…or is it 366? I’m too lazy to check right now, but I seem to think 2012 is a leap year. Meh. With just four days left in my August photo (un)project, and having seen that my half-baked efforts inspired at least one person, I thought it was kinda sad that the month was looming to a close (already) and — silly me — figured maybe I should just keep going. So, starting on September 1, 2011 I’m going to jump right into a [...]

The (un)project plods ever-onward, though my motivation continues to ooze like so much… well, I forget exactly where I was going with that simile. Alas, the Fringe Festival wound to a close for another year this past weekend, and though I spent most of that weekend locked in a dark, curtained room sorting other people’s photos on a computer, I did manage to sneak out once or twice to grab a few shots of my own. I won’t claim that this year’s pics are [...]

…because I’m gonna be here ALL DAY… If you’re just stumbling on this post, you might want to start at the bottom. It was my meager attempt at a live blog for my last day at this year’s Edmonton Fringe Festival… and it is in reverse chronological order. Enjoy. 0057AM Another awesome performance of DieNasty over, and we’re back in the car on our way home. Another Fringe done… for me at least. Sigh… and now back to reality. 1112PM In. A pile of [...]

Another bunch of days shooting photos and another set of images to explain: the photo-per-day (un)project continues… and it’s getting really hard coming up with something new everyday to shoot. Highlights? If you paid any attention to the theme of this blog (as it currently looks, here, now in August 2011) you might have noticed that I have a think for silhouette these days. Yes, you can create them in PhotoShop, but occasionally I get an opportunity like this, the crisp clear shaddow of [...]

It’s that time again. Woot! For the seventh year in a row — fourth as a team leader — the Edmonton Fringe Festival is once more in full swing and I’m primed with camera in hand to help with the whole multimedia-slash-photography thing. My first shift is on the morrow. Given my role as a team leader I’m in the interesting position of not actually having a formal photography assignment like our other hard working volunteers — I don’t need to go out and [...]

Thinking about the whole concept of pop culture art in the context of the internet, it’s tough not to look across the breadth of modern design — particularly in online indie-style art — and see the historic influence of Andy Warhol. It permeates the feel of the web in so many ways. I didn’t realize just how much so that was true until I took the opportunity to wander over to the Art Gallery of Alberta, the hulking crumpled paper-ball of a steel architectural [...]

I had planned to go out on a more adventurous romp through somewhere more interesting than my own backyard. An expedition, maybe. I had noticed there has been an awesome fog sitting on Whitemud Creek at Smyth Crossing every morning these days as I drive or bus by. I thought it might be interested to take the dog over there. But I was good: I did my chores first, mowing the lawn, cleaning up the yard, and tending to the dog. And then we got rain.

But… well, not really. My girls went on a three-night vacation without me this week, packing up and heading out Eastward to visit friends in the lovely city of Saskatoon, while I — holiday-less and obligation-ridden — stayed back in Edmonton to go to work, tend to the dog, train some Fringe volunteers and make sure the junk mail got from the super-box to the ever-growing pile of recyclables on the kitchen counter. The girls get home sometime today. And from what I’ve gathered, [...]

I launched right into my photo-per-day un-project and yesterday discovered the challenge of photographing tiny critters at night. The thing about macro photography — at least when you do it with a middle-of-the-road moderate-but-not-high-quality lens like mine — is that while you have access to nearly all the cool and wonderful features that a macro lens affords, you are generally stuck with only a medium-sized piece of glass. A very expensive macro lens would have a magnificently large piece of glass, and that piece [...]

I took a lot of photos this weekend. A lot. Hundreds and hundreds. And it was sorta in response to the photofrustations post late last week… and then sorta just because there were lots of things to photograph this weekend: kids, a holiday weekend, food at the heritage festival that kind of thing. I also got thinking about how to spend some quality time with my camera in August… now that it’s August. And I just kinda figured I’d take a lot of photos. [...]

I’ve been really bad at taking photos this summer. And by that I mean, I’ve shot a number of good macros, though not enough to justify the cost of that new lens I bought back last fall. I’ve also dragged the camera out to special events and holidays, clicking off more than my equitable share of snapshots of the same, but those occasions have been few and far between. Additionally, I have a ton of excuses and by far I’ve been enjoying the whole [...]

The weather being cooperative for once, Claire and I spent some time in the front yard yesterday morning photographing flowers and bugs. She had her camera out, too, but I’m sorry to say her largest contribution to the collection was the jitter-focus you might see in some of my shots. She was having a great time climbing onto my back while I lay in the grass, leaning into and amongst the flower beds with my camera and macro lens attempting to capture the miniscopic-macroscopic [...]

For the entire month of June I’m planning on writing a series of blog-a-day posts based on a set series of open-ended questions to myself. This is one of those posts. June 14th // Something You Are Watching For whatever reason it has been the year of home movies. Well, I write “whatever reason” but what I should really write is that the reason is linked to a string of acquisitions relating to digital media and a whole lot of spare time last summer: [...]

For the entire month of June I’m planning on writing a series of blog-a-day posts based on a set series of open-ended questions to myself. This is one of those posts. June 6th // Something You Have Forgotten I’d completely forgotten just how many awesome photos I have taken over the years. Last night I spent over an hour scrolling through three years worth of digital photographs in a (fairly weak) attempt to locate more images for my randomfeets gallery. I’d snapped a dozen [...]

For the entire month of June I’m planning on writing a series of blog-a-day posts based on a set series of open-ended questions to myself. This is one of those posts. June 4th // Something You Have Seen The beauty of timing makes this an easy question to answer. About a week ago, Chris emailed me and queried into whether I would be interested or not in a photo expedition. His plan was to drag the family out to Tofield, a small town about [...]

Back in — oh, let’s say — November, I spent some of my collector miles and ordered a little video camera. To be precise, I ordered a high definition, pocket-sized, water-resistant video camera. Between two major vacations and lots of little weekend-like video experiments, it is not a stretch to say we’ve got our value out of this little thing. Problem is, like I’m sure most people encounter when they drag a video camera on vacation, not only do I have (literally) gigabytes upon [...]

Three things have prompted me to give readers a bit of an update on the banoffee pie saga I wrote about here a little more than a month ago. First, I’ve noticed that about thirty percent of the traffic that came to this site since I’ve posted that ‘informative’ anecdote has been as a result of people searching for “banoffee pie” in Google. Second, I made a very successful banoffee pie over the holidays — on the 24th of December to be precise — [...]

Having just returned from Red Deer where we were lured for a pair of belated holiday parties — the last two for a long while — I thought I’d take a few minutes and fix the biggest complaint I was offered all weekend: apparently I haven’t been prompt enough in supplying new photos from the past few weeks of merry-making. (After all, what are sister-in-laws for?) Though, now since I’ve collected a hundred-and-some more over the past couple days — and I still had [...]

We woke this morning to fresh blanket of soft, light snow. If you think there is no other kind, you are sadly mistaken. The snow we received as recently as two weeks ago was wet, heavy, and cold. It was also tough to shovel from the walk. So, the delicate and fluffy version of today was a welcome change. It did leave me thinking about the hours I’ve spent indoors recently — where else but — in front of the computer. Syntax Gull scuffs [...]

It’s still cold, and being stuck inside for the long hours of darkness makes one consider the creative potential of places to inhospitable to inhabit. On warmer days I enjoy strapping my camera around my neck and exploring a wilderness trail or urban stomping route. But when it’s this cold out… Neon Hawk is casually flipping through a small collection of images I had gathered while out walking recently. He is propped on one arm beside the monitor, advancing the photos one-by-one with sharp [...]

We came home from a temperate family vacation, cavorting through the likes of Disneyland for a few days, welcomed by a massive dump of snow: the blizzard of 2009 arrived late, waiting until I had nearly acclimatized to my shorts and tees again. I’ll spare you the details of the trip, assuming that those that care to hear either were along for the ride — or will press me in person for details — and those that don’t, well, don’t. Instead, I’ll just note [...]

Since upgrading the Mac to Snow Leopard and iLife 09, and also dumping some cash into a networked storage system, I’ve been spending quite a lot of time grooming, tending, tagging, and toddling through my digital photo collection. That was not the sole purpose of the upgrades slash add-ons, but it was a big point on the pros-checklist. The problem is that suddenly I find myself with a stupidly large amount of work to get from point A (folders full of digital photos dating [...]

You might be surprised how tough it is for someone under the age of 18 to set up a Flickr account. I’ve never been underage on the Internet, I realized, and attempting to set up a “parental approved” minor account for my own daughter proved more difficult that I had originally imagined. As a result, Claire’s account is actually “Claire and her Dad’s” account, and you can check out the pics — all taken by her on the camera Julia gave her as a [...]