After breakfast at the cottage.

The red kitchen counter.

I miss you cottage!

Taught this morning and am teaching tonight. Am a little tired but posting on this blog always relaxes me and makes me feel better. After all its all about the photos, and what's better than that!

I am back. New Year's resolution #1: blog more consistently!

Some recent Red Counter images

A summer picnic in the park.

Diagonals at my parent's place.

Playing with bread ties on the red counter.

Great Casse Croute: Chez Claudette on highway 370 in Ste-Marguerite.

Everyday still life scenes from the cottage. Cottage Life Magazine give me a job!

1. Beaver skull
2. Rodent jaws (Beaver and unknown)
3. Tiger Swallowtail Butterfly
4. Beaver bones
5. Raccoon and Mink tails
6. Bluejay feathers
7. Snake skin

An attempt at a new project. I have a Biology degree and I have always wanted to incorporate this interest in my work. Ever since I was a kid I collected bones and any other animal artifacts that I found in the woods. So this summer I decided to photograph some of this collection. Partly functioning as a new counter series, this time I used the wooden counter at the cottage as my base. I also tried the white plastic picnic table as a more austere and incongruous surface. I tried different angles, different types of light, and different arrangements of the objects. The most successful ones are those posted here.
Trying something new is so hard, and inevitably it fails at first. Hopefully you learn from this first failure and it sends you in a new and more successful direction. This is how work progresses for me. I had originally pictured this as a little naturalist book, where the images would be paired with stories from how I found these objects. Now I don't know what will happen to these images, more than likely they are just one step in the journey to the final project.

Cottage counter (after coffee)

The last Ferrero Rocher

A metaphor for the last few days of summer. For most people the coming of fall is depressing, but I find it uplifting. It is when I wake up from the haze that warm weather inflicted upon me. I am ready to go! And good thing too since I am teaching 2 classes at Champlain (in Creative Arts) and 2 classes at Dawson (in AEC photography). And I am not the only one waking up from the slumber. Galleries all over the city are opening exciting shows this coming week. Here are my picks:

SAS: "Declic 70"
Group show including the work of Michel Campeau, Clara Gutsche, and Gabor Szilasi
Aug 25th to Oct 15, opening tonight at 5:30
372 St Catherine West #416

Galerie Trois Points: "In The Time of Sakura" by Olga Chagaoutdinova
Aug 25th to Oct 1st, opening tonight 6-9 pm
372 St Catherine West #520

Galerie B-312: Les 20 Ans De La Galerie B-312
Group show including the work of: Manon de Pauw and Valerie Blass
Aug 27th to Oct 2nd, opening Saturday at 1pm
at Maison de la Culture NDG, 3755 rue Botrel

Les Territoires: "Fordlandia" by Scott Chandler
Sept 1st to Sept 20th, opening Apet 1st at 6 pm
372 St Catherine West #527

Get out and see some art!

My image for "The Chain", a fun project that I was very happy to be part of!

Summer memories.

Three talks that I am planning on attending this week:

"James Joyce and the Creative Challenge of Early Cinema", by Dr. John McCourt
Tonight (Monday Feb 14th) 8:30 pm, Concordia University
1455 de Maisonneuve W, rm H-1220

"Photography and Conceptual Art in Canada", by Jayne Ward
Tomorrow (Tuesday Feb 15th) 6:30 pm, Concordia University
1515 St Catherine Street West, EV-1.605

Corey Arnold
Thursday Feb 17th 6:30 pm, Dawson College
3040 Sherbrooke Street West, 5B-16

Some still lifes from when we painted the bathroom.

And a question: why was this book not on most people's top photo books of 2010? It can't be that poorly produced, and to me it is one of the best series around.

Cottage still life. A quiet moment for busy times.

Out for breakfast. (at le Vieux Velo)

Images from the Red Counter: our young litchi plant, and beer bottles the morning after.