Panoptikal*: The Agenda (March 28, 2011)

Friday, April 1, 2011

The Agenda (March 28, 2011)

This past Monday I had fun going to see a live broadcast of "The Agenda", a current affairs show produced and aired by Ontario's TVO. Ontario will hold a provincial election later this year, so the show has been broadcast from various locations around Ontario, with interviews and panel discussions with provincial politicians and local citizens.

NDP MPP and leader of the provincial NDP, Andrea Horwath (Hamilton Centre), prepares for her interview with Steve Paikin. I really enjoy taking pictures of politicians, as I'm sure some of you have noticed.

The two Teds: Ted McMeekin (centre, MPP for Ancaster-Dundas-Flamborough-Westdale, Liberal) and Ted Chudleigh (right, MPP for Halton, Progressive Conservative).

Liberal MPP Ted McMeekin receives a spot of make-up.

I quite liked this shot of everyone getting prepped for the show. Host Steve Paikin is fiddling with his jacket while Horwath seems to be composing herself for the camera.

I had a really great spot to the side and behind the panelists in the front row, so I was able to take some interesting pictures while most people's attention was diverted towards the centre of the room (and not at me and my camera).

Paikin gets ready to question the other two members of his panel.

A question and comment from an audience member who attended the workshop the day before, Agenda Camp. Hamilton Mayor Bob Bratina is in the lower right-hand corner here.

Meta-media: I take a photo of someone filming a Twitter feed. Marshall McLuhan, eat your heart out!

While one of the panelists responds to a question, Mr. Paikin looks slightly skeptical and re-scans his notes.

The decor in this room reminded me somewhat of the Chinoiserie in the Royal Pavilion at Brighton (see my past blog post on this for details).

Last note: you can watch this episode online on the TVO web site.

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More about...

The pictures I post here were taken between 1994 and today. There are some breaks during that period, generally because I had no working camera, or because I processed many negatives and made few prints (generally this is the case for 1994 to 2000 or so). I also have many prints from that time that have not yet been digitised.

The reason I call this a "photojournal" is that I tend to document my life with images, where possible, rather than words. I find it much easier to remember moments, and then events, when I have some kind of picture with which I can associate them. This is probably why I've always taken pictures when I could--even when there was "nothing" to photograph--and why I have such a difficult time keeping up a written diary or journal of any sort.

Technicalities

I've used a number of cameras over the past 15 years or so. The bulk of these were SLR, manual or semi-automatic, and of course non-digital (35mm film) cameras (photos shot from 1994 to 2004, roughly), though for a period I used both (low-quality) digital and film (around 2002-2003).

I first used a fully manual camera when I was 14, which was borrowed; the first SLR that I owned was a Vivitar, which rapidly deteriorated. It was followed by a Pentax, and after that, the Minolta XD-11 that I have used for film ever since. I use it with a 35mm or a 28-70mm lens with telephoto and macro. In addition to these, I also used Mamiya 220 and 330 medium-format (120 film) cameras while at NSCAD in 1997-8, and very occasionally, I used an old Agfa range-finder (from roughly the 1940s) which produced 6x9cm negatives on 120 film.

The first digital camera I used would probably have been in 2002, and I used it periodically over about a year (it was borrowed). In 2004-05 I again used a digital camera (also borrowed; specs not available); I stopped shooting on film beyond 2004 because of the expense. Finally in October 2006 I bought a Sony CyberShot, 7.2 megapixels, a very small camera (not an SLR) that I used for almost 4 years before replacing it with a CyberShot DSC-TX5, in July 2010. This camera now travels with me almost everywhere and is the only camera I use regularly.