Glasgow, August 1999 with Joe (film scan)

After digging out my scanner to lend to someone and testing it to make sure it still worked, I decided to scan a few photos while it was plugged in to my computer. I do not recommend doing something like this when you’ve got lots of worked piled up, because it’s an inevitable time-sink. The ultimate distraction. You get sucked into looking at old photos and the next you know, hours have passed. Yikes! But I can think of much worse ways to spend time.

Anyway, the photo above was taken in Glasgow in the summer of 1999. (That trip was legendary — oh, the stories! In fact, it came up again when I was in England in November. Remind me to tell you in person one day, I can’t write about it on the internet.) My godson Joe was a year old in this picture, and this is him now, more than a dozen years later…

England, November 2011

One thing I noticed while looking at my old point-and-shoot photos is how terrible they are in so many ways: bad composition, poor lighting, out-of-focus, no focal point, colours washed out, the list goes on. Most of them are not even worth scanning, I just like to look at them. But that’s the reason why I let my clients pick the photos they want to print — because people choose photos for emotional value not for technical value, while a photographer can’t help but see the technical merits or mistakes (unless it’s their own photos, in which case the emotional values kick in).

It’s also interesting to see how time marches on for technology, since digital cameras weren’t around when my godson was a baby — everyone was shooting with film cameras. Now everyone is shooting with digital cameras and film is getting rare to the point of near extinction.

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a fine day in late November

Aya and Kyle live in New York City, and when they emailed me back in early October to set up an engagement session in Toronto near the end of November the first thought that popped into my head was: “I sure hope I can convince them to shoot outside.” I mean, it’s the end of November and the end of autumn — chilly and windy, the trees were pretty bare, and since they don’t live in Toronto I had one morning to work with, plus a rain date (turned out, it rained that day). But I still wanted to shoot outside because it always looks better, in my opinion.

I sent along some suggestions with links to photos that I’d taken in those places, and they decided on Ashbridges Bay Park and the eastern beaches. (Real estate agents and most of the locals call the area “The Beaches”, but you know what? We have beaches in the West End, too. Anyway…) Then I crossed my fingers.

You’ll see in the photos that we got really lucky — not only did the sun shine from the hours of 9-11 that Friday morning, the wind didn’t pick up by the lake until the end of our session. The set is best viewed as a full-screen slideshow,  or just sit back and watch the set autoplay at the bottom of the post. Clicking on the slideshow will take you to the thumbnails in Flickr.

Ashbridges Bay Park

the ring (spotted while we were scrambling on the rocks)

The Beaches

together

the beach to ourselves

a dog joined our shoot

warming up by the lake

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my favourite wedding subjects

From a wedding last September. My favourite portrait subjects are little people and the elders; the only thing better is when they’re together.

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happy trio

Last night’s shoot at The Beaches went *pun alert* swimmingly well. The photos are backed up, I’ve edited and uploaded a few, now it’s time to crash… there’s a story behind the photos which I’ll tell after I get the sand out of my toes and the doggie slobber cleaned off.

with Kismet at The Beaches

the moment before I got slimed

contemplating a leap off the dock

dog's day out

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Helma’s got a massive rhododendron bush in her backyard, so I took some photos and she hammed it up — something that comes completely naturally to her. Helma’s about the same age as my dad, but she is less serious than I am. Seriously!

I’m still in Heavy-Duty Work Mode these days, so I’m posting some of the photos I took last Monday and it’s back to the grindstone.

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Thanks to pneumonia and the side-effects of antibiotics, I took a record low number of photos on this recent trip to Vancouver. Although the medications helped my lungs and bronchial passages, what I didn’t expect was how much it demotivated me to take photos or even propel myself out of my sick chair. I was like a sack of potatoes — a sad sack of Yukon Golds — gasping for breath and waiting for a mash. I didn’t know what to do with myself, the camera felt like it weighed a ton (it does, but that didn’t stop me before) and even picking it up seemed like a chore.

I never thought I’d say those words! Clearly, I was unwell! It is the strangest feeling to be trapped inside a body that won’t cooperate, to fight for enough breath to say just one sentence and have it come out so weakly that I needed to repeat myself. The medications worked well enough that I was fooled into thinking I was myself, but after a couple of days I could’ve sworn I was someone else — someone with only vague thoughts of photography. Was it the illness or the antibiotics talking?

It’s time to post some photos, even if just to prove to myself that I didn’t lug all my equipment to Vancouver for nothing. The photo above was taken at Mt. Seymour in North Vancouver, which is a Christmas sledding tradition for the kids if the weather cooperates and dumps enough snow, which it did — in spades. My father took the twins swimming by request (they didn’t want to go sledding), and the three older Ms went up the mountain with the three of us. It was one of those instances of “be careful what you wish for” because we didn’t see a speck of snow until we reached the top of the mountain, and when we arrived up there, it was whiteout conditions.

Maddy created some one-of-a-kind bracelets, manufactured in her little bracelet factory, and I showed her how to display her product line:

The big hit, present-wise, was Melissa’s remote control helicopter:

All the kids wanted a crack at it, and I was surprised it lasted more than a day considering all the delicate moving parts. One too many crashes took its toll on Day 2, which was immensely disappointing for Melissa but there were other things to play with, such as the newly-gifted Wii and Wii Sports for the family. Oh, the fights that ensued…

Finally, a photo of my father, who will be 74 years old this spring.

Decided to upload a smilier picture of him, since he’s more like this:

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The House of Fielding is in usual post-wedding recovery mode today. Yesterday’s nuptials was a 16-hour shooting day from the time I arrived at the bride’s house in the morning to the time I left the reception venue. Come to think of it, the last wedding I shot was also 16 hours from beginning to end. Most photographers leave after the bouquet toss, but I stay until the music stops and in the case of last night, that turned out to be 3am. I was thinking today of writing an FAQ section to my portrait photography site (overdue for a makeover) because I get more than enough to warrant putting one together, and why I shoot for that long is one of the questions I get asked most frequently.

One thing I loved about yesterday’s wedding is how close-knit the families are, on both sides. The reception was mostly relatives: cousins, second cousins, aunties, uncles, grandparents, nieces, nephews, and in-laws in addition to parents and siblings. Seeing babies and old folk makes me smile. When I saw the Nonno of the bride, I couldn’t wait to take his picture!

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Click on the pic below for the story from Helma:

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I only have time to upload a few photos before heading back to High Park to shoot another engagement session with Sandra and Jon. Hope it doesn’t rain, it keeps threatening to…

Reading the menu by the light of an LED duck — it quacks, even! I love this photo. View larger.

Nicole and Jeremy in High Park.

Chinon CE-4 film camera (scanned negative). The vignetting is in the camera, I didn’t process it aside from removing a big piece of dust in the corner.

Eric during our trip last August to Montreal, writing a postcard to his grandmother. This is my favourite from the roll.

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