Coffee Lover

Wandered down to Queen Street West for the first time in months on this glorious Sunday afternoon and decided to do some street shooting. This gentleman was sitting on the stoop of a walk-up enjoying a cup of coffee from the franchise next door.

Dreaming

Multiple exposure using the coloured flash on a Holga 120 CFN

Cyclist on Queen Street West

One of the challenges of street photography is getting your camera settings right. This isn't always possible, especially if you're paying attention to one thing and something entirely different but much more interesting suddenly happens in your peripheral vision. You may find yourself swinging around and going from photographing a still life to capturing motion and there's not enough time to adjust. So you point the camera, press the shutter button and hope for the best.

Welcome to the Porta-Mall (Buskerfest '08)

I'm getting that sense of déjà vu: that been there, done that, bought the overpriced t-shirt feeling that hits when I find myself in shopping malls or when I’m driving past the umpteenth complex of big box stores that dot the 401. It’s not a comfortable or comforting thought: I’m being sold the same old junk by the same people, except that I’m not in a shopping centre: I’m out on Toronto’s Front Street ostensibly enjoying Buskerfest, a four-day-long public festival dedicated to street performers from around the world.



Sure, the whole thing receives massive corporate sponsorship. There are bank and TV network logos plastered everywhere. And I can live with that. After all, I’m savvy enough to see past the barrage of advertising and I do ascribe to the notion that the wealthiest segments of our society (be they individuals or corporations) should pay to bring art to the masses. But I can’t see the artists for the all the junk for sale. For every performance space there are at least a dozen merchandise tents. Buskerfest, it seems, is not so much an festival of the arts as it is an open air shopping mall.



And just as your typical mall has a standard set of vendors hawking a standard set of wares, Buskerfest features the stalwarts of the urban street fair scene. Here’s your purveyor of mass-produced African sculptures. There, there and there are your sellers of “handmade” jewellery assembled with store-bought beads and baubles. Walk half a block for crappy five-dollar sun glasses. Stop at the corner for made-in-China hempware that has nothing to do with sustainable development. You get the picture. Food and merchandise vendors line either side of the street and the bulk of pedestrian traffic on the closed-off thoroughfare gravitates to these tents. Sadly, it seems, the urge to shop is far greater in most people than the desire to witness a performance.

Summer Dress

Taking a cue from The Sartorialist, I snapped this passer-by in a breezy summer dress. It takes a great deal of self-confidence to pull off this look and this has left me wondering whether the clothes make the person or vice-versa. How do you feel about your clothes? Does your wardrobe boost your confidence level or does your innate sense of self-worth shine through no matter what you're wearing? Do the clothes make you? The other way around? Or a little of both?

Dandelion Puff

I bought a set of diopter filters (aka the poor photographer's macro) on Craigslist today and went out to have some fun. The thing with diopters, as opposed to real macro lenses, is that they create extremely shallow depth of field, that is a very small front-to-back distance within which things stay in focus. This poses both technical and artistic challenges and one has to be very patient and creative in selecting those elements of the image that will be in focus and those that will not.

Hope I'm not buggin' you...

Another snap from cottage country

Something Wicked in Kleinburgh

One of my favourite scenes in literature is from Ray Bradbury's Something Wicked This Way Comes. On his way out to meet his destiny with Cooger and Dark's Pandemonium Shadow Show, town barber Mr. Crosetti runs into the novel's heroes, 12 year-olds Jim Nightshade and Jim Halloway. The two boys ask him not to switch off the barber's pole because they don't want to know where the spinning red and blue stripes start and end.

Do barber's poles still spin? I captured this image in Kleinburg, Ontario. The Barber Shop was closed for the day, so I have no idea whether this one does.

I Saw the Sign...

Part of me thinks that the sign below is far too garish a choice for a funeral home. The other part thinks it would look amazing on a t-shirt. Discuss.