 3 Comments

In this case, that would be a cheap lens.

Gran Teatro - colour version

Pentax K-1000
December 30, 2006
Gran Teatro, Havana

I wanted to buy a macro and a wide-angle lens for the Pentax for the Cuba trip, but lenses are ghastly expensive and I didn’t want to spend much money, I just wanted to do some experimentation. So I bought a Phoenix 28-80mm f/3.5-5.6 lens at B&H in New York City the week before Christmas, and I simply could NOT get the lens to read the light meter properly. Also, it produced a super-grainy wonky colour effect once I got the roll developed. I haven’t posted any photos with that lens until now, because they’re so bloody awful. But I’ve come to grudgingly appreciate how the pictures look now — at least a little bit — instead of outright disliking them.

My little workaround for the terrible colour casts and grain is to make them monochrome and bump up the contrast, like so:

Gran Teatro, Havana

Generally, I would never buy a lens for a trip without some testing first because there is always the risk of losing all those once-in-a-lifetime photo opportunities. But I figured if I didn’t take TOO many photos with it and relied on my trusty 50mm and even the 80-200mm I wouldn’t be putting all my proverbial eggs in one basket. I booked the Cuba trip within hours of leaving Toronto and I had only a day in New York, so there wasn’t much time to research lenses. In lieu of that, I bought cheap and now those photos look like they were taken with expired film from 1976 with a camera that’s been dropped a few times and lost its ability to focus. Maybe if I don’t tag the photos like I normally do, it’ll look like it was on purpose. ;)

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27 Jan 2007 Where Did January Go?
 |  Category: House of Fielding  | 3 Comments

Gigi OWNS this recliner

Gigi snuggling this afternoon with her pet rat on her favourite piece of furniture. The couch and the recliner really belong to Gigi — the humans spend more time at their desks in front of their computers than on the furniture. Her snoozefests remind me of the phrase “creature comforts”.

I want to go back to bed, but I’m trying not to!

I haven’t written much lately because I’ve been either out of the house or too tired to do much of anything but sleep while I’ve been at home. January is almost over, and I feel very behind in my extracurricular activities! My work contract began last Monday and I’ve been focusing my energies on learning as much as I possibly can. This means when I get home I want to pass out, so I’ve taken to walking home from work to keep up the energy level (naps just don’t work, I go into deep sleep and there goes the whole evening), then eating early and trying to get some exercise downstairs in the form of gym activity or swimming. This doesn’t leave much time for photography or writing, but somewhere down the line I’ll figure out a more streamlined routine.

Everything in my life is either brand-new or quite recent: work, my apartment, flight school, group therapy, friends, etc., and at random times I stop and wonder at the series of events that got me to this point. Part of the reason why I document my life is because it’s easier to direct people to this website than try and explain… well, lots of things. One ex-boyfriend told me many years ago (when my life was actually much simpler) that when he was getting to know me he had to draw visual aids such as flowcharts and arrows and timelines to track the people and places and companies I’d mention in our conversations. In my first group therapy session last Thursday, I told select bits and pieces of my grief story because it unfolds in a rather complicated way. I’ll be happy to get past the early stage of explanation, truth be told. As with grief itself, there’s no way around it, you just have to get through it.

And as for today, I want to do lots and lots of nothing, but I have to do these tasks eventually, so I’d best be getting to it!

26 Jan 2007 WinterCity 2007
 |  Category: Toronto  | One Comment

WinterCity Festival 2007

On my way home from work, I passed by Nathan Phillips Square and caught a bit of The Philosopher Kings doing sound checks before their opening of Toronto’s two-week winter festival called WinterCity.

WinterCity 2007

I recognised the band’s signature sound straightaway as I’ve seen them perform live at The Vogue theatre in Vancouver. If you’ve never seen The Philosopher Kings before, I highly recommend it — they had the whole venue jumping and it was one of the most interactive concerts I’ve ever attended!

WinterCity Festival 2007

26 Jan 2007 Heaven
 |  Category: Cuba, film photography  | 5 Comments

heaven

Pentax K-1000
Museo de Chocolate
Havana, Cuba

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25 Jan 2007 Letters to David
 |  Category: Loss  | One Comment

writing

When I was in Cuba, I wrote every day in these three little books. The black ones are Moleskines I bought in Pennsylvania a few days before I flew to Cuba. (They came in a pack of three for $7.) I used the one on the right to scribble random notes and keep a record of money I’d spent, the left one to document the day in paragraphs after reviewing my scribble book. I wrote letters to David in the tall book. I used to write monthly letters to David on this website, but as of 2007 I’m taking them offline and handwriting them in this book.

Tonight was my first session in a 10-week grief support group program. I must say, after a full day’s work those two hours are draining. Although I’m feeling better in 2007, losing David is still foremost in my daily thoughts and the situation is no less difficult to talk about, but it makes it much easier to discuss the struggles in a room full of people who’ve also sustained major losses. There is a tacit understanding that no-one will pass judgement on what we say or feel it necessary to inject uplifting comments to fill awkward silences. People can cry freely without escaping into a bathroom stall or fighting that emotional response.

It will be an interesting journey, I’m sure, the next 10 weeks.

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25 Jan 2007 Storytime
 |  Category: film photography  | Leave a Comment

storytime

December 19, 2006
Pentax K-1000

Holly’s older boy, engrossed in a book and wearing his favourite hat. (View larger.) I love seeing kids browse books even before they can read. It doesn’t seem to bother them that they can’t make sense of the characters on the page; it doesn’t dampen their enthusiasm for exploration. Everything is new, but that’s exciting. Adulthood has a way of diminishing or even deterring that same eagerness to face the unknown, but when you observe children and the rate at which they learn new things, it makes you wish childhood could last a little bit longer.

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