May 29th, 2005

I just snapped this picture. DFM will note that I said snapped and not shoot. I snapped it beacuse I thought it looked cool (1 scoop of hard, one swoop of soft icecream!) and so I just pulled out my pocket sized digital camera and "snapped" the picture. Fully automatic. No shutter speed, aperture, depth of field, or composure to worry about. Just point and click.

I, like so many photographers just started out with a point and click camera. I didn't worry about all of the numbers and whatnot of photography I just pointed the camera at whatever I thought was cool and snapped....I really miss doing that.

I always have a camera with me, and before I bought my digital SLR camera which is far larger and heavier than a pocket sized camera, I would just snap anything that I saw to be interesting with my point and click....but now that I am in photojournalism I always have my big camera with me and when I have my dSLR I never want to snap things that are "neat" - I want to shoot good pictures. As a result whenever I lift my dSLR I question whether what I am shooting is "neat" or good.....so...I never take pictures of neat things any more and I am missing that.

So now I am forcing myself to carry my point and click around more. Will I take amazing photojournalism pictures with it? Probably not. But I will be more likely to pull it out of my pocket and "snap" things that I think are cool, because that's what started it all.

May 24th, 2005

So Victoria buys a Maxim magazine last week and inside there is a pin up poster of the actress Brittany Murphy. The picture is quite tasteful and simply has Brittany with her bare back turned to the camera and she is showing off her figure and her butt. I put the poster up on the door of our bathroom.

Well....one of my friends in our class who is by definition a hippy comes over to our appartment and sees the poster and says "oh, I don't agree with that". Ok, whatever. You don't agree with it.... I'de love to debate why she doesn't agree (we have some great debates) but I just go into my room.

An hour later I come out to find that my friend has torn the poster down, ripped it up and thrown it in the garbage! My friend has left and I am furious. Not because of the poster, but the principal of the thing.

SOOO to prove a point my other friend photographed me in the same pose in my boxers and I printed it poster size and put it on the wall in the same spot. Take that hippy!

What if I went into a persons house and saw a Marilyn Manson poster that I "disagreed" with so I tore it down and ripped it up. Or what if I didn't like someones piercings so I ripped them out, or what if I disagreed with a persons music so I burned their CDs, or what if I disagreed with people wearing fur so I threw paint on them, or what if I disagreed with abortions so I bombed a clinic and killed a doctor.

Extreme examples, but examples still of how you don't just rip something up, or vandalize things becuse you disagree with them....you have a conversation or debate with the person about the issue and either come to a conclusion and a result, or simply agree to disagree.

I'm not mad at my friend but rather reminded of why I hate hippies and activists who put their own values and actions before debate and reason. If you do anything you should be able to back it up with solid reason and fact. Not opinion and sensationalism.

I haven't been mad at anything in a long time. Thank You.

May 23rd, 2005

Wow is time flying by! Another Weeks Work

May 21st, 2005

Yesterday we decided to go to the town of Tweed about 40 mins away from Belleville to see the annual Trudeau Park Victoria Day Weekend party. Our teacher told about the event and that there was lots of cover bands playing. I wasn’t too fond of seeing a bunch of rock cover bands but we were able to get in for half price because we were media students and would be taking pictures.

When we got to Trudeau Park there were a ridiculous amount of police officers checking everyone as they came in. I thought to myself “wow, this is going to be a super controlled event with this many police”…I was pretty damn wrong.

As we came into the park there was a crappy stage with three people standing in front of it. We kept hearing loud music and loud engines from afar so we decided to walk up the hill and see what all the noise was….

I have never witnessed such a ridiculous thing in my life! There was a giant mud pit with a race track around it and dozens of quads, motorcycles, and beaten up shitty cars and trucks mud bogging and smashing into each other.

Everyone was drunk; it was like the overflow at Candle Lake on August long weekend only everyone was a redneck and driving their cars through mud. I don’t know how many times my heart dropped as I almost witnessed someone die. Victoria, Francis and I all looked at each other in awe.

I only took a few pictures, making the fatal mistake of “I’ll take more later”….so of course it poured rain later and I couldn’t take my camera out. Anyways enjoy the pictures. I didn’t capture a fraction of how crazy it was. It has been going on for 30 years I guess and hopefully this year no one dies!

May 20th, 2005

May 19th, 2005

May 18th, 2005

May 17th, 2005

I added some pictures I took when I walked around Kingston on Saturday. Enjoy!

May 15th, 2005

So I was going to be totally lame last night and stay in but then I decided to go to a local pub with the other students. The Molson Kick Girls were at the pub "kicking off" the new beer.

There was a contest to win a Molson Kick bar fridge and we really needed a second fridge because we have six people sharing one fridge in our residence. I flirted it up with the Molson girls (I did what I had to do Ashley :) and told them that I really needed to win the fridge because there wasn't any room in our fridge for my Molson Kick that I drink all the time (which is actually true).

The girls told me I could enter a second time if I wanted and then they fixed the draw and picked my name out of the box. It was so awesome!

So now I am a firm advocate of Molson Kick and I have a bar fridge to keep it in!

More pictures from my "weeks work" are up. I am going to Kingston today so I will have more pictures tonight. We still don't have internet in our residence so I have to update at the schools' computer lab which sucks. My mom told me I should update more so I will try and have a "picture of the day" every day for the next five weeks while I'm here. Sound good?

In other cool news remember how I said that Trot magazine might buy pictures of Gord Brown off of us for their magazine? Well they did! They gave my friend Aaron and I $200 for three pictures, and they will be published in a magazine. Pretty awesome for our first time shooting (that's right DFM shooting) horse racing!.

May 8th, 2005

A weeks work... (with PICTURES)

Hey everyone!  Sorry I haven't updated in "too long" but I have #1 been shooting tons, #2 having an AWESOME time in Ontario with photojournalism school and all of the really cool people in my class (there are only 8 of us). Finally #3 there is a "work stoppage" at Bell right now and so the Sympatico people can't get high speed internet in our residence for a few more days :(

I have to check my e-mails and update my site at a computer lab and it really sucks but enough of that. What have I been doing? Well that question can best be answered with PICTURES!  A lot of these pictures really suck but I just figured I should throw up the "kinda best of everything" I've shot in the last week.

On Tuesday we were given an assignment to go into town and find a person who shows "character" and shoot three different aspects of them. I took pictures of a CN Rail worker who has been working on the rails for 30yrs, a Future Shop salesman who has the highest numbers in his store, and a carpenter who's son recently moved to Saskatchewan to learn a trade.

Wednesday we had our writing class. I am really looking forward to all of the writing assignments we will be getting because I really must say (and if you read my website you'll notice) that three years of Engineering *killed* my spelling, grammar, and all around ability to write.

Thursday was the last day of class for the week (that's right we have class mon-thurs and then get fri-sun off to shoot!) We went over everyone's pictures for the assignment (I chose the carpenter pictures to hand in) and then we were given two assignments for the weekend. That night we went out on the town and drank. Everyone in the class brings something completely different. There are two girls from BC, one from Alberta, I am from Saskatchewan, there is a guy from Quebec, a guy from Niagara Falls, a girl from Toronto who spent the last year and a half overseas, and a guy from Ukraine who moved to Toronto eight years ago. We all live in residence except for one girl who lives in Belleville. We are already getting really close and I am super glad that we get along because we are in class together, live together, and do our assignments together.

Friday we found a woman's lacrosse tournament in town and caught the last game and then went to the race tracks and shot ten horse races in a row. There was a reporter from "Trot" magazine doing an article on Gord Brown, a racer who won six races in a row! Aaron (one of the students) and I shot all ten games and Trot magazine might buy some of the shots off of us which is pretty cool. Not bad for our first time shooting a horse race!

Saturday we took a road trip to Toronto. I didn't shoot that much (surprisingly) as I mainly just wanted to walk around and see the street life. The next time I go I will definitely shoot a whole lot more. We also want to take a trip to New York City in the next couple weeks so I'll get some shots there too. For supper we went to a Korean BBQ restaurant where they give you the raw meat and you cook it yourself with a grill built into the table. It was really good food and fun to cook it yourself and share with others.

Today we went to Kingston and found a VE Day parade and ceremony at a church. The town I am in (Belleville) is only 44,000 people but there is always something going on and as you can see from everywhere I have been already, we aren't that far from anything we want to go to. Anyways once Bell figures out their labor dispute I will have high speed internet in my room and can update more but until then enjoy the pictures and go to a show for me!

May 2nd, 2005

I've added a few more Pictures of my trip and such. I will have internet in my room on Friday and then can update a lot more. Holy crap will I ever be taking A LOT of pictures in these next 7 weeks.

So it happened. I'm hooked. Believe it or not I had never tried Tim Hortons coffee before. *gasp!* I had enjoyed their cafe coolers several times but have never had their...coffee.

On the drive up Victoria was like "their coffee is so adictive" and I told her that I had never had it before. One sip and I finished her coffee off and we stopped at two more Tim Hortons on the way and I had it again this morning before class.

Damnit! I wish I had willpower!