I like New York in October

Kensington Pedestrian Sunday

These images were taken near the end of the summer in Kensington. The sunlight really felt great, I bumped into the photographer Norman Wong and we went for a drink.

I can't seem to find the picture I took of this lady over by Augusta who wanted some lessons on how to use a twins lens camera, I'll put it up later. She had her Granpa's old Rollei-which is pretty awesome.

Cabbagetown Festival

The Cabbagetown Festival came and went. Basically, if you call rampant capitalism with very little to offer the consumer, then you would call this a festival. Don't get me wrong, people had a great time- just tables of crap for sale, everything all the junk someone keeps in their house (good) to dubious cooked sandwiches and this jerk selling a bike bell that he rang for 8 hours repeatedly (bad).


I just walked around with an old Yashica Twin Lens camera and took some shots, bumped into some friends and got annoyed at the "dragon drum" people as their drumming made the roof of my apartment vibrate in a menacing way, like it was seconds from collapsing Jericho styles.

Before the show began

I started to really fall apart here

The Burghers of Calais

With the robes, I was reminded of this sculptural group by Rodin

I hate it when they just do voice scales

The Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts

Sarah took me to the centre for some singy dancey thing. I got the giggles and was never invited back.

Etching

This is the first update in a number of months, I thought I would start with some etchings from a few years back. They were done when I came back to my studio in Yorkshire after a hideous bus trip to Amsterdam.
This image is of night, somewhere in France or Belgium. I used a rag to daube extra ink onto the plate for a painterly effect, whose un-reproduceable qualities make it a Variable Print.Basically, its a method of adjusting the amount of ink on the surface of the etching plate to create the dramatic atmospheric effect. This place was dark and forlorn and made all the more so by a bunch of techno-kids who pulled up in a VW golf, all loaded up on uppers. It was the Gend'arme and their dogs that scared everyone the most. Even though the techno boys were wearing cowboy hats in Europe.

To illustrate the technique, this image is more or less a straight print.


This is the same etching with "inky effects" This is the Lieddeseplan Square on the edge of the Red Light district where i stayed at the crappy Bull Dog cafe in 1992. What a dump, the guy in the bed beside me held back vomiting for 3 hours from 6am till 9am and then went back to the bar to stay drunk.
I was walking by this place in 1999 in the aforementioned bus ride and was struck by panic to see the place again.I decided to sit and draw the passers by.

May 06, 2008

Upcoming Mag

Well, it came in the mail, the May copy of Canadian Living that has me in it.
So have a look and learn how to make a headboard.

March 31st, 2008

Some guy at Jet Fuel.

Stanley Park

Ok, it is a little off topic but I was looking at this image I shot with my Yashica Twin Lens in Vancouver in June of last year.

Stanley Park was still in a state of mourning for all the trees that had fallen in the previous major storms of 2006. The place was amazing, you would walk on the trails and come into a clearing where branches had been amassed, like 8 feet high by 100 feet of branches.

This image was taken by repeatedly taking pictures along the path to tell the sotry of that area. All shot in camera, some of it up close to see small plants and some more to capture the feeling of the fallen trees.

Whitby Memories

I found this image in the back corner of my hard drive. I shot this around 3 years ago this month in Whitby at the mental hospital. At this time some of the dramatic main building were already being demolished. This building was near to the road and had seen its share of fires and tom foolery.

This image was shot with a 1930s bellows kodak pocket camera. I worked for days on the insides of this camera with my friend's dewalt power tool to fit modern 120 film. The Neg is roughly 6cmX9cm. I use the term roughly as the retro fit I made did not hold the film firmly and the entire film was exposed each time, no rebate.

Last time I went out to Whitby, maybe 6 months after this photo, the entire place was gone. Including all the underground passageways.
I have not been back since, no reason to.

A send off

This is a Shout out for my friend Alan who is off to Australia/Fiji for the next month. I am sure he is going to have a great time, and hopefully will take advantage of the sun, seafood, beautiful landscape and maybe even go starkers at Bondi Beach. Although I hear they have possibly canceled their night time nude surfing.

Green's Antiques

This is Green's Antiques, next door. It is great when you have 5 minutes and need an esoteric birthday gift for that special someone that says 'i bought semi-junk and thought of you" This image was shot with my friend Ryan's 4x5 Graflex reporter style camera.

Cabbagetown by Night, at Aberdeen

Martha's

Jet Fuel by Night

This is an image I shot a few months ago when I was borrowing a friend's tripod, at that time I was working on/thinking about a series of images about parliament street itself. The way in which the shops are changing and how alive the area is at night.

Later on I went for Pho out on Gerrard East and came across a renovation of chinese fruit stands which, due to the reno, old signs from the 40s like "Martha's Delicatessen" were now visible. I have shopped at this place for vegetables countless times without knowing that these old signs were hidden from view, or for boot repair or a Paint and Hardware store that boasted "Lead Paints"

March 25th, 2008...Waiting at some office

I have some vague memory of drawing this while waiting in an open office, but it is vague.

And Lastly...

I asked John on Monday why he looked all cleaned up, "Went to Mom's for Easter buddy" you can see the clean fresh face of Mr.renovations. John has been loads of late night work at the shop, and he is more of a morning person.

More Images

James, Model Wrangler Esq.

James, is a student who was integral to the photo shoot. He is the one who brought everyone over to the coffee shop and organised all the 16 year olds, without a taser or lasso.

I think he is a regular at the Jet, just not in my time zone.

Goals

I cannot say we ( 4 photographers in total) took the shots with any one idea in mind, but there are ideas of optimism and the promises of youth.

Bright lights of Tomorrow

All the students looked like musicians, new bohemians or whatever.

More Images

Johnny yet Again

Here is johnny as per, smoke a going. We have looked at different ideas for the anniversary, images of the recent renovations, but this idea of the sweet 16 stuck.

Stefanya

This is one of the photographers, Stefanya who is also a Tattoo artist.

sixteen year olds

The students who came out and were generous enough to donate their time to 4 photographers.

Jet Fuel 16 and Counting

Jet Fuel has its 16th anniversary "kegger" on April 1st, a true evening of tom foolery and debauchery. To this end, the theme is sweet sixteen and we took photos of local 16 year olds, under the watchful eye of Johnny, the proprietor of Jet Fuel and enfant terrible of the espresso world.

Here is a classic image of Johnny, up close and possibly too personal.

Marker drawings

Drawings at some impromptu party I was not interested in

I cannot add anything to that

Experimenting in Inks

Working in this sketchbook, I first started to play a great deal with Inks. Looking at these beaten-up old toy heads, it is really fascinating. These things came from a high quality toy factory in Hong Kong, this level of quality maybe only exists today for precision computer parts, and I know they are all made from the same injection mould but they all seem so different. Toy insiders say that the original head was based on the JFK.

Inspired by Old Masters Sketchbooks

Sketchbook images

I was talking to a photographer friend the other night about pictures and her recent work was about dolls. She was talking about the way she felt that these characters had been given such life by being posed in front of the camera. It made me think about my GIJOE work that has been an interest of mine for the past 10 years.

Here are a few examples of some sketches from awhile back

Guy reading the paper at Jet Fuel, March 6th, 2008.

I love this sketchbook, I got it at Muji London in 2006. They don't seem to have the same quality anymore.

March 6th, 2008

This must be Nicola at Jet Fuel.