Holiday Hand

 Still wet, 2009

The body, when found by law enforcement on the hard unforgiving lake bed, was covered in caked blood. Hands very recently bleeding and still moist from a violent struggle. Her attacker was no where to be found.

Or something like that.

Happy Halloween.

Mike

The Wrench

The Wrench, 2009

A pipe wrench. Uncovered during August on the edge of a recently plowed under field on the edge of London. Probably used to fix a farm tractor back in the day and subsequently lost. The agricultural past that surrounded it has now made way for a subdivision or industrial park. A regular theme with my finds I know. I find it depressing. 

Mike

Remember them

 Remember Them, 2009

They are our sisters, girlfriends, mothers, cousins, friends, and occasionally we are lucky enough to have them as models. October is breast cancer awareness month.

Model: Dee
Make-up and styling: Missy Costa

Mike

A Gordon Lightfoot kinda morning

In the early mornin' rain, with a dollar in my hand
With an achin' in my heart and my pockets full of sand
I'm a long way from home. Lord, I miss my loved one so
In the early mornin' rain with no place to go 

Gordon Lightfoot "Early Morning Rain"

(just heard it on the radio.)

Mike

No net access in the evenings until the weekend.

Until I am settled in my new digs in St Thomas, I won't have net access during the evening unless I grab some stray bandwidth, or hit up Starbucks or Williams. Or Coffee Culture or Cravings in St Thomas.

I am online during the day, but anyone expecting a quick response in the evening won't get one till the weekend.

All things being equal, I will be back online recreationally sometime Sunday evening.

Mike

The Shield

Shield #1, 2009

Images from before my hiatus. Taken on Labour Day weekend.

I had a good plan that easily came together when Ryn and I found this abandoned spot on a hike in August. But the actual shoot a couple weeks later was maddeningly interrupted by people on dirt bikes - once we were discovered they seemed to come back more often... It was a too warm, there was strong sun causing squinting (on mine and Leia's part), and it was quite humid.

Before all that, I forgot part of her outfit and had to go back across the city to get it. Took forever to get the costume cheaply sourced - what there was of it. You can't buy loin cloths or tiny pieces of fabric apparently. The shield and sword were great though. Knowing a couple of people with props does help. :)

So, over all, I got quite frustrated. I let the Raw images sit unedited for a couple of weeks on the CF card. Then, looking for some inspiration, I Googled for some free Lightroom presets, figured out how to install them, and tried a few out on the series as a starting point for post work.I found a few that I liked and voila.

Shield #2, 2009

Shield #3, 2009

Shield#4, 2009

Shield  #6, 2009

With this last one, I thought I would portray some of the 'end of summer' vibe, the warmth, and the (aside from the photographic challenges) idyllic, timeless feel of the day. Sometimes you might feel you had a bad day, and yet gems like this appear. Life is, after all, what you make of it.

Shield #5, Guardian of the Forever Summer, 2009

Model: Leia D.
Props from Mike and Jenn
Make-up: costachic.com
Assistant: Ryn


Facebook readers will have to look at the original blog for the rest of the photos which are NSFW.


Mike

Holiday photo tradition

 Self portrait, Thanksgiving, 2009

Being single I don't do turkeys n big feasts. Instead, I seem to have got into taking self portraits on holidays.  This is one of the shots from today. It was taken in the large bay window of the apartment I am leaving this month when I move to St Thomas. There was a big tree in the way before, and with it gone, it really became some great light to try to use.

Of course the whole rediculameness of shooting a couple of frames and running back to the camera and checking results and repeating got old pretty fast, but I got a few I liked. Aside from some minor cloning in PS this was done in Lightroom with a free preset I found online. I am not really as fair skinned as some of the women who have modeled for me. :)

Mike

Canadian Nobel Winner made this possible

Canadian born and educated Willard S. Boyle developes the CCD (charged couple device) in 1969. That device turns photons (light) to electrical signals. Thirty years later, that technology made the Hubble Ultra Deep Field imagery possible. Forty years after the initial work, he shared the Nobel prize for physics for the CCD. Not too shabby, eh. :)




Facebook readers: Youtube embeds get stripped out when posts are imported. Check out my blog to view above video.

Mike

bodies of work vs faddishness

"All that's essential to an artist is a body of work. IF you feel the need to make a statement, let it flow from that, not faddishness."

-- Australian artist Hazel Dooney on Twitter earlier tonight.

Mike

These Bodies are Beautiful at Every Size

Photo: Matthias Vriens-McGrath. via Glamour

Plus sized - but really just normal sized - models in an image piece by Genevieve Field in the November 2009 issue of Glamour Magazine, and online here.

The cavernous photography studio in New York City is bustling with fashion assistants, hair and makeup stylists, and models chatting in white terry robes. All typical on a photo shoot, but when the robes come off, you see what’s different. Kate Dillon, Ashley Graham, Amy Lemons, Lizzie Miller, Crystal Renn, Jennie Runk and Anansa Sims— some of the top “plus-size” models working today—have beautiful curves, round shoulders, belly rolls and lots of other womanly stuff many of us see when we look in the mirror. Oh, and there’s lunch, which the models actually eat. “Gosh, it’s so nice that they’re feeding us,” says Lemons. “When I was doing runway, all I was ever offered was water and champagne, all day long.” But it’s not the food the models are excited about—it’s the mission. They’ve been assembled to help Glamour continue an extraordinary dialogue on body image that you, our readers, began.

The rest of the article is worth a read too.

One curious thing is, from the perspective of a photographer, was the absence of credit for the image.It is certainly an homage for sure to the famous shot by Herb Ritts (of Stephanie Seymour, Cindy Crawford, Christy Turlington,Tatjana Patitz and Naomi Campbell), but who shot it was not found anywhere with the online post. That's a shame. I had to go to Loblaws with Ryn last nite and find a copy of the issue to find out that it was shot by Dutch fashion and fine art photographer Matthias Vriens-McGrath.


Mike

PS: The image with this post doesn't show anything so I am including it with what gets imported on Facebook. As opposed to posting first for Facebook, and adding content after to the blog that Facebook might deem offensive. I wonder if Facebook will have issue with it despite it being in a women's magazine and not showing naughty bits. This has a good message, so  perhaps they won't censor it. 


PPS: Facebook emailed me a day after this was posted:

The note "These Bodies are Beautiful at Every Size" has been removed because it violated our Terms of Use. Among other things, notes that are hateful, threatening, or obscene are not allowed. We also take down notes that attack an individual or group, or advertise a product or service. Continued misuse of Facebook's features could result in your account being disabled.

I take away from this that average looking women are hateful and attack groups of skinny girls while advertizing their healthiness.