January 3

less than 2 hrs of sleep = wake up feeling dead as I head to the airport.
travel itself was uneventful though (besides the plethora of marines and infantry I saw) – I heard one guy inform another that was because people had to head back to base today, which makes sense.

the town has got a lot of snow, it was snowing pretty hard when I arrived but it petered out later. Rest of the day was pretty lazy, cleaned the mold out of my fridge, ate minestrone, and learned how to play fluxx

winter term project starts tomorrow, essay due friday already busy.

it's good to be back

Utopia Project

For the final project in my photography class we were invited to explore the concept of Utopia. Disregarding B/W film for this project, I choose to shoot this project in medium format colour film. Unfortunately, my camera stopped working and so I re-shot the project digitally (hence their are no negatives for the final prints)

-- -------------------- --

Throughout my life, I have been searching for meaning. Cynical, dark, agitated, and pessimistic in humour, I often view my surroundings through a prematurely jaded lens. With this nihilist approach in mind, I am more apt to scorn utopian thought and concepts than embrace them.

However, in the past few years, I have been trying to dig myself out of this self imposed hole and ground myself with a more appreciative view of the world. In this journey, I have latched on to various loadstones to anchor myself in reality. Moments, images, events, little glimpses or extended parts of my life; these have really taken hold of me in a strong way.

It is in these objects, fragments from a tumultuous life, that I have found my utopia. Each one brings another side of me: personal, emotional, and powerful. In them, I find my peace.

"Utopia is not perfection in entirety, but an interwoven mass of imperfections culminated into one individual's perfect moment"




Project negatives: Utopia Project

Mapping Project

A map is an item that tells you about something. It can tell you about a space, a location, where to drive, or the torrid history of someone's love life. The point of this project was to choose something, and then, quite simply, 'map' it.

-- -------------------- --

When I first head about the 'mapping' project, I decide that I wanted use Harkness Kitchen as my subject. Harkness is my house and I feel a deep connection t it, but a lot of people have a very skewed impression of what goes on there and who we are. Much of this project is about trying to rectify that by showing a different, more intimate view.

To this end, I shot, developed, and scanned nine rolls of film taken during all the meals, during clean-up crew, or after everyone had left, in the middle of the night. Unfortunately due to time constraints and problems with my negatives (light leaks in the camera, light leaks in the developing tank, old film...) I decided to greatly scale down my project from a holistic 15-20 image collage ranging from Harkness desolate in the wee hours of the morning to the hustle and bustle of our weekly 'Pizza Night.'

After a few hours of deliberation with the 180-200 negatives I shot (only about two thirds of which were fully viable options) I finally decided on a new concept: THE HARKNESS KITCHEN: an atmosphere unique.

In this, instead of a large scale project with many images, I really spent a lot of time choosing specific images I felt were really representative of the cooks, the atmosphere of cooking, and the camaraderie and passion of all the people involved with the cooking in Harkness. Each image was placed with intent and chosen to illustrate a specific aspect of the kitchen that I feel is important. Harkness is busy, complicated, but above all a real community of people who care about each other and I really tried to bring this out in my prints.

Enjoy.

Scanned Prints:
To be added
mapping_image1_finalscan_print.jpg
mapping_image2_finalscan_print.jpg
mapping_image3_finalscan_print.jpg
mapping_image4_finalscan_print.jpg
mapping_image5_finalscan_print.jpg
mapping_image6_finalscan_print.jpg
mapping_image7_finalscan_print.jpg

Scanned Negatives:






Project negatives: Mapping Project

That Perfect Roll

When you are shooting film, there are so many things that can go wrong. The exposure can be wrong, the camera can move at the last second, and you can forget to load the film. Then you can have light leaks, expired chemicals, developing errors, or scratched negatives. Essentially a huge variety of possible critical errors. However, you can also sometimes get that one roll where everything, for some reason or another, just works. For me, that roll came when I was in New York City on holiday.

Personally, I have loved New York City for as long as I can remember. I wholeheartedly believed in the hyper-romanticism that Hollywood (and American art in general) has swathed the city in. Then, when I visited last NYC last spring for the first time, I wasn't disappointed. I think there is something magical when you walk through that urban forest of glass and steel, feeling the energy of the 'city that never sleeps' following out of the cafes and parks and into the streets.

In fact, I had such a great time during the spring, that I immediately booked another trip as my fall. It was on this trip, a few months ago in October, that I took this roll. Unfortunately, I lost my film for the first few days so I only could shoot about half the roll in NYC and the other half when I returned home, but my luck seemed to carry on through, turning into my favourite roll I ever shot.

Enjoy.

Apple Cake

Autumn is a time of the year that I have always loved. I am not sure whether it is the brisk chill of the wind as it bites through your clothes or the orchestra of colours conducted throughout the forests as the leaves begin to fall, but it whatever it is, it always gets to me. It is a very personal and reflective time of the year for me... but it is also a time for apples.

I love apples, or I should say, I now love apples. For a large portion of my life I was a relatively picky eater and didn't eat a lot of fruit. I didn't really eat a lot of variety at all even, unless it was unwillingly forced down my throat. Fortunately that has since changed, and with it has come a greater appreciation for the quintessential America fruit.

Now, as much as I enjoy eating the simplistic 'apple slices' (either plain, with peanut butter, or with honey as the occasion may mandate) another item I have gained a real appreciation for is apple-baked goods — such as apple cake.

My reason for making apple cake on this particular day was that I was required to bring in a dish for a photography critique in my class and since it is now fall, the cooperative where I eat just received a shipment of fresh local apples. Also, I had helped my friend make this particular cake a few weeks before (for a similar reason) and so I was fairly confident it would work.


Apple Cake
1 1/4 cups white sugar
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
2 teaspoons baking soda
pinch of nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 1/4 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup chopped walnuts (optional)
5 1/2 cups chopped apples
Freshly whipped cream (optional)

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F (165 degrees C).
2. In a medium bowl, stir together the sugar, flour, cinnamon, and baking soda. Add the eggs, oil and vanilla, mix well. Add the nuts and apple, mix until all of the apples are evenly coated. Pour into a greased 9x9 inch pan.
3. Bake for 75-90 minutes in the preheated oven or until a knife inserted comes out clean. Serve warm or cool, garnished with freshly whipped cream
   
   

Freshly Whipped Cream
1 cup Heavy [whipping] cream
1/2 cup white cane sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla

1. Pour the creme and vanilla into a bowl and begin to beat (preferably with a hand mixer, but a whisk works as well)
2. Slowly add the sugar
3. Beat until peaks form
4. Use immediately (will begin to sag within hours)

NOTES:

• I used a pie tin instead of a square pan, which worked fine, just remember to grease it well.
• When I made this some of the apples were really soft and some were still quite firm so try to make sure the mixture is well homogenized.

SUGGESTIONS:

• Serve this with ice cream and whipped cream
• Alternatively, drizzle with honey and serve with hot cider

#SelfPortraitFridays

Earlier in this summer, photocritic.org, a photo blog that I read regularly started a twitter hashtag called #selfportraitfridays. The concept was that self portraits are fun and that most photographers never take them, either because they are not narcissistic enough or they see them as too difficult to shoot. To combat that, Photocritic (see earlier post: Photographers of Interest) encouraged all the photographers who followed him to post a self portrait once a week on Friday with the tag #selfprotraitfridays so that everyone could easily search for the portraits and share tips, tricks, and encouragement amongst each other.

I, unfortunately, have a private twitter feed, so I rarely get any comments on my posts, but I do enjoy taking them, trying to make sure none of them, are conventional/boring and that each is unique in it's own special way. I also try to make sure I take time to do them every week, but sometimes I end up being too busy.

Irregardless, here they are, all my #selfportraitfridays thus far:

1. July 24th
   
   
2. July 31st
   
   
3. August 7th
   
   
4. August 14th
   
   
5. August 21st
   
   
6. September 4th
   
   
7. September 18th
   
   
8. September 25th
   
   
9. October 30th
   
   
10. December 11th

Triplets of People

I have always liked the candid photo; the photo taken when the person doesn't know they are being photographed. Sure, there is something riveting about the beautifully makeup-ed individual staring straight into the camera lens, but there is always a plasticine sense that it isn't real; that the image is nothing more than a painting. On the contrary, candid photos, while often less well composed and laid out, have a sense of life and motion to them that is hard to fake. To me there is an inherent and exiting vibrancy to being able to look through a snapshot into a another person's life without fear of self-consciousness or that they are somehow acting for you.

In this same vein, I below are triplets of people: three I know, three I want to know, and three total strangers. Each photo was taken candidly and is an attempt to show give a bit more of an insight into them than a simple snapshot.


--------------------------------------------------------------------- 3 People I know ---

Omri Rose (person I know)
I went to school with Omri since 7th grade and then lived with him during 12th grade.

Leonie Morrison (person I know)
I met Leonie at a street party during 2006 and quickly became fast friends.
photo courtesy: Leonie Morrison's Facebook

Emilie O'Herne (person I know)
I met Emilie at a political youth conference only to discover we had a lot more friends in common than I initially thought.
photo credit: Emilie O'Herne's Facebook


----------------------------------------------------------- 3 People I want to know ---

Kalan Sherrard (person I want to know)
As soon as I saw Kalan during my first year, I knew that I needed to meet him.
photo credit: http://i212.photobucket.com/albums/cc15/MaaNPlaut/Bike4.jpg

Ben Jones (person I want to know)
Ben Jones, the V.P. of Communications is loved by everyone who meets him. Enough said.
photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/maayanplaut/3460131470/sizes/l/in/set-72157617094899230/

James Peake (person I want to know)
I saw James for most of last year, both at Oberlin and FAVA gallery — where he works— and he struck me as very interesting.
photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/maayanplaut/2922976013/sizes/l/in/set-72157607334891820/

------------------------------------------------------------------------ 3 Strangers ---

Contact Juggler (stranger)
Street performers are always awesome.

Random woman in Calgary (stranger)
A jogger with an iPod. A sign of the times.

Disturber of the Peace (stranger)
Jesus Is A Cunt... why not?