Calculating Probabilities (November 1, 2007)

Two then-TC's (teacher candidates), Harriet and Daniela, work on probability games in an Urban Diversity math class at York University. The class was actually about teaching mathematics, and after some initial trepidation early in the term, I think most of us came to rather enjoy the subject.

Brother André (November, 1998)

I really enjoy photographing statues, in particular those that provide relatively realistic 3D 'images' of living people. The one in the photograph here is a good example, I think. Brother André (Bessette) is obviously far more well-known in traditionally-Catholic Québec than he is outside of it, but in Montréal there is the famous Saint Joseph's Oratory, built on the side of Mont Royal, which contains as a relic Brother André's heart. I have in fact been there and seen it, and I remember not actually being able to see anything genuinely heart-like, mostly just whatever it had been wrapped in. Yes, I have many morbid fascinations-!

Drive from Brantford to Hamilton (May, 2005)

Only in Canada, of course...

Bob's Bay (January, 2001)

I am posting this picture as a joyful reminder of what I am looking forward to... in less than three months' time I'll be a lot closer to Bob's Bay, which is at the top of the South Island in Aotearoa-New Zealand, in the Queen Charlotte Sound near Picton. The woodpile was a part of my impromptu camp-site.

I remember the first night, I slept only in my sleeping bag and didn't bother to put up the tent. In what must have been the early morning hours, I was woken by a snuffling and an odd, creaky vocalization somewhere in the bush off to my right. I thought to myself that it must have been some kind of toad croaking. I remember hearing also the sound of the now-high tide washing up not far from where I lay, pushing and pulling at the small stones on the beach. Then I fell asleep again.

In the morning, I shared stories with two other campers on the beach--in fact what I'd heard in the night had been a large, curious possum that had been hanging out around the beach, snuffling at tents and caught by the other campers' flashlight, no doubt startled and stock-still as possums usually are in the moment one catches them in a torch beam shooting out from the darkness.

Cruella, Interior (October 15 2009)

Happy Hallowe'en, everyone!

This was taken inside my favourite "goth" shop in Montréal, Cruella. It's on Mont-Royal near Coloniale (right where I used to live, actually; convenient).

I wanted to get a couple of shots of the inside of the store, since I enjoy their decor so very much. To manage this photo, I stood behind my friend Jayne as she was looking at some clothing on one of the racks, and shot the picture without staff noticing.

Drag, Point Pleasant Park (Autumn, 1997)

Technically, this picture was taken by Lucas, I think with one of the Mamiya twin-lens reflex cameras I was able to borrow from NSCAD at the time. I can't recall what inspired the photo shoot, other than, perhaps, my longtime love for costumes (and drag as a kind of costume) and the fact that the tuxedo was a relatively recent acquisition at that point (it was given to me by my mother as a high school graduation gift).

I moved away from Halifax in the summer of 1999, and haven't visited since maybe 2000 or so. Since then they've had a continuing infestation of some variety of tree-eating beetle (Brown Spruce Longhorn Beetle, apparently). Worse, in 2003 a hurricane laid waste to even more trees, roughly three-quarters of those in the park. A recent photo of the park brought me to tears, so shocking was the devastation caused by the storm; the setting in which I stand in the photo above has been destroyed. There was something drastic about the change that made me realise how much Halifax is "gone" for me, the Halifax I actually knew when I lived there over ten years ago--this park, one of my favourite places in a city where I never particularly wanted to be, apparently signifies something deeper that upset me only when I realised what was no longer there.

Bicycles, St. Giles & Broad Street (July 7, 2009)

For some reason (other than a kind of symmetry I framed in the image above), I liked this particular street corner in Oxford. To the left is a graveyard that looks at least as old as everything else around the place; I love a nice cemetery right in the middle of downtown (Halifax, N.S. has a good one, too). If you follow this street in the direction my camera is pointed, you'll also see the Eagle and Child, local pub haunt of the famed Inklings literary group whose members included J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis.

Leaves/Gravel (November, 1997)

Pride Mohawk (June 23, 2007)

Queen West & Augusta (September, 2001)