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March, 2010

  1. Billy Bishop Airport

    March 31, 2010 by Gail

    Billy Bishop Airport

    *hack hack* What have I been doing besides coughing up a lung? Made a couple of airport runs, notably today to the recently-renamed Billy Bishop Airport, formerly known as the Island Airport, or Toronto City Centre Airport. Who’s Billy Bishop? A World War I flying ace from Owen Sound (Ontario).

    It was the perfect day to make a little side-trip over there by ferry — quite possibly the shortest ferry ride anywhere, at 400 ft (120 m). Really, you could swim across but you’d either freeze or get run over by a sailboat. The journey by ferry is only about 10 minutes, but there’s something very calm and peaceful about travelling by water that would surely disappear if they built a road, bridge, or tunnel to the island.

    Shot with the Canon A520 point-and-shoot and processed using the Sesame Ellis “Sweet Tea” LR preset. I like how it makes the photos look like sunbleached tourist postcards.

    Billy Bishop Airport

    Category Out + About, Toronto | Tags: | No Comments

  2. “There’s No Place Like Home…”

    March 29, 2010 by Gail

    "There's no place like home, there's no place like home..."

    I can’t remember the last time I entered a contest, but this is one I want to win! What’s up for grabs, you ask? A red Lola Epiphanie camera bag, that’s what.

    http://www.beyond-snapshots.com/blog/2010/03/26/a-chance-to-have-your-own-epiphanie-contest-to-win-an-epiphanie-camera-bag/

    I have TONNES of red in my photo collection. What to choose?

    I decided upon the most iconic red I could think of: Judy Garland’s ruby slippers from The Wizard of Oz, in the (Smithsonian) Museum of American History, Washington, DC. The shoes have seen better days, but they must be worth a fortune by now. I shot this almost five years ago through museum glass with a cheap digital point-and-shoot, so I had to glam it up a bit to match the feeling from the film. Technically it’s not a great photo, I have much better ones that I could enter. But that weekend in DC was a memorable trip, the last road trip David and I took together before I had to wait out my visa in Vancouver and before he got sick. If I don’t win, at least I took a happy skip down memory lane… a yellow-bricked one.

    Wish me luck!

    Category Consumer, Pop Culture, USA | Tags: | 2 Comments

  3. Xena On Her Perch

    March 29, 2010 by Gail

    it is so tough making Xena stay still that I can only photograph her on my shoulder

    It’s funny how Xena always perches on the same shoulder. Such creatures of habit. It’s a rare occasion that Xena stays still long enough for a photo; she’s a captive subject this time, if I stand up. But it takes some co-ordination to hold the phone and use the mirror reflection at the same time while getting Xena to look in the right direction.

    it is so tough making Xena stay still that I can only photograph her on my shoulder shoulder warmer
    my black fur stole

    In other news, I’m transitioning back to the Land of the Living: I went to work today. (Insert terrible zombie pun here.) I’m sure my desk neighbours could’ve done without the hacking, but at least I do the bulk of the nose-blowing away from my desk.

    Category Blah Blah Blah, cameraphone, Critters + Creatures, Gail at Large, Xena & Beano | Tags: | No Comments

  4. Let’s Get Sauced

    March 28, 2010 by Gail

    I could use some magic sauce right about now.

    Category Mobile Blogging | Tags: | No Comments

  5. Waiting For The Window-Washers

    March 27, 2010 by Gail

    waiting for the window-washers
    [Charlie and Douglas at The Brides' Project, March 16]

    … because it’s hard to watch KittyTV with a grubby screen, you know.

    Well, it’s Saturday night and I have left the house exactly once since Wednesday evening. I’m going to have to leave the house again soon as I’ve run out of toilet paper and the tissue supply is nearly depleted as well, thanks to an abundant overproduction of mucous. (Too much information, yes?) I have not yet trained the feline companions to fetch anything from the shops, although it is advanced training considering they have not begun to master litterbox maintenance; indeed, one of them peed on the kitchen mat today in protest of the current state of the litterbox. For once it is advantageous that my nose isn’t working properly, it made the scooping less odiferous.

    Lacking the energy to do much of anything during waking hours, I felt accomplished after watching two movies: a DVD that’s been waiting for me for three weeks (“Brokeback Mountain”) and another DVD from 1999 (“October Sky”) that’s been wrapped in cellophane for years, since David bought it way back when. I’ll blame it on the quarantine and four hours of close scrutiny, but one unexpected result of watching these two films is developing a crush on Jake Gyllenhaal. Which is a) rather cougarish as he’s only 18 in “October Sky”, and b) odd since in “Brokeback Mountain” he’s more interested in men than women.

    Note to self: don’t write any more blog posts until full recovery.

    Category Blah Blah Blah, Critters + Creatures | Tags: | 3 Comments

  6. Spring (Again) For Now

    March 24, 2010 by Gail

    Too bad I can’t enjoy it. For the past couple of days I’ve either been in bed or at work. I really shouldn’t have gone to work today, but I didn’t start feeling wretched until I got on the subway. Dragged my sorry carcass home, where I will convalesce until my lungs stop hurting and my body temperature returns to normal.

    Category Mobile Blogging | Tags: | 4 Comments

  7. Stand-ins

    March 22, 2010 by Gail

    stand-ins

    Rewind to Saturday:

    I had to find a portrait background — pronto! The wedding setup was taking over the whole art gallery and there was nowhere to put the family so I made them go outside in the chill. I found a good spot across the street about a quarter of a block down. The building was for sale and there were realty signs all over it, but they were high and not in the way.

    Jan told me later that a passerby informed him that 717 Queen Street East was a funeral parlour! Oops! But it isn’t anymore! If anyone’s superstitious about it, I could point to the "lucky" address (7s are lucky, aren’t they?).

    At least I’m not superstitious.

    Category Photography, Working Life | Tags: | No Comments

  8. The Cove

    March 22, 2010 by Gail


    I’d like to see this, and with my pescetarian friends if I can swing it. I know it won an Oscar for Best Documentary 2009, but that wasn’t what persuaded me. It was listening to an interview on CBC Radio last night with the director, Louie Psihoyos, who was a National Geographic photographer for 18 years, talk about Richard O’Barry and why the crew took the risks to make the film. (Incidentally, two of the crew are Canadian, the expedition director and one of the free divers.)

    I’ve stated my bias against dolphin shows on my site as long as I’ve been writing here (nearly eight years), but I’m fairly certain watching this film would encourage me to be more vocal about it than ever. The only way I can bring myself to watch the dolphins at the Vancouver Aquarium with my nieces and nephew is that the facility has a no-capture policy in place since the ’90s, but even then I can’t help but feel sadness about any animals in captivity. I’m aware of the wealth of research going on behind the scenes, it’s the “scenes” that don’t sit well with me. Rescuing creatures from harm is one thing, but capturing for the benefit of human entertainment? No thanks, I’m sure we can come up with a better way to fund the research than trap wild animals and force them to live in tiny, artificial environments and perform stunts for food.

    Category Critters + Creatures, Culture + Society, Linkage, Videoclips | Tags: | 1 Comment

  9. Sunday Cats

    March 21, 2010 by Gail

    Xena

    I’m recovering from shooting last night’s wedding in an art gallery that partied ’til the break of 1am, right around the time when people can’t dance in their new shoes anymore and have to take them off… Jan and I filled a few memory cards and I’m still going through the files. In the meantime, the cats have been alternating between bugging me for attention and playing Neighbourhood Watch.

    Xena

    Beano

    Category Critters + Creatures, Xena & Beano | Tags: | 1 Comment

  10. Fun With Flash

    March 20, 2010 by Gail

    GEF_4935_1024

    I make no bones about the fact that I’m not a fan of flash. That’s why studio work has never really appealed to me, although the major reason is I prefer being at large than working in a studio. (I already work in an office part-time, the rest of the time I like being mobile.) But I have to live with flash since I shoot in possibly the worst lighting conditions for photography: weddings. Poor lighting, mixed lighting, constantly-changing lighting — you name it, it’s all in a day’s work. There’s no escaping flash since other lighting sources are either unreliable at the venues, or they are completely unflattering in pictures. People love the ambiance of candlelight, but try and take photos of people moving around in it… in focus. Tough! This is where fast glass comes in, and the accompanying sticker shock. (If you think photographers charge a fortune, trying buying the same equipment without spending one.)

    Thing is, I can’t hate flash forever, I have to make friends with it. Here’s getting to know you better, flash… no hard feelings!

    Friday’s original plans turned into a bit of a gong show, so I dragged my lighting kit over to Natalia and Jan’s to do some creative flash work and put myself in a flashy mood for tomorrow’s wedding. Natalia wasn’t really into it, but once I got her jumping and showed her some of the alley shots on my LCD, she became much more enthusiastic.

    GEF_4905_1024

    GEF_4948_1024

    GEF_4955_1024

    Jan gets an IDEAR

    I’m still adding to the set, but you can view what’s there as [thumbnails] or, better yet, a [slideshow].

    Category Friends, Photography | Tags: | No Comments

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