First photos from my recent trip down south. These cars were all photographed in Florida. The palm trees and the colours that exist down there really made an impression on me and I was often trying to adjust my eye to this new situation. The fact that there were so many of these old classics was also completely different and something that I really enjoyed. Our northern winter with its cold and salt doesn't allow for cars to have such a long lifespan.

Some recent photos I took of author Rawi Hage for the Canadian literary magazine Quill & Quire. Just two weeks ago Rawi found out that he was this year's winner of the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. This is the world's richest literary award and it went to a Montrealer! Congrats Rawi! His book "DeNiro's Game" is a really interesting inside look at Lebanon's civil war. Before his very successful literary career Rawi was a successful fine art photographer. Such a wealth of creativity found in one person!

In reorganizing my photos I found some more hockey fan portraits and I couldn't pass up on the chance to show you these 2. What great characters. I got back the tons of images from my recent honeymoon road trip and will post them very soon!

This is a kid who lives across the street from me. He's always out riding around on his "Big Wheel". Well a few weeks ago I noticed that he was dressed in a suit and thought what an interesting photo that would make. I figured he must have just have come home from some formal event and went straight to playing. So I crossed the street with my camera, chatted with the grandfather, and found out that in fact he had come home from school and decided to dress up like Mr. Bean for the rest of the day! What a character. This week I saw him in full Spidey get-up, again on the Big Wheel, but by the time I had gone inside and gotten my camera he was gone.

Some recent kitchen counter photos.


While in NYC I tried to see as many galleries as I could in the Chelsea district. Really I didn't do it justice but I did come away with 2 absolute favourites:
"Minidoka on my Mind" paintings by Roger Shimomura at Flomenhaft Gallery, 547 West 27th street, suite 308
"RFK Funeral Train - Rediscovered" photos by Paul Fusco at Danziger Projects, 521 West 26th street


In other news good friends Peter Loewen and Sam Millar are soon leaving on their bike (dirt bike) trip from Cairo to Cape Town. This Saturday they are going to have a good bye party that will also be a fund-raiser for Spread the Net. The event will be at Bar GP (750 Gilford) from 9pm on. To read about their trips preparation and plans check out their blog: www.cairotothecape.blogspot.com

Here are the last of the Habs fans series from this past playoff season.

So I'm back from a great honeymoon road trip! Went all the way down to Florida and back with lots of stops along the way in 16 days. Some highlights were: Savannah ( I really want to go back there); a small southern diner where we had real mac 'n cheese, fried chicken, and pole beans; the fresh water springs in interior Florida; watching huge sturgeon jumping clear out of the water in a Florida river one morning; hiking in Shenandoah National Park and coming face to face with a deer; bringing our bikes! (we biked in Jekyll Island, NYC, Virginia beach, Charleston, etc.); Florida Southern College in Lakeland, Florida which has 12 buildings designed by Frank Lloyd Wright; walking through the gallery district in Chelsea (it's hard to believe that there are so many galleries in one place); and so much more. Photos will be forthcoming.

Well that's the end of another hockey season. I was cheering for the Penguins so I was definitely disappointed by last night's results. Above are some more Habs fans just outside The Bell Centre during this year's playoffs.

Well I am off again. Chris and I are going on a honeymoon roadtrip and will be gone till the 22nd. So have a good 2 weeks everyone!

Chris and I this past Saturday.

I am a married woman now!!! For all the stress leading up to it, the weekend completely paid off. I know it sounds corny but it really was the best day I ever had. The ceremony was so beautiful and to be sharing it all with every person we care about was really something. We couldn't have been happier. Thank you so much to everyone for sharing that with us!

Many may be wondering what will happen to the "Why am I Marrying him?" series now. Well perhaps it will come to an end, or at least change in perspective, we shall see. I have been photographing Chris a lot in the past few weeks in order to get as many non married photos in there. Some of them turned out really well but I'm going to have to hold them back for now. I want to have some surprises for the fall when I will be exhibiting the series. I'm not much good at keeping things to myself like that, especially for so long but I'll do my best. Maybe from now on it's "Why I married him" ?!

Well unfortunately I am already sick of the wedding images. I just can't bring myself to go back to more of that old stuff. So instead I am showing you a very recent project that I am quite excited about.

Above are a few images from a series of Canadiens fans taken just outside their home ice (the Bell Center) from this year's playoffs. Once the Canadiens made it to the playoffs the city pretty much went wild. Everywhere you went there were Canadiens flags and people were always talking about their hopes for the team. So I thought it would be interested to photograph some of the most die hard fans. I went down to the Bell Center before a few games and tried to capture them. It was really a great experience. Everyone was so excited and very willing to be photographed. I was hoping to do something with this series and get it published somewhere but then I ended up going to Sackville in the middle of the playoffs and therefore I missed a few games. So I didn't have enough time with the fans to really complete the series. Hopefully they will make it again next year so that I can continue this fun project.

Also Liz Kuball added her thoughts to my May 20th post. Check it out here. Thanks for adding your voice to the issue Liz.

Bored wedding kid.
Wedding kid trying to eat smoke.

By the way with that last post I admitted to having shot weddings. Generally not thought to be a good idea, to admit to it that is. It's funny how taboo this is. It's like there's a hierarchy in photography and perhaps it goes something like this: weddings to commercial to editorial to fine art. If you admit to having dabbled in any of the levels below you it's as though you are tainted. I think this is pretty weird because we all have to start somewhere. When you've just finished school and you are offered really good money for a few Saturdays a month it's hard to say no. Plus I found that weddings taught me a lot, especially how to work fast and under pressure. Of course we all want to climb that ladder and shooting weddings can get real tired real fast. And it definitely feels good to give them up when you can.

Basically I think that there are two ways that newby photographers seem to progress, at least for those of us that start out with no money that is, no trust fund kids included in this list please. So either you start out shooting whatever kind of photography work that you can get paid for and do your own stuff on the side, or you work a steady job manning phones or something and then do your photo stuff on the side. I took the former route and it suited me well. It allowed me to use my photo skills and taught me a lot of business skills too. But it seems as though my type can get a bad rap. Those that worked a full time job till they hit the big work that they were aiming for seem untouchable because they never slummed around doing stuff like weddings. Well while we were getting paid to shoot they were manning phones. That's all the rant I have in me for tonight.

Searching for that old wedding photo got me looking at some other ones that I've shot. And so since my wedding is definitely on the brain I will be showing more wedding photo outtakes in the next 2 weeks. Bear with me. Regular programing will resume in June.

I love this quirky shot that I took at a wedding a few years ago.

Well less than 2 weeks till our wedding and I can tell you that wedding planning is not fun. I feel like it is a secret right of passage that no one tells you about. Instead of being left alone in the wilderness it's: deal with your family, choose a slow dance song that encompasses your relationship, decide what kind of food to serve, and you better look good in your dress. Silly, stupid and petty things that seem to somehow take over your life. I think I prefer the old-school way, I'm not made for this modern obstacle course.

Super cool hat store in Montreal (on St Catherine Street East near Sainte-Elisabeth).

So yesterday I was making some high res scans from my "Why am I Marrying him?" series and I came across the top image. Taken at the same time as the bottom image which is one that I have been using in this series. So the bottom photo is obviously lude and yet beautiful and so it grabs your attention right away. The top one is more of a conventional beautifully made portrait. Does the initial shock of the bottom image make it less interesting and more annoying over time whereas the top one just gets better with time? Or is the top image too boring and lacking in substance? What do you think?

Cara Phillips had a very interesting post today about typologies in photography. Here's a definition of typology for those who are not familiar with the term:

The study or systematic classification of types that have characteristics or traits in common.

The perfect example in photography is the Bechers' work where they photographed silos, water towers, and other industrial buildings over and over again with similar distance and framing in every image. Cara referenced the Bechers as the founders of this aesthetic in photography. This is a well used technique these days and is an easy way to talk about how similar or different or prevalent things are. It made me think about the two portrait series that I have been working on. Each consist of many photographs of the same person but with different locations or situations in each image. After reading Cara's post I kind of feel like my portrait projects are a reaction to the typology aesthetic. Instead of photographing different things many times to show how similar they are, I photographed the same person many times and in different situations to show how varied and rich one personality can be. Instead of condensing our world into small manageable themes that anyone can understand, I tried to show the complexities and contradictory nature of my subjects. Well at least that's how I see it right now at 11pm Monday night. Warning: these ideas about my work may change, nothing is written in stone!

Most recent photo from the red counter.

A few of my favourites from an afternoon spent with Bill Buxton. Bill is a tech designer and researcher and I photographed him for TQ magazine when I was in Toronto this past February. I really enjoyed meeting Bill and his wife Elizabeth Russ who is a very talented painter and owns Gallery 888 in Toronto.

Some photos from a trip I took to the Salvation Army a few weeks ago. That place is so full of interesting things. I came away with some mugs from the '60s.

A few weeks ago Joanna Goddard posted about my "Why am I Marrying him?" on her blog A Cup Of Jo. Her blog is very popular and the post got 27 comments. The comments come from all kinds of people and not just the photo world. I found it to be a very interesting read. To check it out go here.

Yay I'm back! I must say that I missed the blog. Had a great and very productive time in Sackville. Many long hours spent with the colour machine. We became good friends. Now I have lots of big and beautiful prints done. I wish you could see them, they're so much better than their on-line counterparts. Well most will be on the wall for my October show and till then I'm going to get a really big portfolio so that I can carry them around. So my time in Sackville would not have been possible without lots of help from others. First off thank you to those who bought prints and therefore made the trip more affordable. Then of course there's Thaddeus Holownia and Karen Stentaford from the Mount Allison photo dept who made me feel so welcome and made sure that I was always taken care of. Plus it was great to reconnect with these great artists. Then there was Paul Delmotte and his family who put up a complete stranger. Thank you so much! And thanks to Jenn Echols who put me in touch with Paul. Lastly there are Chris' parents Barb and Kim who gave me good meals and alcohol and the use of their hot tub!

So you may be wondering what the above images are. Well they are Mount Allison University (where I just was) in 1999. I took these when I was a student at Mount A. Back then I was all Black&White, all 35mm, and always very graphic images (you may notice the theme of symmetrical compositions slightly thrown off by figures or bushes). Things sure have changed since then but I do still enjoy these images. In fact I find it very encouraging that I have made such a transition and have created a new style for myself. Even in the small world of photographic imagery there is always room to maneuver and new directions that you can go in. Really it's never ending. So in a few years if square colour portraits aren't working for me anymore I hope that I'll have the guts to try something new.