Interview (September 19, 2009)

At a Liberal Party event on the outskirts of Hamilton, Ontario. Michael Ignatieff stopped here to speak with union members and supporters from the various ridings in the area.

Parade Cat (November, 1999)

Montréal Christmas Parade, Rue St. Catherine Ouest.

I really enjoyed this parade, primarily for the large and colourful (apparently papier-mache) characters that populated it, including the one pictured above. It seemed more interesting than the usual retinue of local business advertising embedded in a sluggish stream of wreaths, reindeer and elves. There were also giant nuns in the same style (I'm sure I'll post pictures at some point).

Kitchen, Jackson Street (August, 2003)

This was the third Hamilton apartment in which I lived during the period from June, 2002 to August, 2007. I stayed in this one for a year (until August, 2004). It was a large bachelor with this separate kitchen, relatively spacious (though cramped enough that I was storing regular bookshelves in the kitchen-!). I'm definitely using the wide-angle setting on the 28-70mm lens, here.

Self-Portrait: Île des Sœurs (July, 2001)

Taken on Nun's Island (Île des Sœurs), Montréal. The Island has a small residential area and also a kind of park at one end which was where I had gone exploring when I took this picture.

I did use my steadfast Minolta for this shot, which means I sat the camera body on the table (and I think this made the lens tilt forward, adding to the skewed perspective). It seems the people walking behind me have noticed what I'm doing, and are having a chuckle.

Beach Railway (March 14, 2008)

Brighton beach. When the opportunity for a one-day "field-trip" came up, I chose Brighton, since I had been interested in seeing the Pavilion and also the famous pier, which is visible as a kind of afterthought in the background of this image (mid-left third of the frame).

I love a nice, bright-overcast day for shooting in black and white. I also love a nice set of train tracks. I believe the train that runs on these rails is some kind of miniature affair that only runs along the beach/waterfront (I'm not sure what the correct term is).

Boat Waiting (September, 1998)

Loch Lomond, Cape Breton. A mild Labour Day weekend, and a fine drizzle enjoyed whilst waiting for a lift over to an island.

Loch Lomond, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia.

Joseph & Kim (September, 1996)

Taken in a classroom at Queen Elizabeth High School in Halifax (before they knocked it down, which was a few years ago I think).

In the photography courses I took, we were always warned against both excessive contrast (between light and shadow), and the lurking scourge of graininess. These two things tended to go hand in hand, effects that could be produced by over-development of the film (for too long and/or at too high a temperature), over-exposure or otherwise incorrect judgment of lighting when shooting, and probably myriad other technical slip-ups. The higher your chosen ISO, the more likely graininess would result; and some films tended more towards this than others.

As you might guess, I'm about to say "pshaw" to all that, in describing the picture above as one of my favourites; I love it when "rules" get broken, and I think most of my best photos (many of the best photos, in general) involve something of that kind. Yes, of course the window lacks a "textured white" (the light end of the desired spectrum of tones in a well-exposed, well-printed black and white photo). Yes, it's over-exposed, but without that it would lack the dreamy glow that I so enjoy. I didn't even try making a print using "burning" to darken the window area. That light works so well with the facial expressions--these two seem as if they are each off in a little private reverie. And yes, I was probably using Agfa 400 ISO B&W film, and thus basically asking to be handed a dish of grainy contrast for lunch, but: it was cheap, I was in high school, and I still love this picture.

Heathrow (May 12, 2007)

Here I was waiting for my flight to Milan--actually I think I was waiting for the announcement of the gate I needed to go to in order to get my flight. Heathrow has an odd (and somewhat unnerving) system of disseminating this information. In general, departure gates are not listed until relatively close to the time the plane leaves, and since I am paranoid about plane travel anyway, this tends to prevent me from ever really relaxing.

In this picture I think I am also showing (to myself, if not to others) the "pattern" of airports, their apparent replicability. I think this is something Manuel Castells discusses in The Rise of the Network Society. Airports are international spaces, and they all tend to look the same; much like shopping malls and university campuses, in fact. I don't think it is simply a similarity of form based on function. But the result is that on long journeys, when passing through several airports, one sees a lot of the same (with a few pleasant quirks from time to time; yes, I took that train and yes, there are moo'ing sounds).

This photo shows something of that repetition, for me--the tiredness that permeates the travellers' postures, the darkness that hides their faces, hinting at their anonymity in this "space of (human) flows" (even in this most-surveilled, most securitised space); and the light that shows only the view of planes from the window--which can't really be "placed" either, which could not be singled out as "England" if viewed in a line-up with any five airports from anywhere.

Ross Building South, 5th Floor (October 30, 2006)

This vaguely disturbing shot is of the interior of one of York University's largest buildings, the infamous (Gilliam-esque? Weberian nightmarish? Ayn Rand's dream of spatial efficiency?) Ross Building, wherein the Linguistics and Languages department (pictured) is located. In other words, this was where I spent a good deal of time during the 12 months in which I worked on my Master's Degree in Linguistics (September 2006-August 2007).

I've always found it ironic that these kinds of blank, uninviting institutional spaces are supposed to support educational success, that they constitute an 'educational environment' (only by virtue of designation, if you ask me). This floor of the Ross building shows a total lack of consideration for the spatial elements of social and scholarly relations; though York in general suffers from a good deal of under-consideration in this area. Even the in building where my current program is housed, which was renovated shortly before I began my Ph.D, the same problems prevail. Not only was this exact uninviting design utilised (a deficit of social space in any area where people are likely to move through it regularly), but the graduate students' area was moved into the basement.

Another example of this under-consideration is that of my weekly teaching assignment last year. This consisted of one 34-person tutorial, fifty minutes long, held in a small lecture theatre with seats arranged in rows facing the front of the room and sloping upward towards the back--all seats bolted to the floor, naturally. How there could be any notion of a room such as this being sufficient for a small group discussion is beyond me, but these are the kinds of issues that may only seem significant to those who end up having to resolve them first-hand.

Lucas on the Train (July, 1997)

Lucas and I cashed in our copious VIA Rail credits with a one-day trip to Montréal, during which I (of course) too far too many train pictures. In this one, I somehow managed to get the light on the back of the compartment wall to halo around Lucas' head such that it forms an outline there, created by the contrast against the unlit background. We're actually not sitting in seats in this picture, but in a lower berth designed for overnight sleeping.