20 Aug 2010 Think Of Magic While I Sleep
 |  Category: Working Life  | Leave a Comment

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Feeling beat from the week’s activities, which means it’s time to hit the sack and recharge before I pull out all the stops tomorrow for a wedding.

I always feel a bit nervous the night before the wedding, like I’ve forgotten some important detail. But one thing I’ve learned about myself over the years is that I am more organised than I think I am. Sometimes I wonder if I will run out of creativity, but somehow in the chaos of weddings I manage to form ideas and the next step is convincing people to go along with them :)

Photo: the bride discovering a dragonfly (long gone) at the rehearsal

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20 Aug 2010 Patient Pooches
 |  Category: Mobile Blogging  | 2 Comments

A couple of irresistible faces on Queen Street East.

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20 Aug 2010 The Friday Files

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Yesterday was a pretty long day — non-stop from 8am driving near the airport to coming home 11:30pm from Woodbridge — but when it starts with volunteering and ends with photography I feel a warm, happy buzz. I’ve mentioned before that patients are always very grateful, and it’s true. Plus, the majority of the people I’m driving are my parents’ and grandparents’ generation so it gives me a family feeling, as if I’m driving my elderly folk around. The day ended with a wedding rehearsal and dinner at the bride’s house afterwards, where I tried to commit everyone’s names/faces to memory and let people get familiar with me and my camera. I love shooting weddings because of the family atmosphere (babies and old people are my favourite photo subjects!), and I’m always treated with incredible hospitality, like one of the family. For someone whose family lives at the other end of the country, the volunteer work and the wedding photography go a long way towards bringing the family feeling to me.

Here’s another photo from last night I really like. In fact, I think it’s my favourite from the whole evening. I shot it just before I went to my car:

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19 Aug 2010 “Oh… Canada” By Classified
 |  Category: Music, Videoclips  | Tags:  | Leave a Comment

I like the heritage bit at the end (which has no meaning if you’ve not watched Canadian TV). Lyrics behind the jump:

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19 Aug 2010 Golden Wheat, Little Italy
 |  Category: Mobile Blogging  | Leave a Comment

A fair amount of driving this morning, from near the airport to downtown during rush hour, then back again, then back downtown.

What do I while waiting besides drink coffee and eat pastries in the neighbourhoods around the hospitals? I run down the battery on the smartphone by catching up on a lot of email, make phone calls, plan the rest of the day, the week, and think about shots for upcoming weddings. It’s a nice break between the driving!

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18 Aug 2010 Wanda’s Pie In The Sky
 |  Category: Mobile Blogging  | One Comment

Kensington Market, waiting for patients to see their doctors.

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17 Aug 2010 Random Thoughts While Editing
 |  Category: Blah Blah Blah, Gail at Large  | One Comment

with Kermit in Paris

  • Was feeling nostalgic for flying today. Looked up the tail number of our 1954 Piper Tri-Pacer and it’s still registered in Delaware to the second owner (it’s shared) after us. I hope they enjoy flying it as much as we did.
  • Voices are rather important to me. If I’m missing people, I will call to chat, and hearing their voices makes it all better. If I don’t like someone’s voice, it takes sheer willpower to tune it out.
  • I am not of my generation. I don’t like wearing t-shirts, jeans, or trendy footwear. What generation do I belong to? Not a clue.
  • Near the top of the list of keywords people use to land on my site: “bad plastic surgery” (What gives? I haven’t mocked celebrity abuse of plastic surgery since the first year or two I started writing here)
  • My father wanted me to become a teacher. I don’t do it for a living, but I enjoy it when people ask questions because it is one of the best ways to test how well I think I know a topic. And if I don’t have an answer, I look it up. Learning and sharing knowledge is vital.
  • I’m shooting a photographer’s wedding this weekend. If I were a doctor, would I be nerve-wracked treating another doctor?

Photo: with Kermit in Paris, 2007

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17 Aug 2010 Editing, Editing, And More Editing…
 |  Category: Image Legacy  | 4 Comments

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… have I mentioned that I’m editing? It’s a good thing I love working with computers, because I sure spend a lot of time with them.

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16 Aug 2010 Monday In Photos
 |  Category: cameraphone  | Leave a Comment

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All photos taken with my mobile device*.

* Yes, I know the iPhone takes better photos and it integrates better with my Mac hardware and software. Doesn’t matter, though, I’m not signing a 3-year contract nor am I shelling out lots of $$ for marginally-useful functionality over what I have now.

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15 Aug 2010 Swans At Sunset

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This is a rare weekend at home without shooting a wedding or major travel, and my plans changed several times, in most cases due to the unpredictability of the weather. Shakespeare in High Park on Friday night turned into hanging out with a group of documentary film makers at a pub in the East End, but in this instance I preferred to interact rather than spectate. Saturday involved heavy-duty cleaning, visitors, location scouting, more laundry than I care to think about, client stuff, volunteer stuff, and crashing before I could even watch a movie that’s been sitting around for months. Sunday morphed from an aviation-related activity (oh how I’ve been missing this!) to computer work and more sleep than I’ve had in ages. This might have something to do with not having any coffee the entire weekend, but I doubt it. I wasn’t avoiding coffee, but I decided I wasn’t buying any (I’ve been buying it for weeks while volunteer driving) and didn’t get around to making any, on account of the hot weather. I cooked in the morning, enough for the day. I’ve been avoiding the stove practically all summer because I don’t have air conditioning and it’s not pleasant to be cooking and sweating!

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I did, however, make an effort to walk down the street to catch the sunset on Sunday in order to get more shooting time on the Nikon 85mm f/1.4 prime lens I rented. I’m a firm believer in test driving all lenses before buying, and that means plenty of times behind the wheel. I love this lens, it’s sharp even in low light (f/1.4 is pretty fast) and the camera AF isn’t hunting and backfocusing in the dark.

The swans and ducks were out in full force by the lake, and I took advantage of other people feeding them to get some shots in before the sun disappeared completely and the lightning drove me back inside. The uploads from the day can be found here.

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