Two Solitudes

After weeks without making pictures, I spent an afternoon playing with the 200mm and 50mm primes. This is one of the shots I kept. Taken from a moving car, this image of a panhandler at a busy intersection captures the ever-widening gap between rich and poor. In the context of last week's stock market meltdown and the US governments bail-out of AIG, it is a reminder that there is another, more basic economy (and ecology) at play in our cities. While the more fortunate among us watch the value of our portfolios plummet as the economic crisis widens, people such as this man (who lives in a tent by the side of the road) have already learned to live with little. Would our pride allow us to become mendicants were our personal fortunes to collapse? Would be, as Bob Dylan once remarked, "have to to get used to it?"

A View from the Tower

I love the way cities look when viewed from above. This picture was taken from the CN Tower Skydeck on December 31st, 2006.

Camera Operator

The lane outside my studio was transformed into a movie set for a couple of days. I captured this image of a camera operator from my second storey window.

TUFF Guy

I won first place at the Toronto Urban Film Festival (TUFF) earlier this week. My friend Zefred snapped a great picture of me at the podium. Can you tell how happy I was?

Flyby

Quick note to let folks know that I haven't forgotten this blog but have been extremely busy with a couple of projects, as well as checking out the Toronto International Film Festival. I'll return to my usual frequency of postings next weeks.

June 15th, 2008

I've done no photography this week as I've been writing. So I've reached back into the vault and pulled out a this of image of the Fairmount Royal York Hotel taken as a storm was brewing. It reminds me of the Batman movies. Enjoy.

Pushing My Buttons

Last week at Buskerfest, I stopped and chatted with a vendor who made buttons using panels from old comic books and magazines, which is pretty neat. Back in the 80s, at the height of the button craze, I decorated my favourite oversized tweed jacket with nearly a dozen buttons featuring everything from album artwork to the original Macintosh line art. To this day, I am fascinated by cool buttons and in my middle age, I've gone back to sporting them on my favourite jackets.

This snapshot is a sample of some of the buttons that were on display last week: