The Park 9

The Park 8

Backlit subjets.

The Park 7

Jeanne-Mance Park softball players.

The Park 6

The Park 5

 

As much as I love photographing people I have always had an obsession with light. Sometimes when people ask me why I want to photograph them I have to honestly say that they have beautiful light falling on them. For me the characters and the content are always important, but if I don't love the light I often just won't photograph it. James Turrell is one of my favourite artists and he has a lot of shows going on this summer, I hope that I will get to go to NYC soon and see his installations of light at the Guggenheim. Read a great article about Turrell here.

The Park 4

These trips to the park have been a great way to end my days. After my daughter goes to bed I sling my camera onto my shoulder and do my loop around the park. I do this loop so often now and it is never the same. Every time there is a different interaction, a different group of people and a different quality of light. As well as trying to take interesting images and do the park justice, these walks have also been a great way to connect with strangers. This is something that I rarely do in Montreal. Montrealers don't seem to talk to each other the way that people do in some other cities. I don't know if this is because we are never sure what language to start in (I love the interaction between two anglo strangers speaking to each other in french) or what, but I am realizing that Montrealers are not cold, and are in fact very warm to strangers who start up a conversation. In fact everyone seems poised and ready to talk to someone who approaches them, and every time I interact with a stranger I leave feeling happy that I did. So talk to strangers Montrealers! It's pretty fun.

The Park 3

More from the park. The ladies pictured above are from the top: a bachelorette party, a slackline walker, and a LARPer.

The Park 2

More from the park on some quieter nights.

The Park 1

Recently I have been spending some of my evenings in the park photographing the people who use it and the scenery that catches my eye. I live very near Park Jeanne Mance and Mont Royal Park, and I visit the park many times a day with my daughter. Even before having a kid my husband and I would spend a lot of time in the parks around our house. In the Mile End/Plateau neighbourhood few people have their own private patch of earth and so the parks become our backyards. That is where you meet friends, have a picnic and a drink, play games, have a party, go swimming, or read a book when your apartment is too hot. Montreal's parks are so well used it is amazing. On a nice night hundreds of people will be peacefully occupying a single park. It is really such a wonderful thing to see and so I wanted to try to capture some of this convivial spirit. The images above were taken on my first photographic foray into this potential project. It was one of the first nice Sundays of this season and so many people were in the park enjoying the weather and the tam-tam beats. I have been photographing in the park for a few weeks now and incredibly everyone that I have approached to photograph has said yes. I think that the Hasselblad helps but none the less I was amazed that in this internet age people were so willing to be photographed by a stranger, so thanks everyone. I'll be visiting the park again soon.

Chris and little I. at the cottage in March.

Self portrait (54.5 liters pumped in 3 and 3/4 months)

This image describes my fall. Too much time spent with that machine. But now life is much more back to normal. And I feel like it is time to look outside of myself and the small world that is my family. So tonight I went out and took some photos of strangers. It was good to exercise that muscle again and it is something that I am going to continue to do. Some of it will make its way onto this blog. But there will be some family photos too of course. 

"Little I. at 7 months"

I am excited to be part of the recently launched "Someone I Know" project. This brings together so many amazing photographers whose work I admire. Thanks for including me Stuart!

On Friday, to mark the beginning of black history month, and to pay homage to a Canadian legend, Canada Post released a stamp of Oliver Jones. The inset photo of Oliver at the piano was taken by me a few years ago.

I just started teaching photography again recently. I thought that I would be teaching part-time but I ended up taking on a full load, and that is why this poor blog has suffered again! Hopefully I will be able to manage my time better as the semester progresses.

My grandmother died this morning. She was 91, still living alone and independently, and she went quickly, as she would have wanted. I didn't see her as often as I would have liked, but I am so sad that she is not there anymore, waiting for me to visit her in Dublin. An important link has been broken. She was a tough nut, but I loved her. Bye Donie.

I recently finished reading "Short Nights of the Shadow Catcher: The Epic Life and Immortal Photographs of Edward Curtis" by Timothy Egan. It was a really great read about an amazingly adventurous and dedicated man; a man obsessed by his quest to photograph all native tribes in North America and complete his 20 volume book set "The North American Indian". Curtis' photographs were at times posed and always portrayed what Curtis considered to be the "authentic" native, both of which have made his work somewhat controversial in recent years. But what is not often know is how much time and effort Curtis also put into recording the native languages, songs, myths and other cultural elements that were fast fading from practice and memory. If you were able to catch the Curtis exhibit at the McCord Museum you may be interested in reading about the man behind the images.

Father and daughter in the kitchen.

Photos from a baby road trip from Montreal to Moncton. That was in August and I. was just 6 weeks old then. Our usual 10 hour drive took us two days instead of one!


Things to see and do in Montreal right now:

Jacynthe Carrier's "Parcours" at Occurence, till January 12th (her video is a must see, I could watch it for hours, and I don't usually say that about video work)

Chih-Chien Wang's "Aussi loin que nous soyons, aussi pres que je peux" at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, till March 17th (I haven't been yet but am excited to see it, I'm sure it's a great show)

And tomorrow (Friday) evening le Cabinet is hosting an artist talk and group critique with a few artists presenting their work, including my friend and great photographer Louis Perreault (if you don't know about le Cabinet it is a new resource for printing in Montreal and well worth checking out if you are about to print a big project)

Well after almost 10 months away I am back! And you can see what has kept me busy for the past 5 months. Little I. was born this summer and life hasn't been the same since. I will hopefully be back to blogging as normal, and not only baby photos I promise!