Archive for the Category ◊ Gail at Large ◊

11 Mar 2010 Me By V
 |  Category: Gail at Large, Photography  | One Comment

me, by V

These are test shots straight out of the camera, a Canon Digital Rebel XTi. I was teaching someone on Monday how to use her camera’s light meter and explaining exposure. Before I embarked on this instruction I gave myself a rundown on the whole Canon DSLR equipment line, not just because I’m a research nerd, but to prove that it’s not about brand loyalty but about learning how to use a device to the best of its ability, no matter what the make or model happens to be. If I have a proper understanding of photography then I should be able to show anyone how to shoot with anything.

First goal? Learn enough to take the camera off Auto!

me, by V without flash

04 Mar 2010 Photography Poll: Which Eye Do You View With?

Flight Deck's loo
[Pilot Tavern, Toronto - Oct/07]

I didn’t notice this until Tuulikki brought it up more than two years ago (click on the pic for Flickr comments), but I use my left eye exclusively at the viewfinder. And, come to think of it, it is the first eye that opens in the morning. The first thing I do to wake up is to read info on my iPod Touch (after the cats walk over me and poke me to feed them), and I still only use my left eye! My right eye is shut tight, and this is involuntarily. I thought about it this morning when I noticed that I unconsciously kept my right eye closed until I went to exit my bed.

I wonder if it’s because my brain knows that my right eye has poorer vision than left, so it sends a motor signal to leave it at rest for as long as possible? Is one part of my brain so dominant over the other that it can’t manage both eyes until the whole noggin wakes up? I have no idea.

Anyway, I’m curious to know whether my particular eye/hand coordination is common. I use my left eye, but I’m mostly right-handed with some ambidexterity. From observing other people, this is a rarer combination than I thought, but maybe it’s a perception.

01 Mar 2010 Golden
 |  Category: Gail at Large, Linkage  | 2 Comments

golden

[View larger.]

I nabbed this sunset with my cheapie point-and-shoot (Canon A520) just before I left the office today. It’s a reminder that winter is very nearly over, and Daylight Savings Time begins in a couple of weeks. Also, in a few days is my fourth anniversary of living in Toronto. Year Four was full of change, as has been the case with each of the previous three years. I’ll need a few days to review it all… in the meantime, check out what photographer Anne Ruthmann says about change and check out her images for download as desktop wallpaper in the meantime. They’re beautiful!

golden

03 Feb 2010 Formspring.me
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fingers crossed

This looks intriguing. I’ll choose what I want to answer, of course. And I might not respond in a timely fashion. But I will archive my answers here, lest I lose the information when Formspring goes the way of the dodo.

I learned some things from my early days of social networking, eg. Orkut circa 2004. The most important lesson: ARCHIVE YOUR WRITING.

The idea behind Formspring is that it challenges the writing. Also, with the option of anonymity, people can ask questions they may not ask otherwise if their identity is known. This can be both a good and a bad thing, but I’m willing to give it a try.

19 Jan 2010 Birthday Trip 2010
 |  Category: Gail at Large, Raconteurism, Travel, Videoclips  | 2 Comments

self-portrait, Reykjavik

35th birthday self-portrait in the WC at Reykjavik 871±2 in 2007.

Apologies to everyone whose blog I used to read but don’t anymore… I’ve had to forgo a lot of recreational reading while I attend to the business end of photography. Right now my goal is to maintain the sites I’m in charge of (there are few beyond my own four) and do whatever extracurricular reading I can manage on the iPod Touch in bed before crashing. Lately, I’ve found I last about 90 seconds.

Anyway, one of the things about juggling my schedule between The Firm and freelance photography assignments is that I have to plan the whole year far in advance, much sooner than I ever have before. Right now the weddings I’ve booked are thankfully scattered rather evenly through 2010, but January’s only half over — in all likelihood some of the future dates will fall closer together, that’s just the way it goes.

So I’m planning my birthday trip for this year, and I’ve narrowed my destinations to two: Turkey (Plan A) and Portugal (Plan B). It is unusual for me to divulge big travel plans, but I’m opening this up a bit while keeping the details vague. I’ve been wanting to visit Turkey for years, but often I end up in Europe simply because I met a lot of Europeans in my early travelling days and I like to combine exploring with rendez-vous with friends abroad. This year I’m telling people to meet me in Turkey, with a smaller chance I may end up in Portugal instead. I’ve booked a wedding to shoot right after my birthday, so I have to return by the 20th of June. I haven’t booked my flights yet or set my departure date.

Why Turkey? When I moved to Vancouver in 1996, I lived in a shared a house at the south end (Marpole) and one of the housemates was Turkish. Later he and I moved out into our own place as a couple and I learned a great deal about Turkish culture, history, and modern life from him and his friends. I was fascinated. He cooked Turkish food for me, explained the language, and was proud of his nationality. He had immigrated to Canada independently when he was 22, and I was very impressed with how quickly he integrated into Canadian society. We had plans to visit Turkey together, but I moved into my own place on Beach Avenue in 1998 and ended our relationship before the Turkey trip (I was dreading breaking the news so I did it in the middle of the World Cup Final between France and Brazil). Which brings us to 12 years later…

I haven’t planned a route yet, but I’ll be doing my customary breadth of research over the next few months. If you’ve been to Turkey and would like to share your experience, I’m all ears!

Video for today: I dug around for an intro video to Turkey, and most were rather short. This one has a bit of everything. It would be better with more archaeological sites and less luxury resort detail, but this is someone else’s idea of Turkey. I’d rather make my own.

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14 Jan 2010 Me And A Red Wig

Halloween 2000

Halloween 2000

The craptastic scanjob continues. This time it’s me, a red wig, and an American ex-boyfriend who went back to America in 2001. Those of you with the password may recall the stories of mayhem a few years ago when, after a diagnosis in the years that followed (unbeknownst to me), he stopped taking his medication and started appearing on people’s doorsteps all over North America, including Mexico, and even Guam. It is one reason why I never disclose my exact whereabouts, whether it’s home or work.

12 Jan 2010 Glasgow, Christmas 1994

Glasgow, Christmas 1994

Whenever I get frustrated with my hair and consider cutting it all off, I remind myself of the last time I cut it all off, in November 1993. I also remind myself that I regretted cutting it off in the cold season because there always seemed to be a draft against my neck and ears. I also remind myself of the maintenance: the regular haircuts, the stubborn cowlicks, the crazy bedhead, the product (pomade, hairspray, gel). Then there was the awkward growing out stage: I wore hats all the time, even at work. I used clips, headbands, and even more product. I tucked my hair behind my ears, my fringe (bangs) never stayed put, and while my hair is semi-curly when it’s long, it’s just one big cowlick when it’s short — it has a mind of its own.

All in, short hair is a monumental hassle within about a week of the initial shearing. So I keep talking myself out of The Big Chop, because I would only regret it. Again.

I was searching for photos of me with short hair, and there aren’t that many (well, not many for the public). This one is a year after The Big Chop, and it took nine months to reach this stage. I kept it more mid-length for several years. (I still love that photo, every time I link to it I crack up.)

For the purposes of hair comparison, I dug up this photo with Kenny, my Glaswegian boyfriend at the time. Christmas was a big party at his house with the entire clan (he’s one of six). My mop was still at the awkward growing-out stage. And speaking of awkward, that’s kind of how we look, although I’m sure it was because we were camera-shy.

As a total aside, that was one of my favourite shirts — I bought it at Camden Market in London, and I thought the embroidery and style looked Ukrainian (I grew up in Winnipeg, home to many Ukrainians). Well, what do you know, the tag said it was made in Canada. Funny that I had to travel all the way to jolly ol’ England to find a shirt made at home.

Sadly, the shirt’s demise was after this photo was taken: late in the evening the living room got rearranged to make a dance floor and I sat on a coffee table and leaned back against a lit candle! Disaster was averted, no Christmas Day ambulances were called to Kenny’s house due to me catching on fire, but the back of the shirt melted :( On the bright side, at least my hair wasn’t long enough to get singed off, either…

Video for today: famous Glaswegian comedian and actor Billy Connolly performing live. If you’re at all offended by coarse language, consider yourselves warned, Connolly curses like a sailor. Way back in 1994, I remember walking down the street in Edinburgh one day and he walked right by me. I did a double-take — Billy Connolly! — and remember thinking, damn, Billy Connolly is REALLY TALL.

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06 Jan 2010 A Change Would Do You Good

self-portrait

This is me in Bratislava (Slovakia) last June, amazed at how incredibly narrow the apartment elevator is while trying to capture the interior (and myself) in the frame.

You probably didn’t notice that I changed the header to this website. Not a big change, but the photo frames were ugly and I never liked them and they had to go… I would’ve changed them at the beginning but the template was free and I had to buy the PSD files to make major revisions. The original template is here. You can see how much I modified it at the beginning, and why I had to buy the PSD files to make further improvements — there are many elements that make up the header image. Also, at the time I wasn’t familiar with how to slice up an image to make a web page, but I taught myself the rather painful process in order to do the bigger mods last year.

I’m not actually finished the header yet, you can see where the right side of the middle frame is slightly off-kilter. I also need to fix a couple of other minor things but I must postpone it to when I have more time, erm, whenever that will be… I thought I was going to make a wholescale change and switch to a whole new template this year, but I actually quite like the current one. It’s unusual, it’s photo-centric, and I like that the middle frames rotate through a folder of photos of my choosing.

Thing is, when I decided to overhaul the photo frames once and for all this time, I’d forgotten the steps between the Photoshop changes and exporting the sliced-up page to the folder with the proper image names and such. Eek, it must be early onset forgetfulitis…

A year ago I said buying a shower curtain is a cheap and easy way to make a change, and it’s true, but changing your website is even cheaper — even if it’s not always easy!

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14 Dec 2009 The Daily Pest

It’s like this every single day at The House of Fielding, this little game Beano and I play over and over called Beano Wants Attention.

Photo on 2009-12-14 at 22.33 Photo on 2009-12-14 at 22.34 #2
Photo on 2009-12-14 at 22.34 #3 Photo on 2009-12-14 at 22.34 #4
Photo on 2009-12-14 at 22.35 Photo on 2009-12-14 at 22.35 #2
Photo on 2009-12-14 at 22.36 Photo on 2009-12-14 at 22.36 #2

The picture I missed was Beano climbing into my lap at the end. It starts out with him jumping into my lap, me moving him to the chair because I can’t type with him sitting up and watching the screen, then he climbs back.

Music for today: with rampant consumerism Christmas shopping going on, I thought it appropriate to post a Weird Al parody of Ebay to the tune of the Backstreet Boys’ “I Want It That Way”

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02 Dec 2009 Tunnel Vision
 |  Category: Gail at Large  | Tags:  | One Comment

inaugural Photobooth picture

Inaugural Photobooth pictures of me tired, sick, and working. The hood is to keep warm, not to look shifty. I’m also wearing wool socks but Apple doesn’t have a foot cam yet. Probably for the best.

Random note: the iSight on this machine is my first web camera ever. Last week was the first time I’ve used one, outgoing, which took some getting used to (seeing myself talk, not the technical part). I would never buy a web cam, but it’s part of the iMac so I might as well use it. A photographer can never have too many cameras.

Tired, sick, and working. Hood to keep my head warm.